Can ageing be cured? If so how would this impact on how you invest today?

Dear guys,

Can ageing be cured? If so how would this impact on how you invest today?

Cheers,

Sunstone.


'We will be able to live to 1,000'
By Dr Aubrey de Grey
University of Cambridge

Life expectancy is increasing in the developed world. But Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000. Here, he explains why.
Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address ageing just as effectively as we address many diseases today.

I claim that we are close to that point because of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) project to prevent and cure ageing.

It is not just an idea: it's a very detailed plan to repair all the types of molecular and cellular damage that happen to us over time.

And each method to do this is either already working in a preliminary form (in clinical trials) or is based on technologies that already exist and just need to be combined.

This means that all parts of the project should be fully working in mice within just 10 years and we might take only another 10 years to get them all working in humans.
When we get these therapies, we will no longer all get frail and decrepit and dependent as we get older, and eventually succumb to the innumerable ghastly progressive diseases of old age.

We will still die, of course - from crossing the road carelessly, being bitten by snakes, catching a new flu variant etcetera - but not in the drawn-out way in which most of us die at present.

So, will this happen in time for some people alive today? Probably. Since these therapies repair accumulated damage, they are applicable to people in middle age or older who have a fair amount of that damage.

I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.

It is very complicated, because ageing is. There are seven major types of molecular and cellular damage that eventually become bad for us - including cells being lost without replacement and mutations in our chromosomes.

Each of these things is potentially fixable by technology that either already exists or is in active development.

'Youthful not frail'

The length of life will be much more variable than now, when most people die at a narrow range of ages (65 to 90 or so), because people won't be getting frailer as time passes.


There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives, because in both cases we are giving people the chance of more life


The average age will be in the region of a few thousand years. These numbers are guesses, of course, but they're guided by the rate at which the young die these days.
If you are a reasonably risk-aware teenager today in an affluent, non-violent neighbourhood, you have a risk of dying in the next year of well under one in 1,000, which means that if you stayed that way forever you would have a 50/50 chance of living to over 1,000.

And remember, none of that time would be lived in frailty and debility and dependence - you would be youthful, both physically and mentally, right up to the day you mis-time the speed of that oncoming lorry.

Should we cure ageing?

Curing ageing will change society in innumerable ways. Some people are so scared of this that they think we should accept ageing as it is.

I think that is diabolical - it says we should deny people the right to life.

The right to choose to live or to die is the most fundamental right there is; conversely, the duty to give others that opportunity to the best of our ability is the most fundamental duty there is.

There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives, because in both cases we are giving people the chance of more life. To say that we shouldn't cure ageing is ageism, saying that old people are unworthy of medical care.

Playing God?

People also say we will get terribly bored but I say we will have the resources to improve everyone's ability to get the most out of life.

People with a good education and the time to use it never get bored today and can't imagine ever running out of new things they'd like to do.

And finally some people are worried that it would mean playing God and going against nature. But it's unnatural for us to accept the world as we find it.

Ever since we invented fire and the wheel, we've been demonstrating both our ability and our inherent desire to fix things that we don't like about ourselves and our environment.

We would be going against that most fundamental aspect of what it is to be human if we decided that something so horrible as everyone getting frail and decrepit and dependent was something we should live with forever.

If changing our world is playing God, it is just one more way in which God made us in His image.

Aubrey de Grey leads the SENS project at Cambridge University and also runs the Methuselah Mouse prize for extending age in mice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4003063.stm

http://www.methuselahmouse.org/
 
For me, and I suspect for many, it wouldn't change a thing.

Most of us seem to go on accumulating wealth (or taking actions designed to do so) in the knowledge that more means more comfort and more liberty.

I'd feel freer to take some bigger risks and risk 'losing the lot' if I knew I was effectively immortal (which I consider is the same as living to 1000). I could always build up again, after all.

On the other hand, how much would the 'life treatments' cost? You'd want to have enough set aside to always be able to afford them.
 
I had a think about this......

I think I would be a little more patient with my investing because there would be less of a rush to get there sooner. I would also be less inclined to spend all my passive income at any stage and instead keep reinvesting it to keep expanding my means.
 
qaz said:
I had a think about this......

I think I would be a little more patient with my investing because there would be less of a rush to get there sooner. I would also be less inclined to spend all my passive income at any stage and instead keep reinvesting it to keep expanding my means.

There would almost certainly be those who are ambitious, and want to get all they can, and hence become 'black holes' of the economy. The cookie monsters of the investment world. :p

Anyway, to answer the thread's question, I think I would, naturally, be a bit less cautious with investments, because time can correct many mistakes one makes; have a lot more ambitious goals to start out with, (goals may change as one becomes more 'wise' with time, and priorities would almost definitely change).

As for the 'aggressiveness' characteristic of being an investor, I don't really know. Would one tend to be a more aggressive investor or not?

Food for thought, anyway.
 
I'd accelerate my wealth creation dramatically.

The goal would be to become as wealthy as possible as soon as possible.

Everyone by default cannot be materially wealthy in a universe with limited material resources. And the bigger the headstart others get, the harder it will be to catch up to a level where I could compete successfully for my share of those resources. In fact you'd never be able to catch up to people as successful as you who started earlier! (an asymptotic curve).

Today is a known quantity, tomorrow isn't. I know I have the knowledge and abilities to achieve wealth today. I can't know if in 100 years or 500 years I will have the same edge. Others may have caught on, new people will have entered the investment pool and/or the situation may have totally changed, countries fallen, continents shifted, etc.

So it's again best to grab for wealth today then hold off to an unknown future!

Finally, if through my investment acceleration it crashed & I had to declare bankrupcy I've lost nothing - time is no longer a valuable resource to me hence 'wasting time' is no longer a significant cost.

So on all accounts, work harder with more stress today to get on the horse, so I can then ride the horse for the rest of my life (rather than having to chase the horse when I'm older & who knows if I'm as capable).

Cheers,

Aceyducey
 
Aceyducey said:
Today is a known quantity, tomorrow isn't. I know I have the knowledge and abilities to achieve wealth today. I can't know if in 100 years or 500 years I will have the same edge. Others may have caught on, new people will have entered the investment pool and/or the situation may have totally changed, countries fallen, continents shifted, etc.
Additionally, the rules and laws that we invest by today may also change in the future. So we'd need to learn them, understand them, and then find ways around them (well the ones that are more of a hindrance than a help :))

Also, in such a scenario (living to 1000) you would need to keep accumulating wealth over a longer period, as $XMil today will be worth much less in 20, 50, 100 years time.

Ad(ios).
 
Back
Top