The X Prize is taking aim at aging with a new $101M award

This is something I think many people miss about being active. When I was in my 20s and 30s the gym was a social thing, to see and be seen. Plus being 20s you can build muscle, get fit, do anything and recover in a day. In my 40s I felt I was ahead of most people in overall health no gut no out of breath from menial tasks. By health I don't mean the "swol bros" or the gaunt 1% fat people.

But in my late 30s early 40s my routine suffered and then stopped going due to a new job with odd hours. Although I did feel I had momentum of all those years but it faded quickly. It was the consistency of going more than anything that I think was a benefit to my health. I wasn't a power lifter, a marathon runner, a body builder, one of those squash players I was just going to maintain my overall health.

Really it's a bit like countries with socialized medical care. You go often and catch problems early so you are better overall not near death's door when you finally go to a doctor. Same for a dentist you go frequently to catch problems since you can't regrow teeth it's too late then. Old age without being active in the previous decades is like that it's too late.

I'm really sorry to hear about your mom. It's tough to see a loved one going through something like that. Wishing her strength and recovery, and hoping you get to spend many more happy moments together.

No. The controversial opinion is saying that death is unnecessary. Your opinion represent the 'mainstream' opinion. I would argue that it's status quo bias, or justification and rationalization for having death.

Humans are very good at justifying things after the fact.

But taking a look at the individual objections, it either falls apart or a lot more complicated than you think. For example, the fear of societal stagnation. I think this is an overblown concern. People are always changing, however slowly and imperceptible it may be. An 80 years old is going to think very differently than 8 years ago.

People are always worried about overpopulation, but you know who pollute the most? Rich countries. The richer you are, the more meat you eat, the more 'resources' you consume. Currently, overpopulation is really about pollution than running out of raw resources, such metals and minerals and energy. We would overheat ourselves before running out of space. Obviously, there's going to be a finite limit, but that limit is so far off that it's basically ludicrous to think about.

Dictatorships holding power for unbounded length of time? Sure, dictators might live forever, but it's clear that their society often basically 'stagnate', more like went backward. If you see North Korea and South Korea, you know that South Korea have more lights. Plus, just because you're a dictatorship doesn't mean it's a stable governing structure. There are dictatorships and military junta that are short lived or had been overthrown. Dictators can blunder into serious strategic mistakes, like Mr. Putin. Some even voluntarily democratized, like Taiwan!

Human societies are inherently dynamic system that changes over time. It would be difficult to imagine a system that somehow managed to keep things exactly the same. There's always room for disruption.

The parts of the world rich enough to afford state-of-the-art medical treatments mostly have declining populations and the exceptions are only growing through immigration.

If anything, anti-aging treatments likely would mitigate some future population concerns by giving more time for the economy to adapt to a shrinking population.

In other words, extending healthspan is not the same as extending lifespan.

> resources will become more scarce

No more so than the same total population aging normally. And as we're already below replacement rates in developed nations, no risk of that happening before some other radical change to the human condition (like mind uploading, WW3, Von Neumann probes on the positive side, or the consequences of existing consumption on the negative) gets in the way first.

Ansari XPRIZE (2004): Aimed at private spaceflight, won by Mojave Aerospace Ventures' SpaceShipOne, demonstrating private manned spaceflight.

Progressive Automotive XPRIZE (2010): Focused on energy-efficient cars. Edison2’s Very Light Car won in the Mainstream Class, and Li-ion Motors’ Wave II and X-Tracer Team Switzerland’s E-Tracer won in the Alternative classes.

Google Lunar XPRIZE (Not Won): Targeted private teams to land a rover on the moon. Although the prize expired in 2018 without a winner, several teams continued their lunar missions.

Global Learning XPRIZE (2019): Sought solutions for children to teach themselves reading, writing, and arithmetic. The prize was jointly awarded to Kitkit School and onebillion, both developing child-friendly learning applications.

Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE (2014): Focused on health sensing technologies. The DMI team won for their invention of a lab-quality blood testing platform.

Carbon XPRIZE (2021): Aimed at converting CO2 emissions into valuable products. Two teams, CarbonCure Technologies and UCLA CarbonBuilt, won, demonstrating concrete production methods using CO2.

Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE (2019): Aimed at advancing deep-sea technologies. The GEBCO-NF Alumni team won, developing autonomous ocean mapping technology.

If you take antibiotics when you're sick or choose your diet based on health concerns, you're not fine with the life expectancy you have. Natural lifespans (my words, not yours) don't make any sense with the level of intervention we do.

I like to imagine that choosing how and when you will die will one day be right there with self-actualization in Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

All though human history, we have kings, emperors, knights, and so forth. Now dictators and elected politicians. Some of them enacted absolute calamity and caused the death of millions. This can continue before they either die in office or are assassinated or overthrown.

Human societies are always changing, even under dictatorships. Political collapses are always going to be possible if you have a system that continue to deteriorate. The mistake that people make is living forever is assuming that power structures don't change. Humans are not rocks. We change and react and have agencies.

Perhaps there is a better way?