Why We Need a War on Aging

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001669.php

by MikeCapone • 17 years ago

24 100 17 years ago

jsmcgd• 17 years ago

<cynic>Alternative title: "Concepts, that if accepted by many people, would make funding much easier"</cynic>

<devil's advocate>Death by old age is there by (non-intelligent) design. It's no accident (leaving aside the process of natural selection).</devil's advocate>

I've said it before on Hacker News, I'm indifferent towards life extension. The pros and cons are very evident but one doesn't seem to trump the other. I'm very much undecided on the issue and would like to be otherwise.

dasil0038• 17 years ago

I find this longevity research very disconcerting, especially the tone of this page in particular.

It's thinly veiled egotism to say "people should not grow old and die". What the advocate is really saying is, "I'm terrified of death and I will do anything to prevent it, no matter the consequences to society or humanity".

I'm reminded of Tolkien's Akallabeth.

Death is the fundamental strength of all species. Sure we should try to pursue advances in health care that improve longevity, but attacking the cause of aging itself is abhorrently idiotic.

gravitycop19• 17 years ago

attacking the cause of aging itself is abhorrently idiotic.

Because it is good for society that 30-year-olds, because of aging-related processes, tend to have lower IQ's (and worse joints, poorer eyesight, poorer hearing, etc.) than 20-year-olds?

asciilifeform2• 17 years ago

> Death is the fundamental strength of all species.

I hope you increase the fundamental strength of our species really soon.

rbanffy• 17 years ago

Aging is a degenerative disease most lifeforms have that's 100% fatal.

It's somewhat like that xkcd strip, http://xkcd.com/203/

run4yourlives9• 17 years ago

One concern I see with destroying aging is that it will most certainly result in the destruction of a very precise cycle of evolutionary innovation, even within our species. It's like a giant "no retirement" program, never allowing younger generations to be placed into positions were they are forced to create change, innovate and fail; all the while bettering the human race.

It's no accident that innovation comes mostly from youth - the inexperience that makes you foolish occasionally creates species changing progress.

This is the Pandora's box of unintended consequences, all in the name of refusing to accept a key aspect of the human condition.

Evolution has almost exclusively adopted destructive aging processes in every form of life on the planet. The fact that we can't conclusively answer why this is so is reason enough not to temp fate in this way.

Jebdm5• 17 years ago

"Evolution has almost exclusively adopted destructive aging processes in every form of life on the planet. The fact that we can't conclusively answer why this is so is reason enough not to temp fate in this way."

I'd say it's pretty obvious, although I'm no biologist: natural selection doesn't "care" how long you live, as long as you live long enough to have (and possibly raise) kids.

dasil0038• 17 years ago

If you live too long you take resources away from your offspring.

run4yourlives9• 17 years ago

If your statement was true, death wouldn't be so wide spread. Clearly, evolution is very opinionated on the matter.

robotrout2• 17 years ago

You're right that aging seems to have an evolutionary advantage. That advantage is increased diversity within a species. Super successful individuals, who would otherwise "take over" a species, are replaced, so that other strains can get a chance. Diversity in a species is as important as diversity in a stock portfolio. What's working great today, may not work great tomorrow, so portfolios and species that survive plagues, asteroids, and global warming fanatics tend to be diversified.

However....

I contend that the human race has moved beyond evolution. No longer do only the fittest survive. We protect our weak and stupid, and they mate just as frequently and successfully as our strong and smart. We've wrestled the destiny of our species away from evolution, and taken control of it ourselves.

Now, how that experiment turns out, it's too early to tell. So far, so good. But since the ship has already sailed anyway, any argument that something is "against evolution" is a moot argument.

I would like to live for longer than 100 years myself, so I admit to being a bit biased on this issue. I think a case can be made that the "best and the brightest" of our current governing and business class could use some augmentation. We've had some great leaders in our past, it might be nice if they were still active. Closer to our hearts here, what if we still had Richard Feynman? What if we still had Arthur C Clarke? Wouldn't the world probably be better? We are not so brimming with extra talent that we can just throw it away after a few decades.

Jebdm5• 17 years ago

I don't know that increasing longevity would decrease diversity, because increased longevity doesn't necessarily open up the "window of opportunity" for having kids.

dasil0038• 17 years ago

Good point, but I would just add that evolution doesn't go away just because we are affecting it consciously. At best it just means we are responsible for our own evolution, which of course leads to the question, "do we collectively think it's best for reproduction to decrease and lifespans to increase?"

You've answered one way by citing the best and brightest. I would answer another way by saying that I think the best and brightest are outnumbered 100 to 1 by greedy individuals leveraging their wealth to consolidate power.

netcan2• 17 years ago

>> That advantage is increased diversity within a species.

Actually evolution doesn't really work like that. Traits will rarely evolve to the benefit of a species. Evolution operates much more strongly at the individual level & even more strongly at the gene level.

It's discussed some place in the video belos but I don't remember which part (of 6). Worth watching if you're interested anyway. Otherwise, the evolutionary reason given there for aging is an evolutionary bias for 'fixing' diseases that affect the young. A disease, deadly at 5 years old is more of a problem for lifetime reproductions then something deadly at 20 which is more of a problem then something at 30 etc. I'm not sure if this explains aging in it's entirety, but it seems like a logical part.

None of your ancestors died at infancy. Very few are likely to have died younger then 15. You can probably trace some that died younger then 25. It would be unusual not to have some within memory that died younger then 50.

Since ancestral humans probably rarely lived (reproduced or contributed to the reproduction of their offspring) past 40-50, it's not surprising that there are many issues unique to this life stage that have had very little evolutionary tweaking done.

What I would like to ask/say (Richard, if you're reading, speak up) is that this might explain why old age illnesses are more severe. It doesn't do much to explain the discrepancies in young/old illnesses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcnCJqDa1us

run4yourlives9• 17 years ago

Interesting points. I agree that it is most certain that evolution from a natural sense is something we have forced ourselves out of.

I worry though that the further down that path we venture, the more likely we are to hasten our demise. A few thousand years is nothing to evolution. As long as we are completely reliant and subject to its rules - and we are, we are at it's mercy. Our insistence on protecting our weak, and encouraging their procreation is almost certainly a dead end, evolution wise. The clock is already ticking, and it's not if, but when and how bad. Hell, segments of our population die from immediate peanut exposure - good grief!

We are not so brimming with extra talent that we can just throw it away after a few decades.

I'm not sure I agree with this. I think we are. What our current society is poor at though IMO is recognizing and developing that talent. For every Feynmen, there are thousands that "drop out" due primarily to artificial pressures.

rsheridan65• 17 years ago

Evolution is still happening. It's not weeding out what you call the weak and the stupid, but that's not its job - it only selects those who are best adapted to their environment, whatever that may be.

Some people are still having 8 kids, some are having 2, and some are having none. This is not randomly distributed across genotypes, so some are being selected.

jodrellblank6• 17 years ago

The fact that we can't conclusively answer why this is so is reason enough not to temp fate in this way.

No, it isn't. We're talking about death here. It's not like the alternative could be any worse.

justin• 17 years ago

For you, not for the race.

mhartl2• 17 years ago

Those stubborn humans: they're always tempting fate by learning to hunt, farm, write, sail, smelt, fly, and compute. If only they would accept the human condition as their ineluctable fate: they would then learn the wisdom of dying, and welcome Death with happiness and joy!

jacquesm3• 17 years ago

Death is probably what is driving us towards all our progress, after all if you live forever why do anything today, you might as well put it off until tomorrow.

Fear of death is a natural thing, just as natural as dying.

Long term my money is on the grim reaper, he'll just have to get a bit more inventive in case we breed out of control. If we haven't already passed that point.

jodrellblank6• 17 years ago

Just as natural as dying of diarrhea, exposure, septicemia, TB, polio, contaminated water, aids, starvation...

"Natural" != "good" or "desirable".

I don't want to give up clothes, shelter, clean water and farming just to be 'natural', nor do I want to accept aging just because it's 'natural'.

jacquesm3• 17 years ago

Well, wanting to accept it and having to accept it are two very different things.

The age of something is simply the measurement of elapsed time since something came into its present configuration. A 'war on aging' makes as much sense as a war on pi or a war on stone, aging is a simple fact, easily observed and unavoidable.

cmars232• 17 years ago

Hmm, not without space colonization to match the demand for real estate and natural resources.

MikeCapone2• 17 years ago

Birth rates are falling rapidly in the developed world, and they'd be a lot more spaced out if we had bodies like 30-years old for a long time. More than enough time for technology to increase out productivity to support these people.

jodrellblank6• 17 years ago

3001: The Final Odyssey. Skyscrapers to geostationary orbit.

gravitycop19• 17 years ago

Most of the space humans take up is accounted-for by farming. Farming need not take up as much space as it currently does: http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR0...

PhytoFarm techniques could feed a hundred times the world's present population - say 500 billion people - with factory buildings a hundred stories high, on one percent of present farmland. To put it differently, if you raise your bed to triple bunk-bed height, you can grow enough food on the two levels between the floor and your bed to supply your nutritional needs. [...]

Only two hundred years ago, half of the diet of Sauk and Mesquakie Native Americans came from hunting, and "It took 7,000 acres to support one human." Phytofarm's one acre, which supports 500 or 1,000 people, represents an increase in productivity per acre a million times over compared with the Native Americans. [...]

Nor is this any "ultimate" limit. Rather, these gains are just the result of research over the past few decades [...] It is likely that before the world gets to 500 billion people, or even to 10 billion, the maximum output per acre will be increased much beyond what PhytoFarm achieves now.

brianobush• 17 years ago

well, at least real-estate prices would rise.

MikeCapone2• 17 years ago

If you want to actually help with scientific research in areas that traditional big pharma DOESN'T cover, please donate to the Methuselah Foundation:

http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=mj_do...

Thanks!

peregrine• 17 years ago

I'd rather have this only for the smartest, to keep them immortal during their prime.

jacquesm3• 17 years ago

What you'll get is the opposite, geriatrics with the vote making laws against 'newcomers'.

juliend2• 17 years ago

I think a good start would be to do some physical exercise...

Ah well, just give me this pill so i can live longer!

dmm2• 17 years ago

Thus you can throw yourself flat on the ground, stretched out upon Mother Earth, with the certain conviction that you are one with her and she with you. You are as firmly established, as invulnerable as she, indeed a thousand times firmer and more invulnerable. As surely as she will engulf you tomorrow, so surely will she bring you forth anew to the new striving and suffering. And not merely "some day." Now, today, every day she is bringing you forth, not once but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day she engulfs you a thousand times over.

- Erwin Schroedinger, My View of the World, 1964, p.21

dmm2• 17 years ago

You can never live forever. If we don't die of old age we will die accidentally. I imagine car accidents alone would restrict most people to a few hundred years.

gravitycop19• 17 years ago

I imagine car accidents alone would restrict most people to a few hundred years.

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

  Fatalities per 100 Million
  Vehicle Miles Traveled: 1.37

At that rate, if one drove 10,000 miles per year of his life, he could expect to live around 7,300 years.

Also, accident rates do not exist in a vacuum. They are affected by other risk factors, such as heart-disease and cancer, such that a world with less death from disease could be expected to be less risky in other ways as well. If the number one risk of death in your world were accidents, wouldn't you try to compensate for that by being more cautious?

weavejester5• 17 years ago

If we ever get to the point where we can back up our consciousness, we could ensure there was enough redundant storage to make an accidental erasure of all copies a very unlikely event.

fdschoeneman• 17 years ago

I think we have too many wars going on right now: The war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on teenage pregnancy, the war on illiteracy. Plus the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And they all seem to have Czar's, you know? But the thing about wars is that they're black & white. Us against them. Good vs. bad. And aging just isn't like that. I mean it's cool having a war to go after Osama Bin Laden. I think most of us can get behind that one. But I don't think that most of us can get all motivated and suited up to fight, claw, struggle and sacrifice so that baby boomers can have a few more years in charge. So Sylvester Stallone can make Rambo 18. So tenured professors can keep their jobs forever. Or so that a bunch of dirty hippies can sit around in their nanotechnology enhanced 150 year old bodies telling kids about how awesome the 60's were and how lucky those kids are to have all that debt.

eru4• 17 years ago

A war on wars?

jamesbritt• 17 years ago

or maybe just a war on "war on"

c1sc0• 17 years ago

I completely and wholeheartedly disagree. Here's why: it is uncertainty, pain and infirmity I am afraid of, not death.

We don't need a war on aging, we need a war on suffering. Not because of some wishy-washy feel-good philosophy, but simply because it is crucial for the survival of our species. Which currently depends as much on innovation as it does on adaptation (evolution). We need to improve overall quality of life so we can tackle the challenges ahead instead of worrying about food, shelter, resources, infirmity and old age.

I'd be even more ambitious and say we need a war on long-term, trans-generational suffering. Why? Because it seems like some of the problems we are facing today as a species cannot be solved in a single lifetime, not even an enhanced lifetime.

Let's solve the natural resources problem first, then tackle aging, maybe ... I'll concede this: the 'death problem' is worth solving, but who said it needs to be solved in your generation?

gravitycop19• 17 years ago

I [...] disagree. [...] it is uncertainty, pain and infirmity I am afraid of, not death. [...] We don't need a war on aging, we need a war on suffering.

You don't think it is possible to be aged (senesced), but not dead? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=466749

Could you call your war on suffering, a war on senescence? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence

asciilifeform2• 17 years ago

If you oppose anti-aging treatments, refuse to take them. But of course, you want to decide for the rest of us. Well, death lovers: you first! How about right now? For the good of the species! What, no takers? I smell rancid hypocrisy.

Anyone opposing anti-aging research should be seen as trying to kill you and treated accordingly.

On a different note, "war" is very much the wrong metaphor to use when promoting a research effort: http://yarchive.net/med/conspiracies.html

Why We Need a War on Aging

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