Excellent talk, just excellent.

Yay, humanoids! Most excellently tasty.

brilliant speech, but the punchline is terrible.

It's videos like these that makes me want to live forever. Or at least be born 20 years later. Can you imagine the implications? Human life will soon be measured not in decades, but in centuries. Think of the things that we can see, and what we can accomplish. I am so insanely jealous of the future.

"Juan Enriquez was the founding director of the Life Sciences Project at Harvard Business School and a fellow at Harvard's Center for International Affairs. His work has been published in Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, Science, and the The New York Times. He is the author of As the Future Catches You and The Untied States of America. He works in business, science, and domestic/international politics."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Enriquez

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Wow, fantastic! Really mind stretching stuff. I hope I live to see the reboot.

Yeah, so we don't have to worry about the economy because we'll develop ultra advanced bio genetic implants... that are... free?

Cause last time I checked, that crap is expensive. In 5-10 years, those same super smart engineers are going to be focusing all their energy on putting food on their plate, not evolving their species through unnatural methods.

Furthermore, these 'advancements' only last ONE GENERATION. They are NOT recursive: The children of bio genetically enhanced parents are going to have to pay for the same procedures. It's just not a sound business model compared to the alternative: One perfectly formed human being is free. Just screw your wife. Poof. A child.

whoosh! That was the sound of this talk going right over your head.

Sniper007, the only reason we had all the wealth that we wiped out in this financial crisis was because we've been growing our economies at a steady rate throughout the modern period.

That growth is based on technological innovation... railroads, medicine, computers, the internet. They're all "unnecessary" and "unnatural," but they make workers in most areas of the economy able to generate more labor than was achievable in past generations.

Some of the growth is based on population growth, but each new baby makes our non-renewable resources a little more expensive, and so increasing population, especially after a certain point, starts to be a very mixed bag, unlike e.g. increasing our understanding of physics, engineering, and biology.

>> ^Sniper007:
Furthermore, these 'advancements' only last ONE GENERATION. They are NOT recursive: The children of bio genetically enhanced parents are going to have to pay for the same procedures.


Cell phones were very expensive at first but now they're relatively inexpensive (and work much better). This happens with pretty much any technology.

Also, "one generation" takes on a whole new meaning as life expectancies continue to increase. Remember when 60 was old?

>> ^Psychologic:
>> ^Sniper007:
Furthermore, these 'advancements' only last ONE GENERATION. They are NOT recursive: The children of bio genetically enhanced parents are going to have to pay for the same procedures.

Cell phones were very expensive at first but now they're relatively inexpensive (and work much better). This happens with pretty much any technology.
Also, "one generation" takes on a whole new meaning as life expectancies continue to increase. Remember when 60 was old?


The most important part of your reply is highlighted.
That we can even sit here today, and think back 10-15 years ago, that we believed 60 to be old...its the new 40.

How fast has modern medicine progressed in the past 20 years alone, to already greatly expand life expectancy to a point where it changes a moral paradigm on what we think as old...within our own lifetime.

Just think about that for a second..

That alone...isn't that a bit compelling ?

Given that technology is progressing exponentially, the next 20 years is gonna be a doozy.

With regards to the comments i read. why are we so pleased with putting microchips in our body? The skin cell regrowth that is fine and dandy there are no electrical parts being put into my body.Though how do you know this won't lead to economic separation of the rich and poor. Where the rich can afford the procedures that allow them to see more and hear more. an us heathens can't! I think this is a huge double edge sword...oh and i am alright being 100% natural...when this shit kicks off my children will be born in Zion....

>> ^NobleOne:
With regards to the comments i read. why are we so pleased with putting microchips in our body?

I dunno, why are people so pleased to put chemicals in their bodies? I occasionally ingest psychedelics (mostly shrooms) for insight and perspective. I feel I learn a lot from it, and it has led to a better idea of what I want to do with my life.

There are drugs in development that restore the signal strength of neurons to their younger (healthier) state. There are also drugs currently in testing that give the benefits of exercise without the need for exercise. There will always be the need for evidence that these substances do not have unwanted side effects, but if they prove to be safe and effective then I would certainly take them (I enjoy exercise btw).

I see mechanical means in a similar way. Safety will always be a valid concern, but I know people with hearing implants and they have no problem with that. There are nano-based red blood cells in development/testing that are far more effective than natural biological blood cells. I won't be the first in line to test them, but if they prove to be safe then I will certainly use them.

I guess I don't see much of a difference between the two. I don't want electrodes sticking out of my head, but if nanobots can some day reverse the damage to the brain through the process of aging then I would have no moral objection to using them (again, after a reasonable level of safety has been established).

>> ^Sniper007:
One perfectly formed human being is free. Just screw your wife. Poof. A child.


Since when is free good business for anyone?

>> ^thedeusmachine:
>> ^Sniper007:
One perfectly formed human being is free. Just screw your wife. Poof. A child.

Since when is free good business for anyone?


Since when are children "free" for that matter?

I guess I don't see much of a difference between the two. I don't want electrodes sticking out of my head, but if nanobots can some day reverse the damage to the brain through the process of aging then I would have no moral objection to using them (again, after a reasonable level of safety has been established).


I am a firm believer that if you were to have nanobots they would have been produced naturally kind of like white blood cells... I can't see how nanobots is an evolutionary trait....we are meant to live and meant to die....thus continues the circle of life... oh and if you want to work on your neurons in your brain just go get high....take the time and read about pot or watch.... http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Union-The-Business-Behind-Getting-High-1

oh and side note shrooms regardless of where they grow are natural not man made...

I think it's better to be a species that dies selflessly for the following generations than to be a species that selfishly lives forever.

>> ^NobleOne:I am a firm believer that if you were to have nanobots they would have been produced naturally kind of like white blood cells... I can't see how nanobots is an evolutionary trait....we are meant to live and meant to die....thus continues the circle of life... oh and if you want to work on your neurons in your brain just go get high....take the time and read about pot or watch.... http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Union-The-Business-Behind-Gettin
g-High-1
oh and side note shrooms regardless of where they grow are natural not man made...



I can certainly understand people only wanting "natural" things in their bodies, I just happen not to share that desire. I can think of plenty of natural things that will kill a person (or worse).

I am concerned more with safety and effect than I am with origin. If one of my major organs began to fail then I would not hesitate to replace it with an artificial version (if available).


You also claim that death is a part of the "cycle of life". Would you feel the same way if death were optional? Would you choose to die prematurely to continue the cycle even if living longer did not require artificial means?

Eventually natural death will be "curable". Maybe we'll be alive to see it, maybe not. It will happen though (assuming no cataclysms) and people will have to deal with these questions. Some will opt out of extended life and others will not, but I do believe that the decision should be up to each individual.

give me an axe to kill those technophile bastards. just one little axe, please.....

>> ^bluecliff:
give me an axe to kill those technophile bastards. just one little axe, please.....


Be sure to kill the guy that designed the axe too. =)

>> ^Psychologic:
Eventually natural death will be "curable". Maybe we'll be alive to see it, maybe not. It will happen though (assuming no cataclysms) and people will have to deal with these questions. Some will opt out of extended life and others will not, but I do believe that the decision should be up to each individual.


"Curable" isn't the right word. There's an assumption out there right now that cell death can be permanently averted with no side effects. It's definitely unproven and looks like wishful thinking to me. Life can always be extended by preventing and correcting bodily failures one by one, but the way I see it there are always more surprises in nature, and if you live just for the sake of extending your own life, you will be disappointed with the life you have.

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Aging death was created through natural selection amongst the original immortal organisms, IMO.

Before aging, evolution took too long. Once a species started having death through aging, the ancestors would cease to consume resources, allowing its slightly more evolved young to have more. In a short period of time, species with short lifetimes would evolve much more quickly, and gain tremendous advantage over species with long lifetimes.

That's why the dominant life form on earth is bacteria and viruses, to this day.

Humans might be able to come up with a way to make our evolution self-directed, and possible within individual living organisms (ourselves), which would make death unnecessary from an evolutionary standpoint.

Depending on how we deal with the carrying capacity of the Earth when people are immortal will be key in how we settle the question of what we do with immortality.

Maybe the key is for us all to get very, very small. That or lots of space travel. Or Dyson Spheres. I think based on our society right now, we're more likely to digitize and shrink down, since it's cheaper, and we're all about cost effectiveness.

Eventually we'll do the Dyson Sphere, but probably not until we've hit some unimaginably high population, like 100 trillion people maybe.

>> ^NetRunner:
Aging death was created through natural selection amongst the original immortal organisms, IMO.

Aging death was not likely an evolutionary selection. DNA has improved its ability to replicate without error and to self-repair, not the other way around. But of course, there are still things that muck up DNA beyond its capabilities (e.g., excessive UV radiation). So biological systems still break down frequently.


Maybe the key is for us all to get very, very small. That or lots of space travel. Or Dyson Spheres. I think based on our society right now, we're more likely to digitize and shrink down, since it's cheaper, and we're all about cost effectiveness.
Eventually we'll do the Dyson Sphere, but probably not until we've hit some unimaginably high population, like 100 trillion people maybe.

I think you've got the answer in the first part there. By the time we have the technology to build a Dyson sphere, we won't need it.

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