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Comment by m_a_g | Hacker News Reader

I’m really scared of getting old. I’m hoping someone “cures” aging in my lifetime.

The one thing my mom noticed and I've noticed is people are healthier in middle and old age than they used to be. Mom said when she was a kid (circa 1950) people in their 50's and 60's were usually just shot. I have friends pushing into their 70's who are very good shape. So I think the years of decline and exit are getting compressed. People are living healthy longer.

You can of course be unlucky and you can obviously wreck your health. Hint, damage you do to your health after 40 doesn't go away.

Is it possible she’s biased by upwards class movement?

The blue collar folks in my family are still shot in their 60s. My parents had cushy office jobs but are doing their darndest to die in their 70s (extremely sedentary and medically obese)

No one will cure aging in your lifetime. If we were actually making progress towards this goal then we would see incremental improvements in maximum lifespan but so far no one has exceed the record of 122 years set in 1997. You will die in a few decades just like everyone else.

Increasing healthspan is for all intents and purposes highly similar, barring actually raising the hard limit.

> I’m hoping someone “cures” aging in my lifetime.

They made a whole movie about it! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/

And here I was thinking that was going to be Logan's Run or Cocoon.

Or Tuck Everlasting maybe

"Fear begins when you realize you can die. Fear ends when you accept that you will die."

Something else I ponder, which helps, is that since life is not well-defined, then neither is death. We perceive a difference, but it is fuzzy. We're constantly dying, but also can never really die; as walking, talking sacks of chemicals there is a sense in which we were never really alive in the first place.

We sink back into the chaos that birthed us, not as finite isolated beings, but as waves that rise above the ocean for a moment before returning their water for the next wave.

I don’t think their fear is a fear of death, it’s a fear of aging, of getting old. The physical frailty, mental lapses, mobility issues, etc.

Hmm, I see. I think those problems of fraily often accrue from causes other than age, so it's not how I would have framed it, but it's possible you're right. Thanks for the extra perspective compared to my assumptions.

Aging is optional.

"Why tiptoe through life, to arrive safely at death?"

--Christopher Brian Bridges

Getting old rocks, I highly recommend it.

why? everyone who has ever existed long enough gets old. even if they "cured" aging, it is likely you'd still get old. also, if someone found the fountain of youth, what makes you think they'd allow you to drink from it?

we should have Brian Johnson reporting back to us shortly

Ya, but, like, you know, give it 5-10 years. Society needs to do a generational refresh

I’m scared of getting old in a late stage capitalist society.

I have similar fears in a late stage communist society.

Thankfully in the US we’re not stuck reverting to socialism, there are other options to improve what we have to serve the people. It’s not “capitalism as practiced in the US” or “socialism as practiced in the USSR.” More options exist, the struggle is getting the momentum for change.

No thanks, don't want a late stage "other plan" either.

"Early stage" anything doesn't sound very good either

Capitalism and serve the people are opposed to one another.

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