How one day we may all be eternally young

Growing old may not be mandatory after all. Failing eyesight, loosened teeth and greying hair could be driven by regulatory genes that determine when it is time to shuffle off our mortal coil, rather than being indicators of the ravages of age:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/how-one-day-we-may-all-be-eternally-young-876789.html

Assuming scientists can find the regulatory genes and shut them off, thus prolonging human life by an extra 100, 200 or more years, would this be a good thing? Would you do it?

Also, if one of the alternative theories about prolonging human life were true, namely, regulating your sex life, would you give up having sex for an extra 30 years?

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
Growing old may not be mandatory after all. Failing eyesight, loosened teeth and greying hair could be driven by regulatory genes that determine when it is time to shuffle off our mortal coil, rather than being indicators of the ravages of age:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/how-one-day-we-may-all-be-e ...[text shortened]... were true, namely, regulating your sex life, would you give up having sex for an extra 30 years?

What if I could give up half my sex life for 15 extra years?

Originally posted by sonhouse
What if I could give up half my sex life for 15 extra years?

I'm guessing that for a lot of chess players or comic book geeks, that would be quite the bargain!

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
Growing old may not be mandatory after all. Failing eyesight, loosened teeth and greying hair could be driven by regulatory genes that determine when it is time to shuffle off our mortal coil, rather than being indicators of the ravages of age:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/how-one-day-we-may-all-be-e ...[text shortened]... were true, namely, regulating your sex life, would you give up having sex for an extra 30 years?

My friend has devoted his life to this sort of research. He says the FDA (I think) slows everything down unnecessarily by making it too hard to get the treatments out there.

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
Growing old may not be mandatory after all. Failing eyesight, loosened teeth and greying hair could be driven by regulatory genes that determine when it is time to shuffle off our mortal coil, rather than being indicators of the ravages of age:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/how-one-day-we-may-all-be-e ...[text shortened]... were true, namely, regulating your sex life, would you give up having sex for an extra 30 years?

I was just discussing this with a friend today--he's a minister and we went to see the X-Files movie; we both agreed that if the technology was there so that we wouldn't "break down" and become vegetables, we'd be first in line for the inoculations that would bring on immortality.

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
I was just discussing this with a friend today--he's a minister and we went to see the X-Files movie; we both agreed that if the technology was there so that we wouldn't "break down" and become vegetables, we'd be first in line for the inoculations that would bring on immortality.

You can never beat nature..
Nature does continuous regeneration and continuous creation.
Even life-long celibates do have to die ..sooner or later..

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
My friend has devoted his life to this sort of research. He says the FDA (I think) slows everything down unnecessarily by making it too hard to get the treatments out there.

I agree. Henry L. Miller, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute writes about this subject quite a bit. His main gripe is that because the FDA wants to be absolutely sure no one will be injured by the side effects of a drug, millions are denied the opportunity to be effectively treated.

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
I was just discussing this with a friend today--he's a minister and we went to see the X-Files movie; we both agreed that if the technology was there so that we wouldn't "break down" and become vegetables, we'd be first in line for the inoculations that would bring on immortality.

That's assuming you could afford it. I'm sure that if they developed a treatment that staved off death, some Elmer Gantry-type without the conscience, a la Al Gore, would come along and tell you not to use it. Meanwhile, all the rich, evil geezers would have access to it.

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
That's assuming you could afford it. I'm sure that if they developed a treatment that staved off death, some Elmer Gantry-type without the conscience, a la Al Gore, would come along and tell you not to use it. Meanwhile, all the rich, evil geezers would have access to it.

Just how imagine how delightful an immortal Mugabe would be.

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
I'm guessing that for a lot of chess players or comic book geeks, that would be quite the bargain!

You can go in but you can't go out....Ok, you get 15 more years.....

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Just how imagine how delightful an immortal Mugabe would be.

Idi Amin, Good old Adolf, Seinfeld, Now there's a thought. Seinfeld, three hundred years on, back on the standup circuit......
"And what's with these ANDROID"S anyway......

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
I was just discussing this with a friend today--he's a minister and we went to see the X-Files movie; we both agreed that if the technology was there so that we wouldn't "break down" and become vegetables, we'd be first in line for the inoculations that would bring on immortality.

Why not ask you minister about Noah and the flood? Even if you don't buy into the story the warning behind the story is still interesting. You have people living before the flood that lived to be about a 1000 years old, however, after the flood God said man will not live past 120 years. So here you have men who live for a 1000 years who become so desperatly wicked that they had to be destroyed by a direct intervention from the Almighty as where afterward no such intervention was needed again because men had much shorter life spans.

Don't belive the moral of the story? Just think what an Adolph Hitler could do in 1000 years? 😛

Originally posted by whodey
Why not ask you minister about Noah and the flood? Even if you don't buy into the story the warning behind the story is still interesting. You have people living before the flood that lived to be about a 1000 years old, however, after the flood God said man will not live past 120 years. So here you have men who live for a 1000 years who become so desperatl ...[text shortened]... t belive the moral of the story? Just think what an Adolph Hitler could do in 1000 years? 😛

I have heard a sermon on that topic--given enormous lifespans, the gist was that the musicians, farmers, winemakers, etc. who lived such long lives would have virtually perfected their arts/crafts--and conversely, given sufficient time, evil could also be twisted to unfathomable depths. While a good point, I still would want to give it a try. I think there would be more good done than harm if everyone who wanted to live forever were able to do so. It's kinda like the abortion argument: what if you abort the next Einstein, or Mozart? {or Hitler}?

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
Growing old may not be mandatory after all. Failing eyesight, loosened teeth and greying hair could be driven by regulatory genes that determine when it is time to shuffle off our mortal coil, rather than being indicators of the ravages of age:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/how-one-day-we-may-all-be-e ...[text shortened]... were true, namely, regulating your sex life, would you give up having sex for an extra 30 years?

What utter hogwash.
You'd expect more in the Independent (or not... who cares?).

Old age comes about by chromosomes becoming ever shorter.
At the end of each chromosome there is a bit of repetitive DNA called telomere.
This protects the DNA and also causes cell division.

Each year, this area of DNA becomes shorter, cells stop dividing and the system starts breaking down. That's old age.
Arguably, you could suggest (which the Independent article does not) that a possible slow down of old age could be achieved by lengthening the telomere.
But tampering with anything to do with cell division is just asking for a cancerous alternative.

And to address your other hypothesis, no. I'd rather die at 25 than give up one orgasm.