The following would be a better argument, IMO:
No, it wouldn’t, because you are presupposing that one already understands why one would want to do such a difficult thing. The whole point of pointing out the implications of acceleration in mortality is to point out real mortality rates can imply very long lifespans and that squaring the curve would have major and desirable implications.
Making up numbers is not the way to do this, then. If you want to introduce people to the idea that very long and healthy lives are possible and desirable, a historical perspective would be good. Or you could discuss how we lead relatively healthy lives until about 60, and then somehow the decay kicks in—which is really a shame because we’ve been healthy for so long, and there shouldn’t be a moral reason why it can’t stay this way.
Only once the potential benefits have been established does anyone care about how feasible fixing it would be. There are two blades to the idea of ‘cost-benefit’, and you are dismissing out of hand anyone even trying to roughly estimate the latter.
No I’m not. I agree that living happily ever on would be an enormous win for most humans. And if the author must, they are free to write fiction on how much better the world would be.
Additionally, my point is not that it’s ultra-mega-hard to extend the human lifespan, and that we shouldn’t even try. But we have to take into account how the system actually works, and then start from there. That is, we have to build a model, then see if we can improve the situation (i.e. extend human lifespan to 1000 years) by varying parameters within the model.
If that’s not possible (it’s not possible if mortality follows a doubly-exponential curve with a hard cutoff around X years, where X might be extended by 50% - if things go well), we go see if we can circumvent the model, so that it doesn’t apply anymore. Blood donations might be a stab at this. Calorie restriction isn’t.
To use your atom example:
Right now, our power sources like coal and oil produces X joules per gram; but we can see by simply calculating E=MC^2 that the potential energy of somehow tapping into mass-energy conversion rather than normal chemical potentials would generate multiple orders of magnitude more energy than from normal strategies. This is tantalizing and even believable.
There’s a difference between this, and the original writing. You already have a good reason why the real energy content of matter should be way higher than it appears to be. The only grounds on which someone would reply to this
That’s just not how the relevant model works. Thusly, I don’t think the arguments brought forth are good enough to warrant the claim that atomic energy is possible.
would be that the author of the piece on E=mc^2 then goes on discussing various techniques to increase the energy output of coal burning, perhaps using a novel oxidizer or special reaction conditions. That would be silly, after one has understood why chemical potential energy is so limited.
But, in a way, the author of the original article does exactly this by discussing the impact of various drugs or treatments like calorie restriction. Only that the limits set by the Gompertz model—not the parameters, but the model—and a way to overcome the Gompertz curve—are not discussed.
I have a feeling that I don’t understand your point or how it relates to mine, or that I don’t see that you would understand my point.
Also I’m getting a hostile vibe from your reply, so while you may answer and I will read your answer, I won’t reply to that anymore as this kind of stress negatively impacts my expected lifespan.
Making up numbers is not the way to do this, then.
He’s not making up numbers. It’s a pretty legitimate extrapolation of what the consequences would be if one could eliminate increasing mortality and maintain the mortality rates of young people. This is no more ‘making up numbers’ than is using e=mc^2 to point out the potential benefit of atomic energy.
If you want to introduce people to the idea that very long and healthy lives are possible and desirable, a historical perspective would be good. Or you could discuss how we lead relatively healthy lives until about 60, and then somehow the decay kicks in—which is really a shame because we’ve been healthy for so long, and there shouldn’t be a moral reason why it can’t stay this way.
Still missing the point. Nothing about the observation ‘hey, being 20 years old is pretty nice’ or ‘decay kicks in around 60, isn’t that odd’ implies ‘eliminating increasing mortality would result in lifespans on the order of a millennia’ unless one has already taken known annual mortality rates and worked through the probabilistic implication—the very working-through you’re mocking as “making up numbers”. (Certainly the average Guardian reader, or the 99th percentile Guardian reader for that matter, is not an expert on gerontology and will have never realized this, and needs it to be pointed out.)
Additionally, my point is not that it’s ultra-mega-hard to extend the human lifespan, and that we shouldn’t even try. But we have to take into account how the system actually works, and then start from there. That is, we have to build a model, then see if we can improve the situation (i.e. extend human lifespan to 1000 years) by varying parameters within the model.
Cost-benefit. You keep talking about the costs and exact mechanistic models of aging, while ignoring the overall observation which gives an idea of the benefit.
There’s a difference between this, and the original writing. You already have a good reason why the real energy content of matter should be way higher than it appears to be.
This is equally applicable to the aging, and why I chose it. ‘You already have a good reason why the real upper limit on lifespan should be way higher than it appears to be, because some actual empirical mortality rates imply that we could live for a long time’.
I have a feeling that I don’t understand your point or how it relates to mine, or that I don’t see that you would understand my point.
I don’t understand how you can fail so badly at understanding the basic argument. The logic of the article is transparent and standard among coverage of futurism & speculative tech articles: ‘here is a quick estimate of how valuable such an achievement could be which will be surprising to most readers who are not already experts on how aging works, here are people who think the achievement may be feasible, here’s what they and others are working on and possible routes, and here’s the summing up conclusion’.
When you read the first paragraphs, what does it parse as, logically, in your mind? Can you write out a summary of the article, or does the whole thing just look like a big mish-mash of ‘blah blah blah making-up-numbers blah blah blah caloric restriction blood donations Calico other-stuff-I-don’t-care-about’ and you get angry and decide to vent about it on LW?
Making up numbers is not the way to do this, then. If you want to introduce people to the idea that very long and healthy lives are possible and desirable, a historical perspective would be good. Or you could discuss how we lead relatively healthy lives until about 60, and then somehow the decay kicks in—which is really a shame because we’ve been healthy for so long, and there shouldn’t be a moral reason why it can’t stay this way.
No I’m not. I agree that living happily ever on would be an enormous win for most humans. And if the author must, they are free to write fiction on how much better the world would be.
Additionally, my point is not that it’s ultra-mega-hard to extend the human lifespan, and that we shouldn’t even try. But we have to take into account how the system actually works, and then start from there. That is, we have to build a model, then see if we can improve the situation (i.e. extend human lifespan to 1000 years) by varying parameters within the model.
If that’s not possible (it’s not possible if mortality follows a doubly-exponential curve with a hard cutoff around X years, where X might be extended by 50% - if things go well), we go see if we can circumvent the model, so that it doesn’t apply anymore. Blood donations might be a stab at this. Calorie restriction isn’t.
There’s a difference between this, and the original writing. You already have a good reason why the real energy content of matter should be way higher than it appears to be. The only grounds on which someone would reply to this
would be that the author of the piece on E=mc^2 then goes on discussing various techniques to increase the energy output of coal burning, perhaps using a novel oxidizer or special reaction conditions. That would be silly, after one has understood why chemical potential energy is so limited.
But, in a way, the author of the original article does exactly this by discussing the impact of various drugs or treatments like calorie restriction. Only that the limits set by the Gompertz model—not the parameters, but the model—and a way to overcome the Gompertz curve—are not discussed.
I have a feeling that I don’t understand your point or how it relates to mine, or that I don’t see that you would understand my point.
Also I’m getting a hostile vibe from your reply, so while you may answer and I will read your answer, I won’t reply to that anymore as this kind of stress negatively impacts my expected lifespan.
He’s not making up numbers. It’s a pretty legitimate extrapolation of what the consequences would be if one could eliminate increasing mortality and maintain the mortality rates of young people. This is no more ‘making up numbers’ than is using e=mc^2 to point out the potential benefit of atomic energy.
Still missing the point. Nothing about the observation ‘hey, being 20 years old is pretty nice’ or ‘decay kicks in around 60, isn’t that odd’ implies ‘eliminating increasing mortality would result in lifespans on the order of a millennia’ unless one has already taken known annual mortality rates and worked through the probabilistic implication—the very working-through you’re mocking as “making up numbers”. (Certainly the average Guardian reader, or the 99th percentile Guardian reader for that matter, is not an expert on gerontology and will have never realized this, and needs it to be pointed out.)
Cost-benefit. You keep talking about the costs and exact mechanistic models of aging, while ignoring the overall observation which gives an idea of the benefit.
This is equally applicable to the aging, and why I chose it. ‘You already have a good reason why the real upper limit on lifespan should be way higher than it appears to be, because some actual empirical mortality rates imply that we could live for a long time’.
I don’t understand how you can fail so badly at understanding the basic argument. The logic of the article is transparent and standard among coverage of futurism & speculative tech articles: ‘here is a quick estimate of how valuable such an achievement could be which will be surprising to most readers who are not already experts on how aging works, here are people who think the achievement may be feasible, here’s what they and others are working on and possible routes, and here’s the summing up conclusion’.
When you read the first paragraphs, what does it parse as, logically, in your mind? Can you write out a summary of the article, or does the whole thing just look like a big mish-mash of ‘blah blah blah making-up-numbers blah blah blah caloric restriction blood donations Calico other-stuff-I-don’t-care-about’ and you get angry and decide to vent about it on LW?