News & Politics - Living to be 1,000 years old?

JW77 · 12-08-2004, 06:11 AM

This is from an opinion piece on the BBC News website, but I was wondering what people think about this topic.

Quote:

'We will be able to live to 1,000'
By Dr Aubrey de Grey
University of Cambridge

Life expectancy is increasing in the developed world. But Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000. Here, he explains why.

Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address ageing just as effectively as we address many diseases today.

I claim that we are close to that point because of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) project to prevent and cure ageing.

It is not just an idea: it's a very detailed plan to repair all the types of molecular and cellular damage that happen to us over time.

And each method to do this is either already working in a preliminary form (in clinical trials) or is based on technologies that already exist and just need to be combined.

This means that all parts of the project should be fully working in mice within just 10 years and we might take only another 10 years to get them all working in humans.

When we get these therapies, we will no longer all get frail and decrepit and dependent as we get older, and eventually succumb to the innumerable ghastly progressive diseases of old age.

We will still die, of course - from crossing the road carelessly, being bitten by snakes, catching a new flu variant etcetera - but not in the drawn-out way in which most of us die at present.

So, will this happen in time for some people alive today? Probably. Since these therapies repair accumulated damage, they are applicable to people in middle age or older who have a fair amount of that damage.

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.

Each of these things is potentially fixable by technology that either already exists or is in active development.

Full Text

...and an opinion piece from the other side.

Don't fall for the cult of immortality - by S Jay Olshansky PhD - University of Illinois at Chicago

Starless Night 20 · 12-08-2004, 06:42 AM

Wow. That'd be insane!

I think that a hundred years is a long time and allows someone to see so many things within that century. But a thousand? That's an entire millenium. That'd be absolutely amazing, I suppose.

Just as long as I wasn't the only one living to be a thousand. =)

Eddy · 12-08-2004, 10:34 AM

I think living that long would get boring pretty quick unless we make another huge leap in technology like time travel or discovering aliens. Also if we lived longer the population would explode which is bad for the planet.

alli balli · 12-08-2004, 06:45 PM

Living to 1000 would be terrible. Do you have any idea how over-populated the planet would become?

pacifierrocks · 12-08-2004, 07:12 PM

Oh goodness that would be horrible. I don't even want to live to 100, much less 1,000. the world would be taken over by retirement homes.

Lorna · 12-08-2004, 08:32 PM

I cant imagine anyone wanting to live for 1,000 years! I mean, what are you going to do for that long?!!

Also, the planet is having enough trouble sustaning the number of people alive now, and the population is only going to increase. If people started living even longer, I think the ecosystem would just totally collapse. It's already close to breaking point as it is, if something isnt done very soon.

Jadiee · 12-08-2004, 08:51 PM

My father actually called me to tell me that. Saying im going to live to be 1000.
I personally dont know if i think its a good or bad idea. But In order to live for 1000, there would have to be a different way of aging. I may look like i do now at my present age (living to upwards 70-100yrs), but if i were even going to live to 500yrs, I would probably look like i did when i was 10 or 12. Plus, Life stages (Infant, toddler, young adult, etc etc) Would take forever. I would be an infant for 50yrs or something.
I get tired of gerber food! Though I do like the applesauce.... and the fruit medley..

But if instead, theres just an added stage (which i doubt) I think there could be alot of learning/knowledge.
But then again, theres alot of people whom i think have lived their due. Not naming names. and for them to be around for another 900yrs

haylz80 · 12-09-2004, 05:04 AM

My life would have to become way more interesting for me to wanna stick around for that long.

86amanda86 · 12-15-2004, 07:12 PM

People lived nearly that long in Biblical times, before "advanced medicine." Don't know, we'll see.

dyxlecis gril · 12-15-2004, 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by 86amanda86
People lived nearly that long in Biblical times, before "advanced medicine." Don't know, we'll see.

hahahahahaha.

Jadiee · 12-16-2004, 01:23 AM

<_<..>_>... yea.... we'll see...

goodnightboy · 12-16-2004, 02:28 AM

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks it'd be a bad idea

and anyway with the suicide rate as it is, I don't know how many people will actually want to live to 1000.

**TheAngel** · 12-19-2004, 05:01 PM

I'd want to. There are so many things to experience and so many things to learn in life that I'd want to live as long as I could so I could be involved in all those things. Besides, imagine how much more could have been done in Einstein had lived to be 1,000, or Michaelangelo, or Ptolemy, or one of the other great scientists of our time...we would be evolved by thousands of years so much more quickly because their research was so incomplete.

Jadiee · 12-20-2004, 03:32 AM

Actually, i worry less bout science being more advanced, i actually would think more advances would be made on on human philosophy. o.O. I really think people need to learn from our past.. but old people die.. If they lived longer, and stupid plans or stupid ideals or whatever held by some people, could be overridden by historic precidence so we stop throwing ourself in a loop of destruction before we drop bombs all over ourselves. Only problem is, sometimes the old people are the problem. But i think those with experience ride them out.

Ms. Fiction · 12-20-2004, 05:27 AM

I could never live that long. If I did it would only mean that I would meet more and more people I don’t like and they would have long lives also and I would lose hope because when people had shorter life spans I always had the hope that they were going to die soon.


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