You mean a slower life is a longer life?

Not the OP but I believe they are referring to the idea that if longevity research causes lifetime extension to be possible, then some folks think they can then avoid age-based death entirely. I think that the crux of the argument is that once we find "THE reason" why we age and if we can halt/end that process then we have beaten senescence.

I personally think this view is too simplistic about how our bodies work and overly optimistic that we a) won't hit other limiting factors that aren't hit today by ~100 and b) that interventions to stop senescence won't have unexpected side effects.

I forget where I’ve read it (I feel like slatestarcodex or gwern or one of those folks) but basically our bodies are constantly fighting megaloviruses (various forms of herpes) and we’d inevitably lose the battle if we lived to 120 or so.

escape velocity in this context means that you stay at least one step ahead of dying, through medical advances, to the point that the first immortal human (at least one who will not die of old age) may have already been born.

> the first immortal human (at least one who will not die of old age) may have already been born

Not dying of old age was always very easy.

Some even say dying of old age is impossible (because people don't actually die from old age as cause)

Pedantry is the cure for dying of old age

believe it or not some would say accepting that people die of cancer or heart attacks rather than "old age" is actually key to tackling longevity :)

it was a catch-all phrase, you muppet. we do know "old age" isn't a real disease, we do know about immortal jellyfish. we do know about strategies for engineered negligible senescence. it's not the gotcha you think you had.

nice try walking back a bout of senility :) no worries we have all been there.

or maybe you just come from reddit, I don't know (or care)

knew I recognised you from somewhere.

you win! well done!

metabolically, yes

worth noting that longevity escape velocity is well-posed but typically badly miscalculated. You care about the right tail of ages, not the mean, and the tail has moved slowly if at all. Tracking rate of increase of max or 99th percentile will give a more reasonable (but sadly less inspiring) number.

You can't make any conclusions about LEV by just looking at current stats.

Medicine in its current form is just not prepared to deal with these things. It evolved to deal very well with infections and injuries, in both cases helping the body to heal itself, which it wants to do anyway.

Aging is different. An aging body actually wants to destroy itself. It intentionally disables self-repair mechanisms, allowing the diseases of old age to take over. It's the first time we have to override these internal goals. Treating these diseases individually, like we do now because it's the best we have to offer, is a losing game.

Can you post any evidence for this? I somehow have it in my mind that it's the other way around (i.e., mean doesn't grow anymore, but 99th percentile still does).

There is a chart floating around showing the mean age increasing the but the 99% age has been completely flat for at least a century