21 replies to this topic

[Michael]

Quote

The Outer Limits of Life: PW Talks with Jonathan Weiner
By Will Boisvert
Publishers Weekly
May 24, 2010

Hope springs eternal, but how about human life? Jonathan Weiner reports in Long for This World (Reviews, May 17).

Aubrey de Grey, your star immortality theorist, envisions adding hundreds of years to the human lifespan. He also wants his head frozen if he dies. Is longevity research for eccentrics, or is he on to something?

Aubrey is at the far fringes, but there are more and more serious scientists interested in aging. The field has become respectable partly because of advances in the lab making mutant worm, fly, and even mouse Methuselahs, but how much that means for humans remains to be seen. Writing about the field is like writing about gravity before Newton.

Aging seems to involve the buildup of toxic junk in cells. Will we find a magic pill, or will a longer life require a huge re-engineering and reclamation project?
Hard to know. One interesting line of work involves coaching the immune system to get rid of gunk that may cause Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. The trick is to clear away gunk and none of our essential working parts. Extreme calorie restriction, unfortunately [!], seems to have a big payoff in extending the life span of animals. If we figure out what calorie restriction does, then maybe we can come up with a pill—there's a drug called rapamycin that's of interest—with the same effects. We could have our cake and eat it, too. [MR caricatured paraphrase: Something probably works now! Man, that sucks.]

[...]
Do you want to live forever?
I'm not a disciple of the immortalists. If everybody is immortal, where's the room for the next generation, for children and grandchildren? I don't think I have any prospect of living forever; writing this book was my attempt to come to terms with that. But even though I've been thinking about the arguments against dramatic life extension, whenever I read a paper that raises my hopes, my hopes flare.

You all know the rebuttals ... I understand why people raise the issue before looking seriously into the question, but this guy wrote a book  ...

[Luna]

You know, this guy actually said he does want to live forever and trying to convince himself otherwise, if you continue reading the line to the end!

[chris w]

Shish, If I got a penny for each "If everybody is immortal, where's the room for the next generation, for children and grandchildren?"...

I never really get this, overpopulation is one thing ( and if I wanted to sound rude I would say "Then you send the damn kids outer space man !"  . But why can't people see this horribly brutal evolutinary things at work here ? There's like, what ?, hundreds of thousends children orphaned by war, famine etc, yet when you suggest that when the "immortaity pill" strikes the market, then maybe instead of giving birth to new humans, people wanting to nurture children should start addopting those that are already here and their lives are miserable in places they live, you will here "Amm...but I want to have kids that are...you know... really mine".

Maybe this will be just my egoism talking here, but if I got the choice - don't die without children or die but you can multiplie, it wouldn't even take me a fraction of second to decide on the former. What is so inherently wonderfull about offspring - I just fail to see.

Edited by chris w, 24 May 2010 - 03:11 PM.

[Luna]

chris w, on May 24 2010, 03:10 PM, said:

Shish, If I got a penny for each "If everybody is immortal, where's the room for the next generation, for children and grandchildren?"...

I never really get this, overpopulation is one thing ( and if I wanted to sound rude I would say "Then you send the damn kids outer space man !"  . But why can't people see this horribly brutal evolutinary things at work here ? There's like, what ?, hundreds of thousends children orphaned by war, famine etc, yet when you suggest that when the "immortaity pill" strikes the market, then maybe instead of giving birth to new humans, people wanting to nurture children should start addopting those that are already here and their lives are miserable in places they live, you will here "Amm...but I want to have kids that are...you know... really mine".

Maybe this will be just my egoism talking here, but if I got the choice - don't die without children or die but you can multiplie, it wouldn't even take me a fraction of second to decide on the former. What is so inherently wonderfull about offspring - I just fail to see.

Yep, I will take don't die without a second thought and so will my boyfriend.

I don't mind adopting a kid or two who need a home instead of having my own either I don't need to replicate myself if I am going to stay, do I?

But yes, this kind of thought process is stupid, in one way they are hoping for people to die, themselves included. Later when they act up all innocent or cry for a friend or family member.. well, I am not going to be the cruel person saying that's what they wanted. I am going to be the one trying to prevent it from happening no matter what they say.

[Kolos]

With current birth rates in the developed world we actually need longer lifespans because inviting more and more immigrants from the 3 world is not a good solution in the long run...

[N.T.M.]

Now hold on guys!


This guy's made a valid point: If we don't die to permit room for future generations, then how could they ever die too to follow suit for their future generations? It would seem a lucid perspective to embrace mortality so we can all rest assured knowing that our progeny will also inevitably die, but not before procreating so that their children may die too. Honestly now, this logic is so obvious. Incontrovertible reasoning.


Makes sense, right?


Seriously, WTF? This just exemplifies how desensitized people are.

Edited by N.T.M., 25 May 2010 - 07:21 AM.

[Shannon Vyff]

Well, I think most people would use extreme life extension treatments if they were available, so this would be a moot argument. We as a species will continue to work on our problems and advance, as long as we are alive-which likely if we are able to continue advancing long enough, will take us elsewhere in this Universe or in other Universes.

[maxwatt]

N.T.M., on May 25 2010, 03:14 AM, said:

Now hold on guys!


This guy's made a valid point: If we don't die to permit room for future generations, then how could they ever die too to follow suit for their future generations? It would seem a lucid perspective to embrace mortality so we can all rest assured knowing that our progeny will also inevitably die, but not before procreating so that their children may die too. Honestly now, this logic is so obvious. Incontrovertible reasoning.


Makes sense, right?


Seriously, WTF? This just exemplifies how desensitized people are.

There is a mathematical fallacy to this belief.

Population (absent controls on birth) does not increase exponentially, contrary to the intuitive belief that it increases exponentially.  Absent death, population increases as a Fibonacci series.

Say you start with a population of two, and this couple produces 4 children.  Each pair of the four then produces four children, and so on.

2          initial population
4          first generation
8          second generation
16         third generation

The population after 'n' generations is the sum of this power series, and is 28 after four generations.  Now assume that after giving rise to the third generation, generation 1 dies.  The population is 26: after n generations it is the sum the last three terms in the series.  Though there is a difference, it is small.  (We could derive the mathematical equation for this model but the notation in this medium is a nuisance.)  The point is that the sum of the living  generations increases so quickly, that the sum of the generations who have died (or would be an immortal addition to the population) is so much smaller, it is minor component of the population as a whole.

Hence the addition of immortals to a population will not significantly affect the size of that population, the difference will always be less than an order of magnitude..  There will be enough resources if the increase by reproduction is held to a converging series... or put another way, letting people die instead of becoming immortal does not solve the problem of population growth, nor would it be a solution.  Reproductive rate is the major factor in the equation, and will have to be reduced by the same magnitude where resources are finite, whether or not there are immortals amongst us.

sidenote:  "immortaity" is relative.  Were we to eliminate death by disease and/or old age, accidents would still happen: earthquakes, traffic, whatever.  Average age if accident is the only cause of death would be about 10,000 years according to one source I saw.  I'd take that over the current arrangement.

Edited by maxwatt, 25 May 2010 - 12:09 PM.
spell check

[chris w]

N.T.M., on May 25 2010, 08:14 AM, said:

This guy's made a valid point: If we don't die to permit room for future generations, then how could they ever die too to follow suit for their future generations? It would seem a lucid perspective to embrace mortality so we can all rest assured knowing that our progeny will also inevitably die, but not before procreating so that their children may die too. Honestly now, this logic is so obvious. Incontrovertible reasoning.

Yeah, kinda like those little bugs that live for a day or so, just to lay eggs from which other like bugs will hatch out, only to do  the same thing over and over again ! You would tihnk humans are better than that

Edited by chris w, 25 May 2010 - 12:41 PM.

[Luna]

maxwatt, on May 25 2010, 01:02 PM, said:

Population (absent controls on birth) does not increase exponentially ...y.  Absent death, population increases as a Fibonacci series.... or put another way, letting people die instead of becoming immortal does not solve the problem of population growth, nor would it be a solution.  

sidenote:  "immortaity" is relative.  Were we to eliminate death by disease and/or old age, accidents would still happen: earthquakes, traffic, whatever.  Average age if accident is the only cause of death would be about 10,000 years according to one source I saw.  I'd take that over the current arrangement.

Step 1. Aging/disease proof.
Step 2. Accident Proof.
Step 3. Universe Death Proof?

Edited by Michael, 25 May 2010 - 04:12 PM.
Trim quotes

[Kolos]

Well I believe that at some point most of "immortal" population would spend most if not all of their time in virtual environment, so neither overpopulation nor accidents like earthquakes etc. would be a big problem.

[N.T.M.]

Luna, on May 25 2010, 01:44 PM, said:

maxwatt, on May 25 2010, 01:02 PM, said:

Population (absent controls on birth) does not increase exponentially ...y.  Absent death, population increases as a Fibonacci series.... or put another way, letting people die instead of becoming immortal does not solve the problem of population growth, nor would it be a solution.  

sidenote:  "immortaity" is relative.  Were we to eliminate death by disease and/or old age, accidents would still happen: earthquakes, traffic, whatever.  Average age if accident is the only cause of death would be about 10,000 years according to one source I saw.  I'd take that over the current arrangement.

Step 1. Aging/disease proof.
Step 2. Accident Proof.
Step 3. Universe Death Proof?

The third wouldn't need to materialize for millions of years I presume. And by then I'm sure we could bend space-time to create a sort of loop, thus circumventing whatever end the universe would put us through.

[chrwe]

Seriously, folks, i really hope I personally will have the chance to face the challenge of moving to a new planet when our sun flare and the issue with the end of the universe! First things first: Make "natural" death go away.

[Alex Libman]

Like I keep saying, the biggest objection to anti-aging always comes for socialist / statist reasons, like all their depopulation bull about the universe being too small for more than a few billion humans...  Humbug!

[N.T.M.]

Alex Libman, on May 26 2010, 10:54 AM, said:

Like I keep saying, the biggest objection to anti-aging always comes for socialist / statist reasons, like all their depopulation bull about the universe being too small for more than a few billion humans...  Humbug!

Personally I think the prospect is exciting!

[TFC]

Just to mention it:

If we increase the human lifespan by 10.000 years and make those therapies available for everyone we will not be able to sustain the global birth rates AND the lifestyle we currently have. The current average number of children born is as total fertility rate statistic 2,57. So if people choose to get numerous children or even worse, they decide to get children periodically, e.g. a child every 100 years just for fun, this won't work. I am convinced that given future technologie, a changing way of life and using every square inch of space on the planet we could feed a lot more people than today. However, given the mentioned scenario there *will* be a limit - even if you force people to live in Matrix-like alcovens controled by machines. So there will be voluntary or unvoluntary restrictions on birth rate.

This doesn't mean that birth rates will be zero; everyone in an hypothetical immortal society could have at least one child without causing overpopulation even using current measures of it. But it could be his/her only child and for the thousands of years in the future. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how people finally decide to deal with this issue...


As for space travel I really, really wish that we will find a way to it in a fashionable matter. However, given current physics I am not that optimistic that we will be able to travel one light year in less, say, 10 years. And this only for a few people as proposed technologies based on current physics are extremly resource consuming.

[Alex Libman]

TFC, on May 30 2010, 01:43 AM, said:

The current average number of children born is as total fertility rate statistic 2,57.

The worldwide fertility rate has fallen from 2.80 to 2.56 over the past 9 years (and in the countries where it's the highest infant mortality and other causes of death are very high, so you need like 3 or 4 children to keep the population stable instead of ~2.1).  We couldn't keep the fertility rates from falling below 2.1 even if we wanted to, and what's really scary is that they just keep falling as society becomes more developed, urbanized, and secular.  The fertility rate for atheist yuppies is more like 0.7!

So the problem of overpopulation was actually solved in the 20th century, and we've just been coasting on the momentum of religious tradition and third world poverty, which inevitably fades away.  The problem of underpopulation that we're now facing will be far more economically devastating and far more difficult for a free society to solve!

Edited by Alex Libman, 30 May 2010 - 11:32 AM.

[TFC]

Alex Libman, on May 30 2010, 01:31 PM, said:

TFC, on May 30 2010, 01:43 AM, said:

The current average number of children born is as total fertility rate statistic 2,57.

The worldwide fertility rate has fallen from 2.80 to 2.56 over the past 9 years (and in the countries where it's the highest infant mortality and other causes of death are very high, so you need like 3 or 4 children to keep the population stable instead of ~2.1).  We couldn't keep the fertility rates from falling below 2.1 even if we wanted to, and what's really scary is that they just keep falling as society becomes more developed, urbanized, and secular.  The fertility rate for atheist yuppies is more like 0.7!

So the problem of overpopulation was actually solved in the 20th century, and we've just been coasting on the momentum of religious tradition and third world poverty, which inevitably fades away.  The problem of underpopulation that we're now facing will be far more economically devastating and far more difficult for a free society to solve!

I agree with you that we will see a decline in birth rates and as projected by the UN after the middle of the century the global TFR will fall below the replacement level (although I dearly doubt that even in countries with high infant mortality you need 3-4 children for replacement; the child mortality rates are simply no longer that high even in Africa). However, given that in an immortal world people will probably stay fertile indefinitely they will have the opportunity to give birth to numerous children. This will happen less frequent than today but over their lifetime it could easily happen more often - as suggested they might decide to get their first child at age 100, and than every 100 years if they have an affection for children (many people have).

Also some people might argue, that we are already overpopulated given our large scale destruction of the global environment and that we can not sustain the current level of destruction indefinitely - in the end overpopulation is defined in relation carrying capacity of the environment ... Although those problems could be overcome by finally applying new technologies and a change in life style.

[chrwe]

I say we get immortality first, then all the rest will follow. It will definitely create social problems, but it will also erase social problems (people will value life more and will have to value sustainability more)

[Alex Libman]

We won't get any life extension breakthroughs or anything other than economic stagnation and possible civilization collapse until we solve the more immediate problems, including the problem of centralization of power (government) and the problem of low fertility rates.  This new environmentalist religion is particularly destructive, especially when combined with government force...

[N.T.M.]

Alex Libman, on May 30 2010, 03:30 PM, said:

We won't get any life extension breakthroughs or anything other than economic stagnation and possible civilization collapse until we solve the more immediate problems, including the problem of centralization of power (government) and the problem of low fertility rates.

Since science is very ubiquitous, I believe the importance of the first (government) is overstated. Higher nations like to only permit so much progressive disparity before they decide to institute whatever they're lacking. Regarding the latter: I didn't even know that was a problem. Hell, I could care less.

[brokenportal]

This book gave me the same kind of reaction, "Its another person with the same lame intellectually lazy questions."

Bur rather than put it on my do not promote list, Ive become rather fond of it. I listened to an interview with this guy on some show and read a few other articles about it and it seems to be rather neutral, pros and cons. I think it may be another great gateway to get people thinking about this. I think that the cons, mixed in with the pros like that might actually get more people making our arguments for us in their heads as they read it.