Harvard Prof. Says Cure For Aging Could Emerge Within 5 Years (washingtonpost.com) 385
trbdavies writes: Reporting from the CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) gene-editing summit in D.C., the Washington Post quotes Harvard genetics professor George Church as expressing "confidence that in just five or six years he will be able to reverse the aging process in human beings." He says: "A scenario is, everyone takes gene therapy — not just curing rare diseases like cystic fibrosis, but diseases that everyone has, like aging," CRISPR is a powerful technology, but many at the summit have expressed caution about both the ethics and the feasibility of using it to cure disease. The story quotes Klaus Rajewsky, of the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine saying "We have become masters in the art of manipulating genes, but our understanding of their function and interaction is far more limited."
Fantastic! (Score:5, Funny)
That should coincide with the perfection of nuclear fusion reactors and the release of Hurd 1.0.
Re:Fantastic! (Score:5, Insightful)
With the difference being that unlike nuclear fusion and HURD, a lot of old, rich people have a vested interest in a cure for aging.
Re:Fantastic! (Score:4, Funny)
With the difference being that unlike nuclear fusion and HURD, a lot of old, rich people have a vested interest in a cure for aging.
Fine with me - as long as I get my frickin' flying car.
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Am I the only one concerned by the name for this??
I can just imagine it now... "Here you are, sir, just have a lie down in the CRISPR, and your life will never be the same."
o_O
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Good. And after they perfect it, if they horde it this way then the rest of us can steal it!
Even if the 1%ers of today managed to get there hands on such technology and hold on to it realy realy tightly so that the rest of us continue to age for the next several generations it would not last forever. Eventually they will lose control, perhaps through a 'whistleblower type' among them growing a conscience and publishing directions on the internet, maybe through an outsider stealing the formula or even just a
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Re: Fantastic! (Score:5, Insightful)
How cute. You believe that you can get rich. By "hard work", I assume?
That's really adorable!
Re: Fantastic! (Score:5, Interesting)
stepping on people to get ahead is not easy, otherwise everyone would be doing it
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Re:Fantastic! (Score:4, Funny)
That should coincide with the perfection of nuclear fusion reactors and the release of Hurd 1.0.
Stranger things have happened. Duke Nukem Forever actually got released ...
Sounds great - too great (Score:4, Interesting)
That would certainly be wonderful, and I'm sure it's theoretically possible at one point, but I wonder if it's a bit overoptimistic. I mean a lot overoptimistic.
If they are going to solve this problem in five years I don't need to worry at all about diet and exercise, right? What an excuse for not taking good care of myself....
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Well, I can believe that in 5 or 6 years we will have some manner of gene therapy that will counter some aging effects but I also expect it to be prohibitively expensive for anyone who is not a billionaire and have severe, unforeseen side effects in the first few rounds.
Personally, I am not a huge fan of the idea of living effectively forever if it just means that I am only working for my next gene therapy.
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Personally, I am not a huge fan of the idea of living effectively forever if it just means that I am only working for my next gene therapy.
I could take that for awhile if costs would eventually go down.
Re:Sounds great - too great (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, then, sign me up for YOUR spot on the list.
I do want to live forever....hell, if the vampire thing was real, I'd do it in a heartbeat!!
Seriously....
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Re:Sounds great - too great (Score:5, Interesting)
My brain has room for approximately 500 years of unedited memories; I don't know how it handles overload, but I suspect it will remove the least-used. The problem is memories aren't discrete: they're built out of piles of association, and removing one part of the memory removes a *lot* of memories.
Geriatrics to make you about 30-40 years old until you're about 300 would be cool. 1000-year lives would probably suck.
Re:Sounds great - too great (Score:5, Interesting)
That would certainly be wonderful, and I'm sure it's theoretically possible at one point, but I wonder if it's a bit overoptimistic. I mean a lot overoptimistic.
If they are going to solve this problem in five years I don't need to worry at all about diet and exercise, right? What an excuse for not taking good care of myself....
Now that is a very interesting comment. I think it speaks to the odd puritanical streak in some folks, that somehow being healthy without sacrifice is bad. Certainly I'd like a way to not have to got to extremes for physical fitness. At my physical height, I bicycled 30 miles per day, ran 3 miles per day, and did weights every other day. Top it off with three Ice Hockey games a week.
Now whether or not that would make me live longer - which I doubt - it did give me some wicked CV stamina. Ruined my legs though. But in the end, and in retrospect. It was just about all I did for many years outside of work. That Calvanistic streak coupled with the idea that all we have to do is "take care of ourselves" simply ain't all that.
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Do you feel like the running is what did leg damage? I have hypothesized this myself. When I am only cycling and not even walking long distances, my legs and feet feel great. But I always regret hiking or running too much.
Running had a lot to do with the knees. Ice hockey was nasty to the ankles and hips oddly enough.
I suspect also that some folks are more amenable to running than others. I don't think I was one of them.
Anyhow, cycling is still fine and hiking hiking still okay as long as I wear an articulated brace on the knees and good boots. It hurts, but so does aging, and the world is beautiful - so it's ibuprofen and tahellwidit.
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If someone follows your advice while running on any kind of pavement, they're going to have a really bad time. Humans weren't meant to run on pavement at all; that's why we have modern running shoes. We were evolved to run around in the savannahs of Africa. Unless you happen to live there, then the environment just doesn't match what we're evolved for.
And hiking on craggy rocks without proper hiking boots is idiotic in the extreme.
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No thanks, I'll pass. I hate running for any distance (I can do sprints just great though). If I want cardio exercise, I'll get on my bike; I can go much farther, much faster, and not subject my leg joints to impact-related problems. It doesn't help that I have flat feet either.
But the other thing I was addressing before from the OP's post was the bit about hiking, as while I'm not an endurance runner, I do do a lot of hiking. Hiking in some thin-soled shoe that has no ankle support is just stupid, unle
Re:Sounds great - too great (Score:4, Insightful)
I was here to say exactly this.
I am late to the sport of running (started 6 years ago, at age 36), but I recognized that many runners I had talked to in the past complained of injuries as a result of running.
Come back in 30 yers with 36 year old legs, and I'll belive all of that.
As much great fun as it is to blame people's physical ailments on what they did "wrong", just like aging, I suspct there is more in genetics than anything else.
I played and exercised hard compared to most people. It wore my lower body out. Some from repetitive stress injuries, some from general injuries, a lot from genetics. This is not really all that unusual. Old jocks often have a lot of leg problems, and the natural runners from long ago usually didn't make it to their 60's, so how do we know they were doing it right?
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Interesting observations. I'd love to be in good health without having to work for it. For that matter, I should probably start working for it...
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Bicycling isn't high impact (though running is). Bicycling is a good cardiovascular workout, but there's pretty much zero impact since the motion is so smooth.
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That would certainly be wonderful
Are you sure? I've always found it ironic that people who can't find anything to do on a Sunday afternoon, still want to live forever.
If they are going to solve this problem in five years I don't need to worry at all about diet and exercise, right? What an excuse for not taking good care of myself....
On the contrary - note they talk about 'a cure for aging', not a cure for everything else that afflicts us. We are beginning to narrow down what senescence actually is, thus becoming more able to think about counteracting it. And we still don't really know if we will be able to live forever, or whether we will just be able to live healthily for longer. And even if we could, w
Re:Sounds great - too great (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you sure? I've always found it ironic that people who can't find anything to do on a Sunday afternoon, still want to live forever.
I am not the kind of person who can't find anything to do on a Sunday afternoon. I have an extremely full and happy life and would love to add 10, 20, 100, 500 years to that.
Sundays afternoons are actually when I frequently nap because I'm so exhausted from the rest of the week!
And we still don't really know if we will be able to live forever, or whether we will just be able to live healthily for longer
As a practical matter it's always about getting past the next obstacle rather than living forever. Defeat one cause of death and you are on to the next, which may not even be discovered yet.
And even if we could, would it be desirable to live forever? Would anybody want to go on after 200 years? How about 500? 1000? 10000? 1 million? 1 billion?
Those who don't desire it certainly wouldn't have to do it. And those who want to keep going are certainly welcome to, assuming of course that they aren't doing it at the expense of others.
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You've read too much Robert Heinlein.
5 years? (Score:3)
Bullshit (Score:2)
Aging is one of the main drivers for many incurable diseases like Alzheimer, Parkinson but anyway I find it difficult to "cure" aging before solving riddles like cancer.
Bill Gates (Score:2)
Good Bye SSA & the US Economy (Score:2)
Longer living people in retirement will doom the economics that the whole country requires to operate. The existing Social Security system is already insolvent actuarially. A "Cure for Aging" would just make it collapse sooner.
To maintain the economics of US society, it would become mandatory to work until you are 85 or 90 years old.
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Our problem isn't that people get older. That could be fixed by letting people work longer. Our problem is that people get older but do not age in a healthy way. Yes, people to their 80s routinely today. But more and more of them are by no means able to do any meaningful work anymore by the time they hit 60. You can't have people work 'til they're 80 because they are in no condition anymore to do any sensible work long before they even get close to 80.
THAT is the problem. If we can age AND stay healthy, all
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Say what? Look, I've been defending retirement at 65 for a long time because there are too many jobs (think roofers and miners) that are too physically demanding to keep up. On the other hand, I have professors who are past 70 and still scary sharp. One who gets around with a walker but can reason rings around people half his age in his field (materials physics.)
The thing is, it depends
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Yep, this would certainly have the potential to be the most disruptive technology ever... if it comes to pass it will certainly have the potential to topple the status quo...
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This Kurzweilian future shows that Social Security should not be the ponzi scheme it is now but instead be pooled individual retirement accounts.
Bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
Conveniently in time to enable the professor to live forever, right?
Bullshit. There's even a name for this idiocy: the Maes–Garreau law. [wikipedia.org]
So far, medical science has done essentially nothing whatsoever to stop ageing from killing us. Instead, current medicine stops us dying prematurely of other causes. I see no reason at all to think we're just going 'solve' ageing overnight, as the professor seems to think.
The entire argument seems to be something something gene editing. Not good enough.
These things tend to improve incrementally, and if we're lucky, medical science may soon take the first step in combating ageing.
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More specifically, medicine has been able to extend life on average by reducing death from causes other than aging, but it hasn't been able to increase maximum life span.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
So far, medical science has done essentially nothing whatsoever to stop ageing from killing us. Instead, current medicine stops us dying prematurely of other causes.
This is in no small part due to a moving of the goal-posts. Medicine has done quite a bit to address many problems with aging. People are able to live much longer lives despite the aging of the cardio-vascular system. As medicine has improved in these areas, the bits that they are good at have their own names and are removed from the 'aging' bucket. Now, with those items removed, 'aging' is only left with things that medicine hasn't yet figured out.
I see no reason at all to think we're just going 'solve' ageing overnight, as the professor seems to think.
Admittedly, the claim being made here is rather optimistic, but it isn't entirely without merit. There is an open question about how difficult the aging problem really is. Aging *could* be surprisingly simple, with just a few genes needing to be tweaked to stop chemical timers that kill cells and inhibit healing. We have many examples of creatures which effectively don't age or even reverse aging during certain events, so we may just need to find analogues in humans, turn them on, and bam, we stop aging. It could be that the only reason we haven't done this previously is we didn't have the right tools for analyzing and altering genes until the last decade or so.
Of course, we probably don't have enough information to know how difficult a problem aging is going to be. Even if this claim is accurate, it is likely that anything it creates will just uncover new problems which will, in turn, need addressing. On the other hand, we thought that gastric ulcers were a hard problem and when a researcher suggested that treatment for most could be as simple as taking a course of antibiotics, he was laughed out of the room.
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This is in no small part due to a moving of the goal-posts.
No it isn't moving the goal posts. Unless you are literal believer in the story of Methuselah, we have never observed any human living longer than 125 years or so. Plenty of people have lived into their 100s before most of what we consider modern medicine was available. They just had to be incredibly lucky to live that long without something else coming along to kill them first.
Now more and more people are living to that age, they don't have to be as lucky because many of the things that would have kille
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
This is in no small part due to a moving of the goal-posts.
No it isn't moving the goal posts.
It depends on what you think the "goal posts" are. I would argue that the opposite of "aging" isn't "living forever." It's, well, NOT AGING.
What is "aging"? Most of it associate it with the kind of stuff you and GP both bring up, i.e., gradual degradation in various parts of the body and mind. One can cure "aging" partially by reducing that sort of degradation.
Unless you are literal believer in the story of Methuselah, we have never observed any human living longer than 125 years or so. Plenty of people have lived into their 100s before most of what we consider modern medicine was available. They just had to be incredibly lucky to live that long without something else coming along to kill them first.
Again, stopping aging is a separate issue from life extension. Suppose you had a car whose engine was just going to die around 200,000 miles no matter what -- it was just part of the design. But the other parts would gradually degrade, meaning that the best part of the lifespan of the car was the first 50,000 miles, followed by random repairs and problems for the next 50,000, and at that point you'd be better off just selling the car because after 100,000 miles the thing just required repair after repair to just keep it going. The engine was still good, but it had "aged" and become useless.
But what if you could "cure" that aging for all the other car parts and have a car that ran great for all 200,000 miles of the engine's lifespan? I think almost everyone would agree that that would be fantastic and would be a significant advance in "reducing the aging" of the vehicle. Even though it completely "died" at the same time, curing "aging" is still a significant improvement and benefit.
And in that sense, we ARE moving the goalposts, because many of those traditional elements of aging can be delayed or halted for a while -- which allows more and more people to make use of those "extra miles" getting up toward 100 years.
So here is the question: if you can give me some gene therapy that will prevent me from just sorta shutting down in my middle 90s, as so many of my relatives have great, but how does that mean I die ultimately. Does it mean I am going stroke out or something. Does it mean I am going to live for years with conditions that are debilitating? Is that even what I want.
Again, you're confusing aging with life extension. The very definition of "curing aging" has to do with keeping you in a state where you aren't debilitated by the problems of "old age." If you just extend life, you haven't actually cured aging.
For my own anecdote, the sister of one of my great-grandparents lived to 106. I remember going to visit her when she was 102 and finding her in the garden vigorously digging and turning over the soil. Even when she was 100 years old, she probably looked (and apparently felt) like somebody who was typically 70 or 75, maybe younger.
Figuring out how to do THAT sort of thing would actually be working toward a cure for aging. Personally, I don't know whether I'd want to live much more than 100 years (if that). But if you told me I could live those full 100 years in great health, I'd commend you for curing aging and raise a toast to you.
The people seeking immortality are the crazier ones. The ones who just want to stop aging are pursuing a more useful goal.
If it is possible... (Score:2)
As it stands my own continued existence is a product of gene therapy, and it's not even entirely human DNA. This being such a radical treatment, it was the sort of thing we all scoffed at before it was demonstrate
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If this is flat out not possible, then it just won't happen.
The day is just getting started, but I feel confident in awarding you the prize for Profound Comment of the Day.
Now, where did I put that medal?
Great (Score:3)
Just in time so I can go on forever in my flying car.
Somebody wants to land some grant $$$... (Score:3)
Not in five years, maybe not in fifty; this is so absurdly over-optimistic, it's not even funny.
http://xkcd.com/1605/ [xkcd.com]
We know SO LITTLE about how genes actually function to produce, well, you, the idea that we can, within five years, figure out which genes are "responsible" for aging and turn them off/around is ridiculous. The amount of feedback looping going on, even if we knew which genes produced which raw proteins, is so twisted that even figuring out the protein synthesis process itself requires super-computers, much less figuring out how all those proteins interact with your body.
We heard all this very same talk when the first Human Genome Project results were released. Please tell me what grand advances that has brought us, other than a few diagnostic tests, and some treatments for a couple rare diseases.
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I think this is indeed all about grant money.
What we do know to do with gene-therapy is not even remotely on the level of the sorcerer's apprentice.
Give this question another 50 years, and maybe we will know a bit more and maybe even be able to make predictions that have some merit.
Five years? (Score:2)
Is "in just 5 or 6 years" the universal code for "I have an idea, it doesn't work, but I need to get some PR in the meantime"?
Because when I see it I mostly think "sure, whatever, tell me about it in 5 years when it actually happens".
So many things come along and say "in 5 years", and then 5 years later we hear nothing more about it.
I've taken to assuming that all such claims are pretty much bullshit. Stopping aging in 5 years? Yeah, I'll stick with my assumption this is bullshit too.
Waxing philosophical (Score:2)
I was thinking that, in the future, people are going to look back on us, much like we look back at old black and white films and realize that everyone pictured is now dead, and feel sorry for us because we lived before some major breakthrough was made that prolongs life extensively. We will have existed on one side of that technological divide along with billions that have lived and died before us, who were relegated to natural lifespans. They will look back on us and wonder how things may have been if ou
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I was thinking that, in the future, people are going to look back on us, much like we look back at old black and white films and realize that everyone pictured is now dead, and feel sorry for us because we lived before some major breakthrough was made that prolongs life extensively.
While interesting, the concept of becoming ageless comes with some severe baggage.
Consumption of everything will need to plummet, unless we somehow figure out how to make raw materials out of nothing.
Population will have to plummet, as will basic fertility rates. Every new human will be a permanent addition. The drive to procreate will need to be heavily suppressed.
As well, and a sort of undercurrent, there are people in the world who are chronically depressed even with treatment for whom the concept
naive (Score:2)
People like Church and Lander are excellent scientists in their specific areas. But they sound incredibly naive when talking about issues outside their area. My recommendation: don't believe the promises that these people are making (like "curing aging" in five years). On the other hand, don't give in to their fears either ("'we' need to go slowly").
I hope people will work aggressively on gene therapy for aging, human cloning, genetic manipulation of human and animal embryos, and xenotransplantation. I also
For the love of god... (Score:2)
Why do people keep deferring their journey to pearly gates to meet their maker ?
On a serious note, we have a population crisis!
That's the root cause for every socio-political problems in our time.
I'd rather be excited if academics, medical practitioners, politicians and alike embark on an project to legalize "ethical euthanasia".
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There were such people, but then there was denazification in the 1940s.
And availablle in 20 or 30 (Score:2)
Won't happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly. My own comment below: something will get you eventually. This does not ensure immortality.
Telomeres (Score:3)
From Wikipedia
Cells in the germ line (sperm and ova) have an enzyme called telomerase.
(emphasis added)
When cells run out of telomere, they stop dividing. When the body can't make new cells, it ages and dies. If you want to not age, you have to get your somatic cells to produce telomerase. But then, cancer...
Bacteria avoid this whole problem by having circular chromosomes. No ends, no telomeres, no telomerase. And bacteria are...you know...kind of immortal. They just grow and divide, grow and divide, worlds without end.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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If sterility is not a side effect this planet is going to have some really serious issues to contend with.
Is there a cure for foolish hyperbole (Score:2)
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You have to admit that being a Harvard Professor in genetics gives him slightly more cache then coming from an adjunct at your community college.
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He graduated from Harvard, but taught at UC Berkeley.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Timothy Leary did teach at Harvard though.....as well as UC Berkeley.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Um... (Score:2)
"We have become masters in the art of manipulating genes, but our understanding of their function and interaction is far more limited."
No we haven't. Human genetic science is still in the very early stages, and we've only begun to understand complex DNAs in a very, very general fashion. In another couple decades, we'll probably still be working away at it. It does rise to an interesting question though; If we learn to alter our DNA, and somehow do make ourselves immortal (which I heavily doubt), would it really be in our best interest? We have problems with population as it is, and at the rate we go, we'd exhaust the remainder of Earth's
A cure for inheritance tax! (Score:2)
Side effects. (Score:2)
1) Effective life span now is only about 40% longer. Yes, only 40% longer. People don't die of old age, they die of diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, etc.
2) Social Security on the other hands GOES AWAY. If we no longer die of old age, then we don't have to pay people for being too old to work. Same goes for Medicare.
3) Those currently on Social Security get moved to Disability - with their disabil
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People don't die of old age, they die of diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, etc.
No one dies from 'old age', they die of some specific thing as the body wears out. Heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, even car accident risk increases as parts of the body (or in the car accident case, cognitive function) diminishes with age.
It's an interesting question if hypothetically we could stop aging process (or even reverse it).... How the hell would society handle it. Now if an unavoidable side effect of the treatment were sterility, that would be one thing. If we can procreate, what to do about
Isn't immortality, may not help society (Score:2)
I read something about 10-15 years ago about this and the author said, despite this type of medical technology, anti-aging doesn't mean immortality. He proposed even if you stopped or reversed aging, you could only live to be about 300 years old. At that point, something would get you: murder, plane crash, illness, etc.
While I'm not an expert on the topic of society and the rise in violence, poverty, etc. I do believe overpopulation does not help the issues. The details, I speculate, could be desperation
Diseases like aging? (Score:2)
A natural process that is a result of being made of biological components is not a disease.
One thing that I will always find intriguing/amusing are self-proclaimed 'men of science' who purport to be staunch atheists, yet seem so bound and determined to stop what they should know to be a natural evolutionary process. People like this professor, and also those that claim that through some sort of special diet/routine they can achieve immortality (example: Ray Kurzweil). What is interesting is that the majorit
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Natural is relative. HGPS has a 'natural' lifespan of 13 years, but I don't think anyone questions its classification as a disease.
Bacteria is natural, and yet we have antibiotics because we would rather not die from an infection when we could live longer.
Conversely, airplanes, cars, spaceships, air conditioning, computers, and everything else is distinctly unnatural.
I don't think 'men of science' are particularly inclined to surrender to the current state of nature. I don't see how religion even theoreti
There's already a cure for aging. (Score:2)
It's called a pine box.
Germline ethics (Score:2)
I really get upset when I read people writing about how germline editing is unethical. My wife suffers from terrible symptoms that are at least partially genetic. It had not flared up, we did not know how bad it would get before we had our daughter. It is unlikely we will have a second child. We don't know what she inheritted. It could get bad for her in her teens, her 20s or even her 30s. We will not know until if/when it happens. It is scary.
So many people seem to be saying that even if it is possible
To be or not to be... (Score:2)
Not A Moral ISSUE (Score:2)
As a geneticist, Church knows zero about ageing (Score:3)
Geneticists like Church know a lot about gene blueprints, less about their expression, a lot less about development, and they know absolutely nothing about ageing or disease. Their work doesn't touch on 95% of disease in any way, including ageing (a phenomenon that is unrelated to genetics).
Church should be ashamed for spouting such clueless hyperbolic fantasy. My respect for him just dropped through the floor. He's just another snake oiler.
use it for space travel! (Score:5, Insightful)
use it for space travel!
Re:use it for space travel! (Score:4, Insightful)
And rich people!
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It has been said that if all causes of death other than trauma were eliminated, our lifespan would average about 650 years. What would probably happen is that the population would be stabilized by reducing the birthrate accordingly. The resulting social changes would be major, but not the end of the world. The longer lifetimes we already enjoy have resulted in social changes that have been absorbed over the years.
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Do you honestly think you could convince people to stop procreating?
In a straight up exchange for immortality? They'd be chomping at the bit.
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Death penalty for parking violations.
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OR terminate everybody at the age of 100 but give them the body of a 30 year old for the last 70 years of their life. I'd want that.
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Except that the rich would find a way around it, legally or otherwise.
Identity farms would do a booming business.
Re:Do not WANT. (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that the rich would find a way around it, legally or otherwise.
Identity farms would do a booming business.
Good for them. I certainly would never want the fear of a few people gaming the system to stop everyone else enjoying their lives far more.
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I developed an economic policy, including transitions and risk management, that eliminates all homelessness and hunger in the United States. This strategy would have bankrupt the entire population in 1950 immediately (costs 120%+ of the total income of everyone), would have been prohibitively expensive in 2000, showed indications of viability in 2009, and became less expensive than current public aid system in 2013.
Some of my models show the top tax bracket raising from 39.6% to as high as 41%. Taxes on
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Can you imagine what would happen to the population if people no longer aged and only died from accidents, murder, or war?
Well, sure I can imagine. There would likely be a sharp uptick in murder and war. Either that, or a government-run system of birth control. Many cultures will probably prefer the murder and war.
I don't know about accidents. I'm thinking they'd probably go down, as the philosophy of "you only live once" yields to "you only live until something kills you, so stay well clear of motorcycles and places where they still have the plague".
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-1 Stupid.
Can you imagine how long the food supply would be adequate if the population were to increase unbounded?
If this happens, you can expect the population to level out pretty quickly. Immortal humans won't feel the need to reproduce very much. And accidents, murder, and war are still killing lots of people.
Do you honestly think you could convince people to stop procreating?
Again, -1 Stupid in the extreme. Have you not noticed that people in first-world countries have already done this voluntarily?
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I haven't figured out all the economic factors, and only have the rough observation: populations do not expand into poverty. I don't know why. I know why poor people don't expand themselves into starvation, but I don't know why middle-class and rich people don't expand to 18-child families to fit their means at the expense of crushing the poor people.
The rough theory is easy enough: scarcity limits population growth. I don't use the classical economics definition of scarcity; I use a more complete mod
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LOL. You think the poor would be getting this treatment? It will be for the super rich only.
Even if the cure was found to be a mixture of everyday household ingredients, stores would suddenly not carry these items anymore.
Don't fret, you'll still die.
Hmm, let's see; where's the money for the owners of this process? 100 super-rich people at $10 million each, or 300 million people at $10,000 each? Shouldn't be too hard to get financing for this, since the bank can be reasonably sure you'll live long enough to pay off the loan.
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Re:ca. 1563 (Score:4, Insightful)
In 1563, Ponce de Leon said we would have a cure for aging within 5 years. 2 years later he claimed to have found the Fountain of Youth.
I would expect the scientific method and a lot of elbow grease to be more successful at this task than yet another real estate scam in Florida.
A cure for aging is a few years away, and always will be.
You're probably right for now, but scientific progress sooner or later is going to real that goal.
Re: ca. 1563 (Score:5, Funny)
I'm tempted to real your English for you
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Explain Keanu Reeves, then.
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Why? Is there some rich guy interested in that?
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And a cure for world overpopulation
And climate change? Are the visionaries working on those, too?
I actually want to start this argument.
What is the problem with "overpopulation" How do you define it?
Is a planet overpopulated because we can't produce enough food for everyone? About this, here's a conceptual 21th centory farming tower : http://www.popsci.com/cliff-ku... [popsci.com]
With this, you can produce food for 50k people with a 30 story tower. So, unless I make a huge mistake somewhere, it's untrue that the earth can only produce food for 10 or so billion people.
Or is it the pollution and the destruction of t
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I'm well aware that the "overpopulation" myth is BS and that the limits to earth's carrying capacity, if there even are such limits, have yet to be seriously explored. I'd quibble with a couple things though.
Yes, IMO, we do need "nature," because (a) that is most of what generates much of our oxygen, and (b) it is the most sensible use for much of the land in even a very densely populated world. That some of the most densely populated cities in the world (New York, Paris, Hong Kong, probably others) also
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If I were going to stop aging, I'd like to stop aging at 35.
"You sure you wouldn't prefer to be, like, 20 again?"
"No, thanks, 35 for me. I like my bald spot, graying temples, hairy back, incipient presbyopia, and pot belly just fine."
"Uh... look, sir, I'll level with you. This treatment can only take you back to early adulthood. You don't get to pick a particular age or anything."
"Oh, in that case, never mind, I don't want it."
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Please someone, mod. this up.
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If you accept the premise of a genetic 'disease', then it's not so far fetched to call out 'aging' as one. In the realm of genetic 'disease', disease versus normal is a relative thing.
For example, Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome most would call a disease. However if it were universal, it would just be called 'natural'.
If one could hypothetically stop the generally deleterious aspect of getting older, then what do you call it?