Life extension and transhumanism are very hot topics these days. People like to talk about these things a lot more than they used to but mostly, in a different tone. What I mean by that is that at one point it was a discussion on the edge of possibilities - maybe, one day, humanity will be able to be so advanced that we'll live forever - but nowadays it seems to be to have taken a somewhat nostalgic view.
Nostalgic in that people are sure this will be possible very soon, but not soon enough for them.
"Oh, I was born a little too late, I bet these little kids might live 150 or more while I'll die an early 80!"
That, I think ,it's amazing in itself. Over the course of one generation we went from SF to almost certainty that we will extend our life indefinitely.
The most famous life extension prophet and one who heavily invest in research in this direction is the Sillicon Valley mogul Peter Thiel. Love him or hate him, he is an extraordinary guy who thinks and does extraordinary things. Every time I read an interview with him I learn something. That's rare. He famously said:
‘I think there are probably three main modes of approaching death,’ he says. ‘You can accept it, you can deny it or you can fight it. I think our society is dominated by people who are into denial or acceptance, and I prefer to fight it.’
Our weapons against death are better medicine, gene manipulation, and some sort of reverse of aging in incremenets. Most futurists ( yes, this is a job!) seem to believe that you will "cure" death in 10years interval. Go to the doctor to get a treatment as you go now for a haircut.
"You look so young! What are you? 140?"
"160"
"Oh wow, I wish I'll look as good as you when I hit that...we'll see 40 years to go!"
This could actually be a real-life dialogue in 2200.
Turning to transhumanism, which is less discussed but also familiar from SF and various shows and movies.
This is mostly a philosophy or maybe a belief? that we are not yet complete and that we can take evolution in our own hands and evolve as a humans to unforeseen limits. It's really about being more, better, achieving our full potential but without losing our humanity as some claim it will happen if we keep give in to the possibilites offered to us by science.
As a subject of discussion is a fascinating topic and one could wax poetic about what future could be if we implant ourselves with bionics and maybe even download our minds into machines.
Important answers, interesting observations and more info on how transhumanism evolved and where is it going now can be found here. I think some questions are important to ask like:
or maybe like
These people hope to achieve this immortality throw all kind of enchancements: bionics, nanotech and uploading. If they can't do it in their lifetime, no worries! Just sign up for "cryonics" and you might get a chance later.
In the book: " To be a Machine", Mark explores this world of transhumanist and interview and spends time with a lot of people that are true believers. Reading the book is a lot like reading about cryptoheads..a bunch of very optimistic people that await for the rest of the humanity to truly awake to their ideas and make it happen already.
One guy, in his 20s, says at one point in the book:
"I can't imagine I won't be enhanced by the time I'm 40."
HUH!
Look, I love all these ideas and while 10 years ago I would have said it's stupid to WANT to live so much, now I'm older and I get it. Despite what most seem to think and say, living longer has a lot of advantages especially in how you see and appreciate it. Seriously, respect your elders is wisdom. A man who's 60 has 30 years on you, punk and that's a lot of experience even if he is less educated than you are. I don't dismiss age anymore :)
THAT being said I have something to say about enhancements. They will be, at first, very shitty.
WTF DO I KNOW?
Well, I already AM enhanced! I have a hearing aid! That's a tech that makes my hearing electronic basically. Sure, this is not an improvement over the human condition, I am enhanced because my hearing SUCKS without it but there you have it...
As it is, there is a lot of maintanance that these transhumanist seem to forget about.
Let me paint a picture:
- You can't swimm, take a shower, or get too wet or the aid breaks. ( funny? I forgot to take it off in the shower COUNTLESS times)
- You need to take it off when you sleep, keep it in a moist-proof box.
- You need to clean it constantly.
- You need to always have batteries on hand.
- You need to adjust its settings with some regulatory.
- The software gets old, you need a new one.
- And if it breaks...you need to take it to service like a laptop and wait and wait and wait.
There are 100 little things that take out of the fun. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE IT and I could not live without it ( in fact, I want to raise money to get a new one because mine is already kind of old at only 3 years...) but I'm just being realistic here. Being a tranhumanism won't be a ride in the park at first. It will be like having a car back in the 20s. A lot of work but hey, was better than a horse right?! ( A lot of people disagreed with this actually!)
What's your take on all this? Do you want to live forever?Would you enhance yourself given the chance? Are you afraid of these impeding changes? Are we all headed towards doom?
Leave a comment!
PS:
This post received a 46% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @razvanelulmarin! For more information, click here!
i suppose i'm one of the types that accepts death. i doubt that living forever would be good for planet earth, anyway. just make the most out of your time here and hope that there's an afterlife :p
Reminds me of something.
Hi I would want to live forever as long as I would stay young then... but by the way can I ask a favor since your topic is about living forever my Grandma would like to extend a longer life she needed a help for her medical procedure. An upvote and re steem will be a huge help thank you
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I'm not sure that having people live forever would actually be a boon for the human race. The most obvious issue caused by increasing longevity is, as others have mentioned, overpopulation, but there are more subtle issues here as well.
For example, in countries that have a retirement age, what happens to that when people live forever? If people can maintain a productive state for longer, why should they leave the workforce? What about all the people who are currently counting the days until they're able to retire because they're at a job they hate?
It's easy to imagine everlasting life as being great from the perspective of a healthy, middle class perspective. For everyone else though, it might not be so great. For people struggling to make ends meet, or people with chronic health issues, living longer might not sound so great.
There's also the question of what a change like this would do to human advancement. It's a common trope in science fiction (and fantasy) that longer-lived species tend to be less 'driven' than shorter lived ones. The general line of reasoning is that with shorter life spans people tend to be more driven to make changes during their life, so that they can leave behind something that will last after they're dead and gone. What happens when you can just put something off to tomorrow indefinitely?
I mean sure, but it's a nice problem to have right? :))
The idea is tat humanity will solve this problem as they solved a lot of our past problems. We will ave to tally rethink pensions and benefits of course. Aslo, working age and retirement might be obsolete concepts.
It's hard to say what a long working life and creative take on world's problems by everyone could bring...
How do you know you don't live forever, and you are actually trapping yourself out of your true destiny? Unless you answer that question, this is a very scary proposition.
That and you can hack everything, and you will be controlled by nefarious folks.
Life extension is likely to happen more quickly. There's a lot of research on this at the moment, and clearly a big prize for anyone who makes progress. There are even studies that suggest we don't have to age, that if we can understand the ageing process within cells we could pause it, even reverse it. The impact on humanity would likely be catastrophic. Fascinating article, thanks!
It would be catastrophic at first just like any othet major paradigm shift is but we will adjust.
@razvanelulmarin Very very interesting....bit creepy to think in 150 year old persons alive though...and how would a resource limited world like ours cope with so many people alive?
I think science has a lot fo aces up its sleeves. What is weird today won;t be so weird tomorrow....
This world can supply a population 200 times bigger or more. It all depends on the human mind and motivation towards existence. We have to leave here and live above in order to save the sustainable food and water producing planet. That infrastructure needs to be in design right now today or humans wont make it. If there is no food or water all the profits combined wont help.
Wow this is highly fascinating but the maintenance issues that you have stated sound vigorous and quite annoying.
I'll probably read more into this.
Thanks
If you download your mind into a machine, is it still you? What if you do it while you're still alive? Then it can't be you, surely. We're still a way from understanding consciousness; it's one of the most interesting areas of research for me. Possibly AI will make some strides in this direction over the next few years....
I don't think you need to even go that far to begin questioning whether or not someone continues to be themselves. Even advanced cybernetics would cause that question to occur. If you body is somewhat replaced or largely enhanced, are you still "you?" How much of are self is based on the relationship between the mind and the body. If one changes, are we still ourselves? Think about dementia; that is why it is so frightening to so many people because we fear losing ourselves when our mind goes.
life extension is a great thing, unless you don't want to live :) fascinating article though
Perhaps when we have defeated mortality it will have to become more socially acceptable to opt out; we will leave this worls only by our choice.
as soon as we feel ready for heaven
Hell we can create a virtual heaven snd upload even. 😜
lol
By 2022 we should be growing back lost limbs. Technology is advancing at a rapid pace.
It won't take too many more decades to reach a point in which all humans live for hundreds of years and beyond.
haha. i doubt that!!!
Oh I didn't say it would be affordable, just possible. It already is possible, just not yet perfected.
i would love not to die
:))
First time i'm hearing this expression. I don't think long human life is good for the Planet. I only hope Planet's gonna survive the next 100 years due to human negligence. I agree 70-80 years is not long enough, I can't even imagine how life span was 20-40 back in time, no idea... practically you are still a baby at 20 (well nowadays)... What!? they had 64-hour day or something.. back then? lol
On the serious side, most people are afraid of dying, after all they are afraid of 1. pain and 2. the unknown...
Imagine - you close your eyes and you don't exist anymore! What a fun idea!!
I guess people who are in love with life won't wanna part with it. I'm curious how many of you have spoken to an old, old person and see his point of view on the matter. Everyone is different but in general depressed people can't wait for the end of the journey and happy, eager people want more and more of it.
Actually talking with an old person on their perspective on life so close to the end sounds like a very good thing to do. Also old people don't have as many friends and it's good for them to interact socially so it's good for everybody!
Thank you for sending my mind on an adventure in this interesting read @razvanelulmarin I can tell you put some real time into writing all of this. I appreciate that you offer several different perspective in the subject. Upvoted and followed!
One thing is for sure -- if and when life extension becomes viable... it won't extend the life of the poor.
That is legit worrisome :)
At first it will be limited to the rich as time goes on and the technology improves it will become cheaper and more accessible.
That might be a bit optimistic. With AI, advances in robotics, and life extension, the powerful might decide that they just really don't need us proles anymore. I don't think either outcome is guaranteed.
Just look at what has happened with every technology before. Most people have computers, cars, phones, etc now.
Fantastic article! I would love to live forever! I think that transhumanism is ultimately going to be how we are going to achieve immortality but in order for most people to get to that point in time we're going to solve the biological reason why we age first. This will allow people who are currently around or below their 60's to have a really good chance at living for ever and also at reaching the stage of humanity where we have the ability to live forever through transhumanism. I actually wrote about this in my article here: https://steemit.com/sciencefiction/@digitalcosmos555/futurtopia-2-living-forever
We are surely living in exiting times indeed :) .
While transhumanism would certainly be a ground-breaking achievement; as you mentioned in your post, being a transhumanist or should we say, a chrononaut, won't be a ride in the park.
You look so young! What are you? 140?"
"160"
That was funny. :)
The prospect of living to 150 or more may seem exciting but what will we do with ourselves? Even if one is healthy, life can get quite boring. If you ask older people if they'd like to live for 150 years, the majority would probably respond with a NO.
I wish to lead a healthy life and look young/good as long as I live, but as far as death is concerned, I would let nature takes its course.
Great thought-provoking post!
I think that if we had the ability to live forever then we would just do whatever we would of wanted to do if we didn't have a extended lifespan. Plus eventually we are going to have super immersive virtual reality where you could do pretty much anything you can imagine.
Secondly when it comes to asking people who are old if they wanted to live forever well I think you are phrasing the question wrong. Normally when you ask someone if they wanted to live forever (Especially if they're already old) they would take the question as if it meant that they get to live forever but with all the problems that come with old age. When asking the question you would want to emphasize that you're talking about expanding not just lifespan but ALSO healthspan. So the question would be do you want to live forever young? Then I am pretty sure the answers to the question would change dramatically.
By the way if you want to read more about achieving immortality through biological and also non-biological means than you should check out my post here:
https://steemit.com/sciencefiction/@digitalcosmos555/futurtopia-2-living-forever
How much of the reason do you think that old people don't want to live for 150 years is due to the aging process? If the aging process were much slower or reversible, perhaps they would want to live for 150 years.
Wow! You make more sense to me.
A strong downside to this trend in our society is the fact that our top 1% seem to control the direction of society and sway they're belief. Your article didn't touch on the many tragedies mankind is experiencing, from themselves, that will prevent the majority of beings from reaching a trans state. Greed and power are in control atm, and science doesn't have much sway over them currently. It doesn't look hopeful with no radical way for humanity to oust GREED. Even if the science is pointing us in a hopeful direction, it seems there are some pretty evil people living in our world who would just rather have that kinda thing all to themselves and not share to the point of lying to everyone. Its working too, much faster than mass research in life extension and awareness.
Science is as an unopened box.
We must open it in order to discover new things but those new things can be sometimes dangerous.
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For me, there is a fountain of youth. It is diet. Specific species diet including clean water that acts as a solvent inside the body not hydration as we're led to believe. distilled water helps draw and flush out toxins within our bodies cleaning us out on a cellular level. Fruits hydrate the human body. Animals are species diet specific but humans eat just about everything on the planet including meats which very acidic in our bodies. Dairy is horrible for us also. Now lots, if not most, would say "oh no here we go again with this crap" or some may even agree but couldn't imagine giving up meats and dairy in there lives among many other things I haven't mentioned due to thinking they just couldn't. It amounts to small changes in one's life whether it's a shower filter or water drinking distiller to lessen things such as Fluoride and chlorine poisoning within the body to really digging deep and detoxifying one's body. One's own body is their universe and really the only thing in life that they are truly in control of or specifically own. This vehicle that we come into this reality owning from birth and it's condition throughout our existence here in this reality is our length of time here. Some are predisposed to shorter life spans through genetics from our family lines, some through the garbage we intake earlier in life from the ones who care for us because they think fried chicken fingers and fries with ketchup and a coke is a "good and healthy" dinner for a child every day for years. I think this is what we all know and have heard before many times over. You get my point.......... garbage in/ garbage out. It's designed this way with GMO's, chemtrails, fastfoods, vaccines, bad water, BIG pharma etc.etc.etc. I mean on top of all that the stresses of just having to go out and earn through working to buy this garbage shortens one's life. I know that the small steps I've taken in my life have helped me considerably, mainly within what I choose to put into my mouth. Educate yourselves and make little changes here and there and I think you'll be very surprised with the results and just how little you crave and want anything to do within the SAD diet realm. You'll live lots longer in the long run too without tech. JMO
Transhumanism is an interesting topic. I do believe extending our lives can be a beautiful thing aslong as our surroundings are made for it aswell. Right now I wouldn't want to become the age of 200 if I would have to work till my 150th ^^ As for immortality, I doubt it to ever be possible, and something one wouldn't want to achieve. Atleast not by human standards. Because we might already be immortal by our spiritual selves (if one tends to belief that).
Once we achieve immortality the way we work would be very different. Most likely we would work in one career for a certain period of time then we would take a break kinda like a short retirement and then possibly go to college again and do a totally different career and so on and so forth. When it comes to the likelihood of achieving immortality i'm pretty sure we have a VERY good chance and likely even in the not too distant future. You should check out some of the current research going on in gerontology. I also suggest that you check out my article on the subject here:
https://steemit.com/sciencefiction/@digitalcosmos555/futurtopia-2-living-forever
Anyone that believes that they, or their successive generations can live forever, or for more than 120 years (on average) is deluding themselves.
With the rate that technology is growing I really think that you are wrong when it comes to that. You should check out some of the current research going on in gerontology. We really do have a good chance at ending aging. I suggest that you check out my article on the subject here:
https://steemit.com/sciencefiction/@digitalcosmos555/futurtopia-2-living-forever
I have had a look quick look into this and interestingly enough a video of Valter Longo and his research popped up out of the blue in an unrelated manner. I think that he is on to something as I already knew that fasting was good for us. I believe that we can extend life but I place a limit on it - we will never get past a 120 year average life span IMHO. All the best with your studies.
Valter Longo's work is really interesting. From what I have read of it I think his work has the potential to help a lot of people live long enough to get to the point in time where we have the ability to extend life expectancy indefinitely.
This is something my brother and I have often discussed, and we both agree living forever is awesome. Think of all the things you could learn, see, do, experience, discover with unlimited time. It would be amazing. And, when we talk about it, we mean living forever, or hundreds or thousands of years at least, in young, healthy bodies, possibly through reverse aging therapies, so we could get the full enjoyment of the experience. He became so interested in the subject, he got his Ph.D. last year in Molecular Biology, with a specialization in Longevity Studies. He's already started up his own biotech company and a non-profit dedicated to studying longevity and developing longevity treatments. Through his decade of working toward his Ph.D. and the things he learned, he says living forever is definitely a theoretical possibility. He says there is no biological reason humans can't achieve immorality. All we have to do is figure out how to turn off or eradicate all the things that contribute to it. He thinks this could be achieved in our lifetimes, maybe even in just a few decades, and reverse aging goes along with it, though it's a slightly separate field. Thanks to my proximity to him, I can get in on clinical trials for anti-aging and longevity treatments, and have already participated in one. It's truly an exciting time in the longevity/anti-aging field, and the technology to allow humans to achieve it is going like gangbusters into the future. I think we'll see some amazing achievements soon.
Interesting to read this post ... thanks @razvanelulmarin
I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of transhumanism.. humans have already managed to work their way around natural selection and we already have sustainability/overcrowding issues. Yeah, it would be cool if everyone could live longer, but is it really worth it?
Congratulations @razvanelulmarin
You took 29 place in my Top 100 of posts
Well at the same time the radio, TV, and internet helped connect people and allowed people to become more understanding of each other. They give people a glimpse into other people's lives and allows them to become aware of the needs of others. This allows people to help others who are in need even if they are half way across the world.
I think technology is only going to further improve the connection that we have with each other and make us even more deeply connected than ever before. One example would be the neural lace which you can read about here:
https://steemit.com/sciencefiction/@digitalcosmos555/futurtopia-1-neural-lace-how-society-will-change
As I said in this article this device will allow us literally step into someone else's shoes.