On Wed, 22 Mar 2000 hibbert@netcom.com wrote:
>
> I'm pretty far behind on extropians, but still slogging through it. For
> those of you who are up-to-date,...
Yep, we need our Direct-Brain-Links now damn it. Then you could
just read my mind and know the answer.
>
> Last on his list of 10 breakthroughs we need for longevity was Weather
> Control. Robert, how did that make the list? Why will that have enough
> effect that it deserves a place on the list right after Nanomedicine?
The list is ordered roughly in a combination of time-of-development,
degree-of-difficulty and impact-on-longevity. Weather makes the list
because after you have done the best you can with nanomedicine
(assuming you haven't uploaded and distributed your brain), then
weather (flash floods, lightening, tornados, hurricanes, etc.) is still
a big threat. So to are are planes hitting your home, doomsday comets
and maurading brown dwarfs. Its relatively easy to knock the accident
rate down quite a bit through better engineering of people and safety
hazards, but getting the last few percent (that get you from 5-10,000
year lifespans up to the ~50,000 year lifespans, as quoted in The Last
Mortal Generation) is very difficult. Making the weather play nicely
is an important part of that.
The developments I anticipate in biotechnology, should give you
most of what you need for longevities of hundreds to thousands
of years. In that respect Nanomedicine is an "add-on". Nice
to have but it doesn't make that much of a difference compared
to other things that are nearer term.
>
> bradbury@aeiveos.com said:
> > The key breakthroughs we need are:
> > - reduce cancer mortality
> > (looks like we get that with angiogenesis inhibitors)
> > - general replacement organs (next 10 years or so)
> > - drugs to inhibit brain damage during strokes/heart attacks
> > - reversing protein glycosylation damage (drugs undergoing tests now)
> > - a good understanding of all growth factors (5-10 years)
> > - understanding the molecular biology of aging (5-15 years)
> > - understanding the causes for and developing cures for genetic
> > diseases (10-20 years)
> > - Safer cars, guns & other hazards (ongoing).
> > - Nanomedicine (20-30 years)
> > - Weather control (???)
I should add after weather control --
> > - Stopping volcanos
> > - Stopping plate tectonics
Robert
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