Thetownend.com

so we keep discovering all sorts of useful information about the human body.  if we can understand the new findings properly then we'll be able to cure all sorts of illnesses etc.

now the reason i have started a thread was the hope to raise a discussion about how far we go to be able to preserve life and to make life as active as possible...

the further we go the more we'll extend the average life expectancy and as such we'll also end up increasing the population of the world.

will the 'world' react and hit us with some sort of plague (unlikely, just a thought) or will we exhaust all our resources and fuck ourselves over this way?

on a personal level we all want our loved ones to be with us as long as possible but perhaps on a more global level we shouldn't really be looking for all the answers?

i don't really have an answer but watching the news just now i thought i'd see what people thought.

what if we cure cancer? where will that leave us?

It's conceivable that our grandchildren could have access to technology and medical facilities that could make them pretty much immortal. No exaggeration. If not them, then perhaps a generation or two later.

Whenever it happens the biggest challenge will be a moral one because until we find a new planet to settle, we will have to limit our population. Some people, many people, will have to be allowed to die when they could be allowed to live normal and happy lives instead.

Who gets to die and who gets to live?

Aids is tantamount to incurable and I recall reading how we'll run out of much of our current food and need to eat insects before long.

Regardless, I personally believe we'll destroy ourselves soon enough anyway! :)

but aids is now also well understood and we can do all sorts to prevent contacting it, we may never be able to cure it but we can come close (don't say it) to making sure as many people as possible don't catch it in the first place

Evolution is fighting back.

There are women Africa that are immune to HIV. Just a freak of nature, a deformity. There's likely countless other women on the planet that have similar deformities that HIV doesn't like only because they are not on the job, we don't get to find out about them.

These deformities get passed down to offspring and hey presto, HIV is beaten. Evolution in action, you can find Richard Dawkins talking about it on YouTube as well. 

In a world of significantly extended life expectancy some very serious questions would need to be asked about the rate at which we, as a species, are reproducing.

This might take the form of a limit on the number of children per family, we're already aware of the tragic consequences that can lead to. Alternatively some sort of licence to have children, only granted to a proportion of the population, could be used.

Either way it would be a very serious situation to find ourselves in.

Everyone could wear a bracelet, when it turns black at age 30 you have to die. Except if your name is Logan, then you run.

I would like to run with a young Jenny Agutter!

I've done some research on this. I have four in my garden, two with fishing rods.

Compulsory euthanasia would be on the cards when populations reach crisis levels.

Someone would have to pick a date to announce that, from that point, lifespan is say 70 years. At least everyone knows the score before deciding to start a family from that point.

This might be a tad controversial....

Scientists believe that the first human being who will live 150 years has already been born.

I believe I am that human being

Pharmaceutical companies don't want to find a cure - there is no money to be made from cures - far more profitable to create treatments...

I'll give you an example (and there are a few I have seen over the years)... We did some development work for a pharma company who claimed to have a treatment for sufferers of dust mite allergy. They projected the sales to far exceed the volume of anything we had previously manufactured and would have helped billions of sufferers around the world.  They did the clinical trials and found that rather than treat the condition it actually cured it - this meant that each patient would only ever require one 'treatment' rather than a regular prescription.  Now you'd have thought they would still have gone ahead and manufactured the cure but no, they pulled it - not enough long term profit

Extending life expentency may be necessary to reverse the current demographic trends in the developed world. Many nations are experiencing population decline as birth rates drop and this impacts on a nation's growth and development. Extending/improving the lives of people will enable everyone to work and contribute that bit more for a bit longer to their society.

But, the biggest threat to sustaining the current world population has to be climate change. a 3 degree change will have catastrohpic affects on many marginal ecosystems. Of course the poorest people will suffer and it won't cause much of a problem for at least another 50-100 years but whilst the rich will focus on extending their lives by altering their genome many of the world's poorest people will struggle to fulfill even their basic needs to sustain life.

Then process the people into a form of food, pass the soylent green please

You've spelled gnome wrong.

I honestly think this is what Cancer Research companies do.

I was going to quote the very same thing, not that I think I'm that human you understand.

Does get you thinking about what your quality of life would be like if you lived that long. Would you just be a 150 year old vegetable because your faculties went in your 70s and 80s? 

This is getting way too deep!

My belief is death is an internal chemical reaction that shuts down the organs when it's your time to go. If you could find what triggers this, you could then counter it and in theory live forever.

However, as raised you have 2 points. Firstly what would you quality of life be like at say 100+? Would it be worth living if you're unable to enjoy it?

Secondly, the moral issues involved. If we are gave ourselves the gift of immortality, who is here to govern it?

those that test on animals do this too. Keeps them in a job

Death, by natural causes, is caused by parts of the body eventually failing. It's nothing to do with chemical reactions.

Extended life expectancy due to medical advancements is all well and good, but until the natural aging process can be slowed down/stopped the quality of life in those extended years is going to be no better than a 70+ year old today.

Untill very recently (like, a couple of months ago), I used to think that through history humans aged at the same rate proportionally to the life expectancy of the time. So, when the life expectancy was 40 there'd be loads of wrinkly 40 year olds toddling around, like the 80 year olds of today.

When I realised the average age was low because kids died all the time I was devastated.

I really want this to be true but surely a wind-up?!

Nope. True.

On the face of it yes, but if you look deeper what causes the organs to fail?

Only a theory which I'm sure will be ridiculed and pulled to pieces by those who know more then me. All I'm saying is if your heart stops, what causes it stop, something from within or just because?

lizards.

always lizards.

I knew it  :D

They just stop. In much the same way a car will just stop working. Things begin to break down and develop problems and the human body is no different.

Aging occurs because the cells of the body duplicate themselves but they don't duplicate perfectly. Each time there is a tiny flaw and these flaws accumulate over a lifetime to a point where the body quite literally begins to fall apart. It's why the skin goes wrinkly and stuff when people are old.

Are you suggesting then that if you put two 70 year olds next to each other and one was more wrinkly than the other the more wrinkly one will die first?

Not quite

Well I'm sat here with a pistol and I can't make my mind up on who goes first.

I'm not sure what your post has to do with Bosnia, but I'll let that go and humour you. Shoot the one on the left.

Alcohol kills germs and preserves things.  I think we all know it's flammable Ben who'll live to 150.

You're all forgetting that the world is going to end in December.

Half way through the season?  Better fucking not, I'll be livid.

I blame Ritchie

Don't tell the Adver, they'll just end up making a big deal out of it.

Those season tickets are a waste of money then

Its ok PDC said come down to the CG and he'll give the money back

Last night, a mate and I managed to convince some Thai girls that gnomes really exist.

The thick are the world over.

One of them showed me a picture of a gnome on her phone as 'proof' they are not real.

I just told them that people put fake ones in the garden to keep the real ones away as they eat the fish from the pond.

Hook, line and sinker.

 :D  Good work.

Is that the scientists in jobs or the animals?