• Valmond@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Or like enamel growth on teeth experts.

    Or tinnitus research.

    Or migraine research.

    Or longevity research.

    Or any other research actually.

    • tetris11@feddit.uk
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      2 days ago

      Or longevity research.

      This one freaks me out. Rich people living long lives, long enough to build cults around them that the mortal poor will revere even more than they do now

      • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        There’s a rational argument for making live extension universal, namely that so long as you increase healthspan you’ve essentially delayed retirement by X years meaning you get a higher working to retirement ratio out of each worker. Unfortunately the people in charge are not rational and would probably support poisoning the drinking water to make themselves comparatively longer lived by ensuring no one else lives past 60 if they thought they could get away with it.

      • Valmond@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        For me it’s the opposite that freaks me out:

        Let’s all grow old get sick and die so that dictators can’t stay in power.

        Doesn’t seem to work perfectly well IMO.

        Remember, longevity won’t mean living forever or be immune against disease and accidents. Also if we would live longer laybe we’d have more time to figure things out and take care of what we got.

        • tetris11@feddit.uk
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          2 days ago

          Death is the great equalizer, despots leave behind power vacuums to be filled by their many illegitimate children or other parties for vying for power. Good to know that the maximum extent of any of these reigns is 80 years.

          As for us living long enough to figure things out, I wonder instead if we simply just retreat more and more into our creature comforts and echo chambers

          • Valmond@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Death isn’t a great equaliser, it’s just pain for decades and then death. How old are you 😅?

            In the same vein, should we stop all medical help to speed up this process of yours 😉 ?

            Kidding a bit, we’ll see what happens if/when it does I guess.

            • tetris11@feddit.uk
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              2 days ago

              Old enough to see powerful rich old men unwilling to pass on control onto anyone else, both personally and in the public sphere.

              Medical progress that trickles down to the masses (e.g. washing your hands after delivering a baby) is a net benefit to all. We have however seen the limits of trickle down theory, and are currently witnessing the dismantling of large public medical and scientific resources (NIH in particular was a longstanding pillar) at a speed and scale never quite done before, whilst pharmaceutical companies are swallowing up the talent pool.

              Future medical advances genuinely might happen behind closed doors in the future, instead of under the eye of public discourse.

              • Valmond@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                All the longevity research is very public as it is today, and if not both the USA and most European countries becomes dictatorships (and if it do, young or old it will be the same), I don’t see that change.

                They figured out a remedy for huntingtons disease not long ago, and the covid mRna vaccine was incredible science.

                I’m on the optimistic side here.

    • ILoveUnions@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Tbh I don’t get why all these men who are as rich as god aren’t pumping large portions of the fortune into longevity research. Do they not want to live forever? We finally live in a time where we are starting to see real possibilities of growing all organs, and maybe even curing memory loss due to age. And they just, don’t seem worried?

      • Valmond@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        And just plain longevity research, which have again and again proven to work by repairing things, and thus rejuvenating us (works in mice \TM).

        My bet is that either they are drugged up and their brain are mush, or fooled that AI will do it just more money bro plz.

      • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        That’s precisely why they’re pumping money into AI research. At this point mind uploading seems inevitable, but not necessarily in our lifetimes.

      • just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        They didn’t become rich by taking smart decisions, they took the ones that made them money. Climate crisis is what it is today because of profit maximization. Certainly, they also live in this environment. They also get microplastics in their bodies.

      • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        They can’t figure out how to make themselves live forever, and as they’re the richest, they think they must be the cleverest, so anything they can’t think of is beyond the human mind and therefore they must create an artificial mind to solve it.