Ask HN: How would you solve mortality?

[mastef]

Which current and future technologies would benefit fixing the human 'robot', and why is it currently not feasible?

E.g. would you approach it from the 'immortal jellyfish' perspective, from cell regeneration, 'transporting' into an earlier version, transfer of the mind, etc.?

[MrLeftHand]

May I ask why we need to battle mortality? People tend to forget our body's limitations and that all the extra years add to the end, not in the middle. Not to mention the implications it might have on reproduction. People wont want to have children and slowly our numbers will decline. Also this will bring up an issue depriving ourself's of new Isaac Newtons, Einsteins and all the other bright mind and great people who would have been born and now they aren't. We always forget that strength lies in diversity. And lastly, do we really want to give immortality to people who do not contribute anything to our society? How do we determine who is worth the while to live for hundreds of years? And how will we convince the other parts of society that this is beneficial for all of us? Too many questions on a human level which are ignored, or it looks like they are ignored...

Instead of spending all our time in the shadow of mortality why not we just step out in the light and enjoy life in its brief moment and make the most of it?

Don't get me wrong, I would like to live forever, but it might have greater risks for mankind then the benefits it holds.

[Perdition]

I find the idea of immortality horrifying. People would become ridiculously risk adverse because they could live forever as long as they didn't have an accident. Imagine the sort of repressive policies those voters would support in order to remove risk.

I also think for society to evolve older generations need to die off. Peoples worldview becomes partially fixed in their youth, and for some it is entirely fixed in their youth. I wouldn't want to live with a bunch of geriatrics from the 1800's.

[mastef]

a) mortality deprived us of the Isaac Newtons, Einsteins and all the other bright minds already

b) why would there even be a discussion on 'who deserves' to be immortal? is there currently a discussion on who deserves to live based on what they contribute to society? crime would still be crime, and dealt with as it's always been dealt with

c) let's distinguish between mortality based on aging and mortality based on other unforeseeable causes ( violence, accidents, etc. )

d) mortality currently binds us to our solar system, and humanities' possible ultimate demise

e) we are at a stage where human evolution has stopped. the way to push it forward is now through our own means

my question was rather related to the technical issue - as it is a technical issue. not if it's desireable or not; that's besides the point and has to be dealt with separately

[biomimic]

Giving up is not an option.

[ChrisGranger]

I think it's something of a tragedy that sentient life-forms die before they're ready to do so, before they've crossed off the last item on their bucket list, so to speak.

Sure, "immortality" in humans would present a variety of potential problems, but new technologies often do. Should we not have created cars, planes, nuclear power, etc. because of the risks we foresaw? Let's deal with the issues as they arise, rather than use them as an excuse not to try in the first place.

How would I approach the problem? "All of the above." Follow all plausible and ethical courses of action to see where they lead. It's too early to tell which method(s) will be effective, but if something is physically possible in this arena I expect we'll try it sooner or later.

[honza-xxx]

use baculovirus to serially and temporally express telomerase and keep the telomere count between 3000-8000 for all cells in the human body. Then figure out some way to flush out senescent cells

[mastef]

Apparently there's some work happening now with mice, to activate a gene that selectively eliminates senescent cells ( from Google ) - but gene manipulation after birth is unfeasible, isn't it? What other ways could there be?

RE: Baculovirus, have you seen any attempts at this?

[DanBC]

Improve end of life care and the way people die.

Start making it acceptable for people to talk about death - how they'd like to die; what they want to happen to their organs or body after their death; what kind of funeral they want.

It's really important to let your family know how you feel about being hooked up to machines or how you'd feel about living with dementia or similar.

[kazinator]

Transfer of the mind, definitely. Hardware independence. Plus possibility of backups. Even if your body is completely vaporized in a blast, you can come back if there is a backup of you.

Forget immortality through the extension of the biological life of the body; yonder lies folly.

[mastef]

The issue with backups / teleporting / transfer of mind is always the question if it's just a copy of you living on, or still the same consciousness. E.g. if you die on the spot, and a copy takes over for you with your memories.

However yes, that would be a much faster approach to space colonisation - it would remove the need for spaceships.

[bbcbasic]

Reproduction

[biomimic]

http://calicolabs.com

http://humanlongevity.com

http://genopharmix.com

http://sens.org

http://buckinstitute.org

[mastef]

Do you have any information on their current status and their biggest issues/blockers?

What I'm wondering about the different approaches is if they could receive bigger breakthroughs by sharing / crowdsourcing their issues and getting a wider attraction / reach. E.g. sometimes the answers to a problem lie in another industry

Like e.g. the fold.it game helped decyphering the crystal structure of an AIDS causing virus in 10 days, while scientists were battling it for 15 years

[genopharmix]

We've proven we can increase the lifespan of nematodes by what is equivalent to 300 years in human lifespan. If we can at least make it 150, then we have a chance at 300 and if we make 300 we have a chance at 500 and so on.

We can then truly solve for space travel and populating other planets and we'll have lifespans that enable us to travel for extended periods of time - a Universal requirement for the human species.

[mastef]

On a sidenote : It's interesting to see Elon Musk advancing into space travel, whereas Peter Thiel advancing into trying to defeat mortality. Those seem very closely related industries that clearly do benefit from each other.

Re: The Nematode lifespan; What happened to the C60 buckyballs diet? Apparently rats that underwent a specific diet of C-60 fluids had nearly double the lifespan ( 22-26months vs 42 months ) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142961212...