This is not my thought. It’s a transcribed comment from a science group I follow.
Evolution isn’t done with us yet…and the latest innovations may well be still in their ‘Beta’ phase i.e. unreliable and not yet fully functional.
One of the major components of cellular aging is the shortening of telomeres: the protective ends of chromosomes. But there is a cure for this shortening problem. It is called telomerase, the enzyme that can lengthen telomeres and so, in many cases around the human body, restore youth or halt aging.
Why doesn’t telomerase reactivate? Every cell in the body has the formula for telomerase written into its DNA, so transcription is possible.
But the only cellular population that switches telomerase back on (apart from during our period of maturation) is cancer. And cancer tends to prefer damaged or old tissue.
Is it possible that evolution is trying to figure out a way to switch telomerase back on for old or damaged tissue, but the process, far from perfection, screws up each time and we end up with cancer instead?
It is an intriguing thought ~ that when evolution finally gets it right then some of the most prominent manifestations of aging will gradually disappear, perhaps leaving the majority of the population to age gracefully into their early 100s and, perhaps, beyond!!
A dizzyingly pregnant hypothesis. Seems to me the key to unlocking the human potential for almost infinitely youthful lifespans lies in a full understanding of cancer — that most mysterious of afflictions — and how to corral its cruel destructiveness into something beneficial.
A lifespan measured in the hundreds of years, the great majority of those years lived in prime time vigor, a world of 80-year-old rock hard boners saluting at full mast and breasts pointing skyward joyously defiant of gravity, would so radically alter humanity’s relationship with just about every social, political and religious institution I can think of that predictions on the matter are futile. But you’re free to try.
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gravity and sunlight are still bitches, I wonder if in the future, we’d simply grow a new skin (and boobies for the ladies) to throw over our skeletons. Some body parts are still wear-tear and replace, like brake pads on a car.
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A much smaller percentage of the population would be able to make it as a professional athlete.
The best athletes wouldn’t need to be replaced every five or so years because their primes were over. This would result in fewer spots to fill, and would ensure that only the elite of the elite in the athleticism department ended up getting paid for their athletic talents.
But, more importantly, females would look like they were 18 until they were 40? Oh, dear god, that’d be lovely.
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“But, more importantly, females would look like they were 18 until they were 40?”
Nah, just more fat women with less wrinkles.
Anti-aging is no secret: regular exercise, healthy diet, avoid the sun, cigarettes & alcohol. But the majority of American women are land whales and a significant percentage of 18 year olds are soft, sloppy and blubbery.
“a world of 80-year-old rock hard boners saluting at full mast and breasts pointing skyward joyously defiant of gravity, would so radically alter humanity’s relationship with just about every social, political and religious institution I can think of that predictions on the matter are futile.”
Rock hard boners or firm tits on 80 year olds?
We already live in that world thanks to Viagra and silicone. Other than senior dudes divorcing their wives and senior chicks getting STDs at higher rates, no much has changed.
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based on my outlook, all that stuff is rubbish.
the world is going to choke and die from pollution before we ‘evolve’ any further, and lengthening lifespans would only contribute to / accelerate the coming end.
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You’re watching too much green weenie propaganda. Pollution has been trending down, and “overpopulation” is a myth.
But if you think there are too many people, by all means bump yourself off to leave room for the rest of us.
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““overpopulation” is a myth. ”
Care to provide some solid data behind this?
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Okay, idiot: the population in most European countries, Japan, and China is declining. The population in many Middle East countries has leveled off. Even in Africa the growth rate is dropping hard.
Here: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2002.html
This is the last time I’m doing your homework for you, kid.
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Global population growth rate was 1.1% in 2009. It is declining, but until that rate reaches 0% population will continue to grow. If it holds steady at 1.1%, that means population will double every 64 years. 7 billion now, 14 billion by the time you die. And if your culture is one with the declining population, prepare to be vastly outnumbered by the competition.
The question shouldn’t be whether overpopulation is a myth, the question should be: what are the consequences of population growth.
[heartiste: or even more darkly, the question should be: who should be fruitful and multiply and who should be encouraged to leave this mortal coil a barren vassal?]
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people have been claiming overpopulation for over 200 years. humans numbered 9 million in 1798. in 2012, weve broken the 7 billion mark. when will you Malthusian dumbasses realize that its a myth? humans have always lived in a world of scarcity. as population increases, the markets equilibrate, and capital is deployed where its most productive. the free price mechanism does not require technocratic overlords. humanity will survive even when it breaks the 9 billion mark in the coming century.
assuming of course, all the fiat currencies dont self-destruct and all the savings of people dont evaporate. then of course we’ll see global population start to plummet. and even then, those with exposure to precious metals and other tangible assets (like farmland) will be just fine.
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Population size isn’t tied to currencies and savings, it’s tied to availability of usable resources, mainly energy (including food).
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Overpopulation is real but very centralized in the third world. In the first world, populations will continue to rise beyond capacity until 2050 or so, when they will begin to plummet due to low fertility rates today.
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I should add – plummet far below sustainability.
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Overpopulation is a myth???
The American men who can no longer find manual labor jobs, the Chinese who are flooding American universities, the Indians emigrating to all corners of the globe, the people in the Congo slaughtering each other, the Europeans paying thousands of euros to live in closets, the favela dwellers of Brazil, and billions of others disagree with you.
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Dense.
The problem isn’t “overpopulation”, but “overusage of finite resources.
Such as most of anything that is above 18 in the preiodic table.
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Wake up white man.
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Which white man?
The ones spending their government checks at Wal-Mart, who can’t even name all 50 states?
The ones in D.C. passing laws in favor of exporting our jobs, importing illegal labor, and taxing males to subsidize female hypergamy?
The ones who live on the politically liberal coasts and support policies that hasten the decline of America?
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Traditionally, White men gleefully go after one another, hammer and tong.
Though History provides a few sterling examples of one who has arisen in our greatest hour of need to preserve us from the abyss… she’s just about all through handing out the mulligans.
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I’d say that we’d face a crisis of raison d’etre. How would religion adjust? Would people go crazy? How many times will people get married? Will it be awkward to look the same as your parents?
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WOuld there be life sentences in prison?
[heartiste: i predict the willingness to use the lethal injection alternative will increase, because murder will become much more significant in a world where each individual life has increased value.]
are you a closet singularitarian? It would make sense when you confront the difficult truths of human nature against out aspirations for a just and egalitarian society.
[aspiration must be tempered by intractable human limitation.]
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As meaning in the form of value increases with the protection of the individual so to will the effect of consequence. Keep it up ;D
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“To everything there is a season.”
Every species has a pretty tight span of life, a period when the individuals are born, reproduce, then die. Humans are no exception.
Why is that? Evolution, you silly persons! Our lifespans have evolved to fit our environment. Even within human societies, we see that groups in ecosystems with slender food supplies then to mature later and live longer. That’s the basis of advice to keep oneself starved to live longer.
I’ve long held that cancer is the way our genes terminate us. We all have an OBLIGATION to die and get out of the way of the young and vigorous.
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Speak fo’ yoSEFF NIGGA!!!!!
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I just did.
I’ll grant one need be in no big hurry to end it, but end it you must.
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I suggest you read or watch Karel Capek’s The Makropoulos Case – for a more sober and pessimistic view of the possibility of human longevity.
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There doesn’t seem to be much selective advantage for humans who live longer at this point in our history. The longer-living groups of our species generally have declining or slower-growing populations than the shorter-living groups.
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Limited resources are better spent on the young and vigorous, than on post prime geezers.
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This is a prime example of statist thinking: “Resources” as belonging
to the state and being “spent”, the whole herd-management theory.
The opposing view is that “resources” belong to individuals
removes the issue. If somebody has “resources” and wants
to spend it on his own (or somebody else’s) longevity,
he should be free to do so.
Thor
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Newsflash: Resources belong to the state.
Try to dig for petroleum in your backyard, stop paying your taxes, alter your AR to make it fully automatic, or refuse to pay alimony to an ex-wife and see what happens to your ass.
Hell, even your life belongs to the state Try not wearing a helmet on your motorcycle and try telling the cop who pulls you over to fuck off because it’s your head.
Anyone who thinks that an individual “owns” anything without the approval of the state probably lives in a bunker in Montana, is shipwrecked on an island, or is in deep denial.
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If you gleefully enjoy the prospect it means you are dumber than the one you are chiding, lol
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So long as the young and vigorous are not special needs types.
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My point was only that it is highly unlikely that we are evolving towards longer (or infinite) life spans via natural selection. If we get there, it will be through science and deliberate manipulation of our genes and/or cells, not through evolution.
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I would agree with that, but NOT with your argument about
“spending resources” which is vigorously statist.
Thor
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There are actual examples of biological immortality, including specimens such as the Hydra and the Turritopsis nutricula jellyfish, so its not like immortality or at the very least, greatly increased lifespan is an impossibility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality
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You know your shortsighted libertine philosophy is showing cracks when…
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^ those who have ears!
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Evolution isn’t trying to fix aging because that not what natural selction is all about. The agents it operates upon – genes – are already immortal. Well, at least the good genes.
Evolution is only concerned with increasing the frequency of genes and spreading them. Being immortal doesn’t help if all you’re going to do is play video games, or pick up chicks AND use birth control when having sex with them. Evolution favors those who have babies, i.e. those stupid and impulsive enough not to use any birth control ever, or those who think their god commands them to increase in numbers so as to defeat the infidels through numbers, i.e. Muslims; or simply those who are more r-selected genetically already and are taking advantage of the modern medicine invented by K-selected cultures.
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You nailed it. That is indeed how evolution works.
All these “live forever” fantasies are basically anti-evolutionary and diseugenic.
The future belongs to those who show up. I’ve sired and raised five children and I encourage all of them to have as many grandkids as possible. I’m only up to six….so far.
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Peter Hamilton wrote an SF novel which took place in a Universe inhabited by a humanity more like the elves we know from LOTR than humans of today.
80 yo would go through rejuvenation processes, and then re-enter society as 15yo. The only thing they basically did was fuck, but it was fucking full of wisdom.
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The SMP would not be as cruel to sluts who reject decent men to ride alpha cock. They could do it longer and pay the cost even later. They will end up alone with their cats in the end so its ok.
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The future isn’t “Star Trek” (alpha male, domination of the galaxy), it’s “Soylent Green” (feminist not allowing anyone to exceed the minimum – it’s not fair)
100+ years of that? No thanks
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“I want more life.” I can’t help it either.
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This might end war forever because people will then truly fear death if they are immortal or the resulting overpopulation will lead to an apocalypse. Read Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkeyhouse. The short story “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” has a funny take on it.
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Actually, I would look at the teleomer issue from a different
perspective. I strongly suspect that the shortening of the
teleomeres is put in place precisely to PREVENT cancer.
If some cell mutates to escape the normal control mechanisms,
it will start reproducing until the cell line hits the hayflick limit
(while being pruned by various control-cells all the time).
One the line hits the limit, the cancer is gone, probably
before the person even knew about it.
Now, if somebody offered me a pill that would fill me up
with teleomerase, I would refuse it at this point. Yes,
I would look and feel younger, but I might be dead in a
year from some runaway cancer.
However, when/if I reach the point of being too old
and decrepit to function, and facing imminent death
anyway, I would take the pill, the cost/benefit ration
having flipped.
Thor
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Is it possible that evolution is trying to figure out a way to switch telomerase back on for old or damaged tissue, but the process, far from perfection, screws up each time and we end up with cancer instead?
How could this come about, since evolution has no intentions or teleology? The closest I can think of is if this variation exists in the population because some part of it involves survival benefit, e.g. its overall effect is allowing people to live longer with the side effect that some people get cancer. Not a crazy thought, although it would have to be explained how natural selection acts on this since it would be more relevant to people past their reproductive age.
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What he said. Evolution has no goal. It’s a blind process. It never tries to figure anything out and it never screws up.
Immortality is not a good evolutionary strategy: you compete with your descendants.
[heartiste: what if an evolutionary response to immortality is to leave fewer descendants?]
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I was with you until you stated that immortality is a poor evolutionary strategy. Genes are best modelled as being selfish. They don’t care which host carries them, as long as they are carried.
If there was a cheap way for a given gene’s reproducing machine to keep spurting out copies till eternity then we would be immortal. However, for whatever reasons, it’s more efficient for the machines to break down. Genes don’t care because they still get reproduced. End of story.
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@Aaron:
“acts on this since it would be more relevant to people past their reproductive age”
This is a common misconception. In fact, that human females
become sterile in their 40s is an illustration of the opposite.
A parent, or grandparent etc. that is alive and well can do much
to promote their offspring (the ones already produced) and their
offspring etc. This is evoloutionarily significant. Females
apes and monkeys have been observed promoting their
daughters’ children (paternity being fuzzy or unknown).
And evolution stumbled (its only way of operating) on this
fact and sterilized aging females – they are more useful to
promote existing offspring that risking their health making
more of them.
Thor
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I understand that kin-selection hypothesis, but it has problems such as: 1) most people when we consider the developing/undeveloped world and all history don’t live that far past fertility/reproductive peak, and 2) for most of evolutionary history child bearing was done at a much earlier age so one could very likely be a grandparent in their 40s.
My point isn’t that the theory is wrong but rather it doesn’t explain a life-span beyond 50-ish years.
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Most manifestations of feminism would be dead, on the spot. The hotter the woman, the less of a need for that.
But, Beta-males will also feel the pinch. Can you imagine the pain of living 70-80 years in full youth and yet still can’t get that hot woman’s number that you have known all your life?
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Transhumanism/replacement body parts/rejuvenation therapies leading to drastically increased lifespans aren’t that far away. At least for the very rich elite. Thus they will continue to amass money and influence indefinitely. Unfortunately this means that the common people won’t be able to just outlast them and their ridiculous delusional ideals and rule. They will have to be brought to heel in a storm of steel and flame that spills their blood in the streets and crushes them physically.
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More life, fucker.
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Consider this:
People who live longer have more resources and ability to help their offspring, and the best strategy for the offspring would be to have few offspring of their own whom they lavish resources on. Having offspring later in life would also be a good strategy for the long lived because older parents have more resources to lavish with.
Exactly what is happening in the middle and upper classes in the West.
Someone mentioned Tolkien’s Elves. They had few children and spaced them far apart. And they were lower sex drive than us Mortals.
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Having more resources but fewer kids only works until someone picks up a hatchet and decides to remove your kids from the gene pool. It is not a good strategy when society is in flux.
Genghis Khan, Black Plague, Native Americans, WW I, Armenia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya, and so on. That’s why Jews have 4+ kids. They are smarter than the average white person who babbles about having more resources and less kids.
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For me this life-extending talk is all BS and will be seen in the future in the same way people look at alchemists, the Fountain of Youth or the Eldorado.
Given the destructive life style of today (high carb diets), the growing isolation of people because no one has a family anymore plus the even more destructive life under liberal capitalism (who, after destroying the family, is now going after every sense of community) will make the future technically much more advanced, but an emotional hell
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There IS a way out of this mess. Liberal capitalism and strong families existed together just fine for the first 190 years of this country’s existence. The two legal beasts that have caused everything to go to hell are 1) the Supreme Court case known as Griswold, in which the court manufactured a constitutional “right to privacy” from thin air, which led to the free availability of birth control pills and the “right” to abortion, and 2) passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act, Title VII (banning discrimination based on gender in the workplace) and Title IX (banning discrimination based on gender in higher education). In my opinion the Civil Rights Act has caused the greater amount of damage, because it weakened the need for men and women to rely on one another. It may be a long shot, but we could work to get the law repealed.
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Oh, I think it’s more likely to be a lengthening of everything–longer youth followed by longer middle age followed by longer old age and longer decline. The premise of a ever longer youthfulness of rock hard boners, followed by what, a quick demise? doesn’t seem logical. YMMV.
[heartiste: dystopianally-speaking, followed by “a release”. keep it on the hush hush.]
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Evolution does not reward any “positive” aspects of mankind. It only rewards those that lead to more children.
You learned this at the beginning of Idiocracy. Come on!
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Hatred and fear of the human-dominated future is where we find today’s lefty atheist and panicked believer tightly holding hands.
“Natural selection” in human beings ends with the first *germline intervention.*
Man *is* the measure; and one is as disgusted by “environmentalist” hatred of the human being as one is distressed by the “hubris” boilerplate of those who haven’t realized that God was a very fine metaphor for what men always knew they must eventually become.–
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“Man *is* the measure; and one is as disgusted by “environmentalist” hatred of the human being as one is distressed by the “hubris” boilerplate of those who haven’t realized that God was a very fine metaphor for what men always knew they must eventually become.–”
I would very much like to hear more on this if you have the time.
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Dan,
If you can sharpen your curiosity to a more specific question(s), I’d be happy to answer you.
IOW, which part of my comment is particularly interesting to you?
Thanks.–
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To be honest I can’t quite nail down a question but this part was what really interested me.
“distressed by the “hubris” boilerplate of those who haven’t realized that God was a very fine metaphor for what men always knew they must eventually become.–”
What exactly is meant by the “hubris” boilerplate? Can you give an example?
And god as a metaphor for what we must eventually become… is this referring to humans ascending to some sort of god-hood (or what the ancients would call a god) through technology and such?
Thanks.
BTW I always stop to read your comments. One of my favorite commenters.
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Dan,
The best example of the “hubris boilerplate” is Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.” The themes of this book, published in 1818, still dominate the discourse. The basic idea is that man will create monsters, and become monstrous himself, if he attempts to exceed the bounds set by Nature and God.
What is striking about this *fear of the future* is how completely it is shared by the religious conservative and the atheistic, environmentalist lefty. Both are obsessed with the notion that man is “playing God” as a result of scientific and technological advances, and both religious and atheistic ideologues are united in their rejection of certain possibilities, like the creation of “synthetic life.” We’re right back to Frankenstein.–
What is more interesting than this simple-minded fear is the truth that animates the fear: computing power increases every day, and with that, our ability to create technologies that allow us to control and manipulate our material surroundings, including, eventually, our own bodies and genetic code, as we make interventions in the human germline.
The moment we accomplish these interventions “natural selection” ends for human beings; for such interventions will be anything but “random” and “directionless.” We will create a new human being, with much greater intellectual abilities and physical resilience.
It will not be a coincidence, then, if after thousands of generations, this very intelligently designed being comes to resemble what we have conceptualized as “God,” an outcome that the imaginative and far-reaching intuition of mankind has always understood to be our destiny.
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This is so fucking money. I’m saving this shit. You rock.
Thanks!
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Good points! Also, I can’t stand these “Natural Selection Uber Alles” types either. They can’t wrap their heads around the possibility that our technology could advance to the point where the rules of Natural Selection are basically overthrown. Nature is not a god and natural selection may eventually have humans, ironically, evolve to a point that the old rules don’t apply. (At least the smarter type of human.)
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@Heartiste
Great site and normally your biomechanics are pretty solid, but this is the dumbest post to date.
‘Evolution’ isn’t an actor nor is it trying out anything. It has no goal.
Evolution is what happens when different genotypes are replicated at different speeds, and therefore the relative frequencies of genes in populations change.
Immortality not only cannot be a goal, it also won’t be selected for.
[heartiste: there was a study recently showing that increased human longevity was selected for by evolution when older men had kids with younger women, passing on their old man genes to the whole population. if longevity can evolve, why can’t extreme longevity evolve?]
Selection works on traits that increase reproductive fitness. In your scenario you could still be making babies until you’re 200, but not all babies are weighed the same. Children early in life weigh a lot more (fitness wise) and babies after, say, age 50 don’t have much of an effect.
They have a little, but since everything in biology is a trade-off, the resources will definitely find better use (increase fitness more) in other strategies.
Also, not everything that we can imagine that would increase fitness will evolve because for most new features (like lazer rays from our eyes) there’s no path leading to that, genetically. Only small steps are possible.
[ok fine, it was a dumb post. keep in mind i didn’t write the quote. i was quoting someone else. i thought it was at least superficially interesting so i posted it for everyone to chew on. and it has been chewed. and spit out.]
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Again, evolution can select for longevity, whether the aging geezers and geezettes physically reproduce or not, if their wisdom and resources are spent on their multigenerational offspring.
Thor
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The eternally hot chicks will wear the protective end cap off of every alpha cock in sight, and the betas will self-select suicide.
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Molecular biologist here.
A lot of people are chewing this post out for really dumb reasons. The truth of the matter is that telomerase activity is switched on in all our germline cells, but deactivated in all non-cancerous somatic cells. The reasons for this are for the prevention of boundless growth, leading to tumours. However, this is by no means the only control on division – it’s a late one on a long, long, long list of others. The cell cycle and division of cells is extremely well-regulated in multicellular organisms, by an astonishing array of signals and proteins.
As such, the people talking about how it would end the physical signs of aging are flatly wrong – cells stop dividing way before they hit the ends of their telomeres, adding telomerase wouldn’t change that. The people talking about how people would live longer are wrong – same reason.
The people talking about how evolution doesn’t work like that are missing a really important point: humans interact with evolution. Would dogs have evolved to be loyal, and everywhere from badass to purse-ornament without us? No chance. So it’s certainly true to say that before sentience, evolution didn’t have a goal – but now it might! We can manipulate it, and if the people doing that want immortality that will be selected for.
While telomerase isn’t a magic bullet that’s going to fix our aging problems (and it’s been known about for a long time), it is something we’re going to have to understand if we do want to develop clinical immortality, which is a totally viable thing to want to do. It’s not at all impossible, and there’s every reason to believe right now that we can get there.
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^ Evolution in 4 Dimensions, Lamark, – dynamic, symbolic interaction of environment/culture with genome. It isn’t unidirectional, http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness which is why it is clear that Christ is the latest and greatest evolutionary advance – with a telos that extends beyond death. So put down your guns, stop with silly dalliances with the nothing and find some stones. edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/07/so-you-think-you-understand.html
Paradise Lost
satan:
That we were form’d . . . say’st thou?
. . . strange point and new!
Doctrine which we would know whence learnt: who saw
When this creation was? remember’st thou
Thy making, while the Maker gave thee being?
We know no time when we were not as now;
Know none before us, self-begot, self-rais’d.
Adam
“Myself I . . . perused . . . limb by limb”
and found that I could speak and name,
“But who I was, or where, or from what cause / Knew not”
“how came I thus, how here? / Not of myself, by some great maker then /
In goodness and in power pre-eminent”
“how may I know him, how adore, /
From whom I have that thus I move and live?”
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Am I the only one who doesn’t want everlasting life?
I’m 45-years-old and my life is pretty boring. I’ve already done everything. In my 20s I did drugs, traveled, and banged dozens of women. I got bored with that, so I got married, got a real career, and had a couple kids.
I’m looking forward to retirement and a life of leisure, but I don’t really see things getting much better.
Life is short for a reason.
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You got a lotta living to do yet, bro.
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Divorce dat bitch,get back out there and go after that young stuff!
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You sound depressed.
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Why not just kill yourself now (assuming the process is painless)?
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Midlife crisis. Cause you were probably dumb enough to marry a woman your same age. I don’t blame you, short-sightedness is a common affliction nowadays.
Her menopause is now triggering your genetic algorithm to reproduce with fertile females.
All you need now is a ferrari and a parade of young mistresses. Immortality won’t sound that bad.
I’ve been depressed for a long time. I know everything about the meaninglessness of life and all that shit.
But depression is mainly hormonal. And men’s hormonal circuitry is centered around our dick. So try to get your dick wet, preferably inside a tight young vagina.
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Meaningless cannot be solved by temporary satisfaction, i.e. sex.
I suspect you’re a bit too young for this discussion.
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I am quite curious why a lot of people assume that the advanced nano- and biotechnology necessary for achieving immortality won’t be utilized for making giga-efficient weapons (targeted gray goo, anyone?) that ultimately exterminate us. In the end, probably no one will live forever.
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Women do NOT need to extend youth as they become more beautiful as they grow older and more confident!
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And magnetic… vivacious… scintillating… eh… aw, hell, who are we kidding?
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We do become funnier.
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Maybe… but it’s like hearing about a party where free cocaine is promised… you wait around hours for, at best, one or two good lines.
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According to actuarial science, immortals would die in accidents in 600-800 years, on average. Immortality at best means living about 10 times longer, if the “accident” rate doesn’t explode as a consequence. This is the optimistic limit of technology at its absolute best. Awesome, but certainly not utopia.
But, think of it this way. There are 3 possibilities for you.
If the universe is finite, you’re already dead. Entropy rules.
If the universe is somehow infinite, you’ll live forever and in infinite forms just due to infinite variations.
If the universe is finite, and made by an infinite god, you are almost certainly going to burn in hell. 🙂
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This theory implies that natural selection is somehow pushing to try and mutate cancer genes to extend lifespan. This would only be the case if there was an existing survival benefit to being prone to cancer. My guess, given that so many cancers involve the reproductive system, is that it isn’t anti-aging that’s being selected for, it’s fertility. The gene that causes an ovary to turn into a fifty pound blob of disembodied organs and teeth probably also increases egg production.
If you want to be long lived via natural selection, you have to consistently make sure only the oldest people possible are allowed to breed. In that case you’re artificially selecting for people who survived long enough to be able to get pregnant (or drop a viable load in a lady). Slaughter all the children of teenage pregnancies for good measure, to avoid propagating genetic materials that code for diseases of middle age.
As fun as getting people to take high school abstinence programs seriously would be, doing this would take thousands of years to have a significant effect given the long generations of humans (especially long if you only let 40 year olds reproduce). Biotechnology is probably a better idea than relying on nature to roll dice.
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A “science group?” Sounds like a group for the appreciation of cosmic magical acupuncture yin-yang Ancient Eastern astrology crystals ground with acai berry or some phenomenally retarded bullshit like that. One of the most fundamental characteristics about evolution is that it does not have a plan or trajectory; it mixes shit together and sees what lives and what dies. Whatever has the most progeny wins. Unless being immortal gives you a helluva lot more descendants to the point where you crowd out the mortals, evolution doesn’t give a fuck.
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It’s a SWPL fap-fantasy; visions of an eternal Moby. Mark Zuckerberg & Steve Jobs forever.
What you really get:
DC ghetto spawn on welfare for 200 year life-cycles.
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http://www.natap.org/2010/HIV/012010_01.htm
A second potential mechanism for the association of slowing of omega-3 fatty acid levels with decelerated telomere attrition is increased activity of the enzyme telomerase.50 Until recently, expression of telomerase was thought to be limited to germ cells, stem cells, and cancer cells.51 However, low-level telomerase activity has now been demonstrated in peripheral blood mononuclear cells.52 The adoption of comprehensive lifestyle changes, which included daily supplementation with 3 g of omega-3 fish oil, was associated with a significant increase in telomerase activity in normal adult human leukocytes.53
i think jesus was on to something.
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“While telomerase isn’t a magic bullet that’s going to fix our aging problems (and it’s been known about for a long time), it is something we’re going to have to understand if we do want to develop clinical immortality, which is a totally viable thing to want to do. It’s not at all impossible, and there’s every reason to believe right now that we can get there.”
Have you checked this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategies_for_Engineered_Negligible_Senescence
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Are ypu saying living for 1000 yars may be poasible? So the Bible might no be exagerating pre-flood ages.
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From what I’ve read, immortality would probably result in the repression or deaths of 90% of mankind.
Think about it: Things like creativity, looks, and military ability are all genetic. Even scientific ability is genetic – remember that study where the one ape came up with all these different tool uses?
The one advantage in life that the disadvantaged have is that they could hit the genetic lottery with their children. But if you take that away, then the naturally talented will get better, and better, and better over time, and totally dominate.
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Heartiste, you should have posted that exchange I had with the beta men and the shrikes on that forum too.
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Lol, imagine living a thousand years as an omega with a floor sweeper job.
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There is a downside to longer life span with more youth in it: people are less willing to risk that increased span and will brook no shortening of it.
I suppose that is okay in an age when the explorations are over and there are no more frontiers to go risk it all in. Still, I think a world where everyone demands an even safer life than they have now–to preserve an extended youth–would by almost chockingly dull.
Sex is great, but so too are many other parts of life that involves the chance of injury, even death. It would be a loss to our kind if to preserve youth we stopped partaking of its second greatest thrill: risk.
[heartiste: yes, the downside is the risk of becoming the sameness.]
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The dumbest thing to do when –idly bullshitting– about what a massively extended life span would mean, is to extrapolate the emotions and moods that define our present condition.
For example. Many people, being “bored,” imagine that beings living in the *radical, absolute difference* of great longevity would be “even more bored.”
The truth is this: we have no idea what such creatures would feel, except to know that it would not be what we feel.
This is why science-fiction books and films are always the most braindead and banal garbage imaginable: some “writer” sits there with his indigestion and then extrapolates his simple-minded bile into an utterly alien world.
That is D U M B.–
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Sonia Arrison’s 100 Plus: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything, From Careers and Relationships to Family is excellent. Highly recommend.
http://www.amazon.com/100-Plus-Everything-Relationships-ebook/dp/B0055TH4SC/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1332384373&sr=1-1-catcorr
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If we really want immortality for future humans, then we should only allow old folks past 100 years to reproduce. Yes, I said it, only fucking old chaps who were born before 1912 should have acces to all the hot tight young pussy available.
That way, in 200 years, life expectancy would be 200 years. And then, only folks who make it past 300 yo should be able to reproduce. etc etc…
That’s the price to pay, and now you all know it.
But I say: fuck future humans, our ancestors didn’t think about our immortality when they were trying to get their dicks wet.
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Back to the details of the subject at hand :
There already are compounds available proven to lengthen Telomeres. There is an indepth discussion here, and review of various products:
http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/19921-astragalus-astragaloside-iv/page__st__1550
Amazing how the general population won’t even make the effort to research new and leading edge technologies. Unless approved by Government or the Medical establishment , they don’t even look .
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Let’s assume an average life span of 1000 years before some random accident offs you. Some only live into the hundreds while others live for thousands and thousands.
Scientists and engineers could perfect their trade and spend centuries researching and building knowledge. (Imagine if Einstein was still alive and researching today!) There would be even more groundbreaking discoveries as scientist push deeper into their fields than ever before.
People would grow tired of the mundane world they have seen so much of and would seek constant new and novel experiences. Realistic virtual reality simulators that plug straight into the brain would become common as people opt for the almost endless novelty of virtual worlds.
With death so distant, how would that effect people’s motivation? Why bother trying to be your best or improve if you have thousands of years to spare? Would people become lazy and apathetic, only concerned with staying alive and consuming pleasure? Would any be willing to risk their precious lives to take risks like exploring space?
Power structures would likely further stabilize as the elite become more and more entrenched with age.
It has been said that “He who values his life will die like a dog”. Would immortality lead to a long, timid, pathetic existence?
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I like that none of the regular female commenters are in this thread lol fuckin science. Maybe you should’ve added a footnote about snookie’s pregnancy.
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Haha I did notice that as well.
However, I couldn’t locate your on-topic contribution to the conversation.
I don’t have a desire to be immortal, but I would like to live to see the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe. Talk about a dizzying alteration to man’s relationship with religion, society, and politics. I would argue that this would be a more earth-shattering discovery than the key to immortality.
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“but I would like to live to see the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe.”
It won’t be a surprise. Ever heard of the Fermi paradox?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
Yareally is right. Women and science….
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I’m immortal. …so far.
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Deep down they know their place.
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Now there is one! 8D
Who’s snookie?
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Meh. It could argued many humans can already live a longer, healthier life than their ancestors. Heck, it’s possible to see the odd people who are over 100 years old and are still relatively active.
However what if you were immortal? After all, what good is it if you get buried due to an earthquake a or mudslide? What good would be if you around in 1 billion years and humans never achieved interstellar space travel and you’re all alone on a lifeless Earth as the Sun gets older? Or 5 billion+ years watching the Sun goes through its red giant phase? Or 5 trillion years orbiting the Sun as a dwarf star. Or 10^100 years when the Universe has fallen to pieces altogether?
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There already are immortal cells in the human body, its called cancer. Cancerous cells have telemeres that do not shorten with each division. Aging is our bodies natural response to genetic damage to slow the propagation rate of damaged DNA. Aging is good. Without it you’d be dead by the time you are 20. Unfortunately cancer is the inevitable fate of all sugar metabolising organisms. As all natural systems tend towards a more entropic state, our bodies acumulate more genetic damage over time, and while we can treat certain kinds of cancers, if you live long enough you will eventually accumulate too much genetic damage. You either die of aging or cancer.
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I would not want to live in a world full of immortals. Sometimes, your only recourse is knowing that the other ass hole is going to die someday as well.
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“I suppose that is okay in an age when the explorations are over and there are no more frontiers to go risk it all in. Still, I think a world where everyone demands an even safer life than they have now–to preserve an extended youth–would by almost chockingly dull.”
Human beings are inherently competitive, so the chances of humanity becoming “chockingly dull” are nil.
In fact, drastically increasing lifespans will increase risky behavior, not decrease it. Most think tanks that have studied this matter believe that any advance in aging technology would eventually usher in world war, as “immortal tyrants” are forced to take drastic steps to gain an advantage over their fellows.
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Furthermore, consider that, contrary to popular belief, creativity is not limited to the young. Throughout human history, most creative geniuses continued to make advancements into old age. Its not as if Einstein was born with the knowledge of relativity and nothing else. Given enough time and motivation, he would have been able to discover a shitload of other stuff.
The notion that age delay or age reversal will make things “dull” is ridiculous. Quite the contrary – it would usher in changes in human culture like nothing we have ever seen, as naturally talented and/or naturally goodlooking “immortal tyrants” first wipe out the lower classes, and then turn against each other in a slow process of elimination. Think Hunger Games.
[heartiste: if humanity is at the point where we’ve bioengineered near immortality, then it’s likely we’ve also bioengineered an aversion to war.]
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I agree with anonymous. It’d be plutocracy the likes of which we’ve never seen before.
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[heartiste: if humanity is at the point where we’ve bioengineered near immortality, then it’s likely we’ve also bioengineered an aversion to war.]
Figure out a way to turn the Sahara into an orchard and we all eat!
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Then what you’d get instead is a supercharged celebrity culture where “peak performers”(be they scientists, athletes, musicians, etc.) push themselves to the limit for media attention, and by extension, female attention.
Fact still remains that 95% of men are going to get screwed over.
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I think there is some credence to the “immortal tyrants” theory, especially as man and machine become further entwined. Just one of the many challenges to humanities survival that technology has and will present.
However, I think space exploration is the big x-factor here. If we can spread out and start colonizing the solar-system and galaxy sufficiently we will have enough independent human populations to survive the ever increase variety of technological terrors that could beset us.
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Chromosome shortening is inevitable due to human DNA being linear, so telomerase extends it by attaching tandem codon repeats. Instead of finding a perfect balance of enough telomerase activity vs too much, it’s plausible to think that evolution said “fuck it” and aging is one of our natural ways to combat cancer.
While aging is a multifaceted problem, telomerase is a good starting point to analyze secondary enzymes that enhance/modulate/inhibit its activity and affect the network as a whole.
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Such super-humans would eat their young. No need to pass on your genes if they aren’t going anywhere.
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As a biologist with several years of cancer research experience, I have to say that the article you cite is grossly oversimplifying things.
Aging and cancer are mutually exclusive in a way that aging means halted division of cells and thus organ and organism deterioration whereas cancer means unrestricted proliferation. Some stupid people might say now “why does cancer then occur mostly in the elderly?”, the reason is simple, we are not made for such a long lifespan. All statistics showing that cancer is on the rise are plain BS, people in former times just died earlier mostly due to other reasons (wild beasts, accidents, infections, war,…) before they became old enough to develop cancer. Cancer is just nature’s way to tell you that your time is over.
[heartiste: what about children’s cancer? and it’s something of a myth that hunter gatherers (or any pre-20th century peoples) died young. their average lifespan was short because it skewed young from all the childbirth deaths.]
Even in our hypermodern world, we can’t change the laws of nature and we cant change human nature! Thus, women will always love alphas and old people will always be old people.
[it will always be so barring any human bioengineering intervention. that’s the wildcard.]
Reactivating telomerase would not make us older and stay in better health longer, it would lead to a massive increase in cancer.
[but that’s the technical trick: being able to reactivate telomerase without having it turn cancerous.]
If you dream of eternity, there are other, better ways (like e.g. your own induced pluripotent stem cells…), but imo we should learn to humble down and accept that our time is limited to 80 years or so.
Life a healthy life and hope you got good genes from your parents, that’s still the best way to ensure high quality of life until old.
[hookers.]
This site is normally humble towards the unchangeable laws of nature, you should stick to that attitude.
[so speculation is off the table?]
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Childhood cancer was and is rare and nowadays many forms are more or less treatable. I agree with you that a high incidence of childbirth and hunting-associated deaths biases the overall life expectancy, but nevertheless, people aged and died earlier even not too long ago.
So, in a certain way, we already made a step towards immortality, since on average, we get 80 in the West instead of 60 like 100-200 years ago.
We might go even a bit higher, but there IS a limit. If we make people even older, most of them will just end up ailing longer in a nursing home.
The trick you mention, turning telomerase on without making it cancerous, sounds nice, but it is grossly oversimplifying the enormous complexity of life.
Within cells and organisms, everything is connected to everything, so the “magic bullet” that is constantly announced by popular science just doesn’t exist in reality.
There simply is no gene A for hair colour, gene B for height, gene C for sexual orientation, gene D for favourite icecream flavour and gene E for longevity…
Therefore, in most cases, you can’t just switch one gene on or off without major feedback loops in the whole system.
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6 million ways to die. If this happens old age would just be one less.
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I say, full steam ahead. Why the hell not? And speculations that it will be the end of creativity or excitement are baseless – ever-evolving technology will continue to make the world a changing and challenging place for “immortal superhumans”.
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Such a world would be Hell.
Instead of the wisdom that age and frailty used to bring, we’re already in a world of retirement- home key parties and geriatric STDs. Add youth technologies to the mix and we’re facing hundred year old guidos.
Tolkien had a story about Numenor, where the quest for immortality corrupted a whole society and led to its ruin. Likewise, we live in a neurasthenic society, governed by the fear of pain, sorrow and inconvenience.we have forgotten the old truth that to be human is to suffer
Personally, I hope not to live beyond 80, in this fallen world.
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An entertaining premise. Not going to happen in our lifetime but I don’t see why it’s not possible. But I’m not sure it would be so great, for one reason-
Finite eggs and fertility, which I presume this modified gene could not fix.
Overpopulation worries are valid, if a bit overstated; while longevity would increase, a woman’s still only going to be born with the same finite amount of eggs, limiting birthrates.
It would also make life hell for women if longevity was extended but fertility stayed the same. If you think 50 year old cougars bitching about Manning Up (TM) now is bad enough, just wait until they’re all 100 (but still looking 50) and haven’t been fertile for 60 years but still expect male attention. lulz
Accepting the above premise (that fertility would stay the same), it would also further male competition by orders of magnitude, as generations upon generations of still viable men all duke it out for prized 16-25 year old chicks, and they for the uber, uber alphas. If people think the modern SMP is bad enough, fertile chicks and the 120 year olds with veritable empires of wealth will absolutely rule it then.
This would cause an explosion of frustrated beta male desire unlike the world has ever seen. Barring fame, most men would probably not become viable mates until well into their years since there would be so many men above them in age, wealth, and experience. Millions upon millions of 40 year old virgins.
Three things happen then- full scale revolution, widespread male infanticide, or more likely, our overlords fasttrack sexbots and serious VR pr0n and 60% of the male population become Japan style herbivores, laying in VR studios for hours until catatonic or becoming homebound nobodies who bang sexbots all day and night.
Pandora’s Box, really
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Phytochemicals attack c@ncer like a prizefighter
http://qigong.com/food-based-healing.aspx
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What is this country coming to?
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A related subject: how about tissue regeneration? How about regrowing your natural foreskin and regaining lost sexual sensitivity?
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…would so radically alter humanity’s relationship with just about every social, political and religious institution…
Institutions that requires the death of individuals in order to continue to exist are those that exploit the vulnerability of individuals. Such institutions are purely parasitical in nature and deserve to be eliminated with extreme prejudice. They are utterly value-less. It is obscenely offensive to suggest that the preservation of such institutions are worthy of the sacrifice of the health and vitality of individuals. I have extreme contempt and disgust for such institutions and would never give them the “time of day”, sort of speak.
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Nixon knew: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Cancer
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one effect of expanded lifetime would be the gradual decrease of male libido as a way of nature’s balancing act.more years to live equals less deaths and less deaths equals mpre population, and more populations will lead to natural mechanisms to suspend it. AND THAT IS IF: we will achieve tahat extension via the force of evolution. as you can see its a give and take
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one effect of expanded lifetime would be the gradual decrease of male libido as a way of nature’s balancing act.more years to live equals less deaths and less deaths equals mpre population, and more populations will lead to natural mechanisms to suspend it. AND THAT IS IF: we will achieve tahat extension via the force of evolution. as you can see its a give and take,
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evolution will find a way to reduce mankind’s way of populating after it has figured out how to lengthen the lifespan
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