19 thoughts on “Fountain Of Youth”

  1. Lance Armstrong must be kicking himself because there was a career-extending drug that he didn’t take. But more seriously, if the drug works as hoped, professional sports will really be in for some rough debates on whether athletes can use the drug to extend their careers, or whether they can somehow be prohibited the benefits that all the non-athletes are getting from it.

    Oh, and the bang you heard was Social Security and pension systems collapsing.

  2. Yep, societal impacts will be enormous – we will go from 6 billion to 12 in no time, and it will get crowded. Time to go find another continent not too far from here.

    1. I’ve seen this concern about population increase a few times in recent weeks, and I’ve realized that whatever number picked as some tragic amount, it is balderdash.

      Right now there are around seven billion people on the Earth. Some people have died of starvation, even this year. Today, someone somewhere will starve to death.

      Just because we are people doesn’t mean that we are immune from reality and the laws of nature and natural selection. Mass starvation isn’t an exception; for most of human history it has been the norm. It is our ability to feed ourselves that places the upper limit on population. If we could feed 8 billion people today, then we would have 8 billion people today, as most of those who starved in the last few decades would still be alive.

      But we don’t have 8 billion now, because we can only produce enough to feed 7 billion. If we have ten billion or twelve billion {X} number of years down the road, then that will be because we can produce enough food to feed that many people day after day after day, gradually increasing productivity from now until then. And even then there will still be those who starve to death.

      As for overcrowding and pollution and other such tragedies, they too are balderdash. If pollution gets so bad in China (for instance) that people die, the population growth is curtailed naturally. Can’t have babies if you’re dead.

    2. we will go from 6 billion to 12 in no time

      Even if that claim is true, it’s still not the fault of the longevity drug in question. Keep in mind that large portions of the developed world have negative population growth because women are choosing to have one or two kids (below replacement) over their lifespans.

      Even if population growth is insufficiently checked by economics, culture, or policies, we still have that population die-offs will mostly affect the populations that grow the fastest. In my view, that combined with long lived populations will correct humanity and its civilizations over the long term to favor low population growth.

  3. Oh, and the bang you heard was Social Security and pension systems collapsing.

    They’re doomed anyway. At least healthy people will be able to continue earning for longer so they don’t need unaffordable pension promises.

  4. Yeah, because what could be better than having the Baby Boomers loiter around and make political and social decisions for another thirty years or so?

    1. *waits for Jim to pop in to point out that with life extension, Presidential term limits aren’t needed any longer and Obama can stay in office for forty more years. *

      1. The limit on presidential terms doesn’t have anything to do with longevity. It isn’t as if Bush was too old to serve another term in 2009. The voters should be able to elect the president they want, even if that person has already been in office 8 years.

        We should, however, get rid of lifetime judicial appointments.

        1. That’s a remarkably inconsistent view, Baghdad Jim. Why can Presidents stick around forever, but not judges?

    2. There’s a lot of people in that generation that I would love to have around for another thirty years. I think it would benefit us all.

      1. Yes, this new “spice” will prolong people’s lives, especially those in the ruling class, but it’s also important to keep breeding up new variations.

        For example, Richard Nixon’s great-granddaughter, Chloe, was just born. (baby pic) Her mother is Jennie Eisenhower, great-granddaughter of Dwight David Eisenhower and granddaughter of Richard and Pat Nixon.

        (Jennie talking about the war on cancer)

        She could probably run for office herself, but what we should do is maybe get some new male Bush baby to marry baby Chloe, so we can splice together leadership genes from WW-II, Korea, and Vietnam with genes for Iraq and Afghanistan, creating a visionary super commander with foreign policy skills down to the genetic level.

      3. Admit it. You just want to hang around that long so you can see the launch of the fifth crewed SLS mission. To beyond low Earth orbit, and beyond – Vrooom!

  5. I just hope that their brains are also rejuvenated, a load of brain dead zombies running the show is the last thing we need.

  6. The most effective tool at stopping population growth is the misandric family court system that punishes men for reproducing, no matter if the man is faithful or not. Nothing shrinks birth rates like the divorce industry.

  7. The over-population problem will take care of itself. Say you’re a relatively young person. You don’t really want kids, but family and social pressure is pushing you into it. You can now say that there will be effective partial rejuvenation in about 5 years. This will buy me an additional 20-30 years of youth. Given the rate of technological innovation in biotechnology, additional therapies such as SENS and stem-cell regeneration will be available, which will push your youth out, say, another 50 years or so. You can now tell your parents or whom ever else is pressuring you to have kids that you don’t need to have them. You’re likely to live an indefinitely youthful lifespan and no longer have to worry about being “old and alone”.

    I will bet you guys donuts to dollars that this kind of calculation will go through a lot of people’s heads. The birthrate will plummet by 50-70% (a TFR of around 0.7) as soon as we get effective rejuvenation. I would not worry about overpopulation if I were you.

    Rejuvenation (and radical life extension) will be a shot in the arm for the MGTOW movement. It will also be a shot in the arm for women as the “Wall” will become a thing of the past. We’ll see how long it takes the MRA bloggers to trip to this.

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