Who dares to live forever?

There is a chap, a professor from England called Aubrey De Gray. He is a biologist and engineer who specializes in human life extension through medical treatments.

He claims, within the next 30 years we'll be able to extend a persons life by 30-50 years, and those years will be healthy and fit years, even if they get the treatment in their 60's.

It won't stop there though. Like computers, cars and any other new technology, once it has been started it will improve and advance at an increasing rate so that within the extra 30 years of perfect health we may have, they will advance the treatment again to 100 years, and within that 100 years it will jump to 150 and so on and so forth.

It might sound like sci fi, but he postulates the first person to live past 1000 is already alive right now.

Question is, would you do it?

To make it clear, the treatment would be an injection which would clean your body out and boost it's immune system and natural repair functions to the point where you'd have perfect health at any age...so, living to 130 wouldn't mean you'd be in a wheelchair for the last 60 years..you'd be fit and healthy and not look your age.

In a heartbeat.

If you're interested of an extension of this idea, or this kind of though-experiment, you might like this movie:

The Man from Earth: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/

although it doesn't show an example of the idea collectively, it shows how an individual would *live/has lived* if he's been alive for 5,000 or so, while others remain mortal*.

Thanks ABC, that is on my "to watch" list.

I spoke to my girlfriend about this, and she hated the idea. She views this kind of things on a par with human cloning, which to me is a whole other issue.

Way I see it, human life extension is just medicine, albeit extreme to consider right now. I don't see the difference.

There is nothing good about getting old and weak, watching your body stop working slowly but surely. It's always struck me as the worst possible reward for a hard working ethical life..to get to the end of it and know, even if you life perfectly..your body is going to start to fuck up.

If Science can fix this....I'm all for it.

The only issue I have is people always say now we're overpopulated. My brother in law actually hopes there is some sort of plague or destruction that will wipe off a third of the people in the world so that Earth is more sustainable...

So the issue of population is definitely there. If we lived until we were 130 (let's use that as an average), people would be more likely to have children at older ages, right? At what age do they suggest to get this sort of medicine (however you put it) ?

But after thinking about it, who doesn't want to live longer, provided they are healthy? I certainly wouldn't want to be 130 and deteriorating, but if I could be healthy? You bet I'd do it.

My brother in law actually hopes there is some sort of plague or destruction that will wipe off a third of the people in the world so that Earth is more sustainable...

^ I think the easier and healthier solution for that is the education of family planning for parents. There's actually an active idea (well active about a decade ago) on having new couples take relevant exams first before bearing a child of their own; just to make sure they're fit for it (financially, emotionally, mentally, physically). Although the subject has high degree of study. I mean it must consult all relevant fields to even create an exam that is sound and necessary. Also, it must be tested. And there are loopholes for such idea... what stops a couple for pretending their newborn was "accidental" just to escape from taking the exam.

If it becomes possible, I mean to push it further to about 200 years life span, I think it the culture will grow in itself of having families limit the amount of children they decide upon, not to mention when they decide to have it.

The science in this topic is interesting. There's a theory of the mind that once we discover where consciousness lie (the area between mind and body) then we can actually just build our own body, maybe a mechanical indestructable body that could live forever (imagine iron man or the movie surrogates machinery) and just transfer our consciousness in that new material composition. In that case, we somewhat become "immortal" and there wouldn't be a need to "create" a new generation. But ethics come into picture, not to mention being near to such discovery would more than a century to discover, as the mind expert David Chalmers predicts.

1000 years, maybe. Forever, probably not (though I suppose you'd always have the option of suicide).

I think living so long would have an enormous emotional effect. Socially, it stretches our concepts of childhood, adolescence, old age... There would be a more stretched out pattern that we'd have to get used to. Sometimes even the thought of living to 70 makes me tired.

Plus, you'd have to figure out what to do for 1000 years. Traveling, reading, and making art might be fine, but if you had to sustain yourself by working at a Walmart until you could retire at 895... well.

Basically, I'm saying that you'd need to find some purpose.

"but if you had to sustain yourself by working at a Walmart until you could retire at 895... well. "

That's when suicide is an option, lol.

Auzy I agree that there are different alternatives, I wasn't meaning I agree with my brother in law. He is pretty extreme. I think that parenting classes should be definitely required, however how can this "rule" be enforced, and what about the people that get knocked up repeatedly and ditch their kids onto other people (family members etc).

Can you imagine, if you lived for 1000 years, how many babies you'd have, if you had the will and means? I could see waves and waves of generations.

Nope, I wouldn't... Who would want to live in a miserable world forever, we need to rest sometime.
Plus, this doesn't necessarily stop death; there are other ways to die besides old age... you never know what will happen.

I think if people took this treatment, and the lifespan was over 30 years, then they would have to agree in a legally binding way to not retire at 65 and have no more children over the age of 50.

Population control and resource management is the biggest non scientific negative to this. Our society isn't setup for this kind of long life. Thankfully though, when it does happen it will be in small increments so we'll have time to adjust.

I worry only the super rich will ever get access to this kind of biotechnology, but the dude who is pioneering it, Mr De Gray doesn't seem the type to sell out or be elitist.

Plus, you'd have to figure out what to do for 1000 years. Traveling, reading, and making art might be fine, but if you had to sustain yourself by working at a Walmart until you could retire at 895... well.

^ Culture and all the fields that it takes with it is ever changing. Knowledge and science keeps revolutionizing. In other words, I don't think I'll ever be bored. I'd take up doctorate of various fields I'm interested in, be a director and a politician in a small part of that 1000 years as well. The only thing that may affect me is the emotional burden of seeing friends and families die past me, but personally it wouldn't be balanced with how much I younger for more experience.

Oh, Britt, I did not imply that you agree with your brother-in-law, most of us don't I believe. :D

Population control wouldn't be as big of a problem as we might imagine, just proper family planning education is needed. People don't copulate to have children, they mostly do it for pleasure. Incase this happens, the people who have access to this drug/medicine must undergo various tests...

It's an interesting idea and concept but no, personally I'd never want to live that long even if I got to spend those extra 30 to 50 years totally healthy. Think about the people who live to be...say 95 to 100 now. Think of all the pain, war, sorrow and strife they've seen. Personally I don't even hope to live into my 90's lol

There are places in the world where people do live into their 120's or more and are still health naturally, although those places are rare. But I personally view death, for myself at least, as a final peace. The reward of peace and rest finally after the struggles of life. I don't view it as a punishment for me personally.

Plus with this, as people have said, there'd have to be a population control enforced and that would lead to everything being controlled. Sounds like the startings of way to many horrible sci-fi movies that started with a good idea to me :P

Well.... we would, after a couple hundred years, have a relatively large population of people who had accrued a vast amount of wealth and knowledge... i think its foolish to think that none of these people would be interested in moving the human population around a little to prevent over crowding...

If all Beings were equal on the Earth who recieved the injection, I would be up for living a little longer from this technology. Ok, realistically, My opinion now, those terminator movies will become reality, robotic slayers of humanity, fire from the sky, weapons of lasers, zapping people from orbit who are or are not followers of the Elitists! Do not get the implants, FIGHT! We have to defeat the Human Robots First! Then the Machines!
Egos, are our Achilles heel.

I was under the impression thi was a "if ___________ then would you _______ ?" thread but yeah i see what youre saying.

This thread is an "if and then what" mostly. While I know Mr De Gray's work is still in the highly theoretical stages, I'd be interested to see where you learned your info about his lack of credentials Donald?

I did notice when I checked out a few of his talks on youtube that he didn't actually explain how it was going to be done. He mostly talked about the area's that would need to be focussed on, such as the health of our bones etc.

Nanotechnology is a reality, and it's also a fact we'll be able to use them inside our bodies to improve our health. I know it's a leap of faith, and perhaps the fast talking slightly odd Mr De Gray isn't the best spokesperson, but it seems a serious possibility for the future.

He made a good point in one of his talks when someone mentioned how unlikely it was. He said that with every major scientific breakthrough we've ever had..they didn't just happen out of the blue. People were talking about them for years, sometimes decades (or a few cases centuries) before they actually became a reality and there was always doubt about them.

We've gone from steam engines to the internet in less than a century. Technology is evolving faster than any of us can keep track of. I have faith this will happen.

UMAD bro?

COME AT ME BRO!..

I'm not mad.

Have any of you read Time Enough for Love?