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Want to live forever? You probably will have that option!

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K

Kimawolf

Member
Or at least a really long time. Here are just some of the public discussiond on death, disease, and dying.

Everyone is working on this DARPA are working on ways to eliminate the need for antibiotics altogether, other schools and corporations are working on using nano particle drugs to kill disease and repair the human body at the cellular level.

So will people die? Sure, but I firmly believe there are people alive today who will live for 200 or more years or possibly only die when they choose to (other than violent death).

https://www.wired.com/2011/11/darpa-nano-antibiotics/
As long as they’ve got a replacement at the ready, of course. In the military’s latest round of small business solicitations, Darpa is making a long-shot request for an all-out replacement to antibiotics, the decades-old standard for killing or injuring bacteria to demolish a disease. In its place: the emerging field of nanomedicine would be used to fight bacterial threats. The agency’s “Rapidly Adaptable Nanotherapeutics” is after a versatile “platform capable of rapidly synthesizing therapeutic nanoparticles” to target unknown, evolving and even genetically engineered bioweapons.
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https://www.theguardian.com/what-is-nano/nano-and-the-life-saving-future-of-medicine

Medical nanorobots will be the size of bacteria, composed of thousands of molecule-sized mechanical parts perhaps resembling gears, bearings and ratchets. They may be composed of a strong, diamond-like material. A nanorobot will need motors to make things move, and manipulator arms or mechanical legs. It will need a power supply, sensors to guide it, and an onboard computer to control its behaviour. But unlike a regular robot, a nanorobot will be smaller than our red blood cells and able to squeeze through our body's narrowest capillaries.

What will they do? A "microbivore" nanorobot, for example, could act as an artificial white cell, seeking out and digesting germs – bacteria, viruses, or fungi – in the blood. A patient might be injected with a dose of about 100bn of these microbivores. A targeted germ would stick to the nanorobot's surface like a fly caught on flypaper. After being gathered into the microbivore's "mouth", the germ would be minced up and digested into harmless molecules in just minutes.

A complete treatment of this kind might take just a few hours – far faster than the days or weeks often needed for antibiotics to work – and no bacteria would have time to evolve resistance to these machines as they can to antibiotics. When the nanorobotic treatment is finished, the doctor might broadcast an ultrasound signal to direct the nanorobots to the kidneys where they would be painlessly passed out in the urine. Similar nanorobots could be programmed to quickly recognise and digest even the tiniest clusters of young cancer cells, long before they spread throughout the body. Cancer would no longer threaten our health.

Medical nanorobots could also perform surgery on individual cells. In one proposed procedure, a surgeon-controlled nanorobot called a "chromallocyte" would extract all the chromosomes from a diseased cell and insert new ones in their place. The new chromosomes would have been manufactured outside the patient's body using a desktop nanofactory. After injection, each nanorobot would travel to its target cell, enter the nucleus and replace the chromosomes, then exit the cell and leave the body. If the patient chooses, inherited defective genes could be replaced with non-defective base-pair sequences, permanently curing any genetic disease and even permitting cancerous cells to be reprogrammed to a healthy state.
Click to expand...



IBM has revealed a hi-tech gel that could obliterate hospital superbugs.

The computer firm hopes its breakthrough could replace antibiotics.

The new antimicrobial 'hydrogel' could be used for creams, coating for medical instruments and injections into infections wounds.
Click to expand...


There are even groups trying to get aging labeled as a disease to help speed up a "cure".

So as you see, the future of medicine seems to be moving at a rapid rate. So which of these do you think is the most viable? And would you WANT to live for 200, 300, or 1000 year? Or maybe forever? Because obviously the longer you live, the more technology advances, and if you make it to a certain point there will be technology to keep you living forever.
 
E

Ethelwulf

Member
It reads like the human genome project. Remember that one? Where all diseases would be cured? Turned out to be much, much more complicated and so this initiative will be. Glad they are making progress though.
 
Y

yanipheonu

Member
Honestly, I'm not sure humanity is ready to be stuck with 200 year olds. We're barely equipped with dealing with 70 year olds.

Not that I don't see the value in keeping the smartest and best of us around as long as possible, but I'm not sure I'd want 200 years of, say, Trump.

Edit: I mean that's the trick right? Who gets to decide? Is being rich and being able to live twice as long as most people fair? Ethical?

Does the government decide? How?
 
Z

Zubz

Banned
I really doubt this is going to be as effective/take off as well as advertised. I expect Generations XYZ to live a lot longer than the Baby Boomers, but not by anything more than a decade or 2, and not without aging still holding everyone back.

The technology/medicine involved in bumping us up to an average of 200 years doesn't just sound like pure sci-fi, but like something the body can't actually do.
 
D

DeathoftheEndless

Crashing this plane... with no survivors!
image.php
 
A

Ashby

Member
Zubz said:
I really doubt this is going to be as effective/take off as well as advertised. I expect Generations XYZ to live a lot longer than the Baby Boomers, but not by anything more than a decade or 2, and not without aging still holding everyone back.

The technology/medicine involved in bumping us up to an average of 200 years doesn't just sound like pure sci-fi, but like something the body can't actually do.
Click to expand...

How are we going to live longer than the Baby Boomers when we're gonna have less money than them?
 
G

Griss

Member
Yeah, but it's too late for those of us in our 30s or older, right? This shit will never be affordable for us if it even gets developed properly in the next 30 years.

My brother's newborn, though... maybe.

As for whether I'd want to live forever... of course I fucking would! Existing beats nothingness, the world is beautiful, people are fascinating. There is no afterlife.
 
Soapbox Killer

Soapbox Killer

Grand Nagus
Half-Life 3 still won't be announced even if Gabe lives to be 200! Not a world for me. I'll die from high blood pressure and or sugar like a I'm supposed too.
 
A

A Fish Aficionado

I am going to make it through this year if it kills me
Drug and therapy attrition rates are pretty awful, so until there's enough evidence rather than a proof of concept, I'll get excited.
 
P

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
1. I 100% believe radical life extension (125+) is coming sooner than we think. Kids born today will live to 110, and their kids will live to 150, and their kids will have the option of not dying.

2. I also believe it the very very wealthy will get it first and they will keep it for themselves as long as possible.

3. I tend to believe that radical life extension solves a lot of problems, beginning with how we're able to travel to other star systems.

4. RLE will instantly mean lower birth rates around the world. Rather than a never-dying population explosion, I think near-immortal humanity means people will just stop having kids.

5. The primary dilemmas as this technology becomes a reality: Who gets it? Should everyone get it? Should we reconsider the death penalty for near-immortal violent criminals? How will population and birthrate be managed and controlled so we don't end up with a planet full of 200+ year olds, no kids, and suddenly see the immortal-but-aging population exposed to something our technology can't yet address?
 
S

shoreu

Member
yanipheonu said:
Honestly, I'm not sure humanity is ready to be stuck with 200 year olds. We're barely equipped with dealing with 70 year olds.

Not that I don't see the value in keeping the smartest and best of us around as long as possible, but I'm not sure I'd want 200 years of, say, Trump.

Edit: I mean that's the trick right? Who gets to decide? Is being rich and being able to live twice as long as most people fair? Ethical?

Does the government decide? How?
Click to expand...

If you can afford it you get it. Unless it can be given to everyone. If its artificially expensive then war will break out over this shit because
 
T

TP-DK

Member
So instead of rotting up in a nursing home for 10 years we'll be doing it for 110 years? Sign me up!

But unless they find a cure for dementia first, I'll probably pass. Though reliving playing half life 3 for the first time every day, is tempting.
 
P

Pamplemousse

Member
How about a better way of life before living for 200 years. Futurists can be so annoying. Live in the present please.

These technological miracles are all contigent on our current economic/monetary system continuing unchanged which seems unlikely with climate change happening anyway.
 
A

Angelus Errare

Banned
Nah, I'm alright. Not looking forward to living to work for 100+ years.

Thankfully I'll be long dead before this becomes reality. Sucks for everyone else though.
 
N

Nocebo

Member
Zubz said:
I really doubt this is going to be as effective/take off as well as advertised. I expect Generations XYZ to live a lot longer than the Baby Boomers, but not by anything more than a decade or 2, and not without aging still holding everyone back.

The technology/medicine involved in bumping us up to an average of 200 years doesn't just sound like pure sci-fi, but like something the body can't actually do.
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This whole post is nonsensical.

You say that we could possibly live longer than the baby boomers, but not by more than a decade or two. So this is implying that there could be progress on achieving longevity in the next few decades, but that technological progress will grind to a halt in the decades after that (the extra decade or two that is achieved). Typically technological progress seems exponential to me. Figuring out the first steps is often the hardest part.

The technology/medicine involved in bumping us up to an average of 200 years doesn't just sound like pure sci-fi, but like something the body can't actually do.
Click to expand...
What? We already have many technologies medical and otherwise that help the human body do things it couldn't do before. The whole point of developing technology is to make tools etc. to do things we couldn't do without them. Why would this be any different. It's like you've never heard of genetic modification or basically anything else before.
 
Z

zethren

Banned
So basically only the top percentage of folks who have the means will be able to afford this, right? So the rich not only get richer, but they get richer for longer?

Among other reasons, this could be problematic if there is a paywall too great for anybody but the elite class.
 
K

kess

Member
Assuming people get to that point determining who is going to live that long is not going to be a question of free will. Society will most likely set up criteria and qualifications.
 
S

Sinoox

Banned
I wouldn't count on it unless you're rich. It's already amazing that we live as long as we do, don't be greedy.
 
K

Kimawolf

Member
efyu_lemonardo said:
Is this about that CRISPR/Cas9 thing? It sounds exciting!

Edit: sounds like it isn't... But it should be!
Click to expand...
CRISPR is something i left out, but its going to allow gene editing at home eventually. Which sounds crazy but it isn't. Look it up.

And these things are not 100 years away but 20, 30, 40 years off barring some major breakthroughs. Tech doesn't stop after all and once we get over the hump... skies the limit.

I also think at first it'd be for rich folk, but like all things prices will fall.
 
T

tokkun

Member
When I try to evaluate some of these medical promises, I always come back to weight loss as my benchmark for how far along we are.

We still don't have a safe, low-side effect solution to weight loss. It's an area where there is a lot of money to be made, that would have a big impact on society, and that is seemingly much simpler than things like heart disease and cancer. If we haven't solved weight loss yet, I find it hard to believe we are anywhere close to completely solving death.
 
N

Nocebo

Member
Griss said:
Yeah, but it's too late for those of us in our 30s or older, right? This shit will never be affordable for us if it even gets developed properly in the next 30 years.
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Wrong. And yes it will very likely become affordable.

If it is possible to repair damage in the body it won't even be too late for people who are 65+. However, it is unlikely that an effective rejuvenation therapy will be developed in the next 5-15 years, so in that sense it is too late for some people.

Why do people always assume something like this never be affordable? That's usually not how it works with technology. Sure at first it will be expensive but then it will get cheaper as the technology develops and production techniques mature and are scaled up.

I've read that according to a recent estimate 43% of the American healthcare budget is being spent on taking care of the elderly. If the "elderly" no longer need to be taken care of, that frees up a lot of money.
Also the longer a citizen can contribute to society the better for the government, right? Wouldn't subsidizing rejuvenation technologies be a net positive for any government? Perhaps being able to live far longer will also solve more societal issues than it may cause. If our lives are lived on longer time scales then people might start to care more about how they treat each other and the environment because they'll be living there for a long time.

zethren said:
So basically only the top percentage of folks who have the means will be able to afford this, right? So the rich not only get richer, but they get richer for longer?

Among other reasons, this could be problematic if there is a paywall too great for anybody but the elite class.
Click to expand...
Sinoox said:
I wouldn't count on it unless you're rich. It's already amazing that we live as long as we do, don't be greedy.
Click to expand...


What makes you say that these technologies will be expensive and not available to everybody?
Could you give examples where this is true? I'd like to know where this is coming from. Is it simply cynicism? General clueless-ness?

Kimawolf said:
CRISPR is something i left out, but its going to allow gene editing at home eventually. Which sounds crazy but it isn't. Look it up.

And these things are not 100 years away but 20, 30, 40 years off barring some major breakthroughs. Tech doesn't stop after all and once we get over the hump... skies the limit.

I also think at first it'd be for rich folk, but like all things prices will fall.
Click to expand...
Yes, CRISPR is a major breaktrhough. And best of all it is a very cheap technique. Apparently it reduces the cost of genetic engineering by 99%.
 
E

efyu_lemonardo

May I have a cookie?
Kimawolf said:
CRISPR is something i left out, but its going to allow gene editing at home eventually. Which sounds crazy but it isn't. Look it up.

And these things are not 100 years away but 20, 30, 40 years off barring some major breakthroughs. Tech doesn't stop after all and once we get over the hump... skies the limit.

I also think at first it'd be for rich folk, but like all things prices will fall.
Click to expand...

Here's a popular video I recently saw on the subject that explains about it (and its potential) in layman's terms:
https://youtu.be/jAhjPd4uNFY
 
A

Angelus Errare

Banned
kess said:
Assuming people get to that point determining who is going to live that long is not going to be a question of free will. Society will most likely set up criteria and qualifications.
Click to expand...

And somehow I imagine the "best qualified" will be white and male of high income. That or everyone will get it, and retirement age is jacked up to like the age 170.

Either way...welcome to the fuckery.
 
C

Cosmo Clock 21

Banned
and no bacteria would have time to evolve resistance to these machines as they can to antibiotics.
Click to expand...

I'm sure bacteria will find a way. Not to mention we still don't understand the relationship between "good" bacteria, "bad" bacteria, and our immune system.

Also I'm sure somebody is going to invent rapid flesh eating nanorobots, or something equally horrific, as a means for state-sponsored terrorism or sociopathy.
 
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