We will be able to live to 1,000, maybe

CSO, geneticist Dr Aubrey de Grey has been a very busy boy this week.
He's been on a whirlwind media tour touting the claim that within the next 20 years his foundation will have the cure for aging....
I'll supply you with a few links so you can read these claims for yourselves... you'll note I use the term claim... being an old guy I've heard this claim many times before from propertied experts so I was at once skeptical... as if to confirm that the first thing I saw on the SENS project home page was this

SENS Foundation would like to draw your attention to an exciting initiative organised by a group of our supporters. The 10,000 people, $1 million to defeat aging Cause on Facebook asks each member to pledge just $100, which becomes payable once a total of 10,000 individuals have made the same pledge.

Those 10,000 donations will provide SENS Foundation with $1 million of additional funding, which will support our critical research into defeating the diseases and disabilities of aging. Over the course of 2010 we intend to increase funding to our LysoSENS program and ramp up work on , as well as continuing to pursue our work on atherosclerosis, immunosenescence, and macular degeneration.

The Cause has already assembled over 1,400 of the members required, and hopes to reach the 10,000-member target by Christmas. Please consider joining them.

Kind of sounds more like a business than it does real research. plus you would think if legit there would be all kinds of funding for a project like this..

Still let’s go way out on a limb and say there maybe something here... that begs the question, would you really want to live for a 1,000 years???
I'm not sure I would.


SENS Who's who
BBC Interview
Time to Talk SENS: Critiquing Immutability of Human Aging (White paper)
SENS at Wikipedia

"I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.

It is very complicated, because ageing is. There are seven major types of molecular and cellular damage that eventually become bad for us - including cells being lost without replacement and mutations in our chromosomes"
from BBC interview

That part bothers me. I 've seen this guy before on TED .com.
These ideas are emerging within our popculture before out eyes. For example:
It's all over TED.com
It's one of the favorite themes of the Neotech literature.
It's a favorite topic of Kurzweil.
It's even a significant theme from The Singularity film.
The idea is profound but what bothers me is telling people that line about the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.
They are trying to raise funds , right?
Nothing wrong with that.
But they are making enormous statements.
They are only theorgizing at this point.
And asking for money.
And getting people's hopes up.
I hate dangling carrots.

Sooo, I didn't see a single mention of any sort of payback for my $100. That's why I wouldn't donate. If they need a grant, go to a bank, they'll probably go bust anyway lol...

Unless they say that those who donate will get this miracle stuff first, I'm not buying, and even then, they'd need to guarantee it. Of course, there is always the Nanotech stuff that I'm sure could add a good 200 years, but 1000 is quite a claim for a civilization that can only record history for like *correct if wrong* 6000 years? If that?

Originally posted by Sickle_And_Hammer
Sooo, I didn't see a single mention of any sort of payback for my $100. That's why I wouldn't donate. If they need a grant, go to a bank, they'll probably go bust anyway lol...

Unless they say that those who donate will get this miracle stuff first, I'm not buying, and even then, they'd need to guarantee it. Of course, there is always the Nanotech stuff that I'm sure could add a good 200 years, but 1000 is quite a claim for a civilization that can only record history for like *correct if wrong* 6000 years? If that?

It's called philanthropy. People give away money all the time to less noble causes. What could be nobler than helping to find a way to extend the lifetime of your fellow man, not to mention yourself.

I read that we have these things almost readily available but that we will choose not create them because no one would be dying so we would run out of food and supplies due to the remained birth rate.
So ya.

Dr. de GREY wants to turn us all into SINGULARITY MACHINES with replaceable parts. You cant engineer the HUMAN BODY. That has already been done by CREATION or GOD or whomever. Same with Dr. ANTHONY ATALA over at WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, a man growing replacement BLADDERS. Give me a break!

These cats in up in these so-called science labs are simply coming back to square one. The body already REPLACES its parts BEFORE they wear out--If you take care of yourself! CELLULAR REGENERATION comes naturally in the Internal Environment.

A bunch of folks are happy as a punk going to prison about this scientific progress. Got news for you: it AINT for you. If there are to be any BENEFITS from these MARY SHELLEY-inspired attempts at IMMORTALITY--they will not be for the AVERAGE JOE! Believe that. Hell, regular people can barely get a DONATED kidney before they Die! So what makes people think they have Next on one of DE GREYS' SENS parts?! lol! You will go old and GREY waiting on that to happen my friends!

Like I said... I've been hearing these kinds of claims since the 1960's. I remember one was you'd live longer if you took mega doses of vitamin C.. turned out if you did the acid in vitamin C would burn a hole in your stomach...

each and every one of these so called experts wanting to keep us alive forever turned out to be nothing more than a scam. taking peoples money in exchange for snake oil and hollow promises

Originally posted by DaddyBare
Like I said... I've been hearing these kinds of claims since the 1960's. I remember one was you'd live longer if you took mega doses of vitamin C.. turned out if you did the acid in vitamin C would burn a hole in your stomach...

Oh really?

All of a sudden our stomachs have lost the ability to handle acids?

The usual suspect for making holes in the stomach wall is ulcers.
It's now known they are caused by a bacterium called campylobacter and vitamin C kills campylobacter, allowing the lesions to heal. (However the best cure is raw garlic chopped up in peanut butter.)

Many people, including myself, have taken up to 10 grams of vitamin C daily for years with no side effects.

Vitamin C is one of the nutrients which helps your body stay youthful for longer. Though of course it won't stop you getting run over by a bus.

reply to post by Kailassa


I said Mega doses those people were taking a lot.
I guess it'd be okay if you worked your way to those kinds of doses but people were slamming half a bottle per day hoping it would make them younger... made them sick...

Originally posted by DaddyBare
reply to post by Kailassa

 

I said Mega doses those people were taking a lot.
I guess it'd be okay if you worked your way to those kinds of doses but people were slamming half a bottle per day hoping it would make them younger... made them sick...

Sources please?
Or is this yet another urban legend?

Btw, most vitamin C tablets contain filler, flavour, colouring and artificial sweetening.
Anyone with half a brain (or more) who wants to take mega doses of vitamin C uses a pure ascorbate powder in an appropriate drink such as diluted orange juice.

When I can see 95% of the population living till 100 and in good health, then maybe I'll believe we can live to 1,000.

Originally posted by Flighty
When I can see 95% of the population living till 100 and in good health, then maybe I'll believe we can live to 1,000.

You'll never see that.

Extended lifespans will be for the lords, not for the serfs.

I was in high school around 1998 when it was announced that the genes for aging were discovered. They claimed a treatment would be available in ten years or so that would allow the gene to be supressed. I'm still waiting. It probably won't be available until I'm in my 30s or 40s though.

Either way I still believe it will be soon.

Yeah I doubt the ability to live to 1000 will ever come, and if it does it will cost you a billion+. What I can see is these guys coming out with an infomercial in the near future paid for by those donations where they will talk about all the breakthroughs they made and for just 129.99 you can have a 4oz jar of repackaged oil-of-olay