Age Simulation Suit

by throwup238 • 11 months ago

208 182 11 months ago

dmcq2• 11 months ago

Well I dont think I need all that equipment to experience the effect. So I can save myself the money, yay!

GratiaTerra2• 11 months ago

Geriatric simulation is interesting, but couldn't this also be applied to pediatric simulation for improved vision, hearing, strength and endurance? I don't see any show stoppers preventing the development of a youth-augmentation exosuit blending AR sensory augmentation, powered exoskeleton support, haptics, and AI adaptive controls.

Stevvo• 11 months ago

I think you're missing the point. You use something like this to help in design/testing of accessible spaces. An exosuit can't cut you half to help you make better children's spaces.

GratiaTerra2• 11 months ago

Floating the idea of a youth simulator (like a VR app with integrated exosuit) could be used to measure physiological and cognitive age gaps. It might be valuable for science and medicine, but also for things like understanding empathy/social knowledge or understanding workflows/applied knowledge.

nonameiguess• 11 months ago

Additionally, assuming you're not already geriatric, simulating it is the only way to experience it short of waiting. If you're an adult, you were already a kid at some point.

GuB-422• 11 months ago

An exosuit can't cut you half

But you can build a room twice as big. We are straying away from the exosuit idea though.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF• 11 months ago

Just spitballing:

- Powered exoskeletons aren't quite "there"

- If moving at all is painful, having an exoskeleton move you will also be painful

- Haptics and AR aren't quite there either

- Batteries, it's always batteries

GuinansEyebrows• 11 months ago

For many years our age simulation suit GERT has been by far the most popular product worldwide.

GERT: Bigger than the iPhone.

snickerdoodle12• 11 months ago

I'd be more interested in the other way around

OptionOfT• 11 months ago

My initial thoughts too.

ilc• 11 months ago

Amen.

ge962• 11 months ago

Use it to make yourself stronger, break free like the running man in Animatrix

mwigdahl• 11 months ago

Or Harrison Bergeron...

famahar• 11 months ago

Love this reference. I think about this short a lot. Reaching an extreme level of peak physical performance that you break the constraints (code) of the world, causing a severe bug that crashes the program and reveals the reality of all things.

libria• 11 months ago

Yeah, clickbait title for some of us. Should be "Advanced Age Simulation Suit".

paulpauper3• 11 months ago

losing weight is one way

xunil2ycom• 11 months ago

I could have used this about 40 years ago.

nate• 11 months ago

My dad is 85 and this article hits hard about what he fights going on in his body. What sucks is how much of a downward, self reinforcing spiral it all is. It's so hard to see the curbs to walk over or how to get to a thing himself, so he just naturally chooses to do fewer and fewer things. Watching TV is safer and kinder and becomes the default to anything. Which just makes his brain less and less stimulated and active, and you can imagine the drag that adds to keep figuring out life.

But like the empathy found in this article, it's caused me to be incredibly more patient with anyone struggling to walk in front of me on a crowded or narrow sidewalk.

Aging is rough. Thank you to everyone working on accessibility and aging related tech and science.

gowld• 11 months ago

When you stop walking, that's the beginning of the end.

bayesnet• 11 months ago

My grandfather, with whom I was very close, suffered from Parkinson's in his last decade or so. For a long time he was doing OK: Occasional confusion and the slow, shuffling walk that is characteristic of the disease.

One day he had a minor operation that left him needing a wheelchair for what we thought would be just a few weeks. But he never regained his strength and was never to walk again, which led to a steep and sudden decline in his mental condition. It was truly devastating to see one of the sharpest people I knew become an angry and confused simulacrum of the man I so admired.

I wish I had realized two things then: First, as you say, maintaining mobility is the crucial to the well-being of the elderly. Second, immediate physical/occupational therapy after a fall or surgery is essential to people at risk of losing mobility. Sadly it wasn't offered to us and we didn't think to ask.

amarant2• 11 months ago

This! My grandmother adopted a dog late in her life. She walked 10km a day with that dog for nearly 20 years! (That dog was the oldest dog I've ever known). At 92 she was famous in my small village, she was in better shape than some of the 30 year olds!

Then the dog died. Instead of walking 10km per day, she lay on the couch staring at the ceiling. About 3 months later she started getting lost on her way to the supermarket. Fifth time she got lost we decided to put her in a home for demented people. We simply couldn't provide the care she needed any other way. Took a few more months and she stopped recognising us.

I think she outlived her dog by about 18 months, iirc.

She stopped walking, and then age came fast for her.

SlowTao3• 11 months ago

When it comes to physical exercise, this is the key fundamental one. Yes, others things help but it is the foundation on which everything else rests.

Alas, it can be taken away without choice, hopefully not.

squigz4• 11 months ago

Beyond the obvious (medical care, accessibility, etc), I think technology has a huge amount of untapped potential to make the end of our lives a lot more bearable, and a lot less lonely. TV is one thing - and whether it's a net good or not has been discussed to death, so I won't here - but I wonder how video games might be used. They're a lot more engaging - both generally and cognitively - than TV, you can build and achieve things and feel a sense of accomplishment (yeah yeah pride and accomplishment), there are communities around them, you can play with your family, etc. Even online board and card games would be an option. Have you ever considered showing your dad some simple games?

Slow_Hand• 11 months ago

Can’t speak to the cognitive benefits of video games in late life, but my grandma really took to our N64 one summer when my brother and I stayed with her.

She used to stay absorbed in a little battery powered draw poker game that she had, but by the end of the summer she had gone through a large part of our game collection and could put up a real challenge in Mario Kart 64.

Eventually we gifted it to her and she played it for years after that.

costcopizza• 11 months ago

My grandma is 83 and I could’ve written this exact same post.

I know it comes for everyone, but the pace of said spiral is frightening.

Wish we were in a timeframe with more alternatives for rapid loss of mobility and muscle.

SlowTao3• 11 months ago

While it is challenging, looked at one a life time scale it is kind of a neat thing. It isn't a purely linear decline and that means while the later years kind of suck, you get a lot of decent time before then.

Yes, we should try and work against this but I am just looking at the silver lining.

viking12310• 11 months ago

There's quite a lot of aging research going, maybe will get something concrete in the next 10-20 years (maybe too late for her) but it's at least something

raincole• 11 months ago

One of the technologies I look forward to is exoskeleton. Yes I know it will be used by the army. But the potential to improve elders' lives is huge.

pfannkuchen• 11 months ago

Why would it be used by the army? Seems like you don’t need the squishy meat filling for that use case.

peepee19826• 11 months ago

Agreed. But the pessimist in me fears that some people might fall back to that much too soon instead of adopting healthier lifestyles.

ACCount3711• 11 months ago

Aging should be recognized as a disease already. It's long overdue.

17186274402• 11 months ago

Disease is abnormal to some "norm". When everyone has it, it's not a disease.

peepee19826• 11 months ago

Aging is part of a natural process we are already able to slow down significantly. Calling it a disease just muddies the semantic space of pathology in my opinion.

Everybody understands already that slowing down or stopping the aging process is desirable. I don't see the usefulness in lumping it in with muscle atrophy, clogged arteries, or cancer.

barnabyjones4• 11 months ago

My parents have similar issues due to hearing loss, it really makes any kind of social interaction a chore which results in a similar spiral. For years I've wanted to try to make, or hope someone else would make, a set of AR glasses that's purely focused on providing accurate real-time subtitles, no other gimmicks or features that might affect the wearability/usability. I think that's the biggest QOL boost most old folks would get from a single product, and it seems much more realistically feasible than other potential QOL solutions like robotics, but I wouldn't know where to start with building it. As a bonus, it would just need an LLM/Google Translate hookup to become an amazing travel tool.

peepee19826• 11 months ago

I've never thought of this usecase and I think it's fantastic.

copperx2• 11 months ago

Spending R&D in something like this is much more important that building fancier hearing aids. Universal subtitles would be a life changer.

thegreatpeter2• 11 months ago

Aging is rough. I feel for you. My parents are a bit younger but I'm starting to pick up on things that make me realize they're getting older. Thanks for sharing

EZ-Cheeze• 11 months ago

If you want to see what you will look like when you're older, stand in a spot and jump up and down repeatedly. Take photos (or pause a video recording) right at the moment after the lowest part of your jump. The upward acceleration will make your skin sag the way gravity will as your collagen weakens over decades.

But then again, by the time you're older you might look younger than you do now, e.g. "Ageing changes our genes – epigenetic atlas gives clearest picture yet (nature.com)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45095532 (from the other day, no comments yet)

ge962• 11 months ago

Or watch someone pull G forces in a plane (sim here but I had another vid in mind this one is better)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/m3wljWlAVss

languagehacker• 11 months ago

Finally I can be Karl Havoc

clcaev• 11 months ago

Alternatively, one might ask someone with those disabilities to provide feedback.

trhway2• 11 months ago

While i think we should do more things in that direction, it borders on human experimentation.

Btw, somebody should mention that Putin/Xi's talk about living to 150 years and the 70 being just a children age today (if you have state resources at your disposal).

a2128• 11 months ago

I think life extension is an age-old topic for every powerful monarch or authoritarian leader. Every one believes they'll at last be the one who has the right resources and people to finally cheat life and live to 150 or become immortal. If they really end up buying into immortality it usually leads to their demise, like what happened to so many Chinese emperors throughout history. New knowledge and new theories about aging always arise but so does new quackery from people who have a lot to gain from convincing powerful people.

Yesterday it was immortality elixirs that lead to mercury poisioning, today it's young blood transfusions and young organ transplants (having multiple major surgeries and living on lifelong immunosuppresants does not bode well for longevity)

shikon7• 11 months ago

I'm still waiting for the youth simulation suit.

sans_souse3• 11 months ago

Underrated comment!

bitwize• 11 months ago

Looks like Harrison Bergeron's gear, which means it's probably well suited to purpose.

ourmandave• 11 months ago

Does it also simulate out living your friends and spouse and being alone?

dhosek• 11 months ago

I think if you walk around in one of those, your friends and spouse will abandon you pretty quickly.

HSO• 11 months ago

One thing you have to experience to really get it, that cannot be simulated with a mechanical suit or transmitted through words, is all the f-ing little aches you get past a certain point. I´m now convinced it is this that makes older people cranky. Some days, my body is just constantly in a low but annoying pain somewhere, and it seems in increasingly weird, obscure places you never even thought about. I dont even remember when or how it started but although I would be considered fit by most people, now I have to watch my running, otherwise ITBS, I have to watch my pull exercises, otherwise shoulder impingement syndrome, I have to watch my dips, otherwise elbows, hell even after just _sleeping_ I have to roll and stretch my neck out because it hurts just from lying apparently. I used to scoff about warmup, now I take it really, really seriously. "Going with the flow" of the moment, instead of sticking to a carefully dosed plan? That´s for young bodies! Thankfully I can still use my full range of motion everywhere but Im acutely aware now how quickly it can all go away and how long any overuse or even minor injury now costs me in recovery.

Getting older has its benefits too but mostly mental, in physical terms I cannot think of a single benefit.

IAmGraydon2• 11 months ago

How old are you?

BubbleRings• 11 months ago

And how much caffeine do you drink?

tempestn2• 11 months ago

I'm not the parent, but could've written all the same (44).

layman51• 11 months ago

I think these kinds of aches start happening to a non-negligible number of people beginning in their early 30s. It isn’t that they can’t still be active, it’s just that they have to be diligent about warming up their joints before certain exercises, whereas before they may not have had to even consider warming up.

Karrot_Kream3• 11 months ago

This is one of the big psychological benefits of being physically active. If you're fairly physically active, e.g. doing 60+ min of high heart rate cardio or intense anaerobic exercise a day, you'll always be sore somewhere. Maybe it's your thighs from yesterday's squats. Your lower back from a long run. Your elbow when you tried that dynamic move on a climb you've been projecting. And once you accept and embrace that minor pain you become a lot better at psychologically dealing with the small constant pain that comes with aging.

Also if you ever compete in a physical activity at more than just a "with your friends" level, you'll quickly find that whether you're 15 or 50 warming up makes a huge difference.

A lot of the problems of aging that I suspect folks today are facing are the problems of leading a fairly sedentary lifestyle.

AngryData• 11 months ago

That is an interesting idea and it follows some patterns I previously noticed with friends. The ones who are not or never were physically active are all complaining about aches and pains and acting like they are old men twice their age just doing basic household things. I kind of just chalked that up to them not being in shape, but it never really fully explained the extent of their complaints. However I grew up with a very physical life working on the farm and doing trade work since forever. By every measure I should be the one complaining about aches and pains and old injuries and such, but perhaps because im so accustomed to pains just from work and more intense physical activity the age related stuff just hasn't hit me hard enough to really notice like they do.

Noumenon72• 11 months ago

I don't accept and embrace the minor pain, I treat exercise as a way to fix what I did wrong that led to the pain so I'm more resilient and don't develop it chronically. There are many aches I used to get (elbows while washing hands, hip socket, sleeping with my neck to the side) that are years in the past because I figured them out. I just realized right now that I haven't woken up with sore collarbones this year, which I can probably attribute to incline bench.

Cracks and pops are another case where constant introspection and following tips on TikTok has made many of them go away. The received wisdom is they're not proven harmful, but in my case they at least represent using muscles in wrong patterns that pull things off center.

munificent2• 11 months ago

There is a profound psychological difference between:

"My legs are sore from running yesterday but it means the muscles are getting stronger and I'll be healthy."

And:

"There is this weird twinge in my back. Did I sleep weird and it will be fine tomorrow? Or do I have to start doing more stretches and if I keep up with that forever, I can keep this pain at bay? Or does it mean that one of the vertebrae is starting to crack and if I don't go to the doctor soon enough and get surgery I'm going to end up paralyzed for life?"

Pain is easy. It's not knowing what the pain means that's hard.

antisthenes• 11 months ago

If you do it regularly, you won't be sore.

Soreness only comes initially once you are getting into the routine, or if you push yourself way beyond limits.

0xffff2• 11 months ago

doing 60+ min of high heart rate cardio or intense anaerobic exercise a day,

Per day?? Does anyone really do that? I aim for a bit more than 60 minutes a week.

sdeframond• 11 months ago

Not OP but it started happening to me a few years ago. I'm 37 now and it is slowly getting worse.

The only thing that keeps it at bay is regular exercise, both strength and mobility. I'm careful about running.

throwawaylaptop3• 11 months ago

I can't argue if it's 'healthy' or not, but anecdotal accounts say that going meat only cures most of these pains in about 30 days. I've tried it. 65 year old dad tried it. Coworkers and friends. It worked for everyone. No one has remained meat only, but it taught us all to watch what we eat like hawks.

SlowTao3• 11 months ago

I mean, it is a hard line elimination diet. If you watch what happens with reintroduction, you can provably figure out where the issues are.

brewdad• 11 months ago

Not sure if "meat only" can be a cure-all but anecdotally, I feel better when I reduce my gluten intake. I've never been diagnosed with a wheat sensitivity but my son has been forced to go gluten free because of one. When he is home on school breaks, we eat gluten free and I do notice a difference in how I feel.

I'm not giving up beer or the once a month pizza anytime soon but I have made conscious decisions to reduce my overall gluten intake.

peepee19826• 11 months ago

Yes. I am 42 and feel and am fitter than at any other point in my life (I started taking care of myself in my 30s).

The joint pain is the only thing that makes me feel old right now. And I don't think there's much I can do about it. (although I'll be happy for suggestions.)

eweise• 11 months ago

too bad it can't make my 60 year old body simulate a 20 year old.

digitalsushi• 11 months ago

You joke but given the rate of progress, in a few more years, who knows what they'll come up with. It won't be real. Oh no. But just being fooled for a few minutes is the first flavorful bite.

The pragmatist in me hopes not, I think it'll be the worst drug we invent, even if it's just a pair of goggles, a glove, and a weird sticker for the temples.

But I expect it. Silver lining?

jkestner• 11 months ago

One of my professors in undergrad pioneered research into the eldery’s interaction with the world. Not just the physiological, but sociological aspects — she got a makeup artist to disguise herself.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Moore

steve918• 11 months ago

If you preorder I can get you the same thing for half the price. It just sometimes takes a few years for delivery.

dsign• 11 months ago

Awful idea #1: If you are one of those advanced-age president-dictator of a big super-power, you know, one of those guys that get caught in a hot mic talking about immortality, you could seal your pact with the devil by forcing anybody in your big chunk of the planet who doesn’t ace their STEM topics to wear one of these suits. Who knows, maybe if the youth get properly scared of their old age, they will stop being a subversive thorn and instead focus on fixing the ending of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Awful idea #2: Just listen to your grandmother when you are young. She will tell you how brutal is to be old. Read the science, not just biology but all the connected sciences, specially mathematics. And then listen to the priests (critically!), and read the writers, and peruse the written record of the human civilization, which almost begins with the Epic of Gilgamesh. It will reveal shadows you didn’t know were in your mind. None of it, of course, prevents you from becoming old, but it puts most things into perspective, and it digs out a certain light that we have lost and which we very much need if we are ever going to do anything about the suffering that aging brings.

Awful idea #3: Take a shortcut and paste everything I wrote before this paragraph into an LLM. Any LLM which is reasonably state of the art. Prompt with “what’s the meaning of this?” It will significantly change the intended meaning of what I said in “awful idea #2”. That’s the bias/zeitgeist in our vast cultural recent corpus, that the LLMs swallowed for training, being regurgitated at you in condensed form. And they said that LLMs aren’t useful! Repeat the experiment, but this time use Simplified Chinese to prompt. Observe the very slight cultural drift. Meditate. Now abandon this shortcut and execute awful idea #2. Borrow somebody else’s grandmother if you must.

greyb• 11 months ago

From what I recall, there are retirement homes (the examples I'm thinking of are in Asia) that make use of these suits in their onboarding processes, where they need to wear these suits for a few hours to understand some of the challenges their patients experience, and develop empathy when they can't walk as fast or do things that we'd expect in short order.

I would love to see more widespread adoption of these suits in training and employee onboarding in these facilities, mostly because if I'm in that situation or I want to think about a retirement home for my family members, I'd want to see that no one is losing their temper because my mom can't sprint 12km/hr to the elevators for breakfast.

This being said, anecdotally, it seems elder abuse is more the norm, simply because of compassion fatigue, so I suspect that even in however many years time, I'll be punched by a PSW for no good reason.

sniffers2• 11 months ago

Doing this is probably a net good but also a bit risky. It creates the impression that there's one experience we all go through as we decline, when in reality it's pretty wildly different. It's helpful to build some empathy, but also a limited understanding.

For instance, these suits might restrict movement but they don't simulate hip or knee pain. They don't simulate shortness of breath, etc. It certainly doesn't induce cognitive impairment or anxiety. A young healthy person might wear one of these and go, "it's not soooooo bad.... I could do it why can't they".

squigz4• 11 months ago

Limited understanding is far better than no understanding.

ywxdcgnz• 11 months ago

Ha, you haven't seen the add-on upgrade list:

Knee pain simulator simulating knee problems (1 pair of knee wraps with build-in stimulus elements, incl. bag) 200,00

Kyphosis simulator simulating a hunchback (1 hip belt, 1 neck strap and 1 walking stick, incl. bag) 190,00

COPD simulator simulating shortness of breath (1 rib bandage and 1 adjustable nose clip, incl. cleaning set and bag) 170,00

Tremor simulator simulating trembling hands (2 pairs of gloves in 2 sizes and 1 control unit, incl. bag) 160,00

Tinnitus simulator simulating ringing in the ears (8 tinnitus sounds as MP3 files, free download as part of an order) 0,00

Simulation glasses simulating 6 eye diseases (6 different pairs of glasses in a box) 230,00

Hemiparesis simulator simulating a unilateral paralysis (set of 7 matched components, incl. bag) 390,00

Back pain simulator simulating back problems (set of 2 simulators in 2 sizes, incl. bag) 490,00

And my brain hurts just reading this at no extra cost. I'm going out for a walk now, take a deep breath, soak it all in and enjoy it while it lasts...

https://www.age-simulation-suit.com/download/Price_list.pdf

beezlewax• 11 months ago

I tried on an obesity simulation suit once. It was designed for caregivers - with the goal of increasing empathy in mind. It was amazing how difficult ordinary tasks were.

paulpauper3• 11 months ago

yeah that is because the weight was sudden and you were not acclimated to it.

hollerith• 11 months ago

Most German thing ever (for post-WWII version of "German").

levzettelin• 11 months ago

As a German, that's exactly what I was thinking lololol

coldcode• 11 months ago

The site is slow so I can't see it. I'm 68, eat well, lost 20 pounds, work out twice a week. Everything is working fine. But I live in a place surrounded by people in walkers, wheelchairs, or using canes. Some of them have had strokes or accidents making improvement hard, but many simply chose to not do anything to avoid the aging. You don't ordinarily wind up with a walker at a single point; it often starts many years or even decades earlier when you failed to keep in decent physical shape. I almost started too late (last couple of years), I can see how easy it is to not notice your physical being slowly going down. But assuming no major injury or disease, you can improve your body at almost any age, a little at a time, and avoid or at least postpone physical aging for quite a while.

I also write code daily, read the same things I read when I worked, thus keep my brain going too. You can't ignore body or mind, you have to keep both in tune.

I am still getting older, but I am in better shape than I was before I retired. The last time I felt as fit was when I was still playing basketball 30+ years ago.

Don't wait, it's easier to do a little for decades than wait until it's almost too late.

MontyCarloHall2• 11 months ago

but many simply chose to not do anything to avoid the aging

Thank you for saying this. A depressingly large proportion of people are seemingly resigned to the fact that once you hit 40-50, you'll inevitably turn into an achy tub of lard and it's rapidly and irreversibly downhill from there.

Barring injuries that are truly irreversible (e.g. severe damage to joints/cartilage), with the correct diet and fitness regime, it's entirely possible to remain lean (≤20% bodyfat) and muscular (≥80th percentile in strength standards [0]) well into what most consider "old age." So many people have no idea just how poorly they eat or how inactive and physically weak they are, and consider the result to just be a normal part of life.

I also write code daily, read the same things I read when I worked, thus keep my brain going too. You can't ignore body or mind, you have to keep both in tune.

Thanks for saying this too. So much cognitive decline is due to inactivity of the mind. My mom was whip smart until she retired in her mid-60s to a life of idle leisure, and her mental faculties noticeably deteriorated within a few months. Thankfully, she noticed this and deliberately re-engaged with more intense intellectual pursuits (including consulting part-time in the professional field that she loved), and the improvement was night-and-day.

[0] https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards

stavros3• 11 months ago

I've noticed that the difference between 30 and 40 isn't the level of performance I have, but how quickly performance drops when I stop exercising. In my 30s, I could just not go to the gym for months, and I'd be fine. Now, if I don't go for a few weeks, stuff starts aching.

kulahan7• 11 months ago

My dad is in his mid-70s now, and still swims 3-5 miles a week in the ocean currents and waves. He’s so active and so healthy, I literally have a hard time imagining what he’ll be like when he’s feeble.

15 years ago, we went for a hike at elevation and he actually kicked my ass despite being around 35 years older than me. Crazy stuff. That alone was enough to kick my ass into gear. Now I do sprints and lifting, and I actually enjoy it now that my goal is just “do something for health” rather than “reach a half-ton total across my big-3” or something like that.

specialist• 11 months ago

Yes and: Maintain your balance. Get tested (assessed). Do the exercises. (For anyone who hasn't heard.)

My mom and her bf were hard core. Swimming, biking, running, the works.

They served as one of the hosts for BBC's program Are You Fitter Than a Pensioner? [2010] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tyr5n My mom was 70 at the time. Spoiler: The seniors smoked the youths.

Alas, as with so many: falls -> injury -> idleness -> decline.

Some balance stuff can't be helped. Mom's bf got spells of vertigo; apparently the little balancing sensor bone inside the ear gets loose with age.

peepee19826• 11 months ago

Your mom's boyfriend probably already knows this, but just in case: I once suffered from loose crystals in my inner ear (probably due to stress and burnout) and had such bad vertigo that I thought I was going to die. There are exercises that move the crystals back to where they belong, where they get absorbed and metabolized again. It's called Epley maneuver, and while it can be extremely uncomfortable and should preferably be done under supervision (some people throw up when doing it) it solves the issue quickly and pretty much permanently.

I've heard of people who lived months or years even before figuring this out.

copperx2• 11 months ago

There's some hoping that some maladies of aging such as vertigo are more treatable in the coming decades, for those fortunate to be alive by then.

captainkrtek• 11 months ago

My grandma is 90 and still lives alone, walks around her neighborhood daily, and swims in a community pool outside her back door. She attributes it (I think rightfully) to a lot of walking and activity throughout her life.

Probably some good genes too (her brother is 100, her sister just passed at 104)

paulpauper3• 11 months ago

nah it's not probably. it is certainly is a big role

viking12310• 11 months ago

Aging is such an interesting topic that I find myself thinking about it almost every day but more of from the scientific point of view, like what is going wrong and why is the rate of aging so different in the animal kingdom. There are mammals that can live super long compared to ones in the same species and even same sizes, like some birds I remember 50+ while other do less than 10 years. Then there's something like naked molerat etc, the greenland whale hundreds of years lifespan..

Even between people, like Queen Elizabeth lived relatively long and her mother I think also, if you look at pictures throughout her life she always looked younger than her age IMO. And when she died it was very quick not like drawn out years that many have to endure, many long lived people actually pass very quickly..

If I wasn't in software dev, I think I would be in this field.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aixnlVbmzE8

rootusrootus2• 11 months ago

Reminds me of a guy I knew when I was growing up. At the time he was in his 80s. Walked miles every day, he was in great shape. Still died before 90, so it did not buy him notable longevity, but he was mentally sharp and physically capable up to very near the end. That sounds way better than slowly turning into a vegetable over the last 20 years of your life.

vhcr• 11 months ago

Only 19.7% of men live at least 88 years in the US, let's define notable longevity to be the top 1%, that would imply living at least 99 years.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6_2004.html

thefourthchime• 11 months ago

The age you die shouldn't be an accomplishment. The quality of life is.

port11• 11 months ago

This is linked to the superb concept of Senescence [1].

In 'Exercised', the author goes to great lengths to show how, in some societies, people don't turn into 'vegetables' because they're active and engaged. They just… die eventually, without an awful decay into death.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence

0x1ceb00da• 11 months ago

Could it be survivorship bias? You'll only ever inhabit your own body. You don't know what it's like to be someone else. Some people are built different.

toss1• 11 months ago

In only a very few cases with specific degenerative diseases.

For the other 99.9% of us, the number of studies showing the difference made by exercise, healthy eating, not smoking or drinking alcohol are too numerous to mention.

Ignore the information about exercise at your peril. You can probably use motivated reasoning to convince yourself you are right to remain in your chair and your growing list of ailments have nothing to do with your lack of exercise, and you may even remain convinced until you die. That will not change the opportunity you miss to enjoy decades of better health and life.

To grossly oversimplify it, our bodies literally evolved over billions of years to exercise and rest, eat so we are alternately storing excess energy as fat and removing energy from fat stores, and only eating sugars, alcohols, and inhaling smoke as extremely occasional events. I it stupid to assume switching the routine to sitting most of the time, only storing energy as fat and rarely if ever depleting those stores, and frequently consuming sugar alcohol and smoke would make no difference.

I could regale you with pages of personal experience (fmr intl-class athlete, trained and sedentary for periods of life and observed results) and data, but those are easy enough to find. All I can do is encourage you to change your POV, and start exercising well

You will find the 'built different' is how you build your own body —— weight lifting isn't called "body building" for nothing —— it (along with running and stretching) really does rebuild your body over the course of months.

Good luck and I wish you well on your journey.

thegreatpeter2• 11 months ago

I'm glad this is the #1 post. I love hearing this. Thanks for sharing!

fuzzfactor• 11 months ago

To be realistic, lots of times a simulation would have to capture the feeling of having 6x to 7x the fairly mature adult experience compared to the same person at 30 years old.

And the accompanying multiple of confidence and proven ability to go with it.

Plus a much bigger multiple of both, compared to your younger self at under 30.

You really can do most of the same things after 60, and with maturity it's easy to accept how the big difference is that you wont be doing them as many additional decades into the future.

safety1st• 11 months ago

I didn't realize this until a couple of years ago (in my 40s) but boy did it alter my perspective on life. And I've heard what you're saying here from a couple other people in their 60s too. When you're young you don't really think about it much, health comes for "free."

But as you age your biology will force a choice upon you, one option is you spend progressively more time maintaining your health, in which case it drops off MUCH less than you'd expect. Or you can neglect that maintenance, in which case your quality of life WILL drop off in a big way due to health problems.

That's what it is, it's a choice, one you don't get to opt out of, but there is a path where you're in remarkably good shape for less effort than you would probably assume... for most people even just 2-3 hours a week of moderate exercise at the gym is probably a game changer.

I'm a little worried about the health of younger people today, because I read the statistics about obesity, blood pressure, ED and so on all going up for them. I'm also occasionally taking 20-30 minute walks with people in their 20s, who want to take a car, they're exhausted at the end of it, and they can't keep up with me. I get it, I was like that a couple years ago before I started hitting the gym, but really, at 25, you can't handle under a half hour of brisk walking? Oof, habits sure have changed.

dtn• 11 months ago

When you're young you don't really think about it much, health comes for "free."

I can't stress this enough. So many of my peers have complained about back pain and other physical ailments, as if it was an unavoidable part of turning 30.

No, it didn't just suddenly appear the moment you turned 30, it's the symptom of accumulated damage from a sedentary lifestyle.

For what it's worth, I've managed to get a lot of them into fitness, and they're doing much better now

viking12310• 11 months ago

I am around 30 and at least still I feel same as 20. Although I try to walk at least 30 min per day but the city I live in Asia is really shit for walking so it ends up being through shopping malls or some park.

Also I have been taking metformin (daily) and rapamycin (weekly) since like age 24 not sure they have helped but it's easy to buy here so I am giving it a try. I also use sunscreen if I go out during the midday which I rarely do in the tropics..

jongjong• 11 months ago

My grandma is 90 and seems like she hasn't aged at all since I was a child. She is still fit and independent. She eats whatever she wants. She went to the doctor for a checkup and told him that she eats cake and pastries almost every day and asked if that was alright; the doctor looked at her test results and literally told her "Mrs... You can eat as much sugar as you want." It's kind of funny that she is the longest living of all my grandparents because she was the least neurotic about her health to the point of negligence.

She would constantly bake rich chocolate cakes and thick hot drinking chocolate for herself and grandchildren and when she cooked pasta, she would put ketchup + mayonnaise on top. All the recipes she knows are quick/easy and supposedly unhealthy. She literally doesn't know how to make a salad. I've never seen her eat a salad.

dcminter• 11 months ago

This is a bit like the "my grandad smoked a pack a day and it never hurt him" anecdotes where, yes, they're remarkable because it killed all the others who tried it !

arethuza2• 11 months ago

I'm turning 60 later this month - biggest thing I've recently done on the wellbeing front is getting a dog - suddenly I'm walking 10km every day (on average) and talking to a lot more people - I had no idea how sociable dog walking is!

defyonce• 11 months ago

I run 4 days a week (4km per day), fast for two days (72 hours total) do two gym strength workouts, one sauna session, and two Zumba classes. I also do cold showers daily. Floating once a week, facial ferment therapy once a week.

And still, I feel like hell today (and it is only Friday morning)

I used to run half a marathon every Thursday in a fasted (36 hours) state, but now I can't, I became weak and frail. Aging gets us all!

philipov• 11 months ago

Can I get a suit that simulates being 20 years old again?

ahartmetz• 11 months ago

The harder kinds of stimulants maybe?

AdrianoKF• 11 months ago

Reminds me of the AGNES [0] (Age Gain Now Empathy System), developed at MIT AgeLab. Saw it in action there back when I worked at the lab in the early 10s - I found the broad range of applications in research quite intriguing.

[0] https://agelab.mit.edu/methods/agnes-age-gain-now-empathy-sy...

sans_souse3• 11 months ago

I guess I'm the only one who thought this was literally a joke. If anyone is interested I have the orange tinted 90's ski goggles, weights for arms and legs, and I'll even throw in some mothballs and baby powder no additional charge.

Do people really need something this extravagant not too mention ridiculous looking in order to just relate to other humans? In order to empathize? Is it so hard to "take someone's word" for how they feel, that we need to feel it too? I've never had a Kidney Stone in my life, and I'm not signing up for one because I don't need to "see it to believe it."

But if it sells I say Kudos to the creator. I'm just shocked there's a niche here.

squigz4• 11 months ago

Because there's a big difference between having empathy for another's pain and actually understanding what it's like, even to a slight degree. For example, I'm severely visually impaired; I would not expect a deaf person to truly understand what that's like, just as I don't understand what a deaf person's life is like; that doesn't stop either of us from having empathy for the other though.

If this helps people empathize who otherwise wouldn't... isn't that good? Can we just not be glad that people can gain some more understanding of what the elderly go through?

sans_souse3• 11 months ago

Ok, I realize that came out as quite negative/sarcastic, not meant to offend anyone. I stand by the overall comment though. You don't have to have the extent of the experience another person has had to relate/empathize.

sandworm101• 11 months ago

There is a flip side to these suits. They are meant to engender understanding and empathy. Occassionally, it goes wrong. Experience all the physical limitation and some come to the conclusion that old people should not be allowed to drive or operate anything that moves.

(I once had my foot run over by an elderly person in very heavy electric wheelchair in a grocery store. If not for my steel toes, i would have been limping for months. That person was totally unable to control the machine, but what can you say? Better my boots than a kid in flipflops.)

meindnoch• 11 months ago

The opposite would be more useful for me.

amelius2• 11 months ago

Also simulates the loss of physical attractiveness.

eth0up• 11 months ago

To my abstract, scifi inclined mind, this is the potential beginning to what I'd coin The Humble Suit: A suit that simulates a vast array of infirmities legitimately experienced by the muted, ignored, but equally entitled minority. In my fictional world, intelligence isn't an exclusive measurement of one's ability to exploit and exhibit usefulness for the system that owns them, but also includes understanding, empathy and awareness of aspects of reality beyond the exclusively immediately financially lucrative.

In an era where reading and compassion is secondary to entertainment and profiteering, one could wear the suit to experience a temporary intermission of not being oneself as the pinnacle of reality.

I do foresee challenges though, particularly with the probable result for many being the opposite of compassion, where one would dismiss the significance or challenges of, eg, being quadriplegic because they spent 20 minutes in the suit and have 'been there, done that'. Controlling for this outcome might require an advanced form of unknown technology. But if that could be wangled, we might have the means of creating additional nodes of compassion within our social machine that could keep the gears a bit more free of wailing meat.

A practical result of this could be laughing less (see conservation of calories for utilitarians) at the guy with Parkinson's that's unloading your shopping cart into your luxury car, shaking in the rain, or something.

There would definitely need to be built-in mitigation to steer the results away from self-righteousness and toward compassion though. Perhaps some time dilation and mushroom supplements could help.

tasty_freeze• 11 months ago

People are chiming in about the importance of diet and exercise to avoid (statistically) the decrepitude of old age. Another one I'll add is to use sunscreen and limiting sun exposure via hats and such.

I'm in the southern US and my grandparents came from Ireland. I've never been a beech-goer, or tried to get a tan (not that it would really work anyway). When I was a kid, on the handful of times our family went to a beach for day, my brothers and I would end up with massive water blisters and we would have competitions to see who could pull the longest continuous strip of skin. I'm 61 now and my arms and back neck look like it -- loss of elasticity, spotted, any cuts on my arms produce scabs that take weeks to heal.

But if you look at the skin on my upper arms, shoulders, or torso, which are nearly always covered by a shirt, you wouldn't be able to tell if I was 20 or 60. That skin is soft, pliable, and heals more quickly.

I've had five basal cell carcinoma spots sliced off the back or nape of my neck so far. Use sunscreen.

quesera• 11 months ago

Kurt Vonnegut, on the topics of youth, aging, and sunscreen:

https://people.uncw.edu/schmidt/Index_files/Vonnegut/KVspeec...

Age Simulation Suit

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