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215 points XzetaU8 | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.246s | source
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ggm ◴[] No.45081331[source]
Remarkable hostility and strange circular logic from some people posting here. Clearly belief outstrips evidence.

If research suggests there's an observable asymptotic trend, public health dollars at the very least might be better spent on quality of life as much as quantity.

The posts saying an atom of oxygen is potentially infinitely long lived (ignoring radioactive decay?) As a "proof" that life extension has no limit is about as reductively silly as it is possible to be.

Bills of mortality bootstrapped Financial investment in annuities. You think the money people aren't tracking this trend now, when they have for the last 400 or more years?

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nabla9 ◴[] No.45081536[source]
Radical life extension within our lifetimes has become secular religion substitute. It’s driven more by hope and faith than by scientific fact.

While a lifespan has no limits in theory if technology is advanced enough, the belief that it can be achieved by a living person is based on hope rather than evidence.

- Possible in our lifetime.

- Affordable to the faithful.

You remove these two, and the faithful lose their interest in discussing the matter.

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arisAlexis ◴[] No.45081807[source]
Religion is a lie. This is actually a possible science path. Don't get confused.
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Fargren ◴[] No.45082758[source]
> Religion is a lie

Anyone who says "we will have within this generation technology to extend your lifetime indefinitely" is lying just as much as the priest who says he knows God exists is lying[1]. I would say it's more likely that the scientist liar is accidentally right, than that the priest is; that doesn't make either of them people you should trust.

At the current stage of technology, belief on this process is basically based only on hope. Belief in this is essentially religious.

[1] possibly they both believe they are saying the truth, so you could argue they are wrong rather than lying. They are still both standing on the same grounds.

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exe34 ◴[] No.45082974[source]
oh thank goodness you've finally shifted the goal post! in other comments you were arguing that radical life extension was impossible but now it's merely impossible within our lifetime! that's a huge shift!
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Fargren ◴[] No.45083939[source]
I made two comments in this thread. The one you replied to, and this one I'm using now to respond to you. Do you have me confused with someone else?

But yeah, I think "within our lifetime" is a critical qualifier, and most people who are not writing it down are implicitly assuming that the qualifier is obvious. I have very limited interest in technologies that will not exist until centuries after I'm born, other than as entertainment.

Without that qualifier, almost any practical discussion about technology is moot. It's fun to talk about FTL or whatever, but we certainly should not be investing heavily into it... It might be possible, but most research on that direction would be wasteful.

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1. arisAlexis ◴[] No.45090308[source]
If you believe it will take centuries for AI assisted biology to discover new paths..