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Comment by tyree731 | Hacker News Reader

Life expectancy has increased a good amount in the past 50 years, raising by ~8.5. That is to say, for the exponentially increasing abilities of modern medicine, we have increased linearly in life expectancy. Maybe there is some breaking point, such as a universal cure for cancers and/or the end of heart disease, but regardless it seems like a huge leap to go from ~78 to ~1000 in life expectancy.

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Much of life expectancy gains though are for the area south of 70. Much of SENS research hold's promise for the area north of 70. That's what's exciting. Especially if that we can live a healthy older age, even if it's not any longer.

(Truthfully, some cancer research benefits older people, as cancer has a much higher incidence as you age, however, much research out there is for middle of life diseases).

If my grandmother could play basketball again, she's love to.

Remember, people lived to 70 thousands of years ago.

Remember Ben Franklin lived to 84.

That is sort of what I'm getting at I guess. We haven't progressed much further than what was possible thousands of years ago.

What has happened is that the bell curve has shifted (a little bit) to the right.

Let's say that life expectancy is now increasing at a rate of 2 years per decade. If you want to live to 1000, you just need to increase that to 10 years per decade. You don't have to go from 78 to 1000 all at once.

Maintaining two per year for 500 years is more than sufficient.

Personally, I expect false starts in the next couple centuries. The beta testers will be healthy and fit into their hundreds, but those that follow may get to 200-400, then possibly further. There are just too many engineering issues to work out in a single iteration.

Very true.

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