[ChuckMcM]

Sadly this is all too true. By their nature, surprises are unexpected. That said, I would be surprised if we had an operating fusion power plant, a workable age reversing treatment, or a recreational space station.

10 years ago in 2007 I would have been surprised if we had a car that could drive itself, or a way to edit fairly specific genes.

[oAlbe]

> a workable age reversing treatment

Is that really a thing though? I keep hearing about it, articles saying that the first human to reach 300 years of age is already born etc. But is all this true? Of all things mentioned so far (AI, VR, AR, fusion power..), this is the one I have the hardest time imagining. Going from ~90 to 300 in 10 years is a huge leap compared to even the ~40 to 90 years leap of 200 years ago and today.

Do you have some trustworthy reading material on the subject?

[ChuckMcM]

Remember, the theme "unexpected and surprising" :-) I would be surprised if we got there in 10 years.

That said, the reasoning on aging/health goes like this:

   * We understand cells at a chemical level.
   * We can dump out DNA and RNA
   * We understand some of the enzyme reactions involved in cellular biology.

When those become;

   * We understand cells at a chemical and functional level.
   * We can change DNA and RNA precisely of our choosing
   * We understand all of the enzyme reactions involved in cellular biology.

Then we would be in a position to tell our cells to do what ever we want. Fight cancer, sure program a t-cell that can identify it and kill it. Cure a cold? sequence the rhino virus and flood the immune system to target all cells with that signature for death. Auto-immune disease? Turn off the triggers that are generating the immune response. Etc, etc.

We cannot do all these things today but we're working on being able to. Just as we cannot maintain a stable fusion reaction with net energy output but we're working on it.