alt Hacker NewsHumans have been around for thousands of years. Look at what we've accomplished in the last hundred. We have artificial heart pumps now. In the next two hundred years, if cancer research doesn't slow down too much and if we find some quick fixes for neurodegeneration, I think it's entirely plausible that 90 will become the new 60. I doubt I'll be around for it, and we might never hit the "life extension outpaces people reaching their life expectancy" medical immortality Holy Grail; but in the abstract, there is hope.
Judging by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46923612 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46901862, I expect unsupp0rted's logic is closer to "we'll build superintelligent AI servants some time next week, and that will usher in a new golden age"; but that doesn't make the claim invalid.
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Sometime in the next 5 minutes, in evolutionary timescale terms.
We built the first calculating machines yesterday, and a few hours later they took us to the moon. Now we’ve got vastly more powerful ones in our pockets and they have the sum total of all human knowledge and infinite patience for our questions.
Give it a few more minutes. We’ll know soon enough if the sand we’re imbuing with life is our salvation or our doom or something else entirely.
Ok, I guess I just didn’t think someday soon meant “the next couple hundred years”. I agree with what you’re saying though.
On the other hand...all of the medical advances up till now mean some of us (who live in the right place and have enough money) will live better, but up to now, we don't really live longer. People have lived into their 90s for centuries, but a microscopically tiny number even now live into, say, their late 100s. The oldest was 122. And there's nothing concrete on the horizon that says "if we solve this problem, we'll live to 125", much less 200 or 500. If we cured cancer and heart disease tomorrow, that wouldn't change.