But Col, that is precisely what ageing is: a disruption of the natural processes of renewal at a cellular level.

The problem with much of the human population/sutainability problem (ie exponential growth) is due to 'Red Queen Syndrome'. In Lewis Carroll's 'Through the Looking Glass' the Red Queen's race is running as fast as you can to stay in the same spot.

Where people generally have large families (as a norm of society), are areas that generally have high mortality rates (especially infant). These people are breeding for replacement, not unrestricted population growth.

To illustrate, we can ask- why do we have the 'baby bonus' if our population is breeding exponentially? Well, globally yes, but locally it isn't, indeed in many 'Western' countries the birth rate has declined below replacement rates. Why is this so? Well, one idea is that when presented with a low infant mortality rate, a half decent lifespan and a higher quality of life with chances at decent education, people tend to choose to have less babies. In fact education correlates very well with reducing infant mortality and also declining birth rates.

Now given this, is it not reasonable to think that people will choose to have less babies? How many would you have if you knew you were likely to live to two hundred years old and had a window of opportunity of 50 years or more to have them? Would you have them while you were poor, or when you felt were financially stable?

After the discovery of anti-ageing treatments, if you thought the planet was in mortal danger, would you accept them or refuse for the good of the planet? Would you trust your children to make the same decision after you were gone?

The fact is, there are cells in our body that are essentially immortal(germ line cells). When we find out why they aren't subject to ageing processes, we may actually find those life-extension treatments (and potentially have almost complete control over our reproductive ages). If you think that is a cancer on the planet, then that's your religion, not mine.

TurnRightThenLeft
-And finally... life is significant, only because of death.
What do you mean? -
I thought the life is significant because we have the opportunity to create, to dream, to love, to hope, to enjoy the sunset, the forest the mountains etc not of cause the death which terorise the life, bring cries, sadness and finaly destroy the life.
The is an usesless and soon or later we will win it.
-What if they'd never been born, because the system didn't allow it?-
It better to ask the chinese authorities, they know better of cause the birth control. I supposed you are against the aborsion.
Fractelle "they believe their lives are worth more than the planet" The risks for the life on the earth do not come only from humans but from many other reasons. While the humans are dangerous for the life on the earth simultaneously IN LONG TERMS, THEY ARE THE ONLY HOPE TO SAVE THE LIFE FROM THE EARTH.
If you study the history of life on the earth you will find millions of species which desappeared. A strong human, a smart human, a human who won the death could support and save not only his life but also the lifes from other species on the earth.
The Universe is very hard and the risks from the sky is big and often.
When we have the power to win the death, to increase our abilities to stay alive,( under bad condisions) WE DO IT.
Fractele our planet have enouph sources for many billions people, if we have problems this is because our goals are not the human needs but the profit.
While to die is very easy, some times, it is extremely dificult to stay alive, ask dinosaurous to tell you their story.
It is mankind's duty to prepare for bad, difficult times, it is our duty to stay alive in a hard environment.
The win the death it is a good starting point.
Let'us start the genetic modification on human beings, expeling to the hell, all the bad genes from our body.
Antonis Symeonakis
Adelaide

*A strong human, a smart human, a human who won the death could support and save not only his life but also the lifes from other species on the earth.*

Antonios, we have already "won the death" as you call it. That
is exactly why you evolved to enjoy sex and love your children
so much. Your dna continues from generation to generation.

As to more humans saving the lives of other species, do not
kid yourself lol. As we can see on this thread, people prefer
to create even more of their own, which is predicted by
evolution theory. One species will increase in numbers, at
the cost of other species. Eventualy the whole thing becomes
unsustainable, the whole lot crash in a thud. That is basic
biology.

I make my point again. If you could not achieve what you wanted
to achieve in 80 years or whatever, best to try some other
dna combination. Only so many can live on this planet sustainably
at any one time. Its either that, or we are back to a world
spinning with cockroaches and ants onboard.

I hope that when I due am due to fall off the proverbial perch,
I'll at least have the time to sit back and reflect with a big
grin, at all those memories and amusing times. I make sure that
I enjoy the journey, never mind the destination

Nice words yabby! very nice.

EVO

But that's just it Yabby, we only have a window of a little over 20 years to pass on our DNA to the next generation (not 80), long before we have any real hope of achieving much at all. The biological imperative to breed is so strong.

I agree with much of what you have to say, but I come to entirely different conclusions. You are right, nature is not in equilibrium, it only appears that way because our lives are so short. We are the only species on the planet that can choose what to do.

The way I see it, is that the only way you are going to get people to choose to do things differently, is to give them a choice that's worth taking.

The status quo is getting us nowhere as it is, because as far as I can see, humans are breeding exponentially without any help. Nothing will change that in the near future under the current way of things. I believe lifespan extension with corresponding quality of life would ease the breeding impetus and greatly increase the quality of life for many. It would also help to divert a lot of resources currently taken up by the aged and infirm.

In short, it's a game changer. The current rules would not apply, and I would like to try that.

Antonios, I'm vehemently pro-choice.
In fact, I'd say I'm among those who've argued against runner's constant shallow anti-abortion diatribes more than anyone else. I can back that up with numerous links.

My point was about relativity - everything is defined by it's opposite. Life can't exist without death, no more than black can exist without white.
If we can't die, then we can't really live. We should all have the chance to life a full life (I don't mean that in an anti-abortion sense, I mean that in the sense we should all have the right to have children, or to not have them, as they case may be) which is anything up to around a century.
In the future it may be a bit longer, which is all well and good.
But eternity, or thousands upon thousands of years? I don't think so.

We wouldn't know life was valuable if we had no experience of what death is, any more than a colour blind person could experience 'blue.'

Extensions to life, provided health goes along with it, could provide potential, but we do need to focus on sustainability. Bugsy makes some good points about procreation and the correlation between fertility rates and quality of life, but I'm not so sure that they'd still work when applied on this scale. I think many people might have a few rounds of kids if given the opportunity, hell, there'd probably be more cases of people starting families anew with different partners.

I don't like defining people as a virus more than anyone else, and I don't adhere to the anti-people arguments either, but when we aren't a sustainable life form then we do indeed exhibit characteristics of a virus.

I don't mean it in an insulting way, I just think that while a human life is precious unlike a virus, if we don't rein in our wastefulness and destruction to other lifeforms and ecosystems then we are behaving in the manner of a virus by killing our host.