Posted on 04/05/2015 12:03:26 PM PDT by RoosterRedux
Seated at the head of a table for 12 with a view of the city’s soaring skyline, Peter Thiel was deep in conversation with his guests, eclectic scientists whose research was considered radical, even heretical.
It was 2004 and Thiel had recently made a tidy fortune selling PayPal, which he co-founded, to eBay. He had spent what he wanted on himself — a posh penthouse suite at the Four Seasons Hotel and a silver Ferrari — and was now soliciting ideas to do good with his money.
Among the guests was Cynthia Kenyon, a molecular biologist and biogerontologist who had garnered attention for doubling the life span of a roundworm by disabling a single gene. Aubrey de Grey, a British computer scientist turned theoretician who prophesied that medical advances would stop aging. And Larry Page, co-founder of an Internet search darling called Google that had big ideas to improve health through the terabytes of data it was collecting.
The chatter at the dinner party meandered from the value of chocolate in one’s diet to the toll of disease on the U.S. economy to the merits of uploading people’s memories to a computer versus cryofreezing their bodies. Yet the focus kept returning to one subject: Was death an inevitability — or a solvable problem?
A number of guests were skeptical about achieving immortality. But could science and technology help us live longer, to, say, 150 years? Now that, they agreed, was a worthy goal.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
We basically already know how to let people live forever.
(actually not forever...just until an accident takes them)
What we lack are the tools to implement.
Human hands are too slow and clumsy, current tools are too crude.
We conceived of the tool in 1936 that will lead to the ability to manipulate biological systems at the cellular level and do so quickly enough to preserve life.
The computer is the amplifier of the human mind and connected to tools capable of manipulations at the cellular level will lead to human immortality.
I don’t think Thiel is all that smart. He had great timing, took the risk, and it paid off. Lot of folks have great ideas, but their timing is off, market conditions not right, tech maturity not there, etc. He was fortunate, but like movie stars and singers, this does not qualify him to espouse on education, philosophy religion, politics, and everlasting life. Well, he (and others) can certainly buy an audience, but we do not have to give him credence.
“But will anything good come of it.”
Undoubtedly.
They are putting big money against the problem, and hiring top talent. It is not all about charity - most of them expect to make huge fortunes from this, because they see the technologies becoming feasible, and the market is huge (every human will want to live, and to be young again).
Genetics is advancing rapidly. We already know well a half dozen genes with major impacts on longevity (SIRT 1, TOR, etc.) and have lots of work underway on how to manipulate them. Similarly, hundreds if not thousands of genes related to diseases are known and being researched. Therapies are already beginning to emerge.
There are so many major technologies emerging (nanotechnology, 3D printing of replacement organs, etc.), and each one will likely produce big profits as it takes its turn being the best option to treat some horrible ailment - such as death. People will be willing to pay premium prices, and prices will drop quickly as new therapies emerge.
It is a coming tidal wave of change extending lifespans, curing diseases, and enhancing capabilities.
"...everything is possible but nothing is real..."
I can visualize a billionaire immortality planning meeting; drinking “Virgin” Bloody Marys and snacking on tiger peni.
Another example of liberal hypocrisy. They work to try to love forever, while simultaneously wanting to reduce the population of the Earth. My theory is recognizing irony is genetic, and liberals lack that gene.
... will lead to human immortality.
*************
It is a coming tidal wave of change extending lifespans, curing diseases, and enhancing capabilities.
*************
I can’t wait for eternal dictatorship of Obama or Hillary. /s
Psalms 90:9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. 10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
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Do they have unions in China?
These drone pilots could be anywhere in the world.
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Mr. De Grey—in order to prevent the mechanism of death using the tools of science, wouldn’t you have to first use those same tools to identify the mechanism of life?
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Wall Street is hard on bodies.
My neighbor’s mother, a vice pres. of Charles Schwab, died at 49 from cancer.
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They do, but they are arms of the state, rather like the unions here now are.
There is a prophesy among us Orthodox (I forget which Athonite or Russian Father uttered it) that, “In the days of Antichrist, all of Christ’s miracles will be duplicated, except that the dead will not be raised.” Note it does not say that the Antichrist will duplicate them, only that they will be duplicated in his time. Already by our technology, the blind see and the lame are made to walk. These are blessings, but they are also signs of the approach of the end times.
Resuscitation after a brief period of clinical death doesn’t count as raising the dead — properly speaking, raising the dead is from the third day onward, since the soul remains near the body until the third day after death, this is what will not be duplicated, we already technologically duplicate the raising of Jairus’s daughter. Properly speaking only Jesus and Lazarus have risen from the dead.
“I can’t wait for eternal dictatorship of Obama or Hillary. /s”
That is one of the downsides mentioned in the article - dictators hanging on to power for hundreds of years. Many countries are led by such characters today.
This period in history is more critical than most, because the powers of technology are growing so rapidly, that they could enable irresistible dictatorship - pervasive monitoring, mind reading, robot armies, and so on. If we let would be dictators consolidate power here, there may be no where left that can resist.
There will definitely be signs and wonders, but consider this, will those signs and wonders be good miracles, or evil? Will they want people to reach out and touch a robe or hide in their homes in fear? Will they be the healing of a leper and a paralyzed man or will it be to give someone leprosy and paralyze another?
Satan can’t do good. He is evil. He cannot tell the truth (like someone we hear everyday). There is no joy, no music, no love, no peace. Remember Boston being shut down voluntarily after the bombing. It won’t take much to get people to stay in their homes while they take out the faithful.
Liberal elitists fear nothing but reality.
My dad died in 1979 at the age of 56 from his fourth heart attack. A few years before that after the first heart attack, my parents traveled to Houston to be evaluated by the famous Dr. Denton Cooley to see if dad might be a candidate for one of the first bypass surgeries. Dr. Cooley said he was to far gone then, yet since then, 90 year old men have had quadruple bypass surgeries. As virtues³ has pointed out, lifespans have lengthened greatly across time as civil engineering and medical science and technology has progressed.
If these nouveau-riche progressives want to create a real life Howard Families project I'm all for it.
I think I got out just in time.;-)
Didn’t watch the video...eh?
<<Mr. De Grey—in order to prevent the mechanism of death using the tools of science, wouldn’t you have to first use those same tools to identify the mechanism of life?<<
He did outline the variety of mechanisms for decay in life that is the aging process. Interfering with the aging process is the goal.
The short answer is: He did. The longer answer: He did years ago. Longer answer still: He did answer it years ago and the results are in the video.
Watch the video, then talk about the video. When we all have a 15,000 year lifespan, these kinds of discussions won’t proportionally waste our life as much, but I don’t intend to talk about the weather for 15,000 years either.
DK
But not in time.
Several ends loom: Singularity, when AI becomes superintelligent and squashes us like cockroaches, or -- more likely -- the return of Jesus Christ.
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