Immortality only 20 years away says scientist

Telegraph UK ^ | September 22, 2009 | Amy Willis

[PallMal]

Scientist Ray Kurzweil claims humans could become immortal in as little as 20 years' time through nanotechnology and an increased understanding of how the body works

Even if this were true, people will still die -- murder, plane crashes, auto accidents, execution, fire, falling off cliffs, ...

So there is really no such thing is "immortality".

[M203M4]

TTAGGG bump

[Billthedrill]

I’m contemplating an eternity deef, limp, and wrinkled. Tell me again why this is a good thing?

[libh8er]

Don’t worry. Immortality is only the first step. Reverse aging comes next !

[Ramius]

While this is a wildly optimistic take on things... I think he’s probably not far from right. It’s not hard to believe that in coming decades there will be an explosion of new capabilities in various bio-medical technologies. There already has been some pretty impressive stuff, and it should do nothing but accelerate.

Live forever... probably not. But lots of things that kill people and age them today probably won’t sometime not too far in the future.

[missnry]

The 84th president of the US will be overjoyed at the press pool!

[SunkenCiv]

...plant a virus in the nanobots and drink it all up...

[SunkenCiv]

Ray Kurzweil

Google

[hey, I thought he got killed off in the first X-Files movie]

[Army Air Corps]

Look at Helen Thomas.

No thanks. I ate.

[x]

Not so crazy an idea. If you accept that computers and robots will become fully capable of all that humans can do and then some, if you accept that they will become virtually human, then it's not so hard to imagine them being "immortal." And that's what counts for many IT pundits.

Human biology, though, is probably too messy for something like this, and too unreliable to bother trying. If you're young enough now, though, someday your boss or neighbor or spouse or "child" may be a machine and go on "living" for a very long time.

[Retired Greyhound]

I’ll pass.

I’m looking forward to Heaven.

[utherdoul]

Immortality didn’t used to appeal to me but I’m 22 now ... it only four or five years more to senility. I want to live at leat long enough to be able to buy an Anna Paquin “love android”.

[mamelukesabre]

Doubt it. They might be able to keep unhealthy people alive another couple decades. But I wouldn’t expect any more than that.

[mamelukesabre]

How bout long enough to know where the “s” and “t” keys are on a standard querty board?

[fanfan]

Day-O!

[combat_boots]

Aha. The real reason to kill off whoever ‘they’ can now.

[Jet Jaguar]

LOL!

[BigFinn]

"In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horibly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles- microrobots- has escaped from the labratory. This cloud is sulf-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive. It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour. Every attempt to destroy it has failed. And we are the prey."

-- 'Prey' by Micheal Cricthon

[jessduntno]

Notice all the Seventy is the new fifty and we’re going to live thirty years longer bullshite lately?

Do you get the feeling the Dims are about to tell us that retirement age is going to be 75?

[JoeProBono]