So what you are proposing is designing drugs that extends life and cripples the mind. That is very hard.
If you want to be really evil make it cripple the body as well. But that'd be fucking fucking hard.
HN really overestimates scientists. They are not that smart. They barely can extend human life yet. Let's calm down on the evil life extension possibilities for now. One day perhaps. But you'll have to live long enough to see it.
I know the science is limited (and necessarily long running to see the effects), but I think having a conversation about the end goal and potential consequences is interesting and makes for good discussion in the comments.
And my concern wasn’t that the drug would cripple the mind - my concern is that the drug may extend the life of most organs but not be as effective on the brain (or vice versa, or impact them at different rates).
> drug may extend the life of most organs but not be as effective on the brain
This is a non sequitur. It's not a life extending drug if you forget how to breath correctly or are in a coma.
Perhaps you need to be a little older to fear age, but when you see people dying of cancer who have children, which these drugs will delay, you might see that 6 months extra for their children might mean whether they remember their parent at all, or an extra chance to play ball or a programming session or to reach puberty and have a more mature conversation with them.
You die when your times comes is a slogan for the youth. People on their death beds at 90 are scared and crying and fear what is to come.
I've been thinking about starting Rapamycin, but I need to sit down and do the research first. It's a pretty serious drug. But you are not going to be keeping your body healthy 30 years - 140 years with green tea and exercise.
But I don't get why people don't want to slow down their ageing at all. I get people like the idea of eternal life as a cripple, it's a 2000+ years old story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithonus but it's not practical.
It’s not that I think the organ will cease functioning and you will die, it’s that it may not be as effective across all organs (e.g. people take the medication and most organs are good except for kidneys because it’s not as effective on the kidney function).
I do not want to be on my deathbed scared at 90. But I think the person who is scared on their deathbed at 90 would also be scared at 120. It’s not like that extra 30 years will make that person OK with dying - if they aren’t by 90 they likely won’t be 30 years later.
I think accepting death as a part of life is important to living. No - I don’t want to die. Yes - I want a long life. Aging is natural and I think it’s important to experience the aging process. Maybe I’ll look back in 50 years and call myself dumb, but if I make it to 80 I’m happy.
So what you are proposing is designing drugs that extends life and cripples the mind. That is very hard.
If you want to be really evil make it cripple the body as well. But that'd be fucking fucking hard.
HN really overestimates scientists. They are not that smart. They barely can extend human life yet. Let's calm down on the evil life extension possibilities for now. One day perhaps. But you'll have to live long enough to see it.