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

"Everyone has an interest in this," explains Sonia Arrison author of a new book 100 Plus: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything, From Careers and Relationships to Family and Faith, "because everyone has an interest in living healthier, longer."

Arrison sat down with Reason.tv to talk about the technological innovations and regenerative medicine that will fuel the next "longevity revolution." She explains what people need to expect and how regulatory reforms are needed to speed the innovations up so that "we will be able to repair ourselves." 

Interview by Reason's Paul Feine. Shot by Alex Manning and edited by Sharif Matar.

About 9.30 minutes long.

Go to reason.tv for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel for automatic notifications when new material goes live.

Comments

[Live Free or Diet]

Behead other immortals, feel the quickening?

[Muad' Dib]

'There can only be ONE' ... somebody had to say it.

[StupendousMan!]

Go Sonia! She's framing the book in a way that other life extension advocates/researchers have tried but not been very successful. She constantly hits the "extend health" point.

To those against these types of technologies- a bullet to the brain works almost every time. If it doesn't these people playing god can rebuild it so you can have another go at it.

[yonemoto]

a bullet to the brain second law of thermodynamics works almost every time

FIFY, you death-fearing coward.

[yonemoto]

a bullet to the brain second law of thermodynamics works almost every time

FIFY, you death-fearing coward.

[yonemoto]

so true the squirrels copied it twice.

[???]

They left the "H" out of her name.

[Troy]

I am not worried about this stuff getting out of the lab and to the market fast. There are plenty of baby boomers, some even with some money left, that are so vain and narcissistic that they will make sure these technologies will get to the market.

[StupendousMan!]

I think we're all guilty of vanity and narcissism in varying degrees. Ahem...

I also think we're on the cusp of a "Mad Scientist" revolution. The combination of highly specialized information at our fingertips, bio-hacking, every more sophisticated desktop manufacturing and labs, and as you said aging baby boomers, will enable people to take risks with out government intervention.

When you've an incurable disease the bio hacker geek down the block will a rational choice for treatment.

[yonemoto]

ha. "bio-hacking". I laugh. It's.Harder.Than.You.Think. You could probably count the number of people who have improved an enzyme (let alone design one from scratch) on your fingers (I'm one of them). Let alone more difficult stuff, like systems or network engineering. To mix metaphors, most of biology is still in the "script kiddie" stage, and the problem is there are few people who can do both low level biological "assembler code" and high-level systems work. Not to mention the fact that biologists leave so much to the totally clueless informaticists.

[StupendousMan!]

"It's.Harder.Than.You.Think."

Of course it's hard. But there are many "biohackers" constantly competing. To say that it's hard now with the tools and knowledge available now says exactly what? That both tools and knowledge will stay static and not improve?

I'm an IT guy. Used to work at an R&D lab. I was constantly told by PhD's and other "experts" that stuff couldn't be done- in a cost effective way. With a little bash scripting some OSS and elbow grease I was able to create servers and services at a small fraction of the cost of what was available commercially. My stuff even worked better, some of it is still in use.

I'm not a biologist or biohacker but I think the OSS movement has proven that it's a viable protocol for rapid innovation.

[Carl Pham]

Really? Tell me, what major innovations in CS has the OSS movement originated in the past 30 years? A brand-new operating system paradigm, perhaps? Mmm...nope. Still riffing off of Bell Lab's Unix, itself a cut-down of 1970s Honeywell's Multics.

How about a new programming paradigm, hen, maybe a new language? Mmmm...nope. When it comes to programming up from the metal, it's still Kernighan & Ritchie's brainchild, with a few wrinkles thrown in by Soustroup and the odd characters at Sun perhaps.

Well, since this is the Internet age, how about a new way for computers to talk? A brand new Internet protocol, something that addresses the flaws in TCP/IP, say? Alas, no. We haven't even seen any improvements to HTTP.

A new MP3 player that automagically detects BPM in a pop song (and has great community-supported skins), or a way to let n00bs script together boutique e-commerce sites is not in the same class as the truly game-changing innovations of the past in your field. So I think our definition of "rapid innovation" is pretty weak tea, if it comes from observing open-source programming over the past two or three decades.

And that even assumes that all we need to do in "bio hacking" to live to 150 is very modest innovation along the lines of inventing the Web or programming Linux -- and not (which strikes me as far more likely) once in a millenium innovations like inventing calculus, atomic theory, or relativity.

[StupendousMan!]

Innovation, as I used the term, describes constant improvement.

"Tell me, what major innovations in CS has the OSS movement originated in the past 30 years?"

Who said there had to be a major innovation? It's many tiny innovations over time that have made most of the modern marvels we see today. Making fun of ridiculous apps is beside the point. It's the supercomputer in your hand that runs them that's exciting.

Anyway, what's with all of the negativity?

[Kevin]

Great. Boomers are pushing the war on drugs, robbing the poor for their social security checks, and just generally stifling improvements in civil liberties and fiscal policy. Now, we get to have them around an extra 70 years. Thanks but no thanks. When people get old, stuck in their ways, and living in the past, it's time to get the heck out of the way and allow those who came after to do their thing.

[jtuf]

I'm all for the new technology, but I don't think it's going to change society much. We still haven't adjusted to having a life expectancy of 80. Rather than create the 4 generational family, most families have just extended adolescence and retirement. Unless we change our society, we're looking at debt funded college until age 40 followed by 25 years of work and 85 years of government funded retirement.

[Tab Spangler]

"No one wants to sit in an old folks home and whither away."
Except now we have iPads. The problem with old people is that they just sit there.

[Alex Jones]

Euthanasia, eugenics and green crackers for all until society is sustainable and the 500 billion can live life according to the Georgia Guidestones.

Cain is a bankster.
Perry is a Bilderburger.
Bachmann is a neo-NAZI.
Huntsman is a puppet for the UN.
Santorum is a puppet of the Pope.
Romney is part of the Morman conspiracy to put blue collar workers in suits and women back in the kitchen.

Ron Paul! Ron Paul! Ron Paul! Ron Paul!

[Professor Mark]

I just want to say two things:

1. We're not going to live forever.

2. Mwwahahahahahaha!!!!

Thank you.

[LaSuthenboy]

I dont remember who said it - the comment was made at a 90th or so birthday -
"Well X, now that you are ninety, what do you think?"

X - "I have had about all of myself I can stand"

[Mr. Mark]

Okay, well a third thing:

Even if it were possible to do the live forever/almost forever thing, can you imagine the kind of warfare we'd see then. It would make the Mongols look like the Quakers.

[cynical]

What? Have you seen the way old people drive? War would be a thing of the past, unless you don't think population growth would slow.

[Mr. Mark]

I do not think that population growth would slow, no.

People want to have children. They'd have them. It's a built-in desire, programmed by nature and it wouldn't just shut off like a switch.

But, I don't think it's going to happen anyway - so we'll have wars for the good ole reasons.

[Chris]

You should read up on demographics. All historical data indicates that population growth will slow. Creation of new technology to allow people to live longer will likely create population bubbles that increase the net population, but that will only increase it by a finite amount, so we might end up with 11 billion people vs 9 billion that we would have ended up with without the new tech.

[NL_]

Seems like people with much longer life expectancies would have much more to lose by going to war.

[Mr. Mark]

"Seems like people with much longer life expectancies would have much more to lose by going to war."

Right now, people are born, but people also die. So, while the world's population of human beings has grown over time, the rate of growth reflects both births and deaths. As nations have become more prosperous, their birth rates have generally slowed. If you drastically reduce the death rate to only accidents, disease, crime, and war, then without a corresponding decrease in birth rate, the population would grow at a must faster rate than it is now.

As many wars are motivated by greed and inducements to greed, if there are more and more people, then normally fixed resources, such as large land areas, grow more scarce (x units of y among z number of people).

One of the ways that people compete for fixed resources is by force. So, with an increase in the intensity of competition, there would be more frequent warfare, as warfare is one means by which a group can take resources from another.

In any case, nobody will be living forever, so don't worry about it.

[Old Man]

Why the hell would anyone want to live forever?

[Douglas Fletcher]

Um, I think that's just hyperbole. 150 years isn't forever, just longer than you'd want to be married, probably.

[NL_]

The really interesting part is her point about staying healthy and productive longer. If the most experienced people could all work years longer in their given fields, the productivity gains and economic benefits would astound.

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