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Xi and Putin overheard talking about organ transplants and immortality (www.abc.net.au)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/world@lemmy.world
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In short:

A live-stream broadcast of China's military parade has captured Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin discussing biotechnology's potential to extend life.

An interpreter translating Mr Putin can be heard saying in Mandarin that human organ transplants could let "us live younger and younger, and perhaps even achieve immortality".

Mr Xi responded that it may be possible for people to live to 150 years this century.

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[–] 11 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I honestly believe people could live to 150 within the next century and if organ transplants are part of it it will either be due to cloning or far better control of the immune system than we have now. I don't expect those advances to be soon enough to help either of these guys, no matter how much money they have.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago* (2 children)

    I honestly believe people could live to 150 within the next century

    It's a fun and easy thing to believe. Significantly harder to accomplish.

    I don’t expect those advances to be soon enough to help either of these guys

    They've already benefited substantively from the last 70 years of health technology. And I wouldn't be surprised of Xi, in particular, is enjoying some knock-on effects of being the head of state in a nation that's on the cutting edge of medical research.

    But there's a huge difference between "living to 100" and "being a functional adult at age 100". Xi's already pushing the line in his 70s and should have been queuing up a successor two terms ago. Putin's in it even worse, having trotted out Medeved and watched him flop in front of Parliament back in... what? 2008? Now he's got the tiger by the tail as he coasts into his own golden years.

    The fact that the US is floundering amidst its own techno-fascist gerentocracy should be a giant alarm bell for every other national government. You can't just stack the fate of your country on whether Chucks Grassley and Schumer can maintain a pulse indefinitely. But I guess when its your turn in the big chair, its easy to think you'll live forever.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Life expectancy at 25 hasn't changed dramatically in the last 2000 years, less than 10 years in most parts of the world. Life expectancy at birth has improved dramatically, and that isn't doing much for me, Putin, or Xi at this point. Certainly, the improved healthcare afforded to Putin and Xi is going to help their life expectancy more than the average. All that said, a lot of improvements have happened in the last couple centuries, mostly based on our knowledge. Sure, exponential growth isn't going to happen forever, not even in gaining knowledge, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen in biology for the next century. If it does, extending life expectancy at birth to 150 could be quite conservative.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Life expectancy at 25 hasn’t changed dramatically in the last 2000 years

    Heavily dependent on where and when you lived. In Tibet, for instance, life expectancy topped out at around 35 years in 1950 and is now cresting 75 in 2025. In the Palestinian Territories, the last ten years have seen life expectancy actually grew from 67 years to 76 years between 1992 and 2022. Then, in 2023, it fell off a cliff for some reason.

    A nasty famine, a brutal war, or a global pandemic can clip the lives of senior citizens short very quickly.

    But otherwise, sure. Solving the problems of agriculture and sanitation modernization have been comparatively easy relative to addressing telomere erosion or alzhemier's treatments. Simply not killing people is a lot easier than keeping them alive indefinitely.

    Although, one might also argue that the problems of aging haven't been felt so acutely prior to the 1950s, because comparatively fewer people were living into their senior years. Now that we have a bumper crop of senior citizens, we've been given a strong economic incentive to pursue technologies at an industrial scale. It's not just The Qin Emperor downing cups of mercury, thinking his exceptional wealth and privilege will grant him an extract century of youthfulness.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    There is a difference between maximum age and life expectancy, just as there is a difference between life expectancy at different ages. The life expectancy at 25 in Roman times was about 70 years old. All of our advances have added about 10% to a person's life span after they got past childhood diseases, the recklessness of youth, and serving in the military in the case of Romans. And I'm not entirely sure of the relevance of a genocide in Israel to Xi's prospects.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    The life expectancy at 25 in Roman times was about 70 years old.

    Maybe for a Senator or other member of the patrician class.

    But even in the last century, we've seen more movement than what you're describing.

    in the early 20th century (around 1900-1902), a 25-year-old could expect to live approximately 39 to 40 more years, reaching around age 64-65. By 2017, a 25-year-old could expect to live about 55 more years, reaching roughly age 80.

    So, closer to 20%

    of our advances have added about 10% to a person’s life span after they got past childhood diseases, the recklessness of youth, and serving in the military in the case of Romans.

    The vast majority of these advanced have occurred in the last 70 years. The intervening 2500 has been relatively flat.

    And I’m not entirely sure of the relevance of a genocide in Israel to Xi’s prospects.

    Mostly just a comparison of wealth and technology.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    It is very strange for how when I call for age limits on our politicians, that people say it is unfair or ageist. Honestly, I find that weird, because age and all the issues that comes with it, will find us.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    A lot of people see the idea of age limits (or term limits) as a backdoor way of getting "their guy" off the ballot. Because so much of the modern political scene is just charismatic demagoguery, anything that threatens the position of your personal political Messiah is an attack on your ideological faith.

    Better to elect some decrypt mummy leaking shit out of his adult diaper than risk some rival sect of the party taking office.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I would expect nothing or much more than 150. You only live as long as the weakest links in your body. Solving one isn't going to get ypu to 150. And if you solve enpugh to get to 150, you should live a lot longer.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I wasn't setting an upper limit. There is good evidence we are closing in on some of the causes of the symptoms of aging, as well as gaining evidence that dealing with the symptoms may reduce the effects of aging. If we only have those basic tools in the next 100 years, I could see lifespans being pushed to 150 to 200 for the typical person. If we can also deal with the lesser regenerative capability of the brain, I could see people living for centuries. As you said in other comments, there are a lot of interconnected pieces, and just fixing one or some of them won't be as useful as fixing all of them, which really takes transplants off the table as a general solution, but also means we may see limited increases in life span rather than getting past the tipping point of life extension research outpacing the gain it gives you, eg., extending lifespans more than one year per year.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    There also is one thing I believe is still unknown. Why 115ish seems to be the upper limit. The ones who make it that long are often in relatively good health. But they still die (usually in thier sleep) anyway. With no real reason why. So we need to figure that out to break through the current line.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago*

    And if you solve enpugh to get to 150, you should live a lot longer.

    Really depends on how you solve it. Announcing "we can keep you in a vegetative state for an extra 50 years" isn't a strong sign that the technology is there yet. Besides, there's a lot more to living than just heartbeat and baseline brain activity.

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