

Unusual Ways to Live Forever - jaltucher
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/03/12-unusual-ways-to-how-to-live-forever/

======
reasonattlm
I am very used by now to seeing people who think as ambitious technologists in
all other parts of their life fall over and fail to think clearly and
ambitiously when it comes to aging. The pall of long-standing societal
attitudes towards aging is hard to overcome.

But really - a whole screed on what to do about aging and you don't mention
biotechnology once? That is a hot startup market, in which amazing things are
taking place, and there are at least three competing visions of how to
significantly extend human life currently battling it out in the scientific
press and pop-science translation of that.

As your future arrives, there are two things you can do: either (a) accept
suffering and death and do only the things you list in your article, or (b)
materially help the nascent industry of rejuvenation biotechnology.

We are entering an age in which you can turn money into years of life. If you
aren't noticing that, and you don't understand how to do that, then you have
not been doing your research.

If you can buy time with money, then the worth of money becomes very
different, and you should be giving a lot more of it to the right sorts of
science:

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/10/the-rational-
use-...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/10/the-rational-use-for-
excess-money-is-longevity-science.php)

And all technologists should have a better grasp of what aging is, and how it
can be ameliorated within the next 20 years with the right research path:

<http://www.sens.org/sens-research/research-themes>

It isn't as complex as you might think - it only takes a couple of years of
reading around to come to a good understanding as to why most of what you read
is unscientific nonsense, and why despite that fact there are still
functionally useful paths ahead:

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2008/09/the-scientific-
de...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2008/09/the-scientific-debate-that-
will-determine-how-long-we-all-live.php)

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2006/12/magical-
thinking-...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2006/12/magical-thinking-
abounds-in-the-antiaging-marketplace.php)

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/money-making-
webs...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/money-making-websites-and-
the-cause-of-longevity-science.php)

\----

And finally:

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/is-prevention-
of-...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/is-prevention-of-aging-
within-our-grasp.php)

"Yes, prevention of aging is within our grasp - in the sense that a package of
foreseeable medical technologies could enable repair of the low-level
biochemical damage that causes aging, and those technologies might take only
twenty years or so to develop. Unfortunately, that timeline is dependent on a
large amount of funding and a dedicated research community, neither of which
presently exists for many of the essential parts of this research program.
While the regenerative medicine and cancer research communities are populous,
well funded, and achieving progress, very few researchers are presently
working on other goals necessary to halt the aging process - such as repair of
mitochondrial DNA.

"So when I say "within our grasp," I mean "if we all get up and do our part to
make it happen." It takes a wave of public interest and advocacy to steer the
scientific community and large funding institutions - and they presently need
steering towards repair-based strategies to deal with aging, otherwise the
first working rejuvenation therapies will arrive too late for those in middle
age today."

~~~
feral
>The Rational Use For Excess Money is Longevity Science

Depending on how you calculate it, something like one quarter of the world's
population live on less than 2$ a day. Many of them die due to a lack of
absolute basics, like food, or basic, cheap, medicines.

Surely, the place to put 'excess money' is towards improving the lifespans of
the people dying in their 30s, rather than of the people dying in their 70s?

Poverty problems are really hard to solve, and longevity research is good
stuff; but you can't make global arguments about where we should put our
resources, to improve overall human well-being, and ignore the vast numbers of
people barely surviving.

~~~
pjscott
The rational use of excess money _depends on what you care about._ If you
place more value on living an extra few decades than on the welfare of people
you don't know, then from that set of priorities, spending your extra cash on
longevity research is perfectly reasonable. You can argue that people
_shouldn't_ feel that way -- that we should be more consistent in caring about
the people we know and the people we don't -- but you'll be fighting our
instincts every step of the way, which is kind of difficult in practice.

(Note that I'm not taking a position here one way or another. If I were, I
might point out that new technology generates jobs that can alleviate poverty
more effectively than most forms of aid. Then I might argue with myself,
saying that there are some forms of aid which are actually very, very cost-
effective, and link to GiveWell. Then I might point out that we can do more
than one thing, and that it's probably most effective to try to get people to
more effectively contribute to things they do care about, rather than trying
to change what they value. If you want to directly help people living in
poverty, consider going to <http://givewell.org/> and looking at what they
recommend. If you want to live longer, the SENS Foundation is doing some good
work there and could definitely use donations. Damn, I thought I wasn't going
to take a position, and now I just took three of them.)

~~~
feral
Just to clarify, I never mentioned aid.

What's rational does of course depends on what axioms you have.

I guess its not obvious, so I'll explain my thinking. I think there are two
broad scenarios.

Scenario 1: You care about increasing well-being and life-expectancy globally
in the system. In which case the money better spent making those who currently
die young, live longer. After all, if nothing else, it is extremely
inefficient to have all those people dying in their prime.

Scenario 2: You care solely about increasing your own well-being, and not
about whats best for the group. In which case, you'll keep your money to
yourself, and try freeload off other peoples investment in longevity research.
Because, unless you are exceedingly wealthy, your contributions will make very
little difference to the overall research effort, but will make a very large
difference to you. (Maybe you get sick, or circumstances change; for most
people, their money has higher utility kept for such circumstances, than
donated to a common research effort).

------
deno
Please note that the author is not a medical professional (he's an investor)
and some of his advice may be harmful to your health.

“[Instead of surgery], find out first if there’s any other non-surgical
procedures. (…) first check with an acupuncturist (a good one that is
recommended by friends who were actually helped by that acupuncturist) or a
chiropractor.”

He refers to some pop-science articles here and there, but overall it's just a
‘common sense’ advice, which you must decide for yourself whether is valuable
or not.

For example, although probably everyone here would agree that tobacco is very
bad for you, please note that his method of arguing for that (“Of the 250
known harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke...”) is one that can be (and has
been[1]) used to argue against vaccines.

[1] <http://www.informedchoice.info/cocktail.html>

~~~
jaltucher
I'm not arguing against vaccines though. And, btw, I'm not advocating people
avoid surgery. But there are many well-documented stats (read any Gawande
book) of when surgery is recommended but not the best solution.

~~~
deno
> I'm not arguing against vaccines though.

I didn't say you were. I've said that your argument can be (and has been) used
to prove or disprove almost any theory—including that of vaccines conspiracy.
You have to either accept all the conclusions and uses of said argument or you
must acknowledge that said argument was flawed to begin with.

And I'm sorry but you can't start your sentence by saying that you're not
advocating people to avoid surgery and then go ahead and do exactly that.

Furthermore, dr. Gawande is not arguing what you do by a long shot. Your
medical treatment options are always presented to you and you're free to chose
a non-invasive one if you wish to. You're however advocating for choosing a
non-medical treatment instead of a medical one, and in case of both
acupuncture and chiropractic, ones that have no scientific basis whatsoever,
and have not been proven to work or have been proven to not work.

------
mhp
Posted November 18, 2010: <http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/11/how-to-live-
forever/>

Posted March 5, 2011: [http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/03/12-unusual-ways-
to-how-...](http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/03/12-unusual-ways-to-how-to-
live-forever/)

Isn't this the same article, republished?

~~~
shadowpwner
Yup, I'm sure it's in the blogger's rights to republish his own articles with
a more link-baity title.

------
dhughes
Risk of death from #1 heart disease and #8 pneumonia can be greatly reduced
quite easily by getting a pneumonia vaccination shot, it protects you against
the viral form of pneumonia and halves the chance of heart attack.

I'd say most people want to live a long healthy life but only if it's easy
instead of consuming fewer calories and exercising so really a pneumonia
vaccination is as easy as it gets.

Vitamin D is also a fantastic thing, being in a northern climate and inside
most of the time it's hard to get enough vitamin D. I started taking a 1,000IU
chewable chocolate vitamin D each day and haven't been sick once. It's not a
cure it's long term prevention but its effects are quickly noticed.

------
ctdonath
Nothing in the article is unusual. Same old "eat right and exercise"
variations. Nothing in the article approaches immortality. Same old "do this
and you might last another decade" variations.

------
diego
Decent article, common sense for the most part. What does it have to do with
living forever though? With a reasonable amount of effort you can avoid a few
things that shorten your life span. The problem is that the long tail is huge,
and it WILL kill you.

By following your advice you add maybe 10 years to your life expectancy. Not
bad, but "forever" is a long time.

~~~
jaltucher
Of course, but to an 80 year old man, ten years is a long time also

~~~
thwarted
10 years to an 80 year old man is 1/8 of his life. 10 years to a 20 year old
is 1/2 of their life.

As I get older, I find that time seems to pass faster (and right now, I don't
see how it could perceptively pass any faster than it currently is).

------
jaltucher
I don't mention biotech for a vey important reason: that good , common sense
techniques can prolong life as easily if not better. Biotech is there for the
tails. I believe the article clearly states that and cites all of the relevant
statistics

~~~
kragen
The title is a lie; none of the techniques you mention will enable someone to
live forever. None of them even stop aging; a few of them might slow it down,
but there's no good evidence that they do. You don't even _mention_ caloric
restriction, and there's good evidence that caloric restriction can slow aging
substantially. ("No snacks" is not caloric restriction; we're talking about
cutting your intake well below 2000 calories a day.)

By contrast, techniques that reverse aging damage would allow biological
humans to survive for many centuries. Nothing on your list comes close.

In short, your comment is also a lie.

~~~
zeroplus
All of the techniques slow the things that increase aging. I encourage pele
who are focused on anti aging techniques to start with their bodies and minds
first and then focus on the external.

Calorie restriction is not realistic for most people but all of my techniques
are

~~~
kragen
> All of the techniques slow the things that increase aging.

That sentence fails to rise to the level of coherence. What are "the things
that increase aging"? What is their usual velocity? How much do they increase
aging? What's the relationship between their velocity and the speed of aging?

If you mean "all of the techniques slow the processes of aging", you're
absolutely wrong. Exercise accelerates your metabolism, which accelerates some
of the known aging processes. Of the other 11, most have no known connection
to aging at all.

> Calorie restriction is not realistic for most people but all of my
> techniques are

Caloric restriction is easier for many people than quitting smoking, having
sex, sleeping a lot, avoiding hospitals, or avoiding accidents.

------
rubashov
Moderate drinking will help stave off a heart attack if you're already
sclerotic, which most older industrialized people are to some extent. The
evidence that moderate drinking will do you any good if your veins and
arteries are squeaky clean is slim. Moderate drinking and aspirin and so forth
are only ameliorative.

