patrick.net

Have needed age limits at the top end for decades. It should be 30-65 roughly. If you're older you're losing it and if younger than 30 you generally don't know shit even if you think you do. I honestly don't get what these geezers/boomers are getting out of it. I don't want to work. I work to retire and enjoy those years after kids. I have enough skills I can pick up a hobby job/gig that would keep me busy. Money is fine as it should be with most political ass holes.

tovarichpeter says

http://io9.com/will-old-people-take-over-the-world-458358266

One of the consequences of radical life extension is the potential for a gerontocracy to set in the entrenchment of a senior elite who will hold on to their power and wealth, while dominating politics, finance, and academia. Some critics worry that society will start to stagnate as the younger generations become increasingly frustrated and marginalized. But while these concerns need to be considered, a future filled with undying seniors will not be as bad as some might think, and heres why.

We are nowhere near this point.

Aging, as it is currently understood, is that telomeres shorten as cells divide and reproduce. Telomeres are a repeating pattern in DNA that doesn't encode for a protein. When the cell divides and reproduces, the telomeres get shorter. When the telomeres are gone, the cell cannot reproduce.

This is a prevention against cancer. Bret Weinstein demonstrated that lab rats had unusually long telomeres. The result isn't greater longevity, but rather the rat has a greater resistance to poisons at the expense of being more likely to develop cancer. Lab rats are only allowed to reproduce when they are young, and his hypothesis is that this resulted in longer telomeres. Lab rats, instead of exhausting their telomeres, just replaced cells, so they had greater resistance to poisons (medicines), so a drug introduced to their system allowed them to live, but the same drug killed a human being.

Every time a cell replicates, there's a chance of error which can lead to an uncontrolled replication or a deformed cell that makes incorrect proteins.

So elongating the telomeres just makes the organism succumb to cancer, instead of senescence - i.e. old age.

All the cells in your body, including your neurons, have been replaced since you were born. There's just a limit to that. None of the cells in your body were part of you, when you were 5 years old. Interesting to think you've already died a few times, isn't it?

We are taught to respect "old great people" - I suspect Henry Kissinger and George Soros are just as senile and out of their mind as Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi is. Media protects them.

If we get old enough, we're all going to go through madness and senility.

Don't worry about living forever. How much is your 5 year old self, like you now? That little kid, is long dead. Just like you will be dead in 20 years, whether your walking corpse is technically alive or not. I have difficulty recognizing my 20 year old self at this point. That was a naive stupid kid.

My father was just shy of 96 when he had an accident or he would have lived to be 100.
He had lost none of his faculties at that age.
I recall him using a Chromebook while in his office, some sports on TV and a book he asked me to buy from Amazon next to him.
He would ask me to buy some books he saw in the NYTimes Book Review magazine.

The only difficulty was his hearing was damaged; he had a microphone device around his neck that bluetooth connected to hearing aids.
He claimed that the artillery at the Battle of the Bulge contributed to his hearing problem.

If someone were talking to him and right in front of him he was also reading lips along with his hearing aids.

But, it's clear that Biden and McConnell are incapable of fully functioning. McConnell has had several TIAs which we have seen.

clambo says

But, it's clear that Biden and McConnell are incapable of fully functioning. McConnell has had several TIAs which we have seen.

Some people are lucky, but I think our termination is around 80 on average.

I had SEVERAL great aunts get to 90 being entirely aware, even to 100.

I'm just saying there is a limit. ONE of my great aunts was entirely aware well into her 90's, but the rest - no. My cousin asked several of our great aunts when he was young "what is it like to be old", he was told it was pain, tiredness, lethargy. It waits for us all. I'm grateful to be aware of it now that he and I approach this age.

I had dogs, I've seen it myself though them. I've had a dog with dementia. I had a dog that had no mental problems, but the rest of his body just was causing him agony. I prefer the agony over dementia.

If people lived forever, would there be a need for interest rates? That is, would the time value of money become meaningless?

It all begs the question that these are cogs in a machine, and they are established brand names. You don't just chuck an expensively cultivated brand name with instant recognition factor, especially if such brand name has been sufficiently blackmailed/bought etc.

They are also sin eaters and anonymity jackets for the controllers behind the scenes, who can come and go without bodyguards because nobody knows who they are.

Sometimes they replace them with body doubles when they need some more tread (aka Biden Actor and Nancy Actress, FetterVeg etc.) and the fakes seem to work just as well, so what the fuck, they run them on Satan's treadmill until they drop.

A bit of Shadenfreude comes seeing them forced to run and run, unable to enjoy the fruits of their ceded wealth, treasons and treacheries. Don't you think McConnell would rather be relaxing at home with no worries with his family? Showing up to the Intel Mockingbird makeup and dressing wagon every day to be powdered and pimped for action in front of the lights just by itself sounds tedious to me.

Congress is full of some old nasty fucks, for sure. But are you saying you would rather they be replaced with young nasty people like the Squad and AOC?
Sorry Bastards are Sorry Bastards irregardless of age. I don't get people who blanket hate on old people. Do people really believe every old person, is rich beyond their wildest dreams, and rolls in their money in their big ass mansion, while gloating how they done took all of the young folk's money?
Its so fucking bizarre to watch these younger generations, that have zero respect for old people or the aging process. Something tells me, all of those elder haters, are destined for very miserable old age, and will probably have their health and finances shit right out from under them in their 50s, or 60s.

It will be depressing to watch, you'll probably have younger relatives concerned checking in on your sorry asses if your lucky, DAMN LUCKY.

Tenpoundbass says

while gloating how they done took all of the young folk's money

Well, the gloating part yes. I've heard that from several boomers starting about 30 years ago. One read about how the system was rigged in their favor way back then and that once they retire and are gone the rest of us will be fucked. That was written in the early 90s.

So far only heard that from asshole boomers though. Assholes are assholes at any age.

Yuppies were scumbag Boomers, who had no soul and would have sold their first born child for a Porche.
Not all Boomers were Yuppies, most worked hard for a living just to barely squeak by. The streets are full of homeless Boomers, that made it on the wrong side of 50.

Intergenerational conflicts and blame games are Illuminati Subversion 101. If you fall into the trap, you are putty in the hands of the KommieKunts. May as well sell your kids to the groomers.

97% of people over 65 got the jab.
That’s going to reduce oldster population faster over time.
It will save pensions and social security.
As intended.

@richwicks the telomere discussion just proves it wasn’t the telomeres that cause aging. The reality is far more complex.

Or did you think humans had telomeres that are 7 times as long as the ones in dogs?

It’s probably far more related to epigenetics than genetics. The environment the cells are in influences their ability to reproduce as healthy cells.

Tenpoundbass says

Do people really believe every old person, is rich beyond their wildest dreams, and rolls in their money in their big ass mansion, while gloating how they done took all of the young folk's money?

Many of shitty millennials making most of the content in Media, Congressional Aides, etc. are Yuppiespawn - a segment of the Boomers, not all of them - and hate their Yuppie Parents and envy their wealth.

But not all millies are yuppiespawn, and not all Boomers (most aren't) were greedy outsourcing Yuppies.

Shaman says

richwicks the telomere discussion just proves it wasn’t the telomeres that cause aging. The reality is far more complex.

Or did you think humans had telomeres that are 7 times as long as the ones in dogs?

Not a biologist and I hate biology, but my admittedly very basic understanding that is that elongating them, simply leads to cancer. This happens when organisms breed young, apparently - that's Eric Weinstein's hypothesis, or it could be a mutation. The result is that lab rats do have elongated telomeres because they are all bred young. If this is true, we should see this in farm animals as well, and @patrick observed that his chickens ALL died of cancer because they are all bred young.

I've tried to contact Weinstein. It's fairly easy to contact farm sanctuaries, and see if the animals die of cancer at some point predominately. I've even considered travelling to an office he has in SF to talk with him. He's very difficult to contact.

Having elongated telomeres extends life to a point, it also increases the risk that a uncontrolled duplication of cells happens, which is what cancer is. They are immortal cells that just keep duplicating until it kills the organism. That's the current understanding of cancer.

Shaman says

It’s probably far more related to epigenetics than genetics. The environment the cells are in influences their ability to reproduce as healthy cells.

The current hypothesis of what brings on senescence (i.e. old age) is error in duplication of cells, and the limit to how often the cells can reproduce.

It's also thought that a restricted diet reduces cell duplication and therefore elongates life, if you're willing to be starving all your life. This experiment was done on lab rats, and Eric Weinstein believes they are a flawed model - so who knows?

I don't.

I have only a layman's understanding of it, but it's interesting. A lot of complex ideas can be reduced so it's understandable even without understanding the entire process.

AmericanKulak says

But not all millies are yuppiespawn, and not all Boomers (most aren't) were greedy outsourcing Yuppies.

My frustration with the Boomers (sorry to any boomers out there), is that you can't teach anything to them, and they seemingly learned nothing from the older generation.

I'm X, and I have more in common with my parents from the Silent Generation than I do with the boomers.

I can easily talk to my dad about corruption of our government, blatantly obvious corruption, I know NO boomers I've met face to face that can do that. This "don't trust anybody over 30" generation mostly has complete trust in their media and government - and they had the most warning! They are, BY FAR, the most gullible. If it comes out of the propaganda box, they believe it.

This was the generation lied into Vietnam over the bullshit Gulf of Tonkin attack. The Pentagon Papers showed the government lied us into a war, and it was Mike Gravel, not the "news" papers or "news" outlets that exposed it. Gravel read it into the congressional record, because, technically, they have completely immunity. At the time Nixon was threatening that anybody that reported on it would be jailed for treason. By having Gravel read it into the record, it was public knowledge.

This is the same generation screaming "turn the Middle East to glass" - sending my generation into war in Iraq in 1991, and the next generations into war in 2002 and up. Out of all the generations, they should be doing the most pushback, but they are pushing forward instead.

I know who Nayirah al-Ṣabaḥ is. That's the cunt that told the FABLE of babies being removed from incubators by Iraqi soldiers. They don't. They don't know she lied TO THIS DAY. It's maddening, and if you try to tell them about it, they don't want to hear it, they'll call you a traitor before they'll accept they were fooled. They can't be taught about anything.

A SMALL minority can be, but far smaller in their generation than my generation.

richwicks says

patrick observed that his chickens ALL died of cancer because they are all bred young.

@richwicks

Right, chickens die of cancer if you let them live to 6 or 7 years old. All four of ours did. It's somehow related to the breeding they did to select the fastest growing chickens.

I read an interesting interpretation of the evolutionary reason for telomeres. It seems that most animals gets small cancers quite a lot, and the telomere mechanism limits the number of times a cell can divide. So most of those cancers "burn out" quickly by running through their alloted number of divisions and no harm is done.

This gets the animal to reproductive age. The downside is that that same mechanism causes aging and eventual death, since all the cells in your body have that same limit.

What we normally call cancer is the only the specific kind that manages to defeat the telomere mechanism and divides without limit. Then it kills the organism. Henrietta Lacks' ovarian cancer is still replicating nicely in labs around the world, and she died in the 1950's.