"The Invincible Man"

There is a Washington Post article today on Aubrey de Grey entitled, "The Invincible Man -- Aubrey de Grey, 44 Going on 1,000, Wants Out of Old Age".
http://www.washingto...hpid=sec-health

Great Halloween day article! )

I especially like the image for the article:

The more publicity, the better.

The more publicity, the better.

Certainly. The Washington Post is a widely read newspaper across the US (not as widely read as the New York Times, but still pretty widely read). It should get lots of eyeballs on it.

That is a very cool picture. Great article by the way, and in a very important paper as well.

The Washington Post ran one of the most fair minded reasonable pieces of journalism I have seen on Aubrey De Grey and SENS today. It is refreshing to see a mainstream publication like the Post take on this subject without distortions or prejudice or mockery and actually engage with what Dr De Grey has to say. Yes, Aubrey is an undeniably eccentric and intriguing fellow and there is a strong human interest element to the story as well as a discussion of the science, but overall the approach was refreshingly detailed, fair and balanced. We need more coverage like this!

http://www.washingto...s1&hpv=national

I just notice the latest article to hit the Yahoo featured list is about Aubrey and the *Project Hope* movement. The picture they chose sucks IMHO because it makes him look like Rasputin. I hope from the phrasing of the piece that it does not encourage the religious linkage. The link to yahoo won't remain active as soon as his article leaves but for now it shows the front page link
http://www.yahoo.com/

and here is the actual piece in the Washington Post that we have already been discussing.

http://www.washingto...s1&hpv=national

The Invincible Man
Aubrey de Grey, 44 Going on 1,000, Wants Out of Old Age

Aubrey de Grey may be wrong but, evidence suggests, he's not nuts. This is a no small assertion. De Grey argues that some people alive today will live in a robust and youthful fashion for 1,000 years.

In 2005, an authoritative publication offered $20,000 to any molecular biologist who could demonstrate that de Grey's plan for treating aging as a disease -- and curing it -- was "so wrong that it was unworthy of learned debate."

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Now mere mortals -- who may wish to be significantly less mortal -- can judge whether de Grey's proposals are "science or fantasy," as the magazine put it. De Grey's much-awaited "Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime" has just been published.

The judges were formidable for that MIT Technology Review challenge prize. They included Rodney Brooks, then director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; Nathan Myhrvold, former chief technology officer of Microsoft; and J. Craig Venter, who shares credit for first sequencing the human genome.

In the end, they decided no scientist had succeeded in blowing de Grey out of the water. "At issue is the conflict between the scientific process and the ambiguous status of ideas that have not yet been subjected to that process," Myhrvold wrote for the judges.

But this linkage provides a worldwide back link to the Washington Post piece.


Aubrey de Grey, photographed at San Francisco's airport, created the Methuselah Foundation to support scientific research into extending the life span, oh, 900 years.

nice work

I saw the article too, you beat me to it.

The picture they chose sucks IMHO because it makes him look like Rasputin.

Are there any photos of him where he doesn't look like Rasputin? Actually Aubrey's beard is a little longer and he doesn't have that psycho glare in his eyes that Rasputin has. And a lot of people probably don't even know who Rasputin is anymore.

If folks lived to 1000, my guess is that there would be overpopulation very quickly, resources would be scarce, and there would be tons more pollution and waste. Yay, for death! Boo, I don't want it to happen to me!

I supsect that death is part of nature's way of keeping things in check.

If folks lived to 1000, my guess is that there would  be overpopulation very quickly, resources would be scarce, and there would be tons more pollution and waste.  Yay, for death!  Boo, I don't want it to happen to me!

I supsect that death  is part of nature's way of keeping things in check.

I hope you are being sarcastic;

If not, none of those reasons are good enough to kill people. (or unsolvable, if even real concerns in the first place; and all of those things have been answered countless times in our forums)

So then, did the link on the front of the yahoo page and the article cause book sales to go up significantly, or do just simply views of the book on amazon make the rating go up too?

So then, did the link on the front of the yahoo page and the article cause book sales to go up significantly, or do just simply views of the book on amazon make the rating go up too?

Amazon's ranking system is based exclusively on sales.

If folks lived to 1000, my guess is that there would  be overpopulation very quickly,

And your guess would probably be wrong like all the other failed predictions of doom and gloom from overpopulation.

This planet could easily hold a trillion people or more if we manage resources efficiently and ensure that we don't destroy the ecosystems that we depended upon. Both are perfectly feasible. The moon could be home to a trillion more people. Mars, other planets and their moons, and space stations could house many more. The galaxy could be home to thousands of trillions without any of your distopian fears ever coming to fruition.

resources would be scarce,

They don't have to be. Recycling resources better is a perfectly viable option. More efficient usage of energy is also possible.

and there would be tons more pollution and waste.  !

There might even be less. You're judging future efficiencies based on 19th and 20th century ignorance, laziness and poor social planning. There are many revolutions ahead of us that will put put the last two centuries on technological and resource utilization par with that of Roman or Egyptian eras.

I suspect that death  is part of nature's way of keeping things in check.

I suspect that nature doesn't care about keeping anything in check and simply chose replication as a means of continuation than evolving infinitely complex repair mechanisms.

Edited by maestro949, 02 November 2007 - 07:01 AM.

If folks lived to 1000, my guess is that there would  be overpopulation very quickly,

And your guess would probably be wrong like all the other failed predictions of doom and gloom from overpopulation.

This planet could easily hold a trillion people or more if we manage resources efficiently and ensure that we don't destroy the biosystems that we're dependent on. Both are perfectly feasible. The moon could be home to a trillion more people. Mars, other planets and their moons, and space stations could house many more. The galaxy could be home to thousands of trillions without any of your distopian fears ever coming to fruition.

resources would be scarce,

They don't have to be. Recycling resources better is a perfectly viable option. More efficient usage of energy is also possible.

and there would be tons more pollution and waste.  !

There might even be less. You're judging future efficiencies based on 19th and 20th century ignorance, laziness and poor social planning. There are many revolutions ahead of us that will put put the last two centuries on technological and resource utilization par with that of Roman or Egyptian eras.




I suspect that nature doesn't care about keeping anything in check and simply chose replication as a means of continuation than evolving infinitely complex repair mechanisms.

Plus, none of that would even come up if birth rate lowered, just as it did when people quit dying because of sanitation related issues, or the virtual elimination of infant mortality, or as life expectancy has climbed throughout the 20th and early 21st century, or any number of things. Besides the fact that killing innocent people against their will is never a good answer to any problem, I don't care what the problem is.

I somewhat Sarcastic with with the "Yay death comment".

But I think it's quite reasonable to think we might have more pollution with more population. Sure we might develop technology or policies that might reduce pollution. That might or might not happen with or without life extension. I think the fact is that pollution is increasing at the moment and that it has been increasing with increasing population. So given current practices, my thoughts are not unreasonable. You may not like them, but they are not unreasonable.

I don't know I would probably be wrong about overpopulation. With more people, there would be less resources per person in terms of land and water. Increase population exponentially and it becomes an issue at some point. Clearly additional people would bring larger crowds, less open space, and more human waste. There are lots of other disadvantages I am sure.

But there probably is no point in arguing here. I am for life extension. The only thing I am saying is that if we did in fact have technology for dramatic extensions anytime soon, it's implementation would have to be thought through.

If folks lived to 1000, my guess is that there would  be overpopulation very quickly,

And your guess would probably be wrong like all the other failed predictions of doom and gloom from overpopulation.

This planet could easily hold a trillion people or more if we manage resources efficiently and ensure that we don't destroy the ecosystems that we depended upon. Both are perfectly feasible. The moon could be home to a trillion more people. Mars, other planets and their moons, and space stations could house many more. The galaxy could be home to thousands of trillions without any of your distopian fears ever coming to fruition.

resources would be scarce,

They don't have to be. Recycling resources better is a perfectly viable option. More efficient usage of energy is also possible.

and there would be tons more pollution and waste.  !

There might even be less. You're judging future efficiencies based on 19th and 20th century ignorance, laziness and poor social planning. There are many revolutions ahead of us that will put put the last two centuries on technological and resource utilization par with that of Roman or Egyptian eras.




I suspect that nature doesn't care about keeping anything in check and simply chose replication as a means of continuation than evolving infinitely complex repair mechanisms.

I somewhat Sarcastic with with the "Yay death comment".

But I think it's quite reasonable to think we might have more pollution with more population.  Sure we might develop technology or policies that might reduce pollution.  That might or might not happen with or without life extension.  I think the fact is that pollution is increasing at the moment and that it  has been increasing with increasing population.  So given current practices, my thoughts are not unreasonable. You may not like them, but they are not unreasonable.

I don't know I would probably be wrong about overpopulation.  With more people, there would  be less resources per person in terms of land and water.  Increase population exponentially and it becomes an issue at some point.  Clearly  additional people would bring  larger crowds, less open space, and more human waste.  There are lots of other disadvantages I am sure.

You are wrong my dear: right now the food/water shortages are a result of a globalization that has been missallocated on purpose - google the 'Empire of Shame' by Jean Ziegler and Free lunch or How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Taxpayers Expense. In short the cartelization of the world resources.


There is no overpopulation per se but high demography concentration in many places. How about starting new cities from scratch...

Also nano-replicators will soon be replicating any kind of cell/atom without destroying nature anymore, we'll thus have pure bio-food available... read: Engines of Creation by Dexter, book available for free on the net. Replicators and robotics will also help us build space towns. Which overpopulation?

When people live 100's of years, they do not have kids that fast... they will live first for themselves.


Will all this happen?


maybe... if masses really start investigating the matrix and accept reality instead of living in a dream while ignoring unethical social collectivist premises

But I think it's quite reasonable to think we might have more pollution with more population. Sure we might develop technology or policies that might reduce pollution. That might or might not happen with or without life extension. I think the fact is that pollution is increasing at the moment and that it has been increasing with increasing population. So given current practices, my thoughts are not unreasonable. You may not like them, but they are not unreasonable.

It's reasonable, but even now it is not necessarily that way. For example, cars today are several orders of magnitude cleaner than they were 40 years ago, but there are not several orders of magnitude more cars, so even though the population has increased, smog has gotten better. Water pollution in the developed world is less of a problem today than it was 40 years ago, at least in the affluent world. In China, they are beginning to address their environmental mess. They will get much cleaner in the future. Every developed country has gone through a phase of dirty industrialization, followed by cleaning up the mess as they realize they don't want to live in it.

Even considering this, I still think it is crazy to talk about trillions of people on earth without considering what that would mean in a practical sense.

Also nano-replicators will soon be replicating any kind of cell/atom without destroying nature anymore, we'll thus have pure bio-food available... read: Engines of Creation by Dexter, book available for free on the net. Replicators and robotics will also help us build space towns.

Probably not any time soon. Probably never, if most nanotechnologists are right. I don't think the thermodynamics for Drexler-type replicators really works out. This is not to say there won't be micro-machines, but they are unlikely to be replicators, IMHO.

The comment section is quite interesting

http://www.washingto...2_Comments.html

The comment section is quite interesting

http://www.washingto...2_Comments.html

Wow, there are a lot of interesting ones...

On Oct. 9, 1903, the New York Times wrote:

"The flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years."

On the same day, on Kill Devil Hill, N.C., in his diary, a bicycle mechanic named Orville Wright wrote:

"We unpacked rest of goods for new machine."

hehehe...