Tarmor's Terribly Tantalizing Tarasque Terrrifying Random Banter #234

[Anonymouswizard]

Where are you getting your model for a regeneration cycle, Doctor Who?

Blake's 7. Obviously. Obvious joke is hopefully obvious.

[Lacco]

Hypothetical question: A procedure by which someone could gain eternal perfect health—that is to say, total imperviousness to disease and the ability to swiftly make a 100% recovery from anything that doesn't kill you outright, almost guaranteeing a death of incredibly advanced age with no problems until you just shut down one night—is discovered, but the process results in a metamorphosis that leaves you looking, externally, like a child for the rest of your life and there's always hassle involving cards and documents to prove that you're your real age.

Do you seek out the procedure?

Emphasis mine.

Again, bear in mind that English is my second language (third, actually). So when you say "eternal" and "death of incredibly advanced age", instead of "human maximum of 125 years"...

No one would live that long.

...then excuse me for overestimating.

We're not talking eternal youth, we're talking "you don't feel or show the effects of age at all up until you go to bed one night and don't get up in the morning."

The theoretical maximum human life span is about 125 years, so nobody is living much longer than that.

Still, don't like the idea.

I'd take something that would make me impervious to flu, common cold and some other sicknesses - because they irritate me. But not at the cost of looking like a kid. It took me few decades to finally look as well as I look right now, and I'd not rewind

Regardless, I can't help but think it's interesting that your instinct is to assume it's a trap to force people into a lifetime of indentured servitude.

Yeah, no.

My instinct is to make a joke about the crazy idea: the old guy who dies happily while world descends into madness consisting of kid-looking adults. I also can't help but think it's strange you would think a thing like this would be for free.

Also: it reminded me of this crazy anime one of my friends told me about where a formula was found in future for every woman to look like a kid. While the anime was slapstick-style funny, the idea was creepy.

[Rater202]

Emphasis mine.

Again, bear in mind that English is my second language (third, actually). So when you say "eternal" and "death of incredibly advanced age", instead of "human maximum of 125 years"...

Eternal is attached to perfect health: It's the fact that you never get sick that lasts forever.

And considering that the average life expectancy is 72.6 years, 125 is incredibly advanced.

Edit: Does this come across as condescending? Becuase it isn't meant to.

[enderlord99]

I wouldn't do it, but only because I'd be suspicious they're not giving me the whole story.

[Peelee]

Eternal is attached to perfect health: It's the fact that you never get sick that lasts forever.

And considering that the average life expectancy is 72.6 years, 125 is incredibly advanced.

Edit: Does this come across as condescending? Becuase it isn't meant to.

People generally don't actually die of "old age". They die of some condition that is related to their failing health in their age. "Eternal health" is very likely to make one not die of natural causes.

[Anonymouswizard]

People generally don't actually doe of "old age". They die of some condition that is related to their failing health in their age. "Eternal health" is very likely to make one not die of natural causes.

Speaking as somebody who works near the elderly, this. Even those p people who do have 'aging related genetic damage' as a cause tend to die if something else. And it's not perfect health if it's not stopping genetic damage.

[Rater202]

People generally don't actually doe of "old age". They die of some condition that is related to their failing health in their age. "Eternal health" is very likely to make one not die of natural causes.

My logic is that you're still accumulating were and tear, you're just not feeling the consequences.

No matter how healthy you are, eventually, something you can't live without is gonna break.

Trust me, I think we've had enough conversations in this thread regarding eternal youth and immortality to peg how people would answer that question.

[Keltest]

My logic is that you're still accumulating were and tear, you're just not feeling the consequences.

No matter how healthy you are, eventually, something you can't live without is gonna break.

Trust me, I think we've had enough conversations in this thread regarding eternal youth and immortality to peg how people would answer that question.

You still kind of have some mutually contradictory premises here. If youre perfectly 100% recovery healthy, you dont accumulate wear and tear. Thats kind of definitionally what perfect health and recovery means.

Sure, conceptually given enough time youll eventually fall off some stairs/tick off an evil overlord who decapitates you/experience the heat death of the universe, but none of those are death by wear and tear.

[Peelee]

My logic is that you're still accumulating were and tear, you're just not feeling the consequences.

No matter how healthy you are, eventually, something you can't live without is gonna break.

Trust me, I think we've had enough conversations in this thread regarding eternal youth and immortality to peg how people would answer that question.

You got a degree in biology, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I remember, cellular regeneration degrades over time, which is pretty much the root of "natural causes" deaths. Toss in perfect healing and that doesn't happen. Strokes are suddenly curable by simple bed rest. Aneurysms are a thing of the past. Heck, even cancer goes the way of the dodo. The "wear and tear" gets fixed by perfect healing. If it doesn't, then it's not perfect healing. You've set it up so that natural causes is no longer a thing. People now only die by being killed. Whether it's by a bullet or falling down the Grand Canyon, the only way to die is by external forces, and the average lifespan of a whole population gained this would skyrocket.

[Tvtyrant]

You got a degree in biology, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I remember, cellular regeneration degrades over time, which is pretty much the root of "natural causes" deaths. Toss in perfect healing and that doesn't happen. Strokes are suddenly curable by simple bed rest. Aneurysms are a thing of the past. Heck, even cancer goes the way of the dodo. The "wear and tear" gets fixed by perfect healing. If it doesn't, then it's not perfect healing. You've set it up so that natural causes is no longer a thing. People now only die by being killed. Whether it's by a bullet or falling down the Grand Canyon, the only way to die is by external forces, and the average lifespan of a whole population gained this would skyrocket.

Given a long enough time death is inevitable from natural disaster anyway, we just extended it into the thousands of years range. Volcano gone give it to you! Forget getting it on yo own, Volcano going to deliver it to ya!

[Rater202]

You got a degree in biology, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I remember, cellular regeneration degrades over time, which is pretty much the root of "natural causes" deaths. Toss in perfect healing and that doesn't happen. Strokes are suddenly curable by simple bed rest. Aneurysms are a thing of the past. Heck, even cancer goes the way of the dodo. The "wear and tear" gets fixed by perfect healing. If it doesn't, then it's not perfect healing. You've set it up so that natural causes is no longer a thing. People now only die by being killed. Whether it's by a bullet or falling down the Grand Canyon, the only way to die is by external forces, and the average lifespan of a whole population gained this would skyrocket.

1: No, I was originally a bio major, but had to change it becuase I couldn't pass some of the incidental requirements that would not actually be necessary in my field of choice but for some reason they make you take.

I believe I stated that I ended up doing more advanced math than I did biology and that my chemistry class had some weird obsession with making us memorize a bunch of complicated formulas that, in a real lab setting, I imagine people would be double-checking several times and doing the math three or four times to make sure they had everything right.

I mean, that's common sense, right? If you're working with something potentially dangerous, you make absolutely certain that you know exactly how much you're working with and that you've done the math right? Thats the one scenario where doing it in your head is the wrong way to go. Shouldn't they have been teaching us that instead of encouraging us to do it from memory just the one time?

2: Okay, when I said perfect health I meant by human standards, not objectively perfect. You don't get sick but you'll still eventually die. And when I said "recover from anything that doesn't kill you outright" I didn't mean you were wolverine. If you break your back and sever your spinal cord at 40, it might be fixed by 70 when for a normal person the healing would stop well short of a full recovery... If the back-breaking injury didn't kill you.

If I meant for people to be immortal in this scenario i would have said so.

You're still mortal. You're subject to entropy. It might be slower than average but eventually, things are gonna start wearing down faster than even a perfect human can fix. Eventually, your heart's gonna give out

And it's not that cellular regeneration slows over time, it's that your cells make slight flaws when dividing, the copies are slightly imperfect, particularly when it comes o DNA: The rate of cellular division is faster than the rate at which our cells produce the enzymes needed to repair those flaws, so eventually you reach a point where the cell can no longer function properly and is destroyed.

The exception are cancerous cells, which produce the necessary enzymes—particularly telomerase, which repairs the telomeres which are necessary for cellular division to function properly—in excess of what is needed, which is why they can divide continuously. Of course, they also lack the safety measures built into the cell that regulates cell division, meaning that they're eventually either such or stave whatever part of the body they're growing in.

This, combined with stress, environmental factors, and just everyday wear and tear, is what causes aging. And eventually, some art of your body i s gonna be aged to the point to where something just breaks and can't be fixed.

[factotum]

Strokes are suddenly curable by simple bed rest. Aneurysms are a thing of the past.

Would that be the case, though? Even with no degradation in your general state it's possible to have birth defects which cause issues--a friend I had at university had a birth defect which caused a brain aneurysm and went into a persistent vegetative state because of it. Now, even if your perfect healing factor can fix up the broken blood vessels, would they fix it up with the same birth defect that caused the problem in the first place? For that matter, once they've restored all those brain cells that got killed due to lack of sustenance, would you actually get the same person back or would they still have severe memory and/or personality damage?

[Peelee]

1: No, I was originally a bio major, but had to change it

Whoops. Sorry!

2: Okay, when I said perfect health I meant by human standards, not objectively perfect. You don't get sick but you'll still eventually die. And when I said "recover from anything that doesn't kill you outright" I didn't mean you were wolverine. If you break your back and sever your spinal cord at 40, it might be fixed by 70 when for a normal person the healing would stop well short of a full recovery... If the back-breaking injury didn't kill you.

Ah, I gotcha! Sorry, it's just that every other time I've seen you talk about "perfect health", you used it to mean... well, perfect health.

Also, by the terms you have now stated, that's a terrible deal and I sure as hell wouldn't take it.

And it's not that cellular regeneration slows over time, it's that your cells make slight flaws when dividing, the copies are slightly imperfect, particularly when it comes o DNA: The rate of cellular division is faster than the rate at which our cells produce the enzymes needed to repair those flaws, so eventually you reach a point where the cell can no longer function properly and is destroyed.

Yes, I shortened that to "cellular regeneration degrades over time".

Would that be the case, though?

Yes, under my original understanding of it; the proposition was "gain eternal perfect health", which, as above, I assumed was meant as it sounded.

[Rater202]

Whoops. Sorry!

Ah, I gotcha! Sorry, it's just that every other time I've seen you talk about "perfect health", you used it to mean... well, perfect health.

Every other time I've talked about perfect health, it was in the context of something like Marvel's Super Soldier Serum, which grants perfect health, perfect condition, and eternal youth. Or replicating a superhuman immune system or level of regeneration, rather than simply making it the best it can possibly be for a human.

This is perfect health by itself. If that makes more sense. You will be as healthy as humanly possible in all circumstances but eventually, something is going to happen that not even perfect health can deal with.

Okay, let's imagine it more like this: All the problems that come with aging are deferred. Held back.

But they're still occurring, building up... So, eventually, if nothing else kills you, by the time you're approaching the theoretical maximum lfiespan of an unaltered human the man breaks, it alk hits you at once, and you die of multiple sudden severe internal complications before you even have time to realize that something's wrong.

Which is less scientifically valid, but also more in the spirit of what I was trying to go for.

But until that point, everything is just great.

[Bartmanhomer]

Happy Labor Day everyone. I'm still on my four-day weekend and I'll go back to work on Wednesday.

[Peelee]

Every other time I've talked about perfect health, it was in the context of something like Marvel's Super Soldier Serum, which grants perfect health, perfect condition, and eternal youth. Or replicating a superhuman immune system or level of regeneration, rather than simply making it the best it can possibly be for a human.

These distinctions don't really help me as much as you might think. Especially since you have talked about how Captain America's super soldier serum only takes him to the best it can possibly be for a human, which is exactly what you are talking about here, but is somehow different from what you are talking about here. The waters are muddied, is the short version.

Okay, let's imagine it more like this: All the problems that come with aging are deferred. Held back.

But they're still occurring, building up... So, eventually, if nothing else kills you, by the time you're approaching the theoretical maximum lfiespan of an unaltered human the man breaks, it alk hits you at once, and you die of multiple sudden severe internal complications before you even have time to realize that something's wrong.

That's a much more interesting question. And it's damned tempting. But it carries a hundred percent certainty of sudden and unexpected death, so I'd take the gamble instead. But it's definitely a much harder decision.

Which is less scientifically valid

Zero isn't really less than zero.

[Rater202]

These distinctions don't really help me as much as you might think. Especially since you have talked about how Captain America's super soldier serum only takes him to the best it can possibly be for a human, which is exactly what you are talking about here, but is somehow different from what you are talking about here. The waters are muddied, is the short version

It brings him to the absolute limits of human ability, which includes his capacity for healing, his resistance to damage on all scales, and his immune system.

It's also propagating through his system(in essence, his cells are altered to produce more serum) and consciously reapplying itself, repairing all of his individual cells to the point that they're being repaired faster than they degrade.

The serum also functions as a panacea: It destroys pretty much any naturally occurring virus, bacteria, fungus, protozoa, prion, or other pathogens that could possibly cause harm while leaving anything you need for your personal microbiome alone. This is in addition to your enhanced immune system being able to easily clean up anything that isn't killed by the serum.

(This means that if a super-soldier gets sick, it means that either something has neutralize their serum, or someone is cooking up bioweapons that are heartier than anything that occurs in nature. During Spider-Island, the justification for turning Captain America into the Spider-King was that if they can infect him, they can infect anyone.)

In short, it's a couple of steps beyond what I was suggesting.

[DataNinja]

In short, it's a couple of steps beyond what I was suggesting.

I'm gonna be honest, Rater. While the difference between everything is probably quite clear to you, language is rarely quite so precise at transferring intentions in so few words. I don't think this is something you can really "in short", given that you have very particular parameters for your question. At least not until we have a way to psychically transmit intentions.

[factotum]

Yes, under my original understanding of it; the proposition was "gain eternal perfect health", which, as above, I assumed was meant as it sounded.

There's always another factor to consider here: the blood-brain barrier. The brain doesn't really undergo healing in the way the rest of the body does, so even if you have perfect healing elsewhere, would that extend to the central nervous system? Especially given what Rater202 is now saying about this being "peak human health" rather than something beyond.

[Rater202]

I'm gonna be honest, Rater. While the difference between everything is probably quite clear to you, language is rarely quite so precise at transferring intentions in so few words. I don't think this is something you can really "in short", given that you have very particular parameters for your question. At least not until we have a way to psychically transmit intentions.

My understanding is that "in short" is a conclusion statement, something that comes at the end of a body of text that explains the thing that's being presented in short, or else an introductory statement that is followed by the same explanation.

I did my best to explain the difference, then ended with an "in short."

[Amidus Drexel]

If "incredibly advanced age" means ~120 and "perfect health" actually means "peak human health, but health problems still exist and can kill you", then no thanks. The upside is small, and the downsides of being (outwardly) a child in the modern world are large.

Perhaps if I were approaching death's door, I might consider it as a short extension on life. Ask me again in 50 years, if I'm still around.

[Rater202]

If "incredibly advanced age" means ~120 and "perfect health" actually means "peak human health, but health problems still exist and can kill you", then no thanks. The upside is small, and the downsides of being (outwardly) a child in the modern world are large.

Perhaps if I were approaching death's door, I might consider it as a short extension on life. Ask me again in 50 years, if I'm still around.

Okay, let's forget the specifics of it.

It's a guarantee that you will live to the theoretical maximum human life span... And until you keel over dead at 125+, you'll never feel your age or experience sickness. Basically, you won't be anything but perfectly healthy until the last few moments of your life.

Becuase describing it as eternal perfect health and describing it as peak human health apparently both give a misleading...

I hate words.

...So, Immortal Hulk #47, in which the Avengers have yet again been sent to capture the Hulk on bad information, has a conversation between Jen Walters/She-Hulk and Betty Ross/Harpy.

Jen tries to reason with Betty to try and deescalate the conflict, but she's been having a hell of a time lately—the thoughts in her head are as clear as ever, but when she tries to put them into words out loud, they come out as Hulk Speak.

She says that words are hard right now, and Betty cuts her off.

Betty says "No. Words aren't hard. They're small. Puny little boxes. They hide thoughts."

There has never ben a single more relatable moment in comics for me.

[factotum]

Apart from the upper limit it's sounding very similar to the setup in "Brave New World", where people stay youthful and hearty until they hit their 60s, at which point they deteriorate and die within months or a couple of years at most.

[Rater202]

Apart from the upper limit it's sounding very similar to the setup in "Brave New World", where people stay youthful and hearty until they hit their 60s, at which point they deteriorate and die within months or a couple of years at most.

See, that's a terrible deal.

Average human life expectancy is already 72.6. The whole point of something like this would be to extend your life, not shorten it.

Life's already too short.

[Fyraltari]

See, that's a terrible deal.

Well, yeah, It's Brave New World. Anything good about its world is only skin-deep, that's the point.

[Anonymouswizard]

Apart from the upper limit it's sounding very similar to the setup in "Brave New World", where people stay youthful and hearty until they hit their 60s, at which point they deteriorate and die within months or a couple of years at most.

Unless you're in a savage reservation, then you age normally but have a chance of living much longer.

See, that's a terrible deal.

Average human life expectancy is already 72.6. The whole point of something like this would be to extend your life, not shorten it.

Life's already too short.

Brave New World is from 1932, when American Life expectancy was about 60. Back then an increased healthspan but certain death within a couple of years might have been a viable trade.

Now, you can be in your 50s and have very good health today so it isn't a massive benefit, but there's certainly an appeal to bring 59 and still having the health you had in your twenties.

So imagine that your choice was: you can agree normally and possibly get to your eighties, nineties, it even your hundreds, or you don't have your health deteriorate but on your seventy second birthday you will start to feel ill and will die at some point in the next eight months.

[halfeye]

Unless you're in a savage reservation, then you age normally but have a chance of living much longer.



Brave New World is from 1932, when American Life expectancy was about 60. Back then an increased healthspan but certain death within a couple of years might have been a viable trade.

Now, you can be in your 50s and have very good health today so it isn't a massive benefit, but there's certainly an appeal to bring 59 and still having the health you had in your twenties.

So imagine that your choice was: you can agree normally and possibly get to your eighties, nineties, it even your hundreds, or you don't have your health deteriorate but on your seventy second birthday you will start to feel ill and will die at some point in the next eight months.

Then again, there's Logan's Run. Everybody dies at 22.

[Anonymouswizard]

Then again, there's Logan's Run. Everybody dies at 22.

Until we need to cast actors.

[TaiLiu]

Bookmark, what's your response to your own hypothetical question?

As an aside: I'm really surprised that practically everybody is saying that they wouldn't take Bookmark's deal. Different priorities, I guess—I think being guaranteed an absurdly long and healthy life is a fantastic deal.

It's not all sex! I mean a lot of it is sex, at least in my case, but there are some considerations (including a lack of height and muscle mass potentially forcing people out of their jobs).

Sex is a big one, for sure.

Tiny hands (and to a certain extent, the height and muscle mass) would make most of what I do professionally (and for hobbies) more difficult. I've got a decade or so of muscle memory in typing and playing string instruments, and reverting that would require a lot of effort on my part to restore it.

That makes sense. I guess my own hobbies and work are a little less reliant on the specific details of my body, so that biases me. Maybe I wouldn't go for it if I were really into hiking.

I do think we'd have, like, fifty extra years to process and get used to the change (compared to average life expectancies). So I'm sure adjustment won't be a huge deal.

Yuck. Why would you want to do that?

Many organisms like to stay alive.

You'd think, feel, process thoughts and feeling as a person of your actual age, and drug tolerance is whatever someone of your age and weight would have.

There's always another factor to consider here: the blood-brain barrier. The brain doesn't really undergo healing in the way the rest of the body does, so even if you have perfect healing elsewhere, would that extend to the central nervous system? Especially given what Rater202 is now saying about this being "peak human health" rather than something beyond.

Bookmark is making a lot of ontological assumptions that I guess I wouldn't find plausible (i.e. drug tolerance not corresponding to your actual physical body and weight). If we're playing this game straight, I think we have to assume that biology as we know it is wrong.

[Mystic Muse]

As an aside: I'm really surprised that practically everybody is saying that they wouldn't take Bookmark's deal. Different priorities, I guess—I think being guaranteed an absurdly long and healthy life is a fantastic deal.

The issue is, I'm at a point in my life where I'm in IT, but I'm still very much client-facing. If I were at a point in my career where that's not the case, or I could find a job I'd like where that's not the case, that would change.

If I had an arbitrary amount of money and didn't have to work to live? Sure, I'd take the deal. Especially if I was set to be like a 16 or 17 instead of 12 or younger.