The decrease of collagen and elastin is what makes our skin vulnerable to earth’s gravitational pull, and that is an intrinsic cause.
Even with all your original collagen and everything else, the constancy of gravity will still ‘redistribute’ the soft tissues.
It is inevitable.
Resistance is futile! *__-
(Ever see the movie ‘Immortal’, with the old gal getting the cosmetic surgery?)
I can’t say that I fully understood your last post. Our body is able to repair itself up untill our mid twenties, early thirties. Around that time, our body starts to malfunction due to accumulated damage (There is so much damage that our body can’t keep up with repairs.) and we show a decrease in collagen and elastin. When this happens, gravity’s effects start to show as it helps accelerate the aging process.
Therefor, gravity is not a direct cause of aging.
I never said that it was.
I said that it pulls your chins down your chest, etc…
Happy trails
nameless out
Here you say we need to stop gravity to avoid wrinkles and sagging. We do not need to stop gravity to to dodge these things but rather stop the effects of aging. I’m glad you particpated in this thread because while I was trying to find evidence to support my claim, I learned a thing or two about skin aging and that gravity does play a role in sagging on the skin.
Now that thats out of the way, I’d like for this thread to continue.
Most scientists are working on extending the life of people with cancer, not from people developing it. Take 15 year olds with cancer, some have mutations to oncogenes and TS genes, you could “cure” his current cancer but because of the chromosomal instability, it’ll come back again and again.
If you had breast cancer its a unique tumor that requires specialized treatment based on the individual cancer genetics, one reason why cancer treatments help some but not others is that all tumors aren’t the same, they’re diverse like people and respond differently.
You’d need to replace DNA and biology with something more synthetic.
Let me put it this way, cancer is the “end natural state” of all multicellular organisms, esp complex ones like man. ANY life expectancy jump will include MORE CANCER.
3000 years ago SOME people got cancer, most didn’t, they died before they could. Technology and life expectancies skyrocketed, so did cancer rates, because people are LIVING LONGER.In the same way if our life expectancies go to 200, you’ll see NEW DISEASES, new forms of cancer and people being kept alive through it until finally they die.
Some kind of nanotech that had 100% accuracy/fidelity to repair DNA and mutated cells, do I think this is around the corner? Nope. Technological progression is jaw dropping but i’m not convinced we’re on the verge of singularity, the only way we’d see this tech soon.
Ok, you seem to have a way bigger background than I do in biology…
Is not cancer caused by aging (Accumulation of damage over time.)? Well, damage in general can cause cancer, but the main one would be from aging. In your above example, you provide evidence for this by saying that man back then would die before they got cancer. As we all know, our life expenctancy rate has increase since then and a byproduct of our increased life span is cancer. If we find a way to repair ourselves from the aging process, preventing cancer would be a side effect.
The best way to think of cancer at least as a layman or someone of some limited education (which I am), is to consider it like the cells in a foetus. Like those cells, cancer cells form into some sort of structure and even create there own blood supply like normal collection of cells/an organ etc, the problem is having cells that aren’t meant to be there growing in the middle of your liver and eventually damaging (or even destroying) the organ doesn’t really help much, especially when these cells then spread to other organs and do the same to them. It’s at this point you are most likely boned. It may not be specialist oncology 101 but its a reasonable enough analogy. It also explains why cancer is so hard to treat, after all these cells are your bodies own cells. Unlike those cells making up a foetus’s, they’re simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The key I think is to find a way to target these cells without also targeting healthy cells, which is what chemotherapy and radiation treatments often didn’t do in the past. Billions of cells are made every day in the right place at the right time, but sometimes mutagens, like anti-oxidants, ie chemicals from smoking, drinking, even eating the wrong foods, can cause malfunctions in the processes that aren’t picked up by your genetic defences. It’s probably more remarkable that people survive to old age without getting cancer than it is that they do get it, considering how chancy cell reproduction can be and how prone to error, but there you go. It’s a crappy old piecemeal selective system that relies on more than chance, it’s no wonder that we have so many flaws when the watchmaker is blind, luckily this watchmaker has had billions of years to make all the mistakes that can be made though and the .0000000000000000001% of species that weren’t fuck ups or got killed by big chunks of rock from space etc function: barely.
Was that post directed to me or Cyrene?
Cancer is just a side product of aging (Accumulated damage over time.). That is why it is generally found in older people. If we could simply (Probably wrong choice of word.) find a way to help strengthen, fix, and speed up our defence and rejuvenation system, cancer can be avoided.
Yes side product of ageing, because obviously as we get older we are exposed to more mutagens, our cells have replicated more and thus probabilistically speaking we are subject to more errors and accumulation of said errors, I wasn’t disagreeing with that just explaining what happens. I wasn’t really disputing anyone which is why I didn’t quote anyone.
Ah, my apologies.
A friend of mine said, “if they offered me a ‘live forever’ pill, I wouldn’t take it”. Another friend has a 101 year old grandfather who said to her, “kid, trust me, you don’t want to live to be 100”. So … a lot of people are tired of living, or bored with it, or both. However, some of these are only afraid of the process of aging / dying – or of outliving loved ones and being utterly alone. If people did not age, these issues would go away.
Personally I’d like the option to live longer, or even open ended, as long as it came with the option to stop if I did grow weary of it – and so long as it came with QUALITY of life, not merely QUANTITY.
If people died only of accidental causes, it’s interesting to speculate how society would evolve. People wouldn’t be in a big hurry to grow up, I suppose. Or to grow, period. The sense of urgency would be gone. Some people have internal motivation to be and experience all that is possible, and would use the extra time to good advantage. Most, I suspect, would squander it, just as they do even now.
–Bob
Thanks for posting your opinion, it’s much appreciated.
I think anti-aging technology would improve the quality of life far more greater then we could even begin to imagine. There are so many things to experience in our existence that we will be unable to experience without a prolonged life. We will be able to have our bodies stay around the age of mid twenties, meaning that all the diseases that come with age (Accumulation of damage over time.) will be eliminated. Our brain on top of that would be able to work and process imformation a lot faster then in our later ages (You can probably see where that will come in handy.). Our sences could even remain how they were when they were at thier peak performance.
In our extended life span, new and better technologies will keep being pumped out (The rate of new and better technology is only accelerating.). This acceleration only increases our survival chance and I think as soon as we are able to get out of our solar system, the beter off we will be. (I can’t wait until personal spacecrafts are made. You have no idea how badly I want to go to mars.)
Now of course, all this will only happen if we get serious about anti-aging. And considering where most people stand on the subject of anti-aging, it’s not looking so good. I just want people to realize that this is all we have, when we die, we lose everything. Our conscience, our memories, our very existence, all of this fades away. I for one would like to try and avoid the inevitable, for that is the only logical thing to do (Heh heh, that sounds illogical in itself.).
I guess my problem is that I’ve never found life, or most people, particularly compelling. I don’t feel depressed or gloomy about it, nor even particularly bored … but I’m just saying, there’s nothing new under the sun. So I don’t want to live forever just for the sake of avoiding death. Now if my life were truly open-ended – if I could expect to have hundreds of years to devote to exploration and experimentation – then one could spend a great deal of time exploring / learning / growing. But what if you ultimately discover that there’s no “there” there? What if everything, right down to relationships, became old to you? I’d like to find out, mind you, but that’s my concern. Immortality may be highly overrated. Be careful what you ask for. To be human is fundamentally to experience loneliness … do you really want to have that experience forever?
One must also consider the unintended consequences. If there is no sense of “wasting one’s time”, if you always have plenty of it, then you still have boredom / impatience / curiosity to drive you, but some personalities will simply become very hedonistic and self centered, I’d think. I doubt we realize how much our mortality and the finite nature of life unconsciously directs and regulates our rasher impulses. It would be very interesting to see what would happen if that stricture just fell away. I’d think it’d be akin to people who win the lottery; a year or two later, they’d be no happier than they ever were, and probably less so.
Consider: what if the Saddam Hussiens and Kim Jong Ils of the world lived forever? We couldn’t count on “this too shall pass”. If every despot who lived as if he were above the common lot of man actually were above it, we’d be saddled with them forever. Forget the despots: what about telemarketers and crackpot bosses and monsters-in-law? Of course I suppose you could argue we’d have our Einsteins and Schwietzers forever, too. Interesting questions to ponder.
My bottom line is, I’d like to be healthy and vital as long as I choose to live, but I am dubious that it would be an unambiguous, clean “win” for the human race if it freed itself from the shackles of aging.
–Bob
I agree the problems that come with an indefinite or a significantly increased life span are significant. People do become jaded, even comparing the wonder of a child to a young adult, certain things become less meaningful when you have done them many times.
A few problems I consider might come with age even if they don’t get any older physically, some of which you’ve already mentioned:
- population, how would one support a growing population, that didn’t die off.
- people can become set in their ways with age, and thus conservative. If these people are in positions of influence or scientific discovery they may impede new ideas by insisting on remaining where they are and impeding the flow of new minds.
- assuming such methods are not given to all, would we necessarily be keeping the best people alive, or just those who can afford it. Imagine keeping Paris Hilton alive forever!
- would a long life for some, not for others type of program not cause dispute or even civil unrest? People might start asking why some people deserve such a gift.
- We employ people often on experience, given a new wealth of experience, how would we get inexperienced people into roles where people who were just as physically and more intellectually adept could do the same job without the need to train them. Again the idea that such people would be more set in their methods and less imaginative could create problems.
- religious implications, would religious groups support the growing immortals in their ethical considerations, or would they see it as degrading life after death, or just playing God? I could envision a different sort of terrorism that would move against such.
- social problems. We don’t know how old people are any more because they don’t appear older. Could this lead to people taking advantage of others, criminally or just on a social level. For example we could we create a class of “elite” people, who look down on those who are unable to attain longevity through expense. If someone desired to stay say 14, but was really 56 would we be comfortable with them dating our children?
- Natural selection, would more people be kept in the gene pool who should really keep their genes limited to the age they can reproduce. How would we legislate on that? Further if we did limit births to keep populations at a viable level, would we be limiting the gene pool.
- ennui crime, would we have to consider that some people would start turning to criminal to get ever more thrills out of life.
Advert:
Are you bored with life? What haven’t you done yet, have you really experienced it all? Want to do it? Give us the money and we’ll let you explore some of the most close to the edge and beyond it things that will put the thrill back in your life…
Should we be careful what we wish for? Not that I’m against it I just wonder if anyone has considered all the implications.
You have to ask yourself why people become “set in their ways”. It is not entirely a matter of having so much experience that it all blurs together and you quit taking stock. It’s also influenced by a sense of futility – of it being too late, of you being washed up, the die having been cast, etc. Plus it’s influenced by your waning physical vitality. If you were immortal it’d never be too late and you’d not feel physically diminished. Also, even now, not all older people are that way; some people keep themselves fresh and child like.
That said, you’re right, a percentage of people would become bored and I could see what you have aptly termed “ennui crime” creating a whole new class of problems.
–Bob
Bob, I have thought about all that you have said before. I still stand by my opinion because of the fact that everything changes. If we were ever to explore everything (Think about how long that will take, it would be nearly impossible for us to do this. This means we can always have a goal.), by the time we got back to our solar system or any for that matter, it would have all changed. Being bored is completely insignificant and we could even erase this emotion in the future. We will be able to do so much, basically anything bad you might find, we will probably be able to help that.
Remember, at no time will we ever be immortal, so if you really desired to, you can die (And mabe even be brought back to life at a time specified. Oh sweet, sweet, technology.). But as for me, I will try to experience everything possible, learn as much as I can, and explore to no end before I will ever want to die.
Sidhe, I also have thought about the things you have presented. One thing though is we have to consider how many people will deny the ability to live longer. On top of that a reduced birthrate would help the population problem (Which do you want more, a high death rate, or a low birth rate?). Also consider how close we are to colonizing mars. (I’ve seen some very cool agricultural ideas that would take care of food and supplies and the like along with new power ideas.)
Some of your problems deals with immortality, not anti-aging. Immortality is impossible.
I say just because thier might be a few problems resulting in anti-aging doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it. Denying people the right to live is not right by any means. Most of these problems can be dealt with after we achieve anti-aging technology.