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New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

(lafollette.wisc.edu)
215 points XzetaU8 | 2 comments | 30 Aug 25 16:15 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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dsign ◴[31 Aug 25 04:24 UTC] No.45080365[source]▶
I was walking on the street the other day. It was fine summer, and I saw so many elderly walking outside. All of them were using one type of aid or another; some even had a social worker at their side. As I saw them, I was thinking that my 63% marginal tax was paying for it, while I part with 25% of my income after taxes to pay my mom’s pension. That monetary cost is nothing, I would gladly pay it for the rest of my life if it could give my mom a good life for that long. Her old age is my single biggest source of stress.

In the political sphere, some countries are tearing themselves apart on the question of immigration and identity. But immigration is the only thing that can replenish their workforce.

So, we are paying an extremely high cost for letting God go on with His Slow Tormentous Cooking of Souls before Consumption, and things are only going to get worse, given the demographic expectations. Wouldn’t it make sense to put a big chunk of budget into creating life-extension tech?

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grues-dinner ◴[31 Aug 25 07:17 UTC] No.45081090[source]▶
> Wouldn’t it make sense to put a big chunk of budget into creating life-extension tech?

Only if it can improve life quality rather than length alone.

Of course if we make it so you can live to 200 in the body of a 24-year-old and then suddenly drop dead, the good news is there will be no pensions to pay any more and the bad news is you will drop dead at your 180th year at work.

Which is not to say I would not take that deal. Aging is brutal and I've just about had enough already!

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lblume ◴[31 Aug 25 07:34 UTC] No.45081183[source]▶
Historically, increases in total lifespan have always corresponded to increases in the length of healthy lives. People don't only live longer, they also live without being sick a whole lot longer.
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throw__away7391 ◴[31 Aug 25 08:09 UTC] No.45081386{3}[source]▶
Exactly. It is far more fantastical to imagine such lifespan improvements resulting in a planet of crypt keepers than one of external youth. What magic do you expect would keep such people alive?
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grues-dinner ◴[31 Aug 25 09:01 UTC] No.45081642{4}[source]▶
The same magic that keeps some people on quasi-life support for sometimes decades already.

You could imagine entirely curing cancer, heart disease, frailty and infection but not brain degeneration, for example.

Curing everything else except frailty also seems invidious, though with sufficiently good brain-machine interfaces perhaps that would be less of a problem: you can just float in anti-impact gel from 100 and 200 and mentally roam the wreckage of the internet! If AI takes over knowledge work, how you pay for your life support and data connection may become an issue.

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1. throw__away7391 ◴[31 Aug 25 17:42 UTC] No.45085152{5}[source]▶
Weird that you say that because these life support systems are exactly what I had in mind as evidence to the contrary. Without such an external life support system attached keeping you alive, there's not going to be some drug that holds your body together in a zombified form. Whatever treatment sustains the health of your heart muscle will surely be equally helpful to all the other muscles in your body, as would whatever keeps your circulatory system and all the other tissues in all your other vital organs in working order. The alternative would be to encase the body in ever increasing layers of machinery, which is definitely not what anyone talking about life extension means.
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2. grues-dinner ◴[31 Aug 25 19:10 UTC] No.45086088[source]▶
> Whatever treatment sustains the health of your heart muscle will surely be equally helpful to all the other muscles in your body

I'm not sure that's a foregone conclusion. Loads of interventions put extra pressure on other body systems (often, but not always, the liver and kidneys). Sometimes to the extent that even if you may "manage" the original complaint, it comes at a substantial cost to overall health. And heart muscle is pretty special anyway, so it's quite possible it's a separate treatment to skeletal muscle problems.

And pretty much any system failing can kill you so if long term life extension comes from targeted treatments per problem, you need to hit bones and cartilage, muscles, skin, nerves, brain, GI tract, kidneys, liver, immune system, endocrine system, lungs, etc etc, but also not overstress any one with the treatments of the others and also handle almost-inevitable cancers.