# We need to find ways to extend our lives.



## Ryukil (Jun 2, 2011)

In the grand scheme, our lives are incredibly short (even in the developed world). Don't you guys think we need to develop technologies to allow us to live longer, or even indefinitely?


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## BlackWinterBeauty (Dec 21, 2012)

I don't think so. I can't imagine how over-populated the earth would be if we started extending our lives, and how sick people would became. Humans are a terrible, destructive race anyway. Millions of children die every day from preventable things - infection, hunger, war. If anything, we should focus on keeping those who are already here alive to live a normal life, and not extend those of people in developed countries who already have access to things that can keep them living well into their prime.

Personally, I am content with dying at a normal age. Instead of focusing on how long I will live, I am focusing on the quality of life I will put into those years to make it worthwhile.

I hope I'm not coming across as judgemental or anything because I'm not trying to be. I've just given this a lot of thought over the years and this is the opinion I've come up with.


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## enfield (Sep 4, 2010)

since the estimate is you can develop the therapies to comprehensively repair a very large fraction of the damage in a mammal as it accumulates with only billions of dollars (not trillions) and do it in a few decades, not a century, i think this is a reasonable thing to invest in. no one denies it is the end point of human medicine (provided we got there), and i think it would be nice to get their sooner rather than later.

one of the most promising proposals for stopping humans from having to face awful diseases and degradation, and from dieing so soon if they think our biological lifespan is short (which some do) is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategies_for_Engineered_Negligible_Senescence

is it also currently being pursued. but it's only funded in the millions range right now .


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## Mersault (Dec 18, 2012)

Not sure if it is that needed currently though, given that a whole lot of people die at vastly younger age than the oldest physically possible. And this seems to happen (when not due to external factors) because of psychosomatic illnesses, such as cancer.


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## RelinquishedHell (Apr 10, 2012)

No we don't need that. We need to figure out a way to go back in time and fix our pasts.


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

Ryukil said:


> Don't you guys think we need to develop technologies to allow us to live longer, or even indefinitely?


We already are. I read at least one article a week on work in that field.

The earths population is set to peak around the middle of this century, then start to drop off. One day we might _need _people who live longer rather than it just being a case of some people wanting to live longer.


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## morrgie (Feb 6, 2013)

we would just use up all of our resources and all live in miserably crowded cities. humans are suppose to die just the same as all other animals.


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## diamondheart89 (Mar 21, 2011)

No. This mindset is what's causing half our problems. We need to accept that death is a part of life.


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## whattothink (Jun 2, 2005)

Easiest method to gain a significantly increased life-span: eat less.


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

Robert823 said:


> Our Earth can't support our current population.
> 
> And I couldn't really care less. Death is coming, and people need to face that fact. Modern medicine is great, but constantly looking for ways to extend our lives is not smart. We need to let it level out on its own.


While also attempting to curb unnecessary births in families who can't support more children, I'd say what it is smart is finding ways to support all the extra people. It can be of benefit as if we on large live longer then we have a larger wise knowledgeable base of people who as a group with their contributions to society benefit us all. The more of us who can exist and spread our roots across a large area the more chance we have of long term survival and being a truly successful species.

That's the only real game/objective for life. It's about survival, driven my our genetic programming, not experiences. They are just circumstantial. There is no such thing as "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong", "good" and "evil". Those are just terms that apply at certain times in certain cultures to suit their society. There's no objective truth behind them. They are just imagined products of our mind evolved in to us to be able to deal with large complex social groups.


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## renegade disaster (Jul 28, 2009)

if you can find all of it check out "visions of the future" bbc series with michio kaku. it discusses this very issue and gives ideas and suggestions on how it can be realised. I found this episode related to the thread ripped and uploaded to yt.


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## In a Lonely Place (Mar 26, 2012)

So we can suffer for even longer?


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## renegade disaster (Jul 28, 2009)

mark101 said:


> So we can suffer for even longer?


lol well I suppose they weren't considering us lot when coming up with ways they can extend life,guess they were just thinking about the humanitarian aspect. maybe I can get a brain rewriting when all this biotech stuff really takes off! :yes hopefully they will have come up with a cure or something by then :/

it raises some interesting points though ,an aging population will put strain on resources and food management, we are already seeing such things happen as health gets better in 1st world countries. so if prolonging life really takes off we'd have to think about stuff like over-population.


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## WineKitty (Nov 26, 2004)

Life spans have increased over time.

But, a lot of elderly people aren't healthy. I personally wouldn't want to live an additional 10 or 20 years if I spent it feeble and unable to care for myself. We need to work on improving health. 

And I certainly would never suggest mandating how many kids people can have but we need to slow population growth on this planet. Esp as the life span of people is increased.


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## noscreenname (Feb 24, 2013)

If only our technology increases and not our consciousness then humanity will be the plague of the universe, spreading and consuming to its far reaches just to keep itself mindlessly going.


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## hanzitalaura (Mar 3, 2013)

Ryukil said:


> In the grand scheme, our lives are incredibly short (even in the developed world). Don't you guys think we need to develop technologies to allow us to live longer, or even indefinitely?


Oh god no! The only thing that makes life sometimes bearable is knowing that it will end some day. Seriously why would you want to continue living in a world full of wars, famine and people obsessed with celebrities and fashion trends. Where most people are forced to work menial jobs they hate only to be able to pay their bills. A world consumed with materialism where we live in constant debt constantly trying out do each other keeping up with appearances. We are basically slaves to the wage most of us working 40+ hours 5 days a week with only 2 days off and we are supposed to call that living?! It should be the other way around.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's all bad but I really see this planet taking a turn for the worst. If things where different I would definitely like to live longer and try a new career like every 10 years or so and be able to travel around the world. That would be a lot of fun!


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

galaxy1 said:


> lol well I suppose they weren't considering us lot when coming up with ways they can extend life,guess they were just thinking about the humanitarian aspect. maybe I can get a brain rewriting when all this biotech stuff really takes off! :yes hopefully they will have come up with a cure or something by then :/
> 
> it raises some interesting points though ,an aging population will put strain on resources and food management, we are already seeing such things happen as health gets better in 1st world countries. so if prolonging life really takes off we'd have to think about stuff like over-population.


I think some people in this thread are thinking too short term. Yes we have an over population problem at this moment in time, and will have about the next 50 years, but then it's expected to stabalise/go in to decline. We may well need people to live longer in the long run (as long as enough of them are healthy so they can support themselves).


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

hanzitalaura said:


> Oh god no! The only thing that makes life sometimes bearable is knowing that it will end some day. Seriously why would you want to continue living in a world full of wars, famine and people obsessed with celebrities and fashion trends. Where most people are forced to work menial jobs they hate only to be able to pay their bills. A world consumed with materialism where we live in constant debt constantly trying out do each other keeping up with appearances. We are basically slaves to the wage most of us working 40+ hours 5 days a week with only 2 days off and we are supposed to call that living?! It should be the other way around.
> 
> Don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's all bad but I really see this planet taking a turn for the worst. If things where different I would definitely like to live longer and try a new career like every 10 years or so and be able to travel around the world. That would be a lot of fun!


Living standards have never been better (on average). Our ancestors lived in much worse conditions. There's never been less war, famine, disease, povety.

I find it funny you are complaining we only get 2 days off a week when the norm was only one or no days off for the 99% of the history of mankind.

Life is relatively great compared with how it used to be and things have only got better. I don't see why that trend won't continue and 100 years from now i'm sure there will be even less war, famine, disease and povety as there was 100 years ago compared with now.

And that's just 100 years. It's nothing in the grand scheme of us.

Too many people are stuck in the now, only aware of the events in the tiny snapshots of time which span their lives. It's better to take a step back and see and consider the story of mankind, not just the story of one person.


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

noscreenname said:


> If only our technology increases and not our consciousness then humanity will be the plague of the universe, spreading and consuming to its far reaches just to keep itself mindlessly going.


If one species can do it then there will undoubtedly be many others who can as well, so the domination of one species in the universe is probably unlikely.

We can't stop our cultural evolution/progress of our collective consciousness any more than we can stop our technological advances though.


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## No Name (Jul 22, 2012)

What could/would be achieved by living longer?


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## In a Lonely Place (Mar 26, 2012)

I'd prefer to see people expiring younger,it's no fun for anybody to be hanging around at 100.It would also help the energy/population/housing problems if we had a higher turn over of dead folk.


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## visualkeirockstar (Aug 5, 2012)

Are you freaken kidding me? Like are you desperate for a better life that you need more time to do it?


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

No Name said:


> What could/would be achieved by living longer?


Longer great careers with retention of skills/knowledge. I can think of many people I wish had lived longer.

More time to learn more skills rather than us being limited to about 80 years.

And thinking long term, interstellar space travel. It will probably take a lifetime or more for our early colonists to reach other systems so it would be nice if we could last the journey.

Those are just the first 3 of many off the top of my head.


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

mark101 said:


> I'd prefer to see people expiring younger,it's no fun for anybody to be hanging around at 100.It would also help the energy/population/housing problems if we had a higher turn over of dead folk.


I'd prefer to see people living longer but there being less new people to counter balance the energy/population/housing problems.

This is only if the older section of society can support itself and not be a burden. With advances in healthcare and medicine this is feasible.

A faster turnaround of a workforce isn't as good as a slower one as you waste so much time re-teaching people.


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## shadeguy (Mar 28, 2013)

Yes, we should. And gladly this is something many people today are trying to achieve.

It's kind of funny reading comments that our life is too miserable to live on. Our brain really is just another organ, if you learn good enough how it works and how to repair its malfunctions then you can turn a suicidal depressed into a cheerful person who will shake your hand and tell you how suddenly he/she sees the beauty of life and wants to live. The melancholy is being overrated. Repair the brain to live longer and you also make it want to live on. And if we could truly achieve a massive life extension, then one could argue we could also achieve technologies that would allow as to spread into space and other planets, thus instead of destroying this planet into oblivion we could even spread its life behind its bounds. If human beings are the only creatures who are aware of their deaths (and I'm not sure about that) then they are also to only ones who have accepted it.

'Do not go quietly into that good night/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light'


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## Squirrelevant (Jul 27, 2008)

Aubrey de Grey has an interesting stance on this topic, which I happen to agree with completely. Rather than doing a poor job of summing up his arguments in favour of life extension, I'll just link his TED talk here for anyone interested.


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

shadeguy said:


> Yes, we should. And gladly this is something many people today are trying to achieve.
> 
> It's kind of funny reading comments that our life is too miserable to live on. Our brain really is just another organ, if you learn good enough how it works and how to repair its malfunctions then you can turn a suicidal depressed into a cheerful person who will shake your hand and tell you how suddenly he/she sees the beauty of life and wants to live. The melancholy is being overrated. Repair the brain to live longer and you also make it want to live on. And if we could truly achieve a massive life extension, then one could argue we could also achieve technologies that would allow as to spread into space and other planets, thus instead of destroying this planet into oblivion we could even spread its life behind its bounds. If human beings are the only creatures who are aware of their deaths (and I'm not sure about that) then they are also to only ones who have accepted it.
> 
> 'Do not go quietly into that good night/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light'


I thoroughly agree with this.


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## PaxBritannica (Dec 10, 2012)

Who wants to live forever?


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

PaxBritannica said:


> Who wants to live forever?


Some people.


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## Bohuw (Feb 1, 2013)

BlackWinterBeauty said:


> I don't think so. I can't imagine how over-populated the earth would be if we started extending our lives, and how sick people would became. Humans are a terrible, destructive race anyway. Millions of children die every day from preventable things - infection, hunger, war. If anything, we should focus on keeping those who are already here alive to live a normal life, and not extend those of people in developed countries who already have access to things that can keep them living well into their prime.
> 
> Personally, I am content with dying at a normal age. Instead of focusing on how long I will live, I am focusing on the quality of life I will put into those years to make it worthwhile.
> 
> I hope I'm not coming across as judgemental or anything because I'm not trying to be. I've just given this a lot of thought over the years and this is the opinion I've come up with.


I agree with you BlackWinterBeauty.
I can get quite aggitated and aggressive when discussing a topic like this but ill try not to  . We DO NOT need our lives to be any longer.

I think value is directly related to abundance. The higher the abundance-the less valuable it is. Why do you think gold is so valuable? Where there is mass overpopulation, life is almost meaningless. Where there is an abundance of food and water, both go to waste. We need to learn how to appreciate the true value of what we have and stop the greed machine that is destroying us as a human race and destroying our planet. We have enough time in our lives, we just aren't using it wisely.


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## Unkn0wn Pleasures (Nov 24, 2011)

What? NO WE DON'T!


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## In a Lonely Place (Mar 26, 2012)




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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

Bohuw said:


> I agree with you BlackWinterBeauty.
> I can get quite aggitated and aggressive when discussing a topic like this but ill try not to  . We DO NOT need our lives to be any longer.
> 
> I think value is directly related to abundance. The higher the abundance-the less valuable it is. Why do you think gold is so valuable? Where there is mass overpopulation, life is almost meaningless. Where there is an abundance of food and water, both go to waste. We need to learn how to appreciate the true value of what we have and stop the greed machine that is destroying us as a human race and destroying our planet. We have enough time in our lives, we just aren't using it wisely.


Life extension and overpopulation don't necessarily correlate.

As I said earlier, I'd prefer less people with longer lives than more people with shorter lives. The more turnover of people you have the more resources you waste, not to mention the increase in lost skills and knowledge.

It is of course a still a balance, but in the right circumstances I'm all for longer lives.


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## Bohuw (Feb 1, 2013)

ugh1979 said:


> Life extension and overpopulation don't necessarily correlate.
> 
> As I said earlier, I'd prefer less people with longer lives than more people with shorter lives. The more turnover of people you have the more resources you waste, not to mention the increase in lost skills and knowledge.
> 
> It is of course a still a balance, but in the right circumstances I'm all for longer lives.


That's a fair point but achieving that balance would be incredibly hard and almost redundant to discuss (IMHO). Given the trends now I think it would certainly lead to overpopulation and the only way it wouldn't would be through some controversial measure... such as forced sterilization or something.

Or would you keep the "life lengthening" treatments for only the highly educated?

I admit it's also difficult to debate this in different contexts, real or hypothetical


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

Bohuw said:


> That's a fair point but achieving that balance would be incredibly hard and almost redundant to discuss (IMHO). Given the trends now I think it would certainly lead to overpopulation and the only way it wouldn't would be through some controversial measure... such as forced sterilization or something.


Indeed if it were to happen in the near future it could be problematic. We need to at least pass the peak of the growth of human population increase before the potential need for extended human lives becomes more important.

It's estimated that the population of earth will start to decline around 2050, so life extension could be very important in coming centuries to allow us to adapt to a falling population.



> Or would you keep the "life lengthening" treatments for only the highly educated?


As always, the rich have benefitted from many medical advances first, and this will probably always be the case in a capitalist society. However, inevitably technology gets cheaper and more accessible to all so it's not a huge issue.

*We* are the highly educated and rich compared with many people in the world and we already live a lot longer than them on average.


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## Curmudgeon64 (Dec 5, 2003)

Regarding the mission of Aubrey de Grey, the feasibility of living much longer has been called into question:

http://www2.technologyreview.com/sens/docs/weinstein.pdf


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## corbeaublanc (Jan 29, 2013)

I don't think so. We should have a normal life span like any other creature; but that isn't happening anytime soon with advancements in technology and medicine. We are horribly over populated. Imagine an air bourne virus that is extremely contagious like...the avian flu only much more deadly. In qualifications with the 'black' plague. That virus would spread very quickly because we are so packed together. Not even deer, which are overpopulated in some areas, can compete with our numbers. Didn't Darwin once say that when species grow too large in number, that many must die?


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## Drvd187 (Feb 20, 2013)

I suspect one day we'll reach the extent of what our own finite bodies and limited minds are capable of and, provided we don't go extinct before this, seek ways to transcend them, maybe attempting to upload our own consciousness onto computers or something, potentially allowing us to live indefinitely. Or maybe that's just insane.. hmm.


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

corbeaublanc said:


> I don't think so. We should have a normal life span like any other creature; but that isn't happening anytime soon with advancements in technology and medicine.


Define "normal". We live twice as long on average as we did just a few thousands years ago. Were we "normal" then or now?



> We are horribly over populated. Imagine an air bourne virus that is extremely contagious like...the avian flu only much more deadly. In qualifications with the 'black' plague. That virus would spread very quickly because we are so packed together. Not even deer, which are overpopulated in some areas, can compete with our numbers.


But if over population wasn't as problem would you be OK with it? Or when we inevitably move to under population?



> Didn't Darwin once say that when species grow too large in number, that many must die?


Only if its habitat can't support its numbers.


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

Drvd187 said:


> I suspect one day we'll reach the extent of what our own finite bodies and limited minds are capable of and, provided we don't go extinct before this, seek ways to transcend them, maybe attempting to upload our own consciousness onto computers or something, potentially allowing us to live indefinitely. Or maybe that's just insane.. hmm.


It's plausible we will merge with our technology at some point so I wouldn't call it insane in the long term.


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## corbeaublanc (Jan 29, 2013)

ugh1979 said:


> Define "normal". We live twice as long on average as we did just a few thousands years ago. Were we "normal" then or now?
> 
> But if over population wasn't as problem would you be OK with it? Or when we inevitably move to under population?
> 
> Only if its habitat can't support its numbers.


normal-back when people lived half our ages now and died naturally, or rather, they didn't have all the medicine we have. I would be fine if we were at a stable population, but our habitat cannot support so much (to piggy back off of you're last statement.) we are 7 billion strong and only going to grow more. nobody knows how to regulate themselves when it comes to children. China had an idea, but hey, if we all end up like that God knows what riots would erupt. we lost control of ourselves a long time ago.


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## ugh1979 (Aug 27, 2010)

corbeaublanc said:


> normal-back when people lived half our ages now and died naturally, or rather, they didn't have all the medicine we have. I would be fine if we were at a stable population, but our habitat cannot support so much (to piggy back off of you're last statement.) we are 7 billion strong and only going to grow more. nobody knows how to regulate themselves when it comes to children. China had an idea, but hey, if we all end up like that God knows what riots would erupt. we lost control of ourselves a long time ago.


So when our populate does stabilise around 2050 as it's currently estimated (and then go in to decline), you will be OK with life extension?


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## Curmudgeon64 (Dec 5, 2003)

ugh1979 said:


> ... interstellar space travel. It will probably take a lifetime or more for our early colonists to reach other systems so it would be nice if we could last the journey.
> 
> ...


This is the notion in "Cities in Flight" by James Blish. The protagonists travel faster than light, yet take drugs to live hundreds of years for the trip.

As the the question of overpopulation, really guys: isn't it a separate issue? If a population is increasing, it is doing so on the basis of individuals of reproductive age, not octagenarians. The Demographic Transition is much more important than average longevity to the question of overpopulation.


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## thatonefool (Apr 20, 2013)

says the globalist elitist technocrat that doesn't understand dying is a part of living.

this is only part of life - what comes next is much better!


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