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Comment by true_religion | Hacker News Reader

If you are 90 and in poor health, it's likely because you are dying albeit slowly. The technology for everlasting life will likely reverse or halt the breakdown of basic bodily functions due to 'old age' and may rejuvenate organs who are simply suffering from maintenance issues.

So in the end, a cure for death is also a cure for myriad amount of ailments.

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Maybe. This is speculation on speculation.

It certainly makes a lot more sense for people to plan their lives around our current understanding of mortality than an increasingly hard to believe pyramid of hypotheticals as the GP has contended.

The speculation is very convincing, it goes like this: 1) Senescence is a collection of symptoms caused by incomplete repair mechanisms allowing damage to build up, 2) some level of damage has very little ill effects (e.g. the amount you've collected on your 25th birthday), and 3) there are interventions that stop the accumulation of damage or even reverse it.

I believe currently only 3) is a bit controversial, but since there are biologically immortal organisms I find it plausible that it's possible.

The current best treatment for death is to contribute to social health and knowledge. Transmit both to your progeny and younger colleagues. Your particular atoms and molecules are really not all the unique and wonderful.

Your atoms and molecules might not matter, and indeed get replaced many times as a normal process throughout your life, but your consciousness is wonderful and valuable.

> So in the end, a cure for death is also a cure for myriad amount of ailments.

Not if you're an amputee. There's a certain amount of damage to the body that isn't due to just aging.

Google Michael Levin or watch his lectures here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLvA7pB41pDk27XOjqbXi...

We'll probably figure out how to regrow limbs and organs soon.

Full Self Driving soon?

Lol. It should be easy to make a self-driving car that would coordinate its actions with surrounding self-driving vehicles. It's extremely hard to make it behave well in an environment where some of the cars are driven by humans.

So, no, not soon. Unless we introduce dedicated lanes where only self-driving cars are allowed.

When is the singularity going to happen?

2012. We're all machine elves now.

That's just egocide. We've had plants that do that for millennia.

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