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Would everybody attain immortality if therapies were available?


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#61 drus

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Posted 15 March 2011 - 07:56 PM

ok we wont use the term conspiracy then (to appease the apparently more reasonable among us lol), we'll just say that they are engaged in 'a large interconnected concerted underhanded organized corporate corruption effort and behaviour toward an immoral end and calculated outcome.' but just an fyi to all you out there who think real conspiracies do not exist or are hard to pull off on a massive scale, dont fool yourselves, they are easier than you think and have happened many times in recent history.

Edited by drus, 15 March 2011 - 07:57 PM.

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#62 Lazarus Long

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Posted 16 March 2011 - 02:48 AM

ok we wont use the term conspiracy then (to appease the apparently more reasonable among us lol), we'll just say that they are engaged in 'a large interconnected concerted underhanded organized corporate corruption effort and behaviour toward an immoral end and calculated outcome.' but just an fyi to all you out there who think real conspiracies do not exist or are hard to pull off on a massive scale, dont fool yourselves, they are easier than you think and have happened many times in recent history.


It's not a "conspiracy" because it is an overt "business plan". Profit as a motive is not just competition, it is also collective self interest. People who do business together and profit by the exchange tend to share common interests and objectives. Not all competing interests cancel each other out even in a Zero Sum game.

When you look too much for conspiracy sometimes you miss what is in plain sight.

Ironically, sometimes even the misinformation of conspiracy theory is an effective means of diverting attention from actual events.

Imagine your best impression of Captain Renault saying to Rick: "I'm shocked! shocked to find insider trading going on in this establishment." :ph34r:

#63 niner

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Posted 16 March 2011 - 03:15 AM

ok we wont use the term conspiracy then (to appease the apparently more reasonable among us lol), we'll just say that they are engaged in 'a large interconnected concerted underhanded organized corporate corruption effort and behaviour toward an immoral end and calculated outcome.'

Ohhh! You mean The Unfettered Free Market! Well, yeah.

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#64 drus

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Posted 16 March 2011 - 07:32 PM

Lazarus, you make good points, but conspiracies do infact exist. your point about the fact that (fake) conspiracies are invented or imagined to/can avert attention from what is really going on is in itself PART OF THE CONSPIRACY and contributes to it; but that aside, whats going on in the healthcare/pharmaceutical industry (conspiracy or not) is just plain 'evil'.

Niner, there is no such thing as a completely 'unfettered free market' anywhere in the world, god help us if there ever were.

Edited by drus, 16 March 2011 - 07:35 PM.


#65 mpe

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Posted 17 March 2011 - 11:47 AM

Reality is patents expire, patent rights can be ignored, industrial esponage is rife in the world, other countries the will not stand by and see their populations deprived of their chance for "immortality" and the unwashed masses of the western world and the USA will demand that their politicians deliver and they will.

When it happens, it will be available world wide in a very short time, years not decades and as it becomes readily available the price will fall very quickly and affordability will cease to be an issue

#66 drus

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Posted 18 March 2011 - 07:36 PM

Reality is patents expire, patent rights can be ignored, industrial esponage is rife in the world, other countries the will not stand by and see their populations deprived of their chance for "immortality" and the unwashed masses of the western world and the USA will demand that their politicians deliver and they will.

When it happens, it will be available world wide in a very short time, years not decades and as it becomes readily available the price will fall very quickly and affordability will cease to be an issue



i find your faith in the system, disturbing lol.

#67 niner

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Posted 18 March 2011 - 08:13 PM

Niner, there is no such thing as a completely 'unfettered free market' anywhere in the world, god help us if there ever were.

Ok then, let's just call it Capitalism. You don't seem to want anyone to profit from the development and manufacture of life-saving treatments. Others would say that those things cost a tremendous amount of money to do, and that no one will put that kind of money at risk without an expectation of a large return. There are other ways we could develop medicine: We could make the taxpayers fund it, then let them share in the benefits, or we could choose an intermediate model where we regulated the pharmaceutical industry the way we might regulate a public utility. Other models can be imagined.

When it happens, it will be available world wide in a very short time, years not decades and as it becomes readily available the price will fall very quickly and affordability will cease to be an issue

That will probably be true if the "cure for aging" is cheap enough. However, it probably won't be cheap. It will probably involve a series of complicated tests and procedures, and a number of drugs, some of which might be expensive to make despite our best efforts to make them cheaply. Some drugs remain expensive long after they've gone off patent because they are really hard to make. I think that eventually, the world will be rich enough and the technology will be advanced enough that we will be able to afford anti-aging medicine for all. I just don't think that is going to happen very quickly. I think there will be a sizable span of time between the first availability at high cost and universal provision. I would expect that to be a few decades, not centuries. But not a few years.

#68 Panther

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Posted 18 March 2011 - 08:49 PM

niner, the socioeconomic structure is built and maintained by people. What you seem to perceive as unalterable, fixed patterns, are merely a temporary state in an evolving order. And as I've said before, those patterns are maintained directly by people's desires. That is to say, they collectively want it to be that way. If they collectively want to finally get back into research and development on the levels it should consistently be at, very little is unachievable. The materials required of this process, if physically abundant on the planet, will be sought, and the collection process will be perfected. Again, the only possibility of your predictions panning out is if no one wants LE and if the physical materials required of the process are too few.

#69 BrandonKing

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Posted 20 March 2011 - 05:03 PM

Simple. The poor won't. Those who can't afford such treatments will die of old age, while those who can will live on and breed the next generations. In a way, it's Darwinism at its finest. The rich (usually the superior) get more kids than the poor, vastly improving the quality of the human gene pool. It's cruel, but effective. If you look at this world realisticly, you'll see it's a cesspool of selfishness and hypocrisy (self-righteous preaching).


That is such an elitist thing to say! I'm poor i was born in lower lower class urban America as i reached my adolescent years we became lower middle class and this year we are now middle middle class
though i assume after i move to Michigan with my buddy Jordan i could fit your description we got a solid plan to open our own restaurant/hookah lounge up there the only thing im worried about is my phobia of paperwork that is probably the biggest challenge and since we live in America the Government has to decide if your a business because we live in a Controlled Market NOT a Free Market(unless you live in Texas, my uncle owns a business out there and is contracted in 4 different states, 5 including Texas itself)

*off topic i know but in relation to my post: I am a huge supporter of the Black Market as the only Free Market in the world and the US Governments lack of support flies in the face of everything our country supposedly stands for.....Land of the Free indeed

*back on topic: Im sure that when the time comes I SHOULD be able to afford it and if it takes everything i own so be it, i got eternity to build everything back up so yeah

#70 MentalParadox

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Posted 20 March 2011 - 06:37 PM

Simple. The poor won't. Those who can't afford such treatments will die of old age, while those who can will live on and breed the next generations. In a way, it's Darwinism at its finest. The rich (usually the superior) get more kids than the poor, vastly improving the quality of the human gene pool. It's cruel, but effective. If you look at this world realisticly, you'll see it's a cesspool of selfishness and hypocrisy (self-righteous preaching).


That is such an elitist thing to say! I'm poor i was born in lower lower class urban America as i reached my adolescent years we became lower middle class and this year we are now middle middle class
though i assume after i move to Michigan with my buddy Jordan i could fit your description we got a solid plan to open our own restaurant/hookah lounge up there the only thing im worried about is my phobia of paperwork that is probably the biggest challenge and since we live in America the Government has to decide if your a business because we live in a Controlled Market NOT a Free Market(unless you live in Texas, my uncle owns a business out there and is contracted in 4 different states, 5 including Texas itself)

*off topic i know but in relation to my post: I am a huge supporter of the Black Market as the only Free Market in the world and the US Governments lack of support flies in the face of everything our country supposedly stands for.....Land of the Free indeed

*back on topic: Im sure that when the time comes I SHOULD be able to afford it and if it takes everything i own so be it, i got eternity to build everything back up so yeah


It is *not* an elitist thing to say. What *would* be elitist is saying "the poor shouldn't have access to these treatments". While what I saw was "they won't have access".
Like many, you didn't read my post, and assumed that I agreed with the grim reality of the world today. I do not. I face facts.

#71 niner

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Posted 20 March 2011 - 10:30 PM

niner, the socioeconomic structure is built and maintained by people. What you seem to perceive as unalterable, fixed patterns, are merely a temporary state in an evolving order. And as I've said before, those patterns are maintained directly by people's desires. That is to say, they collectively want it to be that way. If they collectively want to finally get back into research and development on the levels it should consistently be at, very little is unachievable. The materials required of this process, if physically abundant on the planet, will be sought, and the collection process will be perfected. Again, the only possibility of your predictions panning out is if no one wants LE and if the physical materials required of the process are too few.

I dunno, Panther. This seems pretty dreamy to me. New medicine won't be developed just because people want it. It will be developed because someone who knows how to do it is both motivated and enabled to do the work. It's going to require that someone pay for the labs and the reagents and the equipment and everything else that goes into the development of new medicine. Maybe one day everyone will decide that it would be ok if their taxes were raised in order to publicly fund this work, although that doesn't seem likely in today's political climate. Everyone in the world could want LE really bad, but if no one is willing to cough up the money to make it happen, it won't. Note that above, I said there were other ways that we could fund research. We could fund it through donations at Longecity, if we got about ten thousand times larger. If you see a way that new medicine could be developed without money, let us know. What will the scientists eat, and where will they live?

#72 Panther

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Posted 21 March 2011 - 01:07 AM

Are you fucking with me? This is basic economics. Yes, because people want something, money will get put into it.

#73 niner

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Posted 21 March 2011 - 01:59 AM

Are you fucking with me? This is basic economics. Yes, because people want something, money will get put into it.

No, I'm not "fucking" with you. And yes, it is basic economics. Based on what you said above, it would follow that we don't collectively want a cure for cancers or metabolic diseases or CVD or the common cold or aging at this time, because we aren't putting enough money into it to get there. I don't think that's exactly the case, and I doubt you do either. But you do seem to be implying that if people want something, the money will just appear. What if the necessary treatment to forestall aging costs ten thousand dollars a year? What if try as we might, despite economies of scale, we just can't get the cost lower than that? Maybe a couple billion people will be able to afford that, and six or seven billion won't. Just wanting it isn't going to make it happen for them. That is basic economics.

#74 Panther

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Posted 21 March 2011 - 02:33 AM

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Certain problems require degrees of time and energy beyond what most are willing to commit. And yes, if people want something, the money will appear. Someone will be smart enough to begin marketing the desired product, as always happens. As to the business of things costing a great deal you are missing two factors. One, I've covered this. Two, as a product that is desired finds a seller, an idea that is needed finds an inventor. Where there is profit to be made, someone will be there. If it can be made cheaper and faster, one will make increased profits. Thus someone will find a way to do it.

Now, on the completely unrelated theoretical event of the PHYSICAL RESOURCES being too few on the entire planet, I've covered this as well. The majority will overwhelm the few fools who think money, nothing more than a substitution for human effort, is more important than morality.

#75 niner

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Posted 21 March 2011 - 02:59 AM

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Certain problems require degrees of time and energy beyond what most are willing to commit. And yes, if people want something, the money will appear. Someone will be smart enough to begin marketing the desired product, as always happens. As to the business of things costing a great deal you are missing two factors. One, I've covered this. Two, as a product that is desired finds a seller, an idea that is needed finds an inventor. Where there is profit to be made, someone will be there. If it can be made cheaper and faster, one will make increased profits. Thus someone will find a way to do it.

So why can't I get a new BMW for $99.95? Hell, I'd give ten grand in a heartbeat. Looks like no one has figured out a way to do that yet. Likewise, there will be a significant time period during which no one is going to figure out how to reduce the cost of LE technologies to the point that we can give them away to everyone who wants them.

Now, on the completely unrelated theoretical event of the PHYSICAL RESOURCES being too few on the entire planet, I've covered this as well. The majority will overwhelm the few fools who think money, nothing more than a substitution for human effort, is more important than morality.

I don't think that physical resources are going to be the problem. It will be the COST of those resources, which other users of them will bid up. It will also be the cost of manufacturing, IP, services, transport, storage, etc. Are you saying that the masses, using the sheer power of their superior morality, will steal these things from the people who pay for them?

#76 Panther

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Posted 21 March 2011 - 04:52 AM

As I've mentioned before, you're dealing with people's lives here. This isn't something that merely makes a person's life a little more convenient. People will be motivated to understand how the scientific processes involved with these things work, they'll be very, very motivated. They will further those sciences extremely quickly.

As you seem to be a person concerned with facts and figures, I will elaborate. Research and development is the process of researching and developing new methods and procedures of handling raw materials. These new processes can be used to create new, never before made, things. They can also refine and improve old processes. These new items and procedures can do things that have never been done before. Like a plane, that flies. My estimations are that the societal motivation involved with this movement will be so great that many, many things will be put on hold for the furthering of the sciences involved. And yes, I'm aware that these activities will require resources. I stipulate that the investors will be many. Many for financial gain, others for personal, still more out of simple decency. I imagine you will now mention that that has yet to happen. To avoid that next topic, people still think it's entirely crazy. Change that and we're set.

Now, I realize that some people live in a comfortable, moneyed world where nothing really matters, and that these people often lose perspective on things, if they had it to begin with. That these people might actually lack the integrity to contribute their massive piles of functionally useless paper to give extended life to all. Instead hording it for whatever frivolous activities they have planned for it. I understand this. And I'm fully aware of it being one more thing that will be taken care of with time and effort. But there are men who are both rich and good, who know better.




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