4 replies to this topic

[Proconsul]

One idea I always liked since I became interested in life extension is that of small incremental steps. Each step will allow you to be still around when the technology for the next step will become available. This is a concept that is central to SENS, if I'm not mistaken. What worries me is the possibility of technological 'bottlenecks', where lack of progress in certain areas could freeze human maximal life span for long time. If you look at certain areas of technology, like for instance aerospatial engineering, it seems that from the 60s the progress has slowed down enormously. I still remember when in the 70s people believed that by year 2000 moon flights would become almost as easy and accessible as intercontinental flights. Economic and political decisions play a very important role in all this. Personally, my hopes are in a breakout in nanotechnologies and quantum computers in a few decennias. Until then, resources and WILL are necessary in order to exploit current technologies to gain moderate, but still important, increases in human life span.

Edited by Proconsul, 10 November 2008 - 04:45 PM.

[brokenportal]

Well youve come to the right place for resources and will. We collect here to collaborate to add the small things like you say. Every little thing we add ads up, and if you put in your two cents today youll help us get the change we need. 2 cents adds up fast beleive it or not. Did you know that 2 cents doubled every day for a month adds up to over a billion dollars?

I like how you bring up predictions that have been made for advancement and bottlenecking. Because I think thats right, its not that these things have been delayed because its the nature of the things, its because key people or policies have stood in the way along the way. Thats good news though, because that means that if we work together to keep those things from happening and add all our 2 cents of productivity to it it will burst open and the thing, whether that be commercial moon trips or sens breakthroughs or whatever will become reality now.

and now really is of the essence. We arent getting any younger. Those cold dark graves arent growing any compassion.

There are tons of little steps you can get in around here for helping promote and gain exposure for the cause. A good starting place to find out about it is to get in on these meetings: imminst.org/meetings Sens is moving along pretty well, and they have a nice outline for the incremental steps your talking about, you may have already seen it, called Longevity Escape Velocity. Check that out if you havent already.

[Liquidus]

If you look at certain areas of technology, like for instance aerospatial engineering, it seems that from the 60s the progress has slowed down enormously.

Political and 'theological' perspectives and misconceptions have caused this progression stall. However, with this notion of 'change' going around so much lately, I think it's fairly safe to assume that we'll see an increasing interest in the field of engineering, hopefully this increase will be exponential to offset the enormous slowdown. A motivated and productive engineering community can only mean massive benefits for the rest of technological production and progress.

[Proconsul]

I think soon or late technologies reach a limit where significant improvements are no longer possible. However, they may be substituted by different technologies that can reach the same goal much more efficiently. One typical examples is airplane propulsion. The performance of propeller planes is today only marginally better than in the 40s, because propeller engine technology has reached its limit. However, in the 40s jet planes were developed, a completely different propulsion technology that gave airplane performance a true quantum leap. I think the same is probably true for biotechnologies. But of course what is needed is the will and resources to create these new technologies. If the space race had proceeded at the same pace as in the 60s, I'm sure today we would already be on Mars. In fact, engines for a Mars rocket were actually experimented back in the 60s (the NERVA project if my memory doesn't fail me). However, the economic crisis of the 70s and the Soviet backing from the Moon race caused these projects to be dropped. So for the projects of orbital colonies from the early 70s.

That said, I'm moderately optimistic, because the consistent number of people who wish to live longer should push the private enterprise along this research field. This is one of the reasons to develop short term strategies for life extension (the other reason is that I have filled 44, damn, the clock is ticking!!): long term approaches are more risky in economic terms and there may be not many companies willing to spend huge sums for unsure outcomes. On the other side, successful outcomes of short term projects should pay enough dividends to be an incentive to proceed towards more ambitious goals. Well, my knowledge of economic mechanisms is quite limited: perhaps some of you guys can elaborate on these concepts?

[brokenportal]

Well, my knowledge of economic mechanisms is quite limited: perhaps some of you guys can elaborate on these concepts?

Im pretty sure the economic mechanism is instill them with vision, or instill them with money like they are doing through the mprize.