[turing]

First, I would guess that part of the reason Calico is a separate company instead of just a team within Google is that they don't fit within Google's central mission. Second,I don't know if there really needs to be an altruistic motive; is Larry's concern for his own health and the health of those he cares about not enough?

[fred_durst]

> Larry's concern for his own health

People died to make room for Larry. For him to try and cheat the system when it's his turn is the ultimate act of disrespect. So no, that isn't good enough.

[xaa]

Er, they died because they had no choice.

They probably wouldn't have chosen to do so if they had a choice. Larry, and others working on this problem, want to give people a choice in the matter.

[fred_durst]

A choice to screw over the generations that come after them.

[xaa]

Don't you think that many of the world's problems: global warming, pollution, war, and so on, might be pursued a little more energetically if people knew they were going to be around for 500 years rather than 80?

[xaa]

(Can't reply directly)

I'm extremely interested in understanding your perspective. See, I not only publicly support this, but as an aging researcher, I spend my days, nights, and weekends (right now, in fact) working towards this goal.

I do so because I believe that, in a world full of Bad Things, death is pretty unambiguously the worst of them. Every time someone dies, a wealth of unique life experience and personality is lost, permanently. Forget Larry, I don't want to see my friends, family, and neighbors die. I don't know you at all, but I don't want you to die. And yes, I don't want to die myself either.

If you think that extending life is selfish and wrong, then to be logically consistent, wouldn't the Red Cross and hospitals and so on be evil organizations? What principle could we possibly use to establish when someone's life has been "too long"?

[fred_durst]

> Every time someone dies, a wealth of unique life experience and personality is lost, permanently.

- Every time a person dies, their life is passed on through those they have connected with and influenced. Their influence on the world does not end, only their opportunity to see its effect. And most importantly, gives room for someone to do even more with what they have accomplished.

> death is pretty unambiguously the worst of them.

- Death may be better described as one of the scariest of them. When you are dead you feel no pain. You don't even know you are dead. Certainly, we miss those in our life who have passed away, but they live on in our hearts and dreams for the remainder of our lives.

> I don't know you at all, but I don't want you to die. And yes, I don't want to die myself either.

- I'm sure most people don't want to die. That's part of what makes life so important. What makes us try to make every moment count. There is so much life someone can live in 65 years. Do we really need more?

> What principle could we possibly use to establish when someone's life has been "too long"?

- When you start to try and reverse or disable aging as opposed to attempting to cure disease.

I don't want to invalidate your work, but are you sure we really need this as a society? Or maybe we instead need to focus on making the time we have better for everyone?

[p1esk]

I watched that attitude over the years (people saying that death is "good"), and I think the reason is people believe death is inevitable. After all, this is how it has always been, and to them, dreaming about immortality is pointless and counterproductive. It's much easier just to find reasons why dying is "good for you".

Luckily, there are also people like you, who choose to do something about it. Personally, I work on AI, so that hopefully IBM Watson in 2050 will be able to help us cure aging.

[eli_gottlieb]

>I do so because I believe that, in a world full of Bad Things, death is pretty unambiguously the worst of them.

Excuse me, I'm as anti-death as anyone else, but I'm going to laugh bitterly now. Don't ask why.

There are lots of things worse than death.

[fred_durst]

No. Not at all. In fact things like pollution and war will likely get a lot worse. I'm shocked people can even publicly admit they support this type of selfish behavior.

[DominikR]

Why do you think, that there have to be future generations after aging is solved? And why do you think that humans will always be limited to living on earth?

There's plenty of space in the universe.

[p1esk]

There's plenty of space in the universe. What makes you think future generations will even want to stay on this planet?

[gordon_freeman]

Planet Earth is our home and will be. I would like to see we spend our resources to control pollution, contain global warming and save species from being endangered first before looking to outer space for help.

And yeah future generations will be looking at us how we act because they definitely would prefer living here imo.

[lotsofmangos]

People aren't going to stop breeding. Not going into space confines us to a very depressing set of possible futures.