Perspective

Embar Angylwrath · Post by **Embar Angylwrath** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 9:36 pm

The death toll from the earthquae spawned tsunamai is estimated at around 45,000 people. Mother Nature in action, kicking ass and taking names.

But...

Our world population growth made up that deficit in about 5 hours time. In the time it took to assess the initial damage and get some credible stories to the networks, the world had already made up the population loss.

Incredible.

Post by **Relbeek Einre** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 9:46 pm

And we made up the population loss from 9/11 in 20 minutes. And?

Embar Angylwrath · Post by **Embar Angylwrath** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 9:55 pm

And we made up for the Holocaust in a little less than a month.

Post by **Relbeek Einre** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 9:56 pm

And we make up a year's worth of abortions in a week.

Burz · Post by **Burz** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 2:08 am

Thanks India!

Croinc · Post by **Croinc** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 2:20 am

Infrastructure, wru?

SicTimMitchell · Post by **SicTimMitchell** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 6:45 am

For a better perspective, in less than 150 years everyone on Earth right now will be dead.

Partha · Post by **Partha** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:06 am

SicTimMitchell wrote:For a better perspective, in less than 150 years everyone on Earth right now will be dead.

No, I plan on living to 200 just to piss on a lot of graves before I kick the bucket.

Embar Angylwrath · Post by **Embar Angylwrath** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:38 am

SicTimMitchell wrote:For a better perspective, in less than 150 years everyone on Earth right now will be dead.

I wouldn't bet on that Tim.

The nature of my company puts me in meetings with researchers that are doing all sorts of things in the biotech world. One of those things is research in the causes of "aging", and treatments to stop it.

Without goving up info that could get my ass hauled before the SEC, there are a few companies that have shown very promising research in this area. A couple have identified compounds and techniques that seem to stop and/or slow the aging process in mammals.

One technique is caloric restriction, which can add another 50% to your life span. However, it was research into caloric restriction (why it seems to slow the aging process) that lead to the next breakthrough - telomeric degradation- which is what many companies are focusing on now (arresting the telomeric breakage during cellular repoduction).

Most companies in this line of research know what causes the effects of aging, and they know what (at the cellular level) is happening that causes organ systems to age and die. I'd say some are within 5-10 years of having a drug or therapy on the market which will dramatically slow, or even arrest, the aging process. So it's quite possible, likely even, that in the next decade people will have the choice of living for hundreds or thousands of years.

Think on that for a moment. Living for over a thousand years. Death only from accident or disease. I'm investing in that company when it gets in to phase 3 trials.

However, to my knowledge there isn't any promising research for the reversal of the aging process. So if you're 55 when this breaks, you're stuck with the body of a 55 year old. The therapy won't reverse the aging process.

Syeni Soulslasher MK6 · Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:43 am

I remeber reading someware Don't know if its ture but don't really doubt it.

But it said there are more people alive now then have ever died.

Alannia_Raindancer · Post by **Alannia_Raindancer** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:50 am

Nah, it'd be tied up in politics for so long, we'll all be dead while they try and decide whether it's a god given right to live for a long time, or if it disrupts the natural christian order of things.

Post by **Relbeek Einre** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:56 am

Syeni, not true. I thought so too, but depending on when you define the origin of Homo sapiens sapiens, 40 to 80 billion humans have ever tread the earth. 6.5 billion of those are alive today.

Tromor · Post by **Tromor** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 12:02 pm

Holy Crap, I wonder what that would do to the world economy?

Better than investing in that company, I would think owning Real Estate would be about the only sure fired investment if people started to live forever.

Jarochai Alabaster · Post by **Jarochai Alabaster** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 1:40 pm

I'm pretty confident that any "fountain of youth" product would never be legal. Not until we can effectively terraform any planet we want into a livable environment, and passage to those worlds becomes efficient. Basically, not for a VERY long time...
Quite simply, we'd run out of space and food on Earth. We'd either have to outlaw immortality, or very strictly regulate (If not outlaw entirely) reproduction.

Embar Angylwrath · Post by **Embar Angylwrath** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 2:06 pm

Jarochai Alabaster wrote:I'm pretty confident that any "fountain of youth" product would never be legal. Not until we can effectively terraform any planet we want into a livable environment, and passage to those worlds becomes efficient. Basically, not for a VERY long time...
Quite simply, we'd run out of space and food on Earth. We'd either have to outlaw immortality, or very strictly regulate (If not outlaw entirely) reproduction.

Legal where? Here? Everywhere?

Beleive me, if the drug or treatment is successful, people will get their hands on it. If not here, then Canada or some other backwater of the world.

Mozmonar · Post by **Mozmonar** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 2:39 pm

If such a thing were to come into existance you don't really think it would be available to the masses. It would be a rather small wealthy/powerful subset of humanity that would have access to it (at least initially and for a long time). These people wouldn't put a significantly higher burden on our resources than they already do. The impoverished who lack access to current medical technologies would likewise lack access to this and would continue to die off at the expected rate.

Post by **Ddrak** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 8:12 am

I'm investing in that company when it gets in to phase 3 trials.

And if you don't email me the infoz, I'll make sure your ass spends the rest of your immortality in prison for insider trading.

;)

Dd

Riggen · Post by **Riggen** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:39 am

If such a thing were to come into existance you don't really think it would be available to the masses. It would be a rather small wealthy/powerful subset of humanity that would have access to it (at least initially and for a long time).

That same premise has been heavily used in fiction regarding a little known class of drugs called antibiotics for years.

I don't buy into the idea that anti-aging drugs alone would result in thousand-plus year lifespans. I think they would expose new classes of ailments--quite probably some pretty frightening and disgusting ones.

Embar Angylwrath · Post by **Embar Angylwrath** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 2:35 pm

Riggen wrote:
If such a thing were to come into existance you don't really think it would be available to the masses. It would be a rather small wealthy/powerful subset of humanity that would have access to it (at least initially and for a long time).
That same premise has been heavily used in fiction regarding a little known class of drugs called antibiotics for years.

I don't buy into the idea that anti-aging drugs alone would result in thousand-plus year lifespans. I think they would expose new classes of ailments--quite probably some pretty frightening and disgusting ones.

Riggen,

There are already living things on the earth that don't die from old age. Accident, disease and predation, yes, but not old age. Most of these organisms are "slow-gorwers", so the trade-off (ecologically and evolutionarily speaking) is a low repoductive rate (helps off-set the competition for resources). Here are some examples... the sequoia, the bistlecone pine, and some species of lobster. Scientists also now speculate that there are fungal colonies that have lived (not in a dormant state) for an untold number of years. Some of the colonies cover hundreds of acres, and have lived over a thousand years (Washington state).

So nature has already evolved the ability to eliminate programmed cellular death (which is essentially what aging is). Changing that cellular programming is the focus of several large and well funded biotechs. It is the Holy Grail of biotech research now, but not many companies can afford the research costs.

Imagine the possibilites if some company were to produce a Methuselah compound. How many here wouldn't succumb to the tempatation of an indefinite lifespan? I tell you this... I think most people would sell their souls for that.

Riggen · Post by **Riggen** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:18 pm

But humans are not sequoias or lobsters or fungus. Different biological mechanisms which are more permissive of long lifespans are at work in those species. I am unconvinced that halting "programmed cellular death" (which I think is not a completely accurate description of aging, as all organisms have programmed cellular death--just not necessarily to the overall organism's detriment) alone will be the boon to humans that it is to trees or crustaceans.

Will it help? Certainly. I just don't see it alone as the final solution to aging. If we ever get there, the first humans to reach 300 years of age will likely face medical issues never before conceived.

A *host* of further support technologies will be required to truly achieve an unaging human.

Brell Rants

Perspective

Perspective

Re: