For those interested, here's an interesting story about Google and other cutting-edge companies being targeted by European political powers. I hope it beings to dawn on our Silicon Valley friends that they need economic liberty and need to promote both free markets and the values of achievement. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b2eeb470-ecca-...

*bump*
Any thoughts?

I agree. No nursing home for me. Let me live until I die.
Fortunately my career choice demands a healthy body and mind so it keeps me active.

Yes, this is where the term quality of life defines the goal. I want to be a healthy 100. I never intend to retire. I always want to be active and productive. But if I did become unable to continue to be productive as I am today, I find life fascinating enough that if my mind were still intact I could enjoy being more of a spectator than an active participant.

The practice of medicine should exist to keep people productive...not just to keep them alive.

Ok. That's funny. We love the play on words there freud :)

That should be "infant mortality." How moral they are is another question!

A little bit of a different take, if I may.

In my 60 odd years on this planet, I haven't noticed anything getting better on the subject of the human nature front. In fact it's gotten and continues to get far worse seemingly by the day. Why would I want to live another 200 years or so? That's too depressing to contemplate.

I find it interesting that of the group who calls for eliminating certain segments of the population,George Soros has a team of medical people working to try to keep just him healthy and extend his life. I think if you disable those who wish to control everyone, the issue of extended life and what needs to be adjusted in society, would be worked out by the free market and free people. As it stands, the one worlders want the elderly gone, plus a few million more; they want the school system to dumb down those coming up (as the CFR told Reagan "We need the Dept. of Education" to further their own goals); they want to destroy industry and farming using Agenda 21. They want people to not want to live long, as life would be so bleak.

How different is increased lifespan from wealth?

Just another Capitalist/Socialist argument.

There is a weird disconnect in those who think overpopulation as such is a problem but who want people to live longer. I think that as these life extending technologies become available over time, the system of both retirement and education will fundamentally change, as they must in ant case. If time were not an issue, I could see myself in the future, once the world is transformed into a real Galt's Gulch, working to terraform Mars, which would require a lot of retraining. Then I could complete my degree in astronomy and study the stars of 50 years. Then there would be other things of interest to do. No end of opportunities!

I always thought 40 would be the end of life worth living - until I reached it. I think I'd like to park in the 35 - 45 range [as long as I don't have to do the cancer at 42 thing again!] I felt like I could still do anything and everything when I was that age. Now, not so much. Chronic pain is a !Federal Government bovine excrement inspection! waste of time

I vote for 40. I can't remember an age where I felt more comfortable in and with my body than at that point, but some of that was experience. But having that same confidence in my physical skills in a body of 25 also counts for a lot.

What's with the new badge?

I think the idea is worth pursuing. However, government does not, as they already want to "reduce" the population by millions, per Bill Gates. How can we live healthy lives without solutions to disease? We all know it is not in the best interest of drug companies to cure cancer, and they lobby government to help prevent that cure. Several problems need solved anyway, but this would make it more pressing. How does SS handle the longer life span? Would a 140 year old at some point need more education? What would be retirement. At this point, over 70 and you will not be eligible for cancer treatment, so we had better be disease free as well. Life extension is certainly a more hopeful concept than what the environmental one worlders are giving us.

Cool. Thanks for the info!

As I understand, these markers occur as a result of the shortening of genetic strands called 'telomeres' upon each cell division. Much effort in physical immortality research is going towards finding ways to preserve the telomere length with each division. An enzyme called 'telomerase' in the body achieves this. The problem is that telomerase is limited to very specific areas of the body, such as parts of the reproductive system.

Which of you would want eternal life? And if so why?

I'm aware that infant morality skewed stats downward. But if you go back even a few centuries, there was still a much higher probability of dying before 70 because of other causes--diseases, poor hygiene, poor environment, poor diet. And it is a shame that so many people are handed by technology the possibility of long life waste it. This is why we must high for the value of human achievement and a culture that promotes and celebrates it!

Inside the body, natural killer cells (part of the immune response) are the grim reapers that tell other cells that it is time to die (commit cell suicide, or apoptosis). The unintended (and good) consequence of Reagan's and GW Bush's stance regarding abortion was that biomedical engineers have now discovered just how critical several aspects of the immune system are not only to minimizing rejection of implants and regenerated tissues, but engendering acceptance.

An extrapolation of this recent understanding is the study at Duke about how the polio virus is being used to hyperstimulate the immune system to kill cancer.

http://www.cancer.duke.edu/btc/modules/R...
(with apologies to those who will not like this site given that it comes with a plea for cash donations)

I would argue that such goals are no longer fantastic possibilities, but realistic possibilities in the next 10 to 20 years.

The Post piece I reference highlights people regretting that private entrepreneurs rather than governments are funding life extension research. But freeing researchers from government regulations and politics is a virtue of such funding and will make successful breakthroughs more likely.

This is an excellent summary of the hodgepodge of irrational arguments against the search for the truths of life extension, and the reasonable rebuttals in response. If ever there were a case for "more is better," healthy longevity is right up there with money.

The only flaw in this presentation actually has little to do with the arguments presented: the idea that life expectancy has been greatly expanded in the past century. This has been shown to be a statistical artifact of increased survival past early childhood. While the "average" person lives longer, once an individual has lived a few years he is no more likely to reach advanced "healthy" old age than in the past.

My personal interest in this general area is in the "healthy" part of aging. Again, statistics may not be a useful tool for evaluating an individual's prospects. There are currently so many people throwing away their chances by being obese and/or engaging in unhealthy habits like smoking and drinking to excess, it will be difficult to discern trends in population-wide longevity possibilities.

But how much of that attractiveness is attitude rather than pure physiology? Were I now to be put in a 20 year old body, I would still have the confidence and body language of a 62 year old woman.

I think that people with discernment (of all genders) are often positively attracted to the body language, with an exclusionary criterion set for the body itself (not too old; not too out of shape). So I would hypothesize that, were we all in 20 year old bodies but mixed with an equal number of 'real' 20 year olds, the attitudes of the revenant subset would make us as attractive as the psychologist found the 25-50 age group that was available for study.

Jan

Happily, we live in an age where we might be able to finally do something about aging. Gilgamesh has the only immortality available before now: we remember him 5000 years later.

Jan (and we all probably carry some of his DNA)

Thanks! Something I never understood is how someone can get bored with life, given all its potentials. By the way, I'll be looking forward to your report from Alpha Centauri. I'm probably me on Mars. Look me up!

I have not read Kass' full argument, but from what I've understood from the quote in your article, Kass comes close to a concern which I have,

If Objectivism is in the general school of Virtue Ethics (i.e. not Utilitarianism or Deontology) then there must be a place for the Aristotelian view that morality for a given species is driven by what that species *is*.

I am a man.
Intrinsic to my species is the fact that I will one day die (this is actually a fortuitous conversation as I am currently, due to a very elderly family member, grappling with notions of my own mortality).

If the very large defining factor of death is taken away, then what are we as a species, what am I as a man?

I am not making a claim that removing death would be moral or immoral, and I am certainly not deifying or worshiping death.
Rather, I am claiming that removing death would be so fundamental that what we now as men consider moral and immoral would eventually become irrelevant.

We would *be* something different, which is kind of what the whole transhumanist movement is about (at least as I understand it).

I find that concerning.

As an imperfect example, consider the relationship between a species' average lifespan and average age of procreation (they are linked).
In a reciprocal fashion, as our lifespan increased, we as a species have waited to procreate.
Now "30 is the new 20", which in real terms means we are taking longer to mature.
Will this new species be irrational children for decades, centuries?
And what would that mean?

Who knows?
Who could know?
It is so different that it is not in the realm of our experience and we can only guess.

Dr. Hudgins, I look forward to your comments.