Scientist on 60 minutes said humans could live to be 5,000.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

Yes, he said 5,000, not 500. Apparently through some genetic tinkering etc., man could one day (he estimated as early as in the next 25 years) live in a healthy body for 1,000 to 5,000 years.

If you could take a pill today that would allow you to live that long, would you? My husband and I have been discussing this since the show ended, and my take on that is this: Even if such a thing were possible physically (and I don't buy it), I don't think humans could deal with that emotionally. I mean, I've raised my kids. Would I want to start over and raise a few dozen more families? Do I want to work for the next 5,000 years? Because I would still have to pay the bills. All I could think of was the Vampire Lestat series, where the vampires were often just plain tired of living.

[mainegreen]

1. This guy wasn't a south korean stem cell researcher was he?

Seriously though, that 'scientist' has been hitting something lately, and I doubt it's the lab. We are nowhere NEAR to even breaking the 130 year barrier!

If given the chance though, hell yeah I'd take 5,000 years.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

8. No, he was a scientist at Oxford or Cambridge?

Genetics as I remember.

And my apologies, I meant to post this in GD.

[Warpy]

31. His research needs to take him to a study of telomeres

but some of his suggestions might help us live more healthfully and productively into whatever age we're allotted by those telomeres.

It's not just a buildup of toxins, we're actually programmed for lifespan.

[depakid]

46. He might even cure some forms of cancer while he's at it.

Shorter telemeres are implicated in the process by which cells start to pathologically reproduce.

[Silverhair]

63. Exactly, and programs can be rewritten. NT

[Th1onein]

70. What are telomeres?

What are they?

I thought we were programmed for lifespan by hormonal levels.

[Yupster]

59. To me the secret is the ability to

transplant the brain, or at least the memories from one body to another.

Once that can be done each person can have many clones of himself growing and every five years or so he would go in to have his memories planted into a new 20 year old body.

Lots of ethical problems for sure, but the physical part I see as inevitible eventually.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

88. Oops...guess you never saw the movie Multiplicity with Michael Keaton...

Third clone wears a helmut and rubs pizza on his face. One of the funniest movies of all times.

[niyad]

2. not sure about 5 THOUSAND years--and one would have to be in good

health and good financial status.

[still_one]

3. my question is do you think they would up the age for social security?

[benburch]

6. I think that would do in social security.

It could have no relevance any more.

[RC]

4. Can you Imagen how set in their ways they'd be after a thousand

years or so? The stress of change alone would kill them.

[Posteritatis]

56. Or possibly

They would get enough experience of the world, and enough time seeing it change, that they wouldn't become ossified and set in their ways.

People have survived the twentieth century - the century that's probably had more fundamental changes in it than the previous twenty millenia - without dying en masse from the stress of change. Hell, a lot of them have taken to enjoying lots of it. I think that's telling. Human beings aren't as weak or limited as a lot of people like to think, and believe it or not, even old people are able to think and change their views.

[Carni]

5. I think it would be interesting

Just think about how much you would know at age 4000--I think it would be fascinating to experience a time span that long!

[rzemanfl]

13. Could the brain hold all the memories you'd generate? Or

would you have to forget the name of your first grade teacher in order to remember your next door neighbor's name a hundred years from now?

[Crunchy Frog]

24. You could store excess information on a disk on a computer.

Just type in "first grade teacher" when you need to recover the info.

[rzemanfl]

85. I remember stuff I didn't know I remembered all the time. That

kind of thing would be hard to keep track of. How would you get the disk to remember what she looked like? There were no .jpg files in the 1950's, although somewhere around here there is a class picture I could scan, I suppose.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

86. I moved away from my home town shortly after high school

and I am now almost sixty years old. Last year a dear friend of mine visited me and we hadn't seen each other since our senior year. She started to cry and I said, "Damn, do I look that bad?" She said, "No, you look that good." We may have looked a lot different but to each other we could still find the kid under all the wrinkles. I'm not sure I would want to compromise that memory or ever turn it into a photo op.

[sakabatou]

87. I remember something like that

but that was from an RPG book.

[Carni]

44. In my case?

I can't remember what I did last week lol

[mcscajun]

34. On the flip side, think about all the long-lived ignorant, intolerant,

idiots there'd still be.

With more time to have to put up with them. UGH.

[Carni]

43. Yes but with all that knowledge we could outwit them LOL --eom

[Posteritatis]

57. I imagine there'd be long-lived intelligent, tolerant geniuses, too. (n/t)

[mr_hat]

7. Johnny, you're 4,553 years old.

It's time you were working, with in a place of your own.

[patrioticliberal]

60. lmao

[0007]

9. If you knew you couldn't die, would you want to work?

Got a little off tract, eh?

[tinfoilinfor2005]

42. I think it only stops the aging process.

You could still get flattened by a semi-truck. But that also brings up an interesting ramification...probably suicide rates would soar, once people became simply tired of living.

[DemNoir]

10. Social problems

Would such a thing be available to everyone or just the very rich? I think the later,and imagine how the fundies would react to this.

This could very well cause the complete breakdown of society. We are definitely not evolved enough to deal with virtual immortality.

[Lorien]

17. Plus we would need a few extra planets to harvest resources from

would it end up like Logan's run, where there was a mandatory age of death? The planet can barely support the people we have now-then there's the problem of climate change....

[Mz Pip]

11. That would be cool

but I would want my family to have the same option.

There are serious issues here. Like who would get the "pill"? Probably just rich people, or people of "value". Who would decide that? The government? A panel of experts? Would someone have veto power?

And the population issues. Geez, the planet is already draining its resources. If we have people living to be 5,000 years old in addition to current reproduction rates we might very well each have about 1 square foot allowed us.

The ethics of this would be very complicated.

Mz Pip
:dem:


Happy New Year from the edge of the western world.

[dweller]

29. why don't they practice on pets first?

it would be nice to have a dog or cat that would last the lifetime of an owner.

got to credit Dave Letterman with the idea, he brought it up one late night, sounded almost as if he were grieving over a lost pet.

lost a dozen pets myself over my 50 years, and remember them all fondly.
dp

[Lorien]

12. 80-100 years in a healthy body sounds good

but yes, I think the Lestat syndrome would affect most of us. I'm already exhausted from the struggle to maintain a job in this economy.

[bluestateguy]

14. Then you would have to have mandatory population control

Real ugly stuff like limiting the number of children people could have, forced abortions or mandatory sterilizations. Otherwise all of the earth's resources would be used up by an ever growing population. Not a pretty set of possible decisions.

[DRoseDARs]

25. It's not as dark as you make it out...

Some procedures for sterilization can be reversed and not everyone wants children. If people are well-educated to such a new reality of hyperage (living for thousands of years save illness, accident, or murder) then getting them to go along with a program to trade the *cough* "right" *cough* to have one child per adult could go a long way to stablizing (or at least greatly slowing) the population numbers. Couples that want no children can trade away the "right" to them (as well as the mandatory though reversible sterilization) for other major incentives. Couples that want more than two children can aquire the "right" to bring more into the world.

I use the word "right" loosely. It isn't an either/or issue in our world today, but in a Malthusian nightmare brought on by hyper-extended lifespans it may become so by neccessity. Space is (presumably) infinite, but the places where we can live aren't. For now we're stuck with Earth and we'd have to make some very hard choices that to our modern eyes would simply cast morality aside in favor of ethical practicality. You don't have to be a monster to do unseemly things. You can do unsettling things and still be compassionate and ethical about them.

[Flabbergasted]

15. Not a chance..

But I'd wish George Were in that position.

[stevedeshazer]

16. LOL! 5,000 years old.

It's not worth it.

[amitten]

18. I wouldn't want to live past 100...especially with the environment

being destroyed so quickly. I don't want to be around to see the time when we run out of open space. (I recently read that the suburbs in Colorado are expanding at a rate of 90,000 acres per year.) I don't want to witness all the new wars, the new diseases, the stunning new levels of pollution and destruction.

Things will get worse before (and if) they get better...it's too sad and I hope to be gone before things are really much worse.

[stop the bleeding]

19. He must have been talking about other cultures because America is too

fat and lazy.

Sorry but it is true flame away.

Can you imagine the health costs if obese people lived 1000 -5000 years??? Shit there is already a HUGH strain on the system due to all of the extra disease associated with obesity.

[doublethink]

20. Wait a minute ... wait a fircking minute .....

do you guys buy this shit? 5 f ..... ing thousand years. Okay is this based on 'Science'? Where are the atheists knocking this down beyond post #5? ..... :rofl: Really I'm curious to hear the argument pro/con .... to the old testament people who lived ohhh 800 years or so? Fill me in on this 'science' .... either way .. Peace. :)

[tinfoilinfor2005]

26. Don't shoot the messenger; I'm just relaying what the genetic

guy said on the show. There were lots of other scientists on who disputed his findings, and I agreed with them.

But it was an interesting topic to bounce off of my DU pals. No more, no less. :)

[DRoseDARs]

28. If a tree here in Nevada can live for damn near 5,000 years and counting..

...obviously something in its genetics or those of its species allows it so. Whether or not this can be applied to more complex organisms such as Humans remains to be seen.

[mom cat]

21. Don't worry, Global warming will wipe us out.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

58. Yes! Finally, an end to this terrible age of prosperity and civilization!

[mom cat]

81. My only hope is that those few mega-rich folks who opt for the life

extending drugs will be the last survivors and will suffer the most. In their greed, they will have exterminated all of us ordinary folks. In their arrogance, they will believe that they will survive after all the damage that they have done to Mother Earth. I must admit that I get a perverse pleasure at the thought of them desperately attempting to manipulate the world as it finally wipes them out.

[CarbonDate]

22. Yes.

But only if:

a.) They develop space travel. I'd pretty much see everything there is to see on this planet within the first 1000, I'm pretty sure.

b.) I was one of a select group of immortal caretakers of this planet and its environment; sort of like a druid. (Don't look at me like that; we're discussing people live for millenia.)

Barring those two things, I'd have to set the cap at 1,500 years. Absolute maximum.

[Crunchy Frog]

23. Yeah, I saw a little bit of that.

the guy looked completely nuts.

Answer to your question. Yeah, I'm chicken shit enough about dying that I probably would take such a pill, even though I can barely stand to live right now as it is. A good thing it's not available. If we think the world is screwed up now...

[PATRICK]

27. All he needs is

a big government grant.

[mcscajun]

30. No way do I want to live 500 years, much less 5,000.

I'm 54 now and as I don't have any descendants, I'm ready to check out at any time.

Sure, there are many, many places I haven't seen, thousands upon thousands of books I haven't read, and at least one book I need to write. There are people I love, and things I like, but damn, after a while, it's all just reruns. :)

No matter how healthy you were, no matter how UP your attitude, sooner or later (most likely sooner) boredom would set in.

Never mind all the social, economic, and ecological problems such a fate would cause.

We're all designed (not intelligently) with planned obsolescence in mind. Nothing lasts...and that's a good thing.

[doublethink]

38. You know .....

it's posts like yours that make me feel, even here on DU ...... we are spiritual. Write that book. Do it. Leave it. :wtf: Youth is wasted on the young, maybe they can learn from it. Peace. :)

[Silverhair]

64. I'm not bored yet, and I am older than you. NT

[mcscajun]

68. Oh, I'm not bored yet...but I can see getting jaded around the corner.

...and bored coming up fast behind.

:)

I just came off a very enjoyable holiday party/event season, and am looking forward to a trip abroad next month.

I'm speaking in the long term.

[newportdadde]

32. My wife and I are expecting twins in Feb and our son is about to hit 2yrs.

I'll let you know how 5000 years old feels then. ;)

[tinfoilinfor2005]

37. Bless you both and your babies...

and don't worry. You only have to wait about 20 more years until you once again get a decent night's sleep.:toast:

[Auntie Bush]

41. Wow! Three children in 2 years! You are not going to be getting a nights

sleep till 2007. Sorry! Your poor wife must be feeling pretty uncomfortable about now. Good Luck to you both!

[bucknaked]

33. I think that perhaps I could, after 2500 liver transplants.

n/m

[leftofthedial]

35. we have overpopulated the globe living less than 100

this would destroy the planet

[merbex]

36. People living to 5000? The most important occupation: Plastic Surgeon

Even I who abhor plastic surgery see the need for it if the 5,000 becomes the average life span

[tinfoilinfor2005]

40. Oh, no doubt.

I mean, if you took the pill at age 16, then maybe not, because it was my understanding that the aging process stops. But if you were 40-90 when you stopped the process, you wouldn't want to go through the next 5000 years looking like Cheney. Or Barbara Bush. :scared:

[A Simple Game]

47. You may stop the aging process but,

how do you stop the wear and tear on the body?

Who would you get to work blue collar, labor intensive jobs? No one, that's who. My body is shot at 55 not to mention 555 or 5555!

And then there is gravity...

[tinfoilinfor2005]

48. True. So eventually we'd all be ninety nine percent plastic

I guess. Probably look like those alien people in the UFO's. Hmmm...maybe they already discovered the pill?

[A Simple Game]

50. "maybe they already discovered the pill?"

It could be possible. Does anyone think they would let the serfs in on the secret?

On edit: My paranoid self thinks someone needs to track this scientist to see if he commits suicide in the near future.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

67. and we'll all end up like Lady Cassandra

"Married several times, her life had been extended through a series of 708 surgeries, until she was nothing but a piece of skin stretched onto a frame, with eyes and a mouth, connected to a brain in a jar below. The skin had to be constantly moisturised to keep it from drying out."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Cassandra

[merbex]

73. Hideous thought n/t

[FVZA_Colonel]

90. I doubt it would be necessary.

If it is scientifically possible to extend the human lifespan to 5,000 years than it would seem possible that to genetically retard the effects that aging has on your appearance.

[AngryAmish]

39. Yes

I would love to explore other parts of the solar system.

[buddysmellgood]

45. Well, I take it one day at a time. If I'm healthy, I don't see why I'd

one day want to go off and kill myself.

[lumberjack_jeff]

49. Fuckin' A

Work? Heck no - compound interest is a cool thing, the last 4900 years would be easy street.

It'd be cool to watch my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandkids grow up.

[neoblues]

51. I'll Hold My Breath...

Of course, other 'experts' think his estimates are a bit on the ridiculous side, even pooh-pooing his primary guestimate of 1000 years.

No doubt, if allowed to, 'Science' will one day extend our lives by a substantial amount--and even the notion of perpetual life isn't out of the question. How soon? Perhaps this guy's right and within the next 25 years, they'll find a means to extend lifespans by 30 years and then before those 30 are up, find another 50 and so on until they have it all worked out. I could happen.

Alas, if it's 25 years before we have the first part of the answer... I'll be needing more than that...

What I want them to come up with is BOTH life-extension by slowing or stopping the aging process AND a reverse-aging technique. That is, I wouldn't want to live another 100 years at, say, age 80 (perhaps I'll feel differently if and when I make it that far). Heck, I'd imaging everyone over 40 will be wanting to shed a few years (more likely a decade or more).

Even so, though, there already exist chemicals that prolong the lives (as well as rejuvenate the quality of those lives) of lab animals--which would probably work on humans... There are a number of products to reduce (and some new ones that actually undo) the aspect of aging called glycation "Every second, a destructive process called “glycation” occurs throughout the body. Glycation can be described as the binding of a protein molecule to a glucose molecule resulting in the formation of damaged, nonfunctioning structures. Glycation alters protein structure and decreases biological activity. Glycated proteins, which accumulate in affected tissue, are reliable markers of disease. Many age-related diseases such as arterial stiffening, cataract and neurological impairment are at least partially attributable to glycation." (the same article suggests that the supplement Carnosine (among many others) helps to reduce this process, which therefore might help one either extend one's life or at least age more gracefully). Even so, whenever there is a more effective drug/supplement/chemical, it's almost never available to the public for whatever reason. Reasons include things like it hasn't been tested on humans yet, or it has serious known side-effects (etc). Yet sometimes there's no apparent reason why--sometimes these supplements are available outside the U.S. and even have a record of human use...

One gets the sense that if a 'wonder' anti-aging or youthenizing was discovered and found harmless/healthful... we'd never get to see it. Even if we did, can you imagine how much the discoverer would be able to (and probably would) charge for it? Even just regular old human growth hormone is extremely expensive. Even beyond the question of whether known (or unknown) forces would prevent the distribution of such a drug or whether it would be so expensive that only a few could afford it. No doubt it would be expensive, but if it was available at all, at least that could play a necessary role in limiting the impact of such a powerful population growth enhancing factor... Thus we face the question of whether we even should have access...

For the religious out there, there would be the question of would God approve? After all, Science is a tool of Satan, and this would be artificially altering the lifespans which God or the Intelligent Designer intended for us.

For the rest of us, though, we'd be face with more practical concerns...

Once upon a time, there were only half as many people in America (the U.S.)(actually, that, and similar statements could be said of any growing population-duh). Yes, when we look around and see all the pollution, noise, crime, mountains of garbage... or consider how the traffic has made the once pleasurable act of 'going for a drive'... or find that the movies's are sold-out or the restaurant has a long wait for a seat... or hear about another species whose habitat just changed into a housing development... or whatever, the largest contributor is population growth. Back to the remark about half as many people here--that was just short of 149 million. Amazingly, that happened in 1950. What surprises me, is that I can actually remember when there our country had 100 million fewer people in it. Yes, the roads were alot less crowded!

The United States now has an estimated 297,828,319 people. We're growing at approximately 2.5 million persons per year (rounded average for the decade of the 1990's). As of a few minutes ago, there were an estimated 6,488,813,487 people in the world. That's more than I can count on BOTH hands (actually a power of 10 for each finger). That's alot of mouths to feed. Unfortunate in some ways, fortunate in others, everyone's going to die. In fact, all the people who've ever lived who aren't still living, died (even if one of them is rumored to have gotten up again--but he didn't stick around). If people in significant numbers, suddenly stopped dying of old age... uh... it wouldn't be long before civilization would collapse and large numbers of causes other than old age (war, pestilence, starvation, etc).

Therefore, since population growth would cause enormous, "life or death" problems (how 'punny') for the world, clearly it would have to be carefully regulated. Either it, or reproduction. Anyone being allowed to live beyond their normal life spans, would need to be neutered (or 'fixed') so as to not further add to the problem. Still, since some people don't procreate at all anyway... that's not enough. Strict population growth control would have to be enforced. One consequence might well be a vast increase in the number of pregnancies falling victim to 'early termination'. Make no mistake though, this would be a dramatic reduction in future generations. If everyone took advantage of this option, we'd need to prevent all births in excess of the now much smaller death rate (we need to do this now anyway!).

This could be good in a way, since only a few could be allowed to procreate, then we might be selective about who gets to be parents (and I think too many people are allowed to become parents when they don't care or are utterly incompetent). Another option would be, perhaps, to allow a couple to produce up to two offspring--where for each baby born, one of the parents has to be euthanized (pregnancies that involve more than twins would have to either be terminated or the extras would have to be surgically removed or euthanized at birth--not a pretty option). The waiting list for making babies would be long indeed.

Worse yet, if mostly everybody took advantage (and it could reasonably become the custom for everyone to do so in time)... more and more fu_ked up people would be around. As they'd live through more difficult experiences by virtue of just being around longer, some number people would just become more and more unstable as opposed to the normal circumstance that by the time they'd lived through all they could handle, they'd have been old and ready to go anyway. Most people, though, I think would learn to handle the longer lives even including the additional grief events. Still, as people lived longer, even modest investment would grow until no one would have to work. As people would live so long, they'd naturally not want to place so much focus on work which consumes what seems like most of most peoples short lives now. Then too, how many careers would one have--even if one chose to continue working, before boredom set in. Even so, I don't thing just being bored or having to face a few more stressful events (which might even make a person more resiliant after a few lifetime's worth) would lead anyone to take the 'early' out option... Some people who're slobs and failures in this life would just be wasting space for any number of normal lifespans--to the exclusion of many potential new idividuals.

Just considering human memory, extended lifespan may not even have much meaning. After a few decades, how much do you remember of life back then? In many professions, if you stop practicing a skill or keeping abreast of changes, you literally lose the ability to perform key components of your job. Often it's just that you 'forget' much of what you 'knew'... You had to keep doing, studying, refreshing memory, or essential elements just fade away. Just consider a computer programmer who was proficient in a given programming language/environment. If he/she stops doing that or does something else for a year or two... many wouldn't be able to sit down and be productive. Sure, they'd relearn and catch up very much faster than someone without such experience and they'd still know some very important aspects of the work that a new programming wouldn't, but the thing is--much of the knowledge they had been so proficient on and had instant access to, just disappears, some of it being completely gone forever. Now figure such things on a scale of decades, centuries, or millenia... 600 years from now, how much would you remember? Would you even remember what you did for a living this century? Without markers such as child-rearing, you'd have even less ability to remember what you did, when. It very much could be such that your brain becomes so filled with fragments of memories and knowledge that it would all become a blur. What point is a life of tens or hundreds of hundreds of years if you can't remember much (or even most) of it?

As it is, many people's lives are rotten and might even be called a catastrophe--so much so that death is almost a kindness, a relief. Still, people who aren't happy are still unlikely to choose to die. Here again is a procedure that would probably develop that wouldn't sit well with various of the religions--the procedure being that as an individual lives on, at some point they very well might welcome death, and there would be such an option. People could and would be choosing when they'd had enough and were ready to quit. That would be though of as suicide (though in a practical sense, people would come to terms with it and not think of it in the negative terms people currently associate with suicide). So people who really should go ahead an die, probably wouldn't for a long, long time. Some would never be able to make the decision. Others would be violently opposed to the whole notion of choosing to die.

Life, or rather Death, serve a purpose... it allows for evolution. Humanity will cease to evolve. Although, I'd say it's unlikely that as a species we'll continue for more than a few thousand years, much less a million or more, anyway... Even so, "evolution" occurs over such long time scales that we'd scarcely notice that we've forgone that aspect of the future. On a much more immediate scale, Death still makes a difference! Perhaps you have to have lived several decades to recognize it, but the world (especially as relating to our technology) changes very fast--and that after some amount of such change, as individuals, we're... out of touch. Perhaps you could call us 'obsolete' or just a bunch of 'fossils'. Many of the older generation has not and possibly cannot adapt to the new techology--essential elements of how they think, how they relate, and what they're comfortable with is formed during their childhood and/or youth... and the world has changed out from under them. Young people, for example, teenagers have little in common with people who are mid-life or later and vise-versa. The question arises, can people handle such massive change again and again and again and... and so on, century after century? Perhaps some will adapt and continually adapt just find... Most, however, won't do as well. It very much seems that our minds are designed for a short lifespan.

Likewise, will we suddenly stop or slow in our technical and social evolution? Will we keep up the rapid pace of scientific advancement? Given that it's just how scientists think and that it's their passion to know new things, I don't think that will slow very much... Even so, without the continuous renewal presented by having large generations of youth being infused into human society... something won't be happening. Though there's no rule saying that rapid change is necessarily good, so if we do slow down, that could be just fine. It's a question of how much we'll slow down and what forms that will take.

Then again, that was all considering the extended lifespan to be 1000 or maybe 5000 years... what if it really was eternal--until something other than age got you? Whoa. Hard to figure.

So much for living forever (or anything close to it). :crazy:

[SheilaT]

52. this strikes me as quite silly.

I've been hearing of claims to extend the normal human life span to 150 years, 300 years, and more for at least since the mid-60's. And now this nonsense.

there's a whole lot more than a little genetic tinkering to be done. Our bodies are simply not designed to last indefinitely. Indeed, the reason the upper limit of human life (122 years is the record so far) has not altered at all is that our bodies simply wear out after a century. The increase in life span in the last hundred years is NOT because the life span itself has been extended, but because early deaths have been prevented. Infant mortality is very low. Childhood diseases hardly exist in this country any more. We have cures and fixes for all manner of things that used to kill us young. So now most of us live to at least 70, and many of us will make it to 80 and beyond.

Something else that really hasn't been touched on, is that we are not psychologically designed for an extremely long life. I'm 57, and it's fascinating and sometimes horrifying to watch how I'm changing as I get older. My attitudes towards all kinds of things have become, well, middle-aged. We get fixed in our ways for the most part. Progress occurs because the older generation dies and gets out of the way, as it needs to.

As for potential overpopulation, even one child per person, if everyone lived even 1,000 years, let alone 5,000, is far too many. Basically, you'd be having no one die (barring accidents) for the next five millenia. It's a horrifying thought.

I can't imagine living that long, or wanting to.

[zanne]

72. I went to my elderly aunt's funeral last spring...

I was in the second car of a two-car funeral procession. She outlived all her friends and alot of her family. I don't think I'd want to be left here on earth all by myself.

[kentuck]

53. And still be able to get it up for the first 4000 years?

What a life! :)

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

54. There was also a "Q" in the Q continuum on ST TNG, who felt the same way

He didn't want to live forever and wanted the right to die.

Star Trek, The Next Generation.

[Posteritatis]

55. Gladly.

I could live with widening the window I have in which to learn and experience things on the one hand, and try to improve the world on the other. If we've survived a rough tripling of our life expectancy since first evolving, I think we can manage taking things further.

How much further's up in the air, but if such a thing became possible it's not like it would be a one-time, irreversible treatment. One would be able to take it day by day by day by day by day by day.

Besides, it'd at least be one way to club foresight into peoples' heads at a scale deeper than the next week or year. Not enough people these days think in terms of decades or generations because they don't need to worry about experiencing the consequences. It makes apres moi, le deluge too seductive a thought.

[Silverhair]

61. You would not be condemned to live that long.

When you get tired of living, you can always choose to exit.

[Silverhair]

62. That would change people's concern for the enviornment,...

...and other long term issues. As one gets older, ones sense of the passage of time changes. Ten years seems to be a different length of time when you are twenty than when you are 60+. Ten years seems shorter to older folks. So if you are 1,500 years old, and good for another 3,500, then a course of action that would require 500 years to complete would be easily imaginable.

[dilligas]

65. Like you, I don't buy it.

Still, if it were possible I would go for it. And I would not have any problems dealing with it from an emotional standpoint. I enjoy my life!!!

[YankeyMCC]

66. I agree with the OP

I don't think humans, as we are today, could manage a lifetime that long. I also don't buy that it's feasible with just a bit of genetic tinkering.

But perhaps a couple or even a few centuries would be possible. But even that would be difficult for us to manage.

Our brains are just not designed to deal with such long time spans, our memory, our emotions, our very point of view is designed to deal with about one century at best. Enough time to raise at least replacements but also several more children and enough time to help with the next generation. Also enough time to add something productive yet the time is limited enough to encourage and even require cooperation to achieve significant steps forward in society at large.

Think about a scientist that knows he or she will live for 500 years. They now have a reasonable expectation that they can accomplish a great work within their lifetime without having to go to others for help. They can develop practical applications right from the very seed of theory without having to go to other engineers, without having to look to work of past scientists. They have time to learn and become expert in any supporting subject so they don't have to pull in experts from other fields.

Then they don't have to share their knowledge and if they die or loose interest that knowledge is never shared. Or even when it is shared it's more likely that all we get is the finished product with a lot less understanding of the development - at least not a widespread distribution of that process as we have no under limited life spans.

Of course this is an idea that I picked up from reading Asimov's Robot novels were we see a "short-lived" culture vs a "long-lived" culture. And I happen to think he hits on important and valid points.

[THUNDER HANDS]

69. don't worry, only the rich would live that long

the poor would be here for 50 or so years, just like now.

[Connie_Corleone]

71. As long as I still look 30.

Seriously, no I wouldn't want to live that long. It's hard enough trying to live for at least 80 or 90 years, much less 5,000!

[formercia]

74. We can use the Bush administration as test subjects

then give them life at hard labor without parole.

[Kablooie]

76. now THERE'S a thought I could live with!

[Doctor_J]

75. Nonsense

if you read Origin Of The Species, it is quite clear that our life expectancy will not exceed, by much anyway, our "usefullness". It will max out somewhere in the 80's.

[kynn]

77. I'll believe it when I see it :)

That is such a silly claim. Even if we were able to get rid of what we today call "old age", the genome will spring new ways to kill us. The reasoning is simple: evolution does not select for longevity, at least not in humans. Humans are the result of a zillion of marvelous adaptations, none of which is geared toward longevity. A 5000-year old human would require a huge number of entirely novel adaptations that at the same time cannot conflict with the adaptations that gets us to reproductive age.

And even ignoring these theoretical considerations, there's the very serious practical consideration that civilization has not yet found a way to solve problems such as those brought about by overpopulation. If humans suddenly stop dying, but continue to breed as they do now, the already serious load humans exert on the environment would be come unbearable.

[NativeTexan]

78. Why Not?.....

.....I mean, what have I got to lose? Of course, I would assume if they could do THAT....they could cure Alzheimers...cuz, if I am going to get to travel on spaceships to heaven-knows-where, then I sure as hell want to remember it!!

[Hyernel]

79. Certain people, sure.

But not everybody. Let's be realistic.

[Doctor_J]

80. You mean cockroaches like Rove?

[verdalaven]

82. Yes

To fritter away my time, I'd read every book offered and I'd acquire every degree I could possibly hold and when we finally reach for the far, distant stars, I'd be the first in line to be an astronaut on a lifetime mission to seek out new life.

I want that pill.

[Silverhair]

83. Evolution has programmed us to have certain life-spans.

Why do dogs and cats live about 10 years, parrots and elephants to over a hundred, and humans average about 70 to die from old age? Because we are genetically programmed that way. If we learn what controls the aging process, then we might be able to rewrite the program. Likely a human would have to be engineered that way as part of conception. So none of us could take a pill, but we could (Once the technology becomes available, say in about 50 to 75 years). Then humans would have to decide what to do with it.

OTOH, advances may make it possible to rewrite existing DNA, so it may become a pill after all. Once the DNA was rewritten - it would be permanent, and maybe hereditary.

[Phoonzang]

84. If this can be done, it will be done...

...and there's nothing that can be done to stop it. It doesn't matter if people don't like the "concept" of living for hundreds or thousands of years, if it looks like such a thing is possible in 50 years or so, someone will fund the research and "take the pill". It'll be a rich someone of course, probably someone who doesn't deserve to live that long. Initially the drug will only be available for the rich anyway. But as time goes on, it will eventually slip through their fingers and the masses will be able to get their hands on it.

All the problems and considerations that have been talked about in this thread are valid, but that doesn't change the fact that they're moot. People don't care about the effect on the population or their minds, they'll still take the drug. And I'm convinced that something like this will eventually be created.

I saw the segement on 60 minutes last night and despite the detractors trying to paint the Oxford fellow as a snake oil salesman, he was still within the realm of scientific possibilities. He was talking about tinkering with human DNA...with that all kinds of new possibilies are created. It doesn't matter what nature made us to me, or how long we evolved to live, we're talking about the artificial modification of human beings. We didn't evolve to be able to spring back from cancer or other diseases, or to have artifical hearts etc. If you don't think its possible to tinker with DNA, then fine...I think you might be in for a big surprise.

Now, as to question of would I take the drug... Well I'm still young and I don't have a family to worry about so I'd say yes. I'm also an agnostic and terrified of death. I can't fully beleive that there's some kind of afterlife to fall back on, yet I hope there is. I find the prospect of nothingness and non-existance that atheists find comforting more terrifiying than anything. So just to be sure I'd like to live as long as possible. Also, I have an interest in space exploration so I'd like to be around to witness some progress...seeing as how it looks like we're not doing anything about it now.

[Solon]

89. While I agree with you, broadly, your numbers are a little off...

To give examples, it is rare to find either parrots or elephants beyond the age of 70, except possibly in captivity. Elephants, I know, almost never die of old age in the wild, usually they starve to death, after their last set of teeth wear out, they can no longer eat, this happens between the ages of 50 to 80. Actually, this isn't universally true, some herds of elephants will care for the elderly by prechewing some food, but that is at most a stop-gap measure, and isn't as effective as it could be. Cats and Dogs actually have a much longer life span, today, than they did in the past, it has almost doubled in fact. Barring accidents and certain diseases for either cats or dogs, you can see them live to 20 and beyond, and this is partly thanks to the ability of vets controlling diseases like Feline Leukemia, etc. The only exception are some breeds of dogs(don't think it applies to cats, yet) that are notorious for inbreeding and shortened lifespans.

The animals that are most renown for living long are the reptiles, specifically, turtles and tortoises. Galapagos Tortoises, have been documented to live well past 150 years old, hell the box turtles that you find in your own backyard can live to be over one hundred. BTW: Just to let you know, current technology does allow for the changing of your genetic code, usually using modified retrovirii that carry the changed genes, they then insert it into your genetic code, making that new trait hereditary. Of course, both parents will have to have matching genes, and there is always a fifty-fifty chance that it is not passed on. It wouldn't be a pill though, most likely a shot, hope you aren't afraid of needles! :)

Actually, I could see this being used in veterinary offices a decade or more before being used on humans. The reason is because the short lifespans for pets, in relation to the human lifespan, means that there would be a HUGE market for such a treatment. However, I would imagine that vets themselves wouldn't give the treatment to any pet that is not first sterilized. We already have an over-population problem with feral animals, we don't need to make it worst by having them live to be a hundred or more years old. Another possibility is that they may make other changes to cat or dog DNA to slow down the breeding cycles, actually, that could be possible for humans as well. We are fertile all the time, it may be to our benefit to actually have a "fertility period" every decade or so, if we actually will have lifespans equaling a thousand years or so.

[Silverhair]

93. Thanks for the info. Elephant prechewing other's food. WOW.

That is so touching. It makes the killing of elephants even more horrible than I had already realized it was.

Thanks for correcting me on the numbers. I was trying to illustrate the concept and didn't want to google for fact checking as it would still come up with some animals die faster than others.

Your concept of "in the wild is also interesting" as I was talking about death by simple old age. In a hunter-gather society, what would a typical human lifespan be for humans that manage to live long enough to become adults. I am assuming that hunter-gatherers would have very high infant/child mortality rates?

I am familiar with gene doping via a virus, but that is usually limited to a specific gene, isn't it. I am thinking that an extreme treatment like that would need large scale engineering. Hundred of shots?

If pets were allowed to have the treatments, then the population would DEMAND that they be available for humans. In fact, there is that same demand now for the muscle shots. (Not steroids. Changes DNA so that your body type changes. Articles in Scientific American and Discover earlier this year.)

It is a fascinating concept. Interstellar space travel could become a reality.

[Lisa]

91. or maybe it'll just feel like that, under Bush's regime (n/t)

[Blue_Tires]

92. sounds like a scam to make me work

4900 more years before drawing social security!
lol

[Bloodblister Bob]

94. You'd die in a mishap long before your 5,000 years were up. nt

[rzemanfl]

96. Probably true, I am no math wiz, but over 5,000 years the long

odds of dying in a plane crash, car accident, being struck by lightning, etc. would start to add up. Maybe people would be a lot more careful if they knew they could live that long, but still...

[xchrom]

95. oh. my. god. think how many lovers you could have!

i would be such a slut --

talk about a gay agenda!

there's not that many toasters.

[McCamy Taylor]

97. ROFLMAO---he gonna pull a cancer cure out of his ass in 25 years?

Dont buy any medical company stock from this bozo.

In order to heal the normal wear and tear damage that we take on our bones from the normal stress of living in gravity, we have to have constant osteoclast/osteoblast activity. Unless he knows a way to shut that off, our species--and all species with a bony skeleton--are going to suffer from malignancies when the system that keeps that constant growth goes wacko. The only way to get rid of cancer is to switch to a cartilagenous skeleton like the shark, which gets no cancer. But the shark also lives in the water where it doesnt have to support near as much weight.

So, maybe if we go to outer space and adapt to near weightlessness and ditch our skeletons and get rid of our osteoblasts, then we can live forever.