Want to Live Forever? Sonia Arrison Explains How In Her New Book

[dubified89]

More great work from Reason

[SaulOhio]

"May you live as long as you like and love as long as you live".--Robert Heinlein

[brogcooper25]

Some people think that it is playing God to extend the human lifespan. We already do it though and people think that it is the only moral choice and willingly donate money to it. How many live longer from organ transplants every year? How many people live longer from chemotherapy every year? Improved nutrition and medication? A quick google search of life expectancy should drive this point home. Where do you draw the line and say "OK, people are living long enough, stop curing diseases"?

[joshdarkensins]

her optimism is reassuring =)

[pauladamkim]

I'm all for scientific advancement in health tech as long as we aren't killing embryos for it. That said, there is nothing here that addresses the source of the degenerative diseases. We have a slew of environmental stimuli that have been causing us to die not from plagues but from slow kill dysfunction like cancer/diabetes/heart disease. What we can do right now is change our society to be free from GMO's, poisons, flouride, vaccines, etc; THEN we can work on growing you new stuff.

[Riclists]

Robert Anson Heinlein.

[mangoswiss]

The fact that your brain is the container of that experience and wisdom.

Perhaps you use some other part of your anatomy to do your thinking?

I can see how replacing your windpipe could allow your wisdom to extend past your natural life but your brain? Regenerative medicine for the brain could work but you're not going to be able to grow and install a replacement unless you have a damn good migration tool.

[rbairos1]

Not sure if the death worshippers (both religious and atheist) are sad or just plain dysfunctional.

[MrAdvancedAtheist]

BTW, the whole Drexler thing about nanotechnology probably can't work. Google Scott Locklin's blog post about Drexler, "25 Years of Charlatanry."

[mollytherealdeal]

@MrAdvancedAtheist

Scott Locklin did NOT show that Drexler's nanotechnology breaks any laws of physics. It may not happen by the 2035 prediction. Richard Smalley hated nanotechnology, took over US government funding for it, and diverted that money to his non-nanotechnology chemistry research project. After Smalley died of cancer, someone else is in charge. Perhaps we can actually fund that research. In his blog, Locklin wanted more space program research, so he is venting against nanotech.

[MrAdvancedAtheist]

I didn't realize that Canadian chicks like Sonia could sound like Valley Girls.

[Mostdef]

I want to live forever

[Hyddrossil]

@Mostdef

me too!

[ExpandingUponWealth]

Unfortunately some people either think life is meaningless, or worse, they hate life. Both mentalities are incorrect...the hatred of life- it possess no justification... Those who fail to make excellent things happen in their lives do so because they do not know what is excellent about life...If more people loved life more people would live longer.

[nihilistarchitect]

I am sure this is going to please everyone in the planet who cannot afford eating more than bread or rice once a day.. How selfish this discourse is.

4:17min "it depends on long it takes to make it from the lab to the consumer".... They should try to make humans shit less then... it is going to be 100 year of every rich consumer's shit on the planet... it's going to stink! And the tons of toilet paper... they should find new solutions too...

This is utterly selfish.

[nihilistarchitect]

@nihilistarchitect

actually 4:12min

[Shonenut213]

14 want to commit suicide

[shamgar001]

IBM and Sony reverse-engineering the human brain reminds me of Dollhouse.

[wiredwabbit]

Soylent Green here we come. We already have a world food crisis with just the current population numbers.

[shamgar001]

@wiredwabbit We could easily feed everyone with our current population if free markets were allowed to work.

[BabelOn4infinity]

14 dislikes 0_o

[0HippyHunter0]

This chick is wicked hot.......

[dlstb]

I don't want to live forever or even until I become a burden on the rest of my family that outweighs the benefit of my being around. Humans are supposed to live for an indeterminate amount of time and then die. They are not all supposed to love for 100+ years and live half of their life in a frail and weak state of infirmity.

I personally hope to go out in a ball of flame at high speed doing something cool like going to space for the 8th time in a homebuilt rocket.

[rjc071]

She's speed talking...must be in a rush to get to 100 really quick!

[Stonegoal]

Religious nuts living longer, hmm???? Population explodes. There is no way we can allow all humans to live to 100+ right now.

[PigeonTech]

Really interesting stuff about growing organs. Kind of makes me want to change paths in college. I don't know if I'll ever be that smart though.

[Felhaven]

I really see very few draw backs to living so long. Hell, with so long to live we will have time to figure out how to live even longer. Can you imagine a world with musicians with 100 years old practice? How about novelists with 100 novels under thier belt? Doctors with a century of training? Politician with 100 years of public scrutiny!

I hope it works out. Cause the century commute to alpha centauri is just too long but with a couple hundered years to live, who knows?

[ProlRevo]

Great, billionaires and millionaires will be able to live forever...

[truevoice08]

@ProlRevo The rich always get to access the new technology first since its very expensive. It's only later on that it gets mass produced and accessible to the masses. The rich provide the capital needed to get the research and production going to make things cheaper. It's the same with cars, the iPod, PCs, and every other innovation.

[dubified89]

@ProlRevo And then we will. Just like how only rich people used to own cell phones 20 years ago.

[brown8366]

@ProlRevo not mieckeal jackson

[TheIrony2013]

I prefer to eat my vegitables and excercise properly. I do not want to live 150 years and definately don't want a brain transplant.

[pigeonflayer]

@TheIrony2013 well, I do want to live 150+, just because you have suicidal yearning doesn't mean you have to ruin it for everyone else.

[TheIrony2013]

@pigeonflayer

Why not take your brain transplant now then? Because it looks like you could use one. Death is a perfectly natural part of life. Tell me something that lives forver. Not fearing death is not the same as sucidal yearnings. People who fear death are easily manipulated. To fear death less allows you to live life more fully!

[cthorm]

@TheIrony2013 Hydras live forever, unless eaten. Salamanders regenerate whole limbs. A virus can go into stasis indefinitely. Tortoises have a lifespan of at least 300 years. The human lifespan is a consequence of Darwinian evolution. Just like our appendix, this adaptation has outlived its usefulness. There is no technical reason that an indefinite lifespan is impossible. A challenge, but not impossible.

[TheIrony2013]

@cthorm Would I trust the same (scientists) who is fucking up the entire planet with my life? Most certainly not! The woman in the video probably could not even solve a system of liner equations in as little as two variables. Probably you can’t either! Who will live forever, everyone?  Some say the earth is overpopulated already. Some believe in reincarnation and want to try different things and have other lives. Things are not that simple.

[BillyJoe1305]

@TheIrony2013 Nasa says those who think the world is already overpopulated are retarded, & they've proved it with pictures.

[dlstb]

@cthorm hydras also reproduce asexually. What does that have to do with the tissue decay rate in humans? While science has mapped the entire human genome, they still only understand 1% of it as the sequences that code for proteins. The rest of the genome codes for God knows what and it will be a long time before we understand what the 99% is actually doing and how.

And anyone who wants an indefinite lifespan does not want to be human.

[TheIrony2013]

@pigeonflayer Something that does not die when it is time is considered a cancer...

[hrobertb]

Someone wrote a new book about living forever? I know of an old book that tells you exactly how to live forever: It's called the Holy Bible :D :D

[pigeonflayer]

@hrobertb when is the last time the bible has cured someone of cancer? when was the last time the bible produced life saving vaccines that have saved billions of people?

[hrobertb]

@pigeonflayer Hi, not sure what you are getting at. When is the last time a work of humans gave someone eternal life? Oh, that's right, it can't! I guess we are talking about two different things, but I am sure you recognized that! :D Ciao.

[MirageScience]

if the technology is around, then i want it now.

[MirageScience]

that lung video freaked me out

[NathanJosephCole]

I hope this happens; we can finally get rid of Social Security!

[MrConservative608]

On a side note, apart from the ethical/moral debate over Embryonic Stem Cell Research, not many people understood that the actual debate over ESCR was about whether or not the gov't was going to pay for the research. ESCR was the Ethanol debate of medical research. No private sector investor would invest in ESCR, so the liberals, who don't understand when something is a dumb idea, started a crusade for the gov't to fund the research like investing in Solyndra.

[LibertyDownUnder]

"The Island"

[Berelore]

the anti-tech argument is sooooo ignorant, the only reason life expectancy has risen is because of science. Science taught us hygiene, imaging, surgery, pharmacology, radiology ect ect.

Nature just tries to kill us.

[MRSketch09]

Nature? Fuck nature, kick it in the balls.. The only way that humans have gotten anywhere its by controlling, or maybe I should say negating the effects of nature. I mean, creating tools was a way to screw with nature. That mountain lion that was chasing that guy around.. well he eventually got pissed, got a long stick and made one end pointy.. and said "Piss on you mountain lion"..

[MRSketch09]

Freaking awesome!

[cucumber202]

only God has the power to make us live forever.people who sin will die.

adam and eve sinned and they started to die the day they sinned.

[Robstailey]

@cucumber202

Fuck your god and fuck you. If god has a problem with me he can come say it to my face. But since he's apparently too chickenshit, I'm gonna go ahead and live my life however the fuck I want to.

[Fidokrab]

Many of you claim to be libertarians since this is ReasonTV, but yet what this lady is speaking about is exactly what the United Nations is striving for; scientific dictatorship with all these technologies intertwined. These ideas look incredible on the outside, but on the inside it's a deadly delusion. Do you really think the common man will have access to live extension technology, while the U.N. is pushing for depopulation through eugenics? Think about it!

[MadPutz]

@Fidokrab The power of the marketplace democratizes technology. Just as cellphones and computers were mass marketed. It's actually in the elite's self-interest to help people be healthier and live longer because that will allow for much more peace, art, innovation, and profitable industries once we get past our simple biology. The key is education, we need people to be better at adapting and utilizing technology and be fiscally responsible at an independent level. Gradually the gov will shrink.

[pigeonflayer]

@Fidokrab people said the same stuff about vaccines, computers, and the internet, and they were dead wrong. fuck you.

[Fidokrab]

This is a very pro-NWO agenda. It all ties in with eugenics, transhumanism, the new age agenda, and the idea that man can become god. These are very dangerous ideas, and I would do research on these topics before buying right into this deception.

[IAMME857]

This is part of the transhumanist agenda, extreme eugenics, when humans will no longer be human, be merged with machines, the chipping has already started and after the next big events of the show here on earth we will see this come out big time.

[mangoswiss]

My experience and wisdom tells me that if you replace a brain with a new one you're going to lose a lot of that experience and wisdom.

[Robstailey]

@mangoswiss

your experience and wisdom, eh? what exactly does that entail? where's your phd? hmm? the fuck do you know about neurology, brain chemistry, or even basic biology?

oh right. nothing. you're just another small minded idiot saying stupid shit on the internet.

[mangoswiss]

@Robstailey the "experience and wisdom" that we develop over the course of our lifetime. I was making a joke about the wisdom of replacing your brain with a new one. Looks like it was lost on you.

Were you born angry? or did something happen to you?

[pigeonflayer]

@mangoswiss what facts do you have to support that?

[bweazel]

Ummm, really, I have no interest in being healthy or living forever. I'll die when my body fails, simple as that. Some of you people are such cowards today, trying to outrun death. Futile, my friends. Just give in, it's way less stressful which is actually more healthy for you, haha.

[PatriotsRepublic]

@bweazel go die... we're happy for you that you want to die.... have a nice death... but I have things I want to do... I'd rather live longer... maybe even much longer.... so like I say, all you who don't believe in genetically or scientifically extending life... please, be our guest, die. In fact, you can just speed up the process, I hear that an OD of sleeping pills is pretty painless.

[bweazel]

@PatriotsRepublic I like how you feel you can speak for everyone. I never said I want to die, just said I don't want to live forever. Well good for you, you'd rather live longer, have at it, if you can afford it. Never said I don't believe in it, just said I wouldn't utilize it. There you go speaking for everyone again, hah. Oh don't worry, I will die someday, so will you. Weird that you think someone who doesn't want to live forever, wants to die instantly. Do be such an idiot.

[pigeonflayer]

@bweazel compared to forever, it might as well be deciding to die instantly.

[darkwhitedirewolf]

Live forever under statism ? Why?

[NwZ2]

@darkwhitedirewolf Your'e welcome to die. I, for one, choose to live.

[Timb0NZ]

anyone notice she is a blonde?

[MrAlpruitt]

Anyone else getting weird back `round audio or just me? I'm hearing chairs squeaking, wind etc

[KitSerrone]

Brains! What do they really do? We see what happens when they're injured but how can we fix em? Zombies? I say cyborgs 7

[RanchoUpdate]

Zombies

[andreszuniga88]

Has penis extension therapy been perfected yet??

[kev3d]

I see this as a possible avenue for future Seasteading projects. Research and deployment to market occurring much faster in a relatively regulation free environments can be very lucrative indeed. Not to mention, a seastead "free state" could also offer current, but as yet unapproved drugs and therapies as well as generic drugs.

[Steve83B]

@kev3d hells yeah.

[chicagojoe16]

Nice to see someone talk about this subject without sounding gloomy about overpopulation

[TalkShowKelly]

best thing you can do for your longevity today: reprogram your genes with ancestral foods. google primal blueprint, and visit marksdaily apple. People are shedding years from their appearance and health/fitness level, simply by ditching "modern" foods. Best thing you can do for yourself today, as we wait for these marvels to become more widely accessible. YOu can also reprogram your brain/mental patterns/emotional responses using FasterEFT, user healingmagic here on youtube. Enjoy!

[alexjonesdid911]

I barely want to live to see tomarrow the way shit is going.

[Keim4ever]

@alexjonesdid911 well you have the choice to die.

[alexjonesdid911]

@Keim4ever yeah sure, but not the choice to live free

[blogegog]

She's cute! But is not wearing makeup part of what you need to do to live forever? If not, someone should show her the ropes.

[r29]

don't let the government take over healthcare or else all these innovation will never be realized 

[EDTHEWATERGUY]

Unless we get the government and insurance companies out of medicine,most of us will never be able to afford a new body part.

[KenMacMillan]

A free market in healthcare would make this happen faster.

[saper321]

I wonder how folks at FDA can sleep at night, knowing they pretty much killed millions and millions of people.

[Sporora]

Good thing the youngest one of my (deceased) family members has died of a natural cause was 89... I'm gonna be around for a while, I'm thinking...

[BrotherWoody1]

A 25 yr. old marrying a 90 year old? Granny had better be rich. You'd better be rich too. Because if it can be done, it doesn't mean that it can be done for you. The way that the elites are running the show now, there will be nothing democratic about who lives to be 150. Hot ideas & hot technology, though. To get rid of these eugenically driven, psychopathic statists & corporatists, OCCUPY! And then support Dr. Ron Paul for POTUS in 2012.

[kev3d]

@BrotherWoody1 It worked for Anna Nicole Smith. Well...until he croaked and she spiraled out of control, ultimately dying from a drug overdose in a casino hotel room...but up until then, it was just peachy.

[UncleIrv]

One big caveat:

The biggest barrier is HOW TO PAY for all this. We're already at a point where our medical technology has surpassed the ability of most people to pay for it.

Yet, the answer is still the FREE MARKET. Government planning will do nothing but stifle technological advancement. But if we accept INEQUALITY in the beginning, these technologies will eventually become more affordable for the masses.

Kill Obamacare!

Re-introduce the CONSUMER as the prime factor in health care choices.

[kev3d]

@UncleIrv Hear hear. I use this example all the time, but in 1983 the only cell phone on the market cost about $4000 (about $9000 in adjusted dollars) and today, a plain phone which has far more abilities is so cheap one can buy a disposable or for less than $1000, you can buy the hottest smartphone and still have money left over for songs, movies and apps. All due to market forces. Thank goodness congress didn't get involved to any great degree.

[NwZ2]

@kev3d Umm, no. the costs were brought down due to *science*. If it was advantageous for the market (see: owners of capital) to keep the cost inflated past, say, the use value plus cost to manufacture plus profits (see: diamonds), then nothing would stop them from doing just that. It's science's the great leveler; 'free-market' capitalism is an abstraction so far from reality, it's beginning to become a religion. Notice how almost EVERYWHERE the so-called free-market doesn't exist?

[kev3d]

@NwZ2 No, science, in and of itself is does nothing to lower costs or improve quality. It takes consumer demand and competition to do that. Hard science is not a "leveler" because science is a study of how things work, not how to move capital. The reason that few free markets exist is because governments cannot keep their hands of things, particularly if they are successful. Where there are few regulations, there tends to be great innovation, such as software.

[kev3d]

@NwZ2 cont. Where there is lots of regulation, such as health care, there tend to be higher costs, slower development and even slower deployment to market, choice is reduced. Medicine and medical technology is only chemistry and engineering, the same as other technological fields, and yet all other forms of technology get cheaper and better, whereas drugs and therapies get more expensive at a rate much higher than inflation.

[NwZ2]

@kev3d That's because it's VERY prone to corruption of all sorts and attempting to actually put it in place calls for the impossibility of being able to control all the variables in the equation (sounds a lot like communism to me). Anyways, it's the government stepping in that's been able to stop some of the more egregious violations (See: people dying from chemical dumping), though it's far from person. But unfettered capital is absolutely amoral.

[kev3d]

@NwZ2 I'm not sure you quite understand what a free market is. No one controls the variables in a market, that's why they are called variables. I am also not convinced you know the difference between amoral and immoral.

[2415elcapitan]

What a waste of time!! Thanks Bullshit.TV!!

[cariboubarbie]

Fucking idiots calling themselves "Libertarians!"

[geezgsr]

Eat psilocybin mushrooms and discover death doesn't really matter anyway as we are spiritual beings living a human experience.

[UncleIrv]

@geezgsr

I bet you're peeking right now, hey?

[CurtHowland]

First, abolish the FDA and USDA.

[rockinandout]

A 90 year old milf just sounds weird

[DNATS]

@rockinandout not as weird once see the new In Time movie this weekend :P

[thespeez]

@rockinandout That would be a gilf; or a g-gilf.

[qtutoringhelps]

By the time science figures out the human brain, I highly doubt we'll have to go sit in a conventional class to re-train for professions. One of the fallacies people who think about the future commit is that they assume advances only in one domain while keeping constant all other aspects of life.

[qtutoringhelps]

Good interview.

[johammbass]

Someone, please, blow up the FDA!

[cariboubarbie]

@johammbass OK, bend over then.

[KaraDeAwesome]

@cariboubarbie

You are the worse character ever Towlie. Being an angry white male liberal who has an unhinged hatred of Palin was soooo 2008. Get with the times boring blue team troll.

[wkumatchstick]

Who wants to live forever?

[qtutoringhelps]

@wkumatchstick

If you don't want to live forever, you should pick a day to die.

[wkumatchstick]

@qtutoringhelps it's a song from the fantasy epic Highlander. It's by Queen.

[sensibuddz]

life extension technologies will be harbored by the elite alone. incremental poisoning is the plan for the rest of us.

[johammbass]

WTF, grow up, it is just a matter of time that we will "live" on a microchip. That is the one elephant in the room that this lady does not see. Digital life instead of a biological one.

[TPOTCD]

Anybody else slightly reminded of Farenheit 451?

[Jotto999]

Humanity has been playing the very cruel and miserable game of evolution, and during this century we may very well "win the game" and finally gain control over our own circumstances as sentient beings in the universe. Concerns of overpopulation and playing God are trivial and irrelevant. Earth's population will eventually plateau, and I'd rather generations have a long, healthy, low-turnover rate than the short and brutish one some imbeciles insist is better for humanity.

[starrychloe]

Dick Cheney has already survived death numerous times and is past his expiration. There is always a dark side to this technology.

[LZJoZ]

Even if I could,I wouldn't live forever via any method,let alone this one.If there comes a day when we can access new lungs and hearts and wind pipes when we get old and our own ones start wearing out then it would be OK for a while...Until our cheque bounces.

XP

[blackbeard456]

I would kill myself if I lived beyond 80. Hell at that point your mind and body is shot

[Panpiper]

@blackbeard456 You do not live beyond 80 if you mind and body are shot by that point. The way you live to 150 and beyond is very specifically by NOT having your mind and body shot by 80.

[GWillett64]

People are obsessed with living longer but what good is living longer if the quality of life is compromised by lower living standards and government oppression. For example, suppose I could live to be 200, but the last 150 years of my life would be spent living on the street, or under authoritarian rule. Wouldn't death be better? Only the dead walk free.

[chronDiggity]

why would I want to live forever? To just see people destroy the planet, and themselves? I can't wait until I'm dead. The only thing keeping me around is family

[LogSNES]

fuck the fda

[andreszuniga88]

All this stuff is being stopped by big government people need to understand that!

[richardcadbury]

The only people playing God right now are the bureaucrats at the FDA.

[jerseygrl5]

To live to 100 and be healthier longer, it's all in what you put in your mouth! Why wait for science to come up with something, I mean look at cancer, they haven't cured that yet. (nor will they, cancer is far too profitable!)

[sljgdh]

A perverted view of the word FOREVER

[maximunoutlaw32]

wait a second...this sounds familiar, isn't this the plot of rise of the planet of the apes?

[XCritonX]

What I want to see is genetic re-engineering where you can have your genes sampled, remodeled, reset to a younger age, and then have your current genes replaced with the improved ones using a tailored virus that only you can get.

[XulChris]

@XCritonX You can reprogram your genes epigenetically.

[XulChris]

You are much better off learning how to be healthy from the inside out.

[elharbingero]

@XulChris You seem to be suggesting that we have to choose. Healthy living will still be important, especially for the brain, which is exponentially harder to replace than anything else.

[XulChris]

@elharbingero I'm healthier and more fit now in my 40s than I ever was in my 20s. How? I learned how to eat.

[S0chan]

What immortality or just longer lives will do to the job market is just silly.

Everyone will want to hire the oldest people with some serious experience instead of wasting their time and money on someone young that doesn't know shit yet.

[Panpiper]

@S0chan Well, that person with 70 years of experience very likely won't want to work as a receptionist, a shoe salesman or a waiter. There will still be lots of work for everyone (assuming a true free market). The only difference will be that those with vast experience will simply be capable of earning a lot more than someone without the experience. And that does not mean that the younger people will be earning 'less' than they otherwise would; the market is not a zero sum game.

[S0chan]

@Panpiper Oh, I agree. It would actually force a more healthy way of achieving higher positions and making your career which is starting from the very bottom and making your way to the very top by the sweat of your brow.

That is, as you stipulated, if we let the free market take it's course.

[El3ctricPenguin]

This video is relevant to my interests

[XulChris]

4:35 Yes, see how the war state is good for regenerative medicine.... please.

[XulChris]

LOL you don't need new drugs and artificial this and artificial that. All you need to know is how to eat.

[Vegemighty]

This was on Nova ScienceNow

[legendre007]

I'm very much fascinated by the topic of living forever. Good choice of topic. :-)

[Excelion333]

@legendre007 you should watch the new episode from curiosiy on discovery channel about living forever might change your mind about that.

[SICKOFSIGNIN]

Sign me up for one of those new brains. This one keeps letting me down.