I hope the aging never get solved. Certain garbage humans that use their wealth/power to inflict endless pain and suffering on the innocent is already heavy. Now imagine the said garbage -- Putler, Min Aung Hlaing, Lukashenko, and the list goes on -- living for another 750 years. Imagine Cheney, Kissinger, Polpot, and other fine humans lived for another 5000 years.
Sorry, have we solved aging? My question seems well phrased: Why don't we?
You're getting at an answer, but I'm wondering why we haven't.
Adjacently sure I want to know why more people aren't working on it.
You have to really step back and consider that we live in a world where people pay rent, buy groceries, have jobs, believe in gods, and watch the news. We can do things. We do do things. We're choosing it this way. Is it so bad to wonder why not something else?
Especially when it comes to the one topic that affects us all, that we may be the only ones able to actually answer (in the entire Universe)?
> Sorry, have we solved aging? My question seems well phrased: Why don't we?
Examples of absolutes in your question: "everyone" "impossible" "nobody seems to care" "Nobody wants to talk" "wonder why nobody else cares?" "why nobody cares"
> why we haven't.
We don't really know what we're doing. We still don't today, but when I graduated, talking about life extension directly rather than specific old-age diseases like dementia and cancer was basically a sign someone didn't understand how hard the problem was.
In my lifetime I've seen: the invention of mammalian cloning; full genome sequencing (not just human genome, the first non-virus full chromosome was a yeast chromosome in 1992, the first full organism was a bacteria in 1995, the first animal was the nematode worm in 1998); CRISPR for (still basic but better than retroviral) gene editing; the Nobel prize for (if not the original discovery of) telomerase and its role in lengthening the telomeres that seem to force the Hayflick limit; what feels like an endless sequence of headlines about how lab rats have various multiples of life extension from calorie restriction, genetic engineering, and senolytic drugs (those which kill senescent cells); headlines about metformin and rapamycin potentially having anti-aging effects; and of course a few versions of AlphaFold which took us from "you can get a PhD by figuring out how just one protein folds" to "here's the folding of nearly every one of the 214 million proteins known to mankind plus a bunch of complexes between multiple proteins, RNA, DNA, ligands, ions, etc.".
We have a lot more work to do to get this ready for humans. Even with optimistic assistance from AI, I don't expect to see anything* on the consumer market until the mid 2030s, though it's possible to rush a lot of this stuff with a "move fast and break things" culture. (Between Kennedy in the USA and China's lax attitude to human rights, such a culture may in fact happen).
* except metformin and rapamycin and things like them, because those are already available for other conditions, so may end up as per GLP-1 drugs for obesity
But I agree that we could throw more people and resources at the problem, if aging didn't seem just natural and the idea of a defeating it didn't seem a bit crazy. But it's also true that the knowledge, tools and methods that might make it possible are only very recent acquisitions.
Actually, there was a recent breakthrough that might be the door to open a path to addressing age related degeneration (I’m assuming this is what you mean, not immortality). The enzyme is called CMLase and it prevent the glycoslylation that leads to stiff collagen and aging in the skin. The keys are probably things like preserving cell metabolism, boosting mitochondrial function, preventing telomere shortening, and reducing repair from cellular damage (which can lead to “aging” and cancer). BTDubs aging is also 100% preventable - just don’t smoke anything, don’t drink, reduce grilled and smoked meat, limit sugar, use SPF 50 multiple times daily, exercise 3-4 times a week, etc. Basically don't do anything that leads to DNA repair or glycosylation and you become a superager. The number doesn’t matter as much as the experience of being that age.
You don’t really NEED a pill to do any of this. Instead we prolly all need a different type of society that is less stressful and prioritizes health education & supporting folks having great lives as they age. Ageism is killer, just take care of yourself.
I don't see it as a problem to be solved at all. I see it as an important and necessary feature that allows for growth and adaptation as a species. It's a good thing.
> Since on 1 hand you got an afterlife, eternity, and what-not.
You asked about the existence of God, not the existence of an afterlife.
In any case, if there is some sort of afterlife, then eternal material life would impede us as a species because it would prevent attaining it. If there is no afterlife, then eternal material life would impede us as a species by preventing growth and adaptation.
We can get right to it after we solve deaths by mosquitoes (half of all humans born were killed by mosquitoes), deaths by automobiles, lifestyle (diabetes, cardio vascular), pollution from fossil fuels (10M deaths/year from air pollution).
You mean afte we have solved hunger, poverty, human trafficking, drought, famine, natural disasters problems ? Sure after all that, I am sure it can take priority.
> Johnson has stated the aims of the company are to reduce the biological age of his organs to that of an 18-year-old
I once read that we could in theory produce things like synthetic organs, but something like a synthetic liver would be the size of a 50,000 sqft factory requiring a full staff of chemists, would need a refinery complete with boilers, smokestacks, chemical waste facilities, and so-on for each individual person.
Think of kidney like a dialysis machine, or a heart like an advanced blood pump, lungs like aerators, muscles, bones - we can reverse-engineer most of it.
But there are still many mysteries in blood production, cellular function, digestion, hormones, genetics, and consciousness, to name a few areas.
It's humbling, we are at the very earliest stages of the biological sciences. But it's something nanotech and funding could chip away significantly at IMO in our lifetime, potentially solving many of the organ-related issues like diabetes, cirrhosis, cancer, and other things.
The problem is wildly more complex than typically portrayed.
First of all, there is a lot of work already going in to slowing and eliminating aging. Every "please don't smoke" campaign is actually a "smoking causes early death so not smoking prolongs life" campaign, if you think about it. Healthy eating, cancer prevention and treatment, dementia etc treatment and prevention, brain training, physical and mental rehabilitation training -> all are efforts to reduce odds of untimely death meaning all are efforts to expand life expectancy.
Outside of this, consider the magical curing of age related death tomorrow. Do people with unbearable conditions now have to live with them forever? With their quadrapligia, lack of long/short memory, parkinsons, etc? Suppose we can magic hand-wave our way around those.
What of births? Approximately 130-140 million children are born globally each year. That's another billion in ~8 years. We already struggle to feed our current population with ~700million facing food insecurity, and estimates say that using all available space, not wasting, and being more efficient with our diets we could perhaps support 20 billion on this planet. This would, however, require perfect cooperation between everyone on earth deciding to share perfectly and agree to move to plant based diets where required. At current birth rate, we'd have less than 100 years to solve food waste and build out the capacity. Or is birth now controlled a la China? Who gets to decide? What happens when the decision turns out to be wrong and leads to inbalance of viable mating pairs? Do we pivot to global sterilization? No more births until we colonize Mars?
And where does everyone live? If we are maximizing use of arable lands, humans can then only live in un-arable lands because we need farms and greenhouses on those lands. So we have to live above the green-line on mountains, tundras and permanent ice, and deserts. And the more food we have to grow, the less land we have to live in, meaning density increases meaning that the odds of a super-spreader disease increases meaning that people will die regardless because in all of this we never cured death but only age-related death.
>And when I look at the problem... it seems entirely solvable!
If that were the case, that you really saw a clear path, you'd write the proposals and get the funding. If it is the case, rather, that what you have is simplistic hope/belief that it "should" be solveable, then you're in the same boat as everyone already doing the research, minus any actual research contribution.
Dude, even setting aside the question of whether eliminating aging is a good idea (for the economy, for the species, etc), what makes you think nobody’s working on it?
And lol, easily solvable? Scientists have been trying to figure it out for well over a century (and non-scientists probably since the origin of the man race). They’ve made marginal progress so far.
I’m not following it closely, because I don’t believe that within my lifetime we’ll achieve anything that’s effective and safe; or if we do, it’ll be too late for me and more than I could possibly afford anyway.
But knowing there’s plenty of research going on (mostly in mice and in cell cultures) takes little more than reading the headlines in the HN “New” feed for a few weeks.
I hope the aging never get solved. Certain garbage humans that use their wealth/power to inflict endless pain and suffering on the innocent is already heavy. Now imagine the said garbage -- Putler, Min Aung Hlaing, Lukashenko, and the list goes on -- living for another 750 years. Imagine Cheney, Kissinger, Polpot, and other fine humans lived for another 5000 years.
https://www.sciencealert.com/ultimate-limit-of-the-human-lif...
Op, consider using fewer absolutes. Many people have worked on aging science to identify how to prolong human lifetimes.
Sorry, have we solved aging? My question seems well phrased: Why don't we?
You're getting at an answer, but I'm wondering why we haven't.
Adjacently sure I want to know why more people aren't working on it.
You have to really step back and consider that we live in a world where people pay rent, buy groceries, have jobs, believe in gods, and watch the news. We can do things. We do do things. We're choosing it this way. Is it so bad to wonder why not something else?
Especially when it comes to the one topic that affects us all, that we may be the only ones able to actually answer (in the entire Universe)?
> Sorry, have we solved aging? My question seems well phrased: Why don't we?
Examples of absolutes in your question: "everyone" "impossible" "nobody seems to care" "Nobody wants to talk" "wonder why nobody else cares?" "why nobody cares"
> why we haven't.
We don't really know what we're doing. We still don't today, but when I graduated, talking about life extension directly rather than specific old-age diseases like dementia and cancer was basically a sign someone didn't understand how hard the problem was.
In my lifetime I've seen: the invention of mammalian cloning; full genome sequencing (not just human genome, the first non-virus full chromosome was a yeast chromosome in 1992, the first full organism was a bacteria in 1995, the first animal was the nematode worm in 1998); CRISPR for (still basic but better than retroviral) gene editing; the Nobel prize for (if not the original discovery of) telomerase and its role in lengthening the telomeres that seem to force the Hayflick limit; what feels like an endless sequence of headlines about how lab rats have various multiples of life extension from calorie restriction, genetic engineering, and senolytic drugs (those which kill senescent cells); headlines about metformin and rapamycin potentially having anti-aging effects; and of course a few versions of AlphaFold which took us from "you can get a PhD by figuring out how just one protein folds" to "here's the folding of nearly every one of the 214 million proteins known to mankind plus a bunch of complexes between multiple proteins, RNA, DNA, ligands, ions, etc.".
We have a lot more work to do to get this ready for humans. Even with optimistic assistance from AI, I don't expect to see anything* on the consumer market until the mid 2030s, though it's possible to rush a lot of this stuff with a "move fast and break things" culture. (Between Kennedy in the USA and China's lax attitude to human rights, such a culture may in fact happen).
* except metformin and rapamycin and things like them, because those are already available for other conditions, so may end up as per GLP-1 drugs for obesity
> Why don't we?
Because we have no clue of how to, yet.
But I agree that we could throw more people and resources at the problem, if aging didn't seem just natural and the idea of a defeating it didn't seem a bit crazy. But it's also true that the knowledge, tools and methods that might make it possible are only very recent acquisitions.
> if aging didn't seem just natural and the idea of a defeating it didn't seem a bit crazy
I can't imagine having this mentality
Of course aging is something we will solve - probably within the next 1000 years.
We will look back on these times like before humans wore clothes and had language.
> Of course aging is something we will solve - probably within the next 1000 years.
I'm imagining you as the son of an Egyptian Pharaoh telling this to his dad.
"Really, skip the embalming! If we get you on ice, then they'll be able to revive you by at least 1200 BCE!"
I agree, but just look around in this thread and you'll see it.
Actually, there was a recent breakthrough that might be the door to open a path to addressing age related degeneration (I’m assuming this is what you mean, not immortality). The enzyme is called CMLase and it prevent the glycoslylation that leads to stiff collagen and aging in the skin. The keys are probably things like preserving cell metabolism, boosting mitochondrial function, preventing telomere shortening, and reducing repair from cellular damage (which can lead to “aging” and cancer). BTDubs aging is also 100% preventable - just don’t smoke anything, don’t drink, reduce grilled and smoked meat, limit sugar, use SPF 50 multiple times daily, exercise 3-4 times a week, etc. Basically don't do anything that leads to DNA repair or glycosylation and you become a superager. The number doesn’t matter as much as the experience of being that age.
You don’t really NEED a pill to do any of this. Instead we prolly all need a different type of society that is less stressful and prioritizes health education & supporting folks having great lives as they age. Ageism is killer, just take care of yourself.
I don't see it as a problem to be solved at all. I see it as an important and necessary feature that allows for growth and adaptation as a species. It's a good thing.
May I ask if you believe in God
In my view, the existence of God doesn't enter into it. My opinion would be the same whether God exists or not.
Interesting, it would change my opinion a lot.
Since on 1 hand you got an afterlife, eternity, and what-not.
And on the other, well, it's a bit like before you were born!
I guess to your point - why am I not interested in the problem of those who are not yet born? Hahahah
Enjoy your Sunday
> Since on 1 hand you got an afterlife, eternity, and what-not.
You asked about the existence of God, not the existence of an afterlife.
In any case, if there is some sort of afterlife, then eternal material life would impede us as a species because it would prevent attaining it. If there is no afterlife, then eternal material life would impede us as a species by preventing growth and adaptation.
The earth will be destroyed. Earth is not built for eternity living creatures.
We cherish abundance and happiness, but what’s the point of enduring pain and mediocrity, no matter how long it lasts?
We can get right to it after we solve deaths by mosquitoes (half of all humans born were killed by mosquitoes), deaths by automobiles, lifestyle (diabetes, cardio vascular), pollution from fossil fuels (10M deaths/year from air pollution).
> half of all humans born were killed by mosquitoes
This is amazing.
Yes, death prevention is a huge part of it!
And to your point - even if you solve something like consciousness, I could still be blown up and we wouldn't know how to build me back.
Humpty Dumpty out
"Why isn't it the top priority for everyone?"
You mean afte we have solved hunger, poverty, human trafficking, drought, famine, natural disasters problems ? Sure after all that, I am sure it can take priority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Johnson
> Johnson has stated the aims of the company are to reduce the biological age of his organs to that of an 18-year-old
I once read that we could in theory produce things like synthetic organs, but something like a synthetic liver would be the size of a 50,000 sqft factory requiring a full staff of chemists, would need a refinery complete with boilers, smokestacks, chemical waste facilities, and so-on for each individual person.
Think of kidney like a dialysis machine, or a heart like an advanced blood pump, lungs like aerators, muscles, bones - we can reverse-engineer most of it.
But there are still many mysteries in blood production, cellular function, digestion, hormones, genetics, and consciousness, to name a few areas.
It's humbling, we are at the very earliest stages of the biological sciences. But it's something nanotech and funding could chip away significantly at IMO in our lifetime, potentially solving many of the organ-related issues like diabetes, cirrhosis, cancer, and other things.
The problem is wildly more complex than typically portrayed.
First of all, there is a lot of work already going in to slowing and eliminating aging. Every "please don't smoke" campaign is actually a "smoking causes early death so not smoking prolongs life" campaign, if you think about it. Healthy eating, cancer prevention and treatment, dementia etc treatment and prevention, brain training, physical and mental rehabilitation training -> all are efforts to reduce odds of untimely death meaning all are efforts to expand life expectancy.
Outside of this, consider the magical curing of age related death tomorrow. Do people with unbearable conditions now have to live with them forever? With their quadrapligia, lack of long/short memory, parkinsons, etc? Suppose we can magic hand-wave our way around those.
What of births? Approximately 130-140 million children are born globally each year. That's another billion in ~8 years. We already struggle to feed our current population with ~700million facing food insecurity, and estimates say that using all available space, not wasting, and being more efficient with our diets we could perhaps support 20 billion on this planet. This would, however, require perfect cooperation between everyone on earth deciding to share perfectly and agree to move to plant based diets where required. At current birth rate, we'd have less than 100 years to solve food waste and build out the capacity. Or is birth now controlled a la China? Who gets to decide? What happens when the decision turns out to be wrong and leads to inbalance of viable mating pairs? Do we pivot to global sterilization? No more births until we colonize Mars?
And where does everyone live? If we are maximizing use of arable lands, humans can then only live in un-arable lands because we need farms and greenhouses on those lands. So we have to live above the green-line on mountains, tundras and permanent ice, and deserts. And the more food we have to grow, the less land we have to live in, meaning density increases meaning that the odds of a super-spreader disease increases meaning that people will die regardless because in all of this we never cured death but only age-related death.
>And when I look at the problem... it seems entirely solvable!
If that were the case, that you really saw a clear path, you'd write the proposals and get the funding. If it is the case, rather, that what you have is simplistic hope/belief that it "should" be solveable, then you're in the same boat as everyone already doing the research, minus any actual research contribution.
Is death in old age a 'problem' to solve?
Suffering, absolutely. But I think there is more nuance to death.
That's what I keep hearing.
Idk if I'll ever get it.
Death and aging seem like very clear and basic problems to solve, like inventing a roof to get out of the rain.
How old are you?
Dude, even setting aside the question of whether eliminating aging is a good idea (for the economy, for the species, etc), what makes you think nobody’s working on it?
And lol, easily solvable? Scientists have been trying to figure it out for well over a century (and non-scientists probably since the origin of the man race). They’ve made marginal progress so far.
Go do a web search or two.
Hey dude, I did some web searches but was not able to find the answer to my question there.
Where is progress halted in your opinion?
Consciousness/mind?
Basic cellular understanding?
Senescence?
I’m not following it closely, because I don’t believe that within my lifetime we’ll achieve anything that’s effective and safe; or if we do, it’ll be too late for me and more than I could possibly afford anyway.
But knowing there’s plenty of research going on (mostly in mice and in cell cultures) takes little more than reading the headlines in the HN “New” feed for a few weeks.