Life expectancy is increasing in the developed world. But Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000. Here, he explains why.
Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address ageing just as effectively as we address many diseases today.
I claim that we are close to that point because of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) project to prevent and cure ageing.
It is not just an idea: it's a very detailed plan to repair all the types of molecular and cellular damage that happen to us over time.
I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.
'We will be able to live to 1,000'
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Lord Beria3
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'We will be able to live to 1,000'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4003063.stm
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emordnilap
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Re: 'We will be able to live to 1,000'
This sounds implausible. I have heard it said that the first person that will live to be 150 is alive today, which still sounds surprising but definitely far more plausible.Lord Beria3 wrote:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4003063.stmI think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.
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Eternal Sunshine
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RenewableCandy
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I attended his talk at secret garden party and I think the idea is that he believes that people alive today will be in time for treatments that will make them live say another 20-30 years longer, by the time those 20-30 years roll around more treatments will be available that will make them live another 20-30 years and so on .
Some people from the first batch will survive till their 1000 he believes .
He thinks a lot of what we think of as aging is pretty negative, the ideal isn't immortality which most likely is impossible, but to have a life where you repair damage to the body so well that you stay in your prime for your entire life .
Some people from the first batch will survive till their 1000 he believes .
He thinks a lot of what we think of as aging is pretty negative, the ideal isn't immortality which most likely is impossible, but to have a life where you repair damage to the body so well that you stay in your prime for your entire life .
"What causes more suffering in the world than the stupidity of the compassionate?"Friedrich Nietzsche
optimism is cowardice oswald spengler
optimism is cowardice oswald spengler
This is of course silly. Bodies decay in a thousand different ways. We catch viruses which directly mess with the DNA in our cells. Damaged DNA leads progresively to cancer. Cells tend to die after a more or less fixed number of divisions, due to telomeres on the end of chromosomes getting slightly shorter after each division. This puts a practical upper age as about 120.
We haven't even reversed the signs of aging skin yet. Women lose fertility at 40-45.
We are nowhere near the aging 'singularity' . Even if we were, who could afford or deserve such hideously expensive treatment?
We haven't even reversed the signs of aging skin yet. Women lose fertility at 40-45.
We are nowhere near the aging 'singularity' . Even if we were, who could afford or deserve such hideously expensive treatment?
ever see she with ursula andress how could we support a aging population of people who were as fit as 20 year olds but a thousand or 2000 in shes case old .Mr de grey also thinks such treatments could be cheaper than the amount of time and money we spend on the elderly today .
My grandfather financially supported a inventor before the wright brothers who was working on a flying machine it didn't work, but we did get to fly .
I just read a article that countered mr grey and it was basically people said in the past we were close to stopping aging we were not therefore we arent now, this seems like poor logic.
"What causes more suffering in the world than the stupidity of the compassionate?"Friedrich Nietzsche
optimism is cowardice oswald spengler
optimism is cowardice oswald spengler
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RenewableCandy
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All well and good talking about living to 1000 but there are huge implications for society if this was to happen and I don't think society is ready for it.
For starters the birth rate would have to drop precipitously else we'd be knee deep in people.
Would childless couples be happy to wait say a couple of hundred years before they could have a child?
We're not wired to think in those timeframes.
Living to 150 sounds a lot more plausible at the moment.
For starters the birth rate would have to drop precipitously else we'd be knee deep in people.
Would childless couples be happy to wait say a couple of hundred years before they could have a child?
We're not wired to think in those timeframes.
Living to 150 sounds a lot more plausible at the moment.
The most complete exposition of a social myth comes when the myth itself is waning (Robert M MacIver 1947)