Wed Dec 08, 2004 8:09 pm
Even if we /can/ live to 1,000 years, it doesn't mean we will. Some disease will always catch up to us that they can't cure.
Wed Dec 08, 2004 8:47 pm
I personnally am split, I mean if you are alive to 1000 it would be ok if your healthy, but I mean it won't be happening anytime soon. Our resources are being used up so fast, I'll be suprised if we make it to the year 2100 at the speed we use up our resources.
Wed Dec 08, 2004 10:57 pm
That would be pretty awesome if we could live that long. But alas, there is a reason for everything on Earth, and there must be one for living only a tad over 100 years. We may not last another 1000 years here. One can only hope.
Thu Dec 09, 2004 12:28 am
DiscordantNote wrote:I'm for it, as long as it doesn't mean complete immortality. Everyone has to die someday in my beliefs. True, the world would become vastly overpopulated, but I've been hearing a few things about colinzing the moon, so maybe that'll come around in time to save us from that.
the moons dead, gone, kapput, nout but rocks.
asteroids however are a veritable Cache of resources, that is where our future lies.
i for one would welcome immortality, but then, i dont try and fool myself that im not a power mad meglomaniac out to get everyone who ever opposed me.
Thu Dec 09, 2004 1:44 am
It would be wonderfull if someone could basically cure old age, then people wouldnt become so frail and vulnerable (sp?) But I guess Im kinda happy if we get to 100, any longer than that and, as someone has already said, there just wouldnt be enough resources to cope with that many people. Dying is all about making way for other people to come into the world.
Mindyou, if anyone ever did get to the ripe old age of 1000, the government might have to re-think the retirement age!!! 940 years on a pension is sure going to put a hole in the budgets!!
Mindyou, if anyone ever did get to the ripe old age of 1000, the government might have to re-think the retirement age!!! 940 years on a pension is sure going to put a hole in the budgets!!
Thu Dec 09, 2004 3:24 am
xjox wrote:It would be wonderfull if someone could basically cure old age, then people wouldnt become so frail and vulnerable (sp?) But I guess Im kinda happy if we get to 100, any longer than that and, as someone has already said, there just wouldnt be enough resources to cope with that many people. Dying is all about making way for other people to come into the world.
Mindyou, if anyone ever did get to the ripe old age of 1000, the government might have to re-think the retirement age!!! 940 years on a pension is sure going to put a hole in the budgets!!
Or the goverment begins an extermination program, rockets filled with people aimed to the sun, special ops guys shooting you from behind your back, etc.
Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:32 am
Okay, lets have a look here. I reckon that living to 1000 is very possible (According to my science teacher at least). Tehre are only two things that one should do that will guarantee them almost immortal life (seriously).
Before I start explaining, I'm only 14 and I'll probably sound like a little kid when I explain it, but nonetheless....
There's a special part in your brain which tells your cells to reproduce, to repair your body, heal wounds, etc. As you get older, this part of the brain seems to lose it's strength, and eventually, it is so weak that a cut which would normally be nothing overly serious, becomes a hospital matter. By finding a way to force the cells to continue reproducing healthily, you could in a sense preserve a perfectly good and healthy body.
However, theres a slight problem. As everyone knows, the cells in the brain don't reproduce. Once you lose it, you lose it. And over time, the more you get bumped around, pushed, shoved, punched, hit in the head, etc, the more brain cells you lose. Alcohol doesn't help either. And it was predicted that if you lived your whole life without moving or hitting yourself whatsoever, your brain can last up to 400 years before you become brain-dead.
Scientists belive that the stem cells in baby's ubilical (sp?) cords could be the solution to this problem. In case you didn't know, Stem Cells reproduce to immitate the cells around them. So if you manage to find a way to get these stem cells to the brain somehow, you can in a sense, make everyone smarter, and preserve their brains.
If you can do both these things, you can quite possibly make humans immortal (at least from aging). However, diseases will soon catch up to us.
Now, as for resources. As Setekh said, the moon is not a great hole for resources. In fact, the only real reason for even setting up a colony there is becaue it would be cheaper to launch space shuttles from the moon than from earth, since you wouldn't need as much fuel to leave the atmosphere. It could also be a great place to dump criminals. Maybe force them to work there or something.
Mining asteroids seems like our only real option, unless everyone decides to vote for the Greens next election, but I doubt thats going to happen. Maybe birth control would be a good solution. Force everyon ein the world to have a maximum of 1 child per family, until the population settles at around 3 billion (which would be a good number for sharing resources and space). Then , make the maximum number 2 children per family. This is probably the best solution. Bombing third world countries is not an option.
In the long run, we can expect to have colonies on Mars, which could quite easily become the next earth. Okay, well not easily, it would take thousands of years, but it can be done. Scientists belive that if you manage to oxygenate the air, and melt the ice caps, you could have yourself a fertile planet, fit for human colonisation. And I'm pretty sure there are some valuable resources there as well.
And who knows, by the time we figure out how to colonise Mars, we may have figured out a way to travel very fast around the galaxy. I mean, VERY fast. Bleh, I'm full of speclations, and now I'm getting off topic.
Before I start explaining, I'm only 14 and I'll probably sound like a little kid when I explain it, but nonetheless....
There's a special part in your brain which tells your cells to reproduce, to repair your body, heal wounds, etc. As you get older, this part of the brain seems to lose it's strength, and eventually, it is so weak that a cut which would normally be nothing overly serious, becomes a hospital matter. By finding a way to force the cells to continue reproducing healthily, you could in a sense preserve a perfectly good and healthy body.
However, theres a slight problem. As everyone knows, the cells in the brain don't reproduce. Once you lose it, you lose it. And over time, the more you get bumped around, pushed, shoved, punched, hit in the head, etc, the more brain cells you lose. Alcohol doesn't help either. And it was predicted that if you lived your whole life without moving or hitting yourself whatsoever, your brain can last up to 400 years before you become brain-dead.
Scientists belive that the stem cells in baby's ubilical (sp?) cords could be the solution to this problem. In case you didn't know, Stem Cells reproduce to immitate the cells around them. So if you manage to find a way to get these stem cells to the brain somehow, you can in a sense, make everyone smarter, and preserve their brains.
If you can do both these things, you can quite possibly make humans immortal (at least from aging). However, diseases will soon catch up to us.
Now, as for resources. As Setekh said, the moon is not a great hole for resources. In fact, the only real reason for even setting up a colony there is becaue it would be cheaper to launch space shuttles from the moon than from earth, since you wouldn't need as much fuel to leave the atmosphere. It could also be a great place to dump criminals. Maybe force them to work there or something.
Mining asteroids seems like our only real option, unless everyone decides to vote for the Greens next election, but I doubt thats going to happen. Maybe birth control would be a good solution. Force everyon ein the world to have a maximum of 1 child per family, until the population settles at around 3 billion (which would be a good number for sharing resources and space). Then , make the maximum number 2 children per family. This is probably the best solution. Bombing third world countries is not an option.
In the long run, we can expect to have colonies on Mars, which could quite easily become the next earth. Okay, well not easily, it would take thousands of years, but it can be done. Scientists belive that if you manage to oxygenate the air, and melt the ice caps, you could have yourself a fertile planet, fit for human colonisation. And I'm pretty sure there are some valuable resources there as well.
And who knows, by the time we figure out how to colonise Mars, we may have figured out a way to travel very fast around the galaxy. I mean, VERY fast. Bleh, I'm full of speclations, and now I'm getting off topic.
Fri Dec 10, 2004 3:28 pm
cellular decay gets us basicly.
eventually, the celss copy themselves so many times that they begin to break down, stop reproducing and replacing dead ones.
eventually this becomes so advanced that the body ceases to work and we die.
this is why cloning someone thats X years old is kinda stupid, because it copies the decay aswell (and why dolly the sheep died so "young", she was a clone of a seven year old sheep)
eventually, the celss copy themselves so many times that they begin to break down, stop reproducing and replacing dead ones.
eventually this becomes so advanced that the body ceases to work and we die.
this is why cloning someone thats X years old is kinda stupid, because it copies the decay aswell (and why dolly the sheep died so "young", she was a clone of a seven year old sheep)
Fri Dec 10, 2004 9:30 pm
Setekh wrote:2070, thats when our natural resources run out, thats when we turn against eachother.
No source = no credibility
Fri Dec 10, 2004 11:37 pm
teh0mega wrote:In the long run, we can expect to have colonies on Mars, which could quite easily become the next earth. Okay, well not easily, it would take thousands of years, but it can be done. Scientists belive that if you manage to oxygenate the air, and melt the ice caps, you could have yourself a fertile planet, fit for human colonisation. And I'm pretty sure there are some valuable resources there as well.
And who knows, by the time we figure out how to colonise Mars, we may have figured out a way to travel very fast around the galaxy. I mean, VERY fast. Bleh, I'm full of speclations, and now I'm getting off topic.
Interesting teh0mega...but humanity will not be flying through space, not at anything fast enough to reach to another star or anything. Scientist can't even comprehend travelling at lightspeed, and even travelling that fast it would take you years still. And exactly how could one survive such speeds, or a any craft alone take such extreme stress. The only way humans could ever travel through space across long distances is through wormholes. They seem to exist mathmatically but scientist arn't sure if they are real in the physical universe. Thats not saying they don't exist, and it would be nice if they do. But finding one is the hard part, or maybe we shuld just open one ourselves, but where would it end, how could we open an opposite ending on the other side of the galaxy? Some things I think are beyond technology itself.
Oh and to terreform mars would take hundreds of thousands of years, atmospheres don't spring up over night. And I don't think we have that much time.
Iashi wrote:No source = no credibility
I think its ignorant to think that our planet will be like this forever. Just because someone can't show at this exact moment how doomed this world is.
Fri Dec 10, 2004 11:53 pm
Iashi wrote:Setekh wrote:2070, thats when our natural resources run out, thats when we turn against eachother.
No source = no credibility
2004-2005 economical and technological journal (think thats the name)
if you can find it, read it, otherwise new scientist an issue in the last year or so, had an article on it.
but it breaks down thusly.
major oil reserves gone by about 2040.
major forested areas (ie, the rainforests) a distant memory by 2060.
major gas reserves by 2050.
secondary reserves gone by 2070 (major reserves are the big pockets, iraq, saudi etc)
tertiary reserves are to small to make much of a differance.
to think, the fuels that have taken hundreds of millions of years to build up.
are gone within a couple hundred.
as for the terraforming of mars, it wouldnt take long, oh sure youd need to live in a sealed building, but thats besides the point.
we could live there, we could be living there now (albeit in small numbers) if the world wasnt so yella bellied about the risks of space travel.
but it wont be humans that colonise, while FTL (faster than light) speeds are beyond our technology, its not beyond our understanding.
(bare with me, im going off on a tangent here)
einsteins theory states than E=MC2
(the energy recquired to reach SOL is equal to its mass X the speed of light sqaured)
possible then, were talking BIG numbers, but possible.
however, the faster you travel the greater your mass, and as you approach SOL, you mass becomes infinit.
damn.
however, if we can perfect the mass reduction technology (well, make it work at all to be honest) we could reduce the mass.
nothing X infinity is still nothing afterall.
and if that doesnt work, just expand the range of our teleportation technology (one molocule across a room and through a wall, one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind all over again)
Sat Dec 11, 2004 12:53 am
Setekh wrote:2004-2005 economical and technological journal (think thats the name)
if you can find it, read it, otherwise new scientist an issue in the last year or so, had an article on it.
but it breaks down thusly.
Such a journal does not exist, or is atleast not locatable by search engines. A search of New Scientist for the term "2070" produces only six articles spanning from between 2001 to 2004. Three mentioned it as an arbitrary date measurement for Global Warming. One mentions that rats have 2070 smell receptor genes. Two state that the global population will peak around 2070.
Setekh wrote:major oil reserves gone by about 2040.
major forested areas (ie, the rainforests) a distant memory by 2060.
major gas reserves by 2050.
secondary reserves gone by 2070 (major reserves are the big pockets, iraq, saudi etc)
Those numbers are irrelevant unless you can explain how they were arrived at. I can just as easily say that "I read it was 2300" or "2700" or "2020".
Sat Dec 11, 2004 12:58 am
i said somthing like that, and as new scientist is the only scientific mag i read (or atleast did) i asumed it was there that i saw it, theres no use saying that without colaboration i must be lying, because me memory works very differently to other peoples, its a minefield of misleading articles that never happened, and of pink flying hippos.
saying that i read it again a few days ago so i cant have dreamt that particular one, i'll see if i can find it again.
as for the numbers they are based upon studies made by people who are far better at estimating these things than you or i, based upon current consumption of those resources, and the known sources that remain.
edit: on second thoughts this computer was formated a couple days ago, so dont be anticipating my finding of the website the article in the journal was posted on.
saying that i read it again a few days ago so i cant have dreamt that particular one, i'll see if i can find it again.
as for the numbers they are based upon studies made by people who are far better at estimating these things than you or i, based upon current consumption of those resources, and the known sources that remain.
edit: on second thoughts this computer was formated a couple days ago, so dont be anticipating my finding of the website the article in the journal was posted on.
Sat Dec 11, 2004 1:02 am
Setekh wrote:as for the numbers they are based upon studies made by people who are far better at estimating these things than you or i, based upon current consumption of those resources, and the known sources that remain.
I asked for evidence, not attempts to make yourself appear more credible.
Sat Dec 11, 2004 1:06 am
Iashi wrote:Setekh wrote:as for the numbers they are based upon studies made by people who are far better at estimating these things than you or i, based upon current consumption of those resources, and the known sources that remain.
I asked for evidence, not attempts to make yourself appear more credible.
and i pointed out that all such evidence is lost to my memory, and the memory of my computer.
ergo, your argument is moot.