Life Extension and Health Extension

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

I thought it would be good to create a thread on this topic for discussing these subjects. They’ve been an on-and-off interest of mine since I was young and read about Cryogenic Suspension in a Reader’s Digest book called Strange Stories and Amazing Facts..

My interest was stoked again about 30 years ago when I picked up a magazine called Extropy and learned about Extropianism and the larger encompassing philosophies of Transhumanism and Singularitarianism.

With my recent medical travails this past year, this interest is both renewed and intensified more than ever!

Here lately, I’ve been getting into the work of Dr. Peter Attia, who most recently published a book called Outlive: The Science snd Art of Longevity..

What makes Dr. Attia worth exploring to me and perhaps to other Atheist/Skeptics/Scientists is how he speaks on Medicine 1.0, Medicine 2.0, and Medicine 3.0.

Medicine 1.0 was the era when humans thought disease and injury were the product of the Supernatural as punishments or fate, where humans died from either infection or violent trauma and treatment was faith-based and folk medicine.

Medicine 2.0 was when men discovered that they could learn about their world and their lives by systematizung their knowledge with The Scientific Method and applying it to fighting disease and injury, where human fought these with sanitation, hygiene, vaccines, pharmacology, and surgery, but still faced degenerative and deteriorative threats to life and health and treatments and cures were cookie-cutter for everyone.

Finally, there is Medicine 3.0, where emphasis is upon early detection, preventative care, and individualized health extension as well as life extension, through improving mental/emotional health, exercise, nutrition, sleep, and molecules e.g. drugs, supplements, and hormones.

While he’s not quite as optimistic as Extropians/Transhumans/Singularitarians, Dr. Attia sounds like he knows his stuff and I find him worth watching and attention. Here’s the video that introduced me to him:

If 2 hours is too long, he also has shorter podcasts and videos and his Web Site is here:

Peter Attia, MD.

Home

Remember, folks: Life is about showing up, and that means being there to show up above all!

• This topic was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addendum
• This topic was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Changing a word
• This topic was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addendum

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Looks like a great topic! I’ve not thought about it much. “Stanford/Hopkins/NIH-trained MD” gives me motivation to try him out.

A question occurred to me, limited to two scenarios but may not be the only scenarios to consider:
What would I choose, between burning brightly and accomplishing life goals until I die, vs living longer but slowly “fading out” mentally in my last few years? I’d choose the former. While that doesn’t properly address important details to consider in the latter, fading out choice.

There’s a nice “show notes” list of episodes that includes a search function, if you click on “PODCAST” at the top of the page that gives further, helpful choice, including “Show Notes” that include timestamps that jump to specific topics in each episode, which is impressive, because it takes work to add those timestamps.

---

His Google Podcast and RSS links take us to pages that lack greatly in detail. So I have a couple of recommendations for anyone looking for a big picture list of all episodes:

Google Podcast list of episodes in reverse chronological order, also showing durations
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9wZXRlcmF0dGlhZHJpdmUubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
That single page list makes it easy to search specific topics/keywords by just using Ctrl-F in your browser.

Podcast App Players 
* At this time I can only recommend my by-far favorite app for android, Podcast Addict. I’ve been subscribed to their paid version for years, and it just keeps getting better and better.
* I’m guessing that his link to Apple Podcasts works fine, but without a comprehensive episode list or search.

 

 

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

PopeBeanie,

I–and I’m sure Dr. Attia and other Life Extensionists would agree–that a superannuated life of atrophy in mind or body would not be worth it. Dr. Attia does emphasize Health Extension to go along with Life Extension.

Muxh obliged on the Google and podcasting tips. I never have the time or attention to get full use of all that is out there to maximize the benefits of my devices. (I only recently learned how to scan QR codes and now I scan every one I see just to see what comes up…as long as the QR code is from a trusted source, of course.)

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I’m definitely into living a more healthy life so that I can stay healthy for longer.  On a BBC programme it said you should try and eat 30 plants (no matter how little of each) a week for a healthy gut biome.  Since I’ve been trying to aim for this, I’ve had more energy, a better mood, and less pain in my bad shoulder.  I suspect it is good for inflammation.

[jakelafortParticipant]

If you are eager to extend your life then you must be struck by the futility. No I am not referring to the obvious and inevitable. Rather the rats in a cage. Same old patterns. New existential crises.

I wonder what percent of intentional prospective parents ponder the wisdom of bringing new life to this shit show.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Enco, first Vienna Teng and now this.

Started listening. Seems interesting although he is way off on how old microscope is. Hope he aint a quack.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Simon,

I haven’t yet researched the gut biome and wouldn’t know what’s best for it, however a daily glass of V-8 (11 fruits and vegetsables,) a banana and blueberry or strawberry fruit smoothie with non-fat dry milk, and a half-cup bowl of oatmeal made with malted milk Ovaltine gets me a good amount of plant-based food in a single sitting, so to speak.

Then later in the day, tomato-based soup, salsa, or pasta sauce, mixed stir-fry or boiled vegetables, peanut butter for a snack, and fiber supplements like Citricel get me more plant content, though I don’t think it is 30 separate kinds of plants and I haven’t counted the number of servings.

Unsalted meat or fish does me no harm, though heavily-salted country ham once made me woozy so I ceased it right away.

I will look into gut biome further, just as a precautionary health move.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake,

I look at it this way: An extended, superannuated lifespan would give time to think about and act against the many problems that plague us. And augmented bodies and brains would make us better equipped than in past iterations to solve these problems as well.

I fully relate to not wanting children, since my experience has showed me that life can be rough enough living just as one and for one without dragging in an especially lovable other. The Twentieth Century alone provided enough horrifying reasons to keep children away.

Treating other people’s children right, donating surplus to charitable causes that benefit children, trying to not be a burden, and working towards a freer, more prosperous world is my Bachelor’s Mite for kids.

Fortunately, superannuated lives with “body shops” of parts also means that humans could transmit genetic heritage and what is best of culture and civilization with much less need for procreation if at all. So that’s yet another plus for life extension and health extension.

Microscope–Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microscope

According to the Wiki article about microscopes, they are indeed ancient tech, but it was Köhler’s use of electric light plus Ruska and Knoll’s invention of the electron microscope that made the microscope much improved and more effective in exploring life and fighting disease. So Dr. Attia isn’t really off after all.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

I’ve decided for the coming New Year to research this topic further and to, so to speak, breathe some new life into this subject. Here is a great insight from Balaji Shrinivasan on Life Extension vis-a-vis Universal Health Care:

https://youtube.com/shorts/aAii1LJ8rLk?si=q3OM77IsCbatl73V

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Correcting a link
• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Still correcting a link

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

More news about Bryan Johnson. He did an interview with Zach Weismuller and Liz Wolfe of Reason Magazine:

He has a free book called Don’t Die where he gives his Algorithm for life extension out to the whole world. Wise words in the title at least, and I hope to read more, though from the food and sleep regimen he describes, I hope there are different ways to extend life.

For instance, though I like all the vegetable Bryan eats with his two meals a day, I would want more variety as well and not shirk any food groups. Transhumans should work on crafting bodies that could consume anything with no I’ll health consequences.

Also, Bryan’s sleep regimen is not an option for second-shift workers like myself and third-shift workers, as well as people like myself whose mind can go for half a night without resting.

I would hope that Transhumanists could work on a way to compress the biological needs fulfilled by sleep into less time, until maybe we could get rid of sleep except maybe for recreation. Humans who didn’t need sleep would automatically be at least 1/3rd more productive and have at least 1/3rd more leisure!

Also, without sleep, humans wouldn’t be suckers to embrace Hobbes’ Leviathan and it would just be a bad dream that we awake from forever!

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

I couldn’t make a post about Bryan Johnson without adding this lunatic video from Steven Crowder disjointedly conflating Transhumanism with Maoist and Pol Pot Communism and saying that Christianity is a man-loving antithesis of Transhumanism.

Uh, Steve-o, Chistianity and Communism both hold Man to be a worthless piece of shit except as part of some “higher” good and both are most certainly not for eternal physical life!

“Louder with Crowder” is decidely not wiser:

😁😀😃😆😅🤣

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

Some fantastic news from the world of medicine!

We are one very big step closer to that personal “body shop” of spare parts. Do Genetic Modification on other organs, duplicate them with vat growing stem cells, and new organs could be as plentiful as dentures, or, of course, replace them!

And, as the story points our, Reason and Science does a better job at solving old medical and social ills than DEI/DIE.

[UnseenParticipant]

OMG! We’re now making human chimeras!

Can you say Frank N. Stein?

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Unseen.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

Dentists from antiquity used elephant ivory and rhino tusks as well as animal teeth to craft dentures and heart surgeons have used aortic valves of pigs for over 40 years.

I first heard about them when Atlanta columnist and humorist Lewis Grizzard told about his heart surgery where he got the aortic valve of a little pig named Jerome. (Audience says: “AWWWWWW!”). Lewis said he has no problem with it, but every time a plate of barbecue passed him, his eyes filled with tears.
🐷😁

Fast forward to 6:00 for this and more pig humor. If you do listen to the whole album, do so remembering that it was a very different and even brutal time:

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Placement of modifiers

[UnseenParticipant]

@ Enco

So, making human chimeras has been going on for a while now. I hadn’t really thought about it before. Anyway, your point?

If some say we shouldn’t kill animals for human sustenance, what about the ethics of wasting one to save a human, in this case, a comedian? I hope the remains of that little piglet ended up on someone’s table or some dog’s bowl of kibble.

 

[Author]

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