[forloop]

1) This sounds like rationalisation. Clearly there's advantages to being 10x at something valuable.

2) The premise of the 10xers not being around in 50-100 years could be correct. It depends on the amount of money invested in anti-ageing technology.

Coming down on one side or another, in a binary fashion: I think your comment is false.

[shawn-furyan]

2) Well, given the associated uncertainty, that's not strictly true. The relationship between money spent on aging research and lifespan extension could converge on a marginally higher average lifespan rather than growing infinitely long with infinitely increasing expenditure. Until better than marginal gains are realized, I would say it's premature to hold massive lifespan lengthening out as a realistic possibility since we don't know what road blocks lie ahead. Sure, it's possible in the 'anything is possible' sense, but, IMO, not as a practical consideration.

[forloop]

Say a 10xer is 30, and the average lifespan is 80 years. If ageing could be halved, then the remaining 50-year-left-pre-intervention results in 100 years of life. But has there already be any substance which has doubled lifespan? Yes[0]! In rats. Humans aren't rats; but it's a clue to what's possible in mammals (verses C. elegans, or yeast).

> Until better than marginal gains are realized, I would say it's premature to hold massive lifespan lengthening out as a realistic possibility since we don't know what road blocks lie ahead. Sure, it's possible in the 'anything is possible' sense, but, IMO, not as a practical consideration.

People are working on the problem of radical live extension today. So even if you consider it impractical, that's certainly not a view held by everyone.

Plus, a gradual improvement is all that's needed. As long as someone can live long enough to reach longevity escape velocity[1], that's the problem solved!

[0] http://www.kurzweilai.net/fullerene-c60-administration-doubl...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longevity_escape_velocity