RE: Hayflick and others deny major life expectancy improvements

From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Mon Feb 19 2001 - 00:23:46 MST


At 10:37 PM 18/02/01 -0500, "Ben Houston" <ben@exocortex.org> wrote:
>Damien said:
>>Hayflick said

I didn't say any of those things. I was quoting someone else who said
someone else said them.

But finally I did say:

>> It will come from a blend of the genome program data, fast
>> computational protein folding, and nanotechnology. Neither of the latter
>> are receiving as much funding right now as routine cardiac surgery, say

Ben retorts:

>I would argue that there is tons of work being done in the area of
>"computational protein folding". It really is a hot field right now.

And there's more money now invested in that field than in routine cardiac
surgery? (You might be right; I ask in my ignorance.)

>your listing of these three keys is strange to me. I understand it as
>someone saying that "we need to learn the alphabet! You know, the vowels
>and the letters B and M." What you list is surely important to the problem
>but do not really cover much of the actual problem space

Of course not. That's not what I was saying. You go on to enumerate various
health issues and specific approaches to solving them, most of which I
agree with (except that nanomedicine will solve some of those problems
sideways. if Robert Freitas is right). But I was discussing the topic of
major life extension at a coarser grain than that. It's as if I said in the
1930s: `To get into space, we'll need a lot of money spent on rocket
design, telecommunications and fuel development', and someone retorted: `Oh
come on, you've left out the design of portholes, the kinds of soles
they'll need on their spacesuits, and special brushes for sweeping up all
the coal'.

Damien Broderick



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