The New Miracle Pill

[mutepointe]

Every so often, I see yet another news story that scientists are making groundbreaking discoveries developing pills to:
a. stop the aging process
b. get rid of all of our unnecessary fat
c. make us young and beautiful again.

If scientists should happen to ever reach their goal, would you actually take the pill?

[emmline]

There are a lot of leftover "ifs" to ponder.

I'm guessing that many people would go the road of the characters in the Robin Williams movie Millennium Man or Nicolas Flamel (the Philosopher's Stone guy in Harry Potter,) and outlive traditional life expectancy by a hundred or two years, then decide they'd had enough.

I imagine that both of those fictions correctly intuit what human response would ultimately be.

Remember Tom Hanks at the end of Green Mile? Not super happy.

Even if everybody could do it so you weren't left behind. Life is just too tiring after a while. I think it might be like either a) never escaping the doldrums, or b) a marathon with no known endpoint.

[Doug_Tipple]

The idea of not having chronic pain in my older years is appealing. Any substance that would allow me to have more energy and vitality would also be welcome. However, I don't think that I would be interested in a pill that would greatly extend my life.

[jim stone]

You betcha! I'd probably die of an overdose.
The universe is endlessly interesting.
I'd like to live a whole lot longer.
In a couple of thousand years I might be
good on flute.

[crookedtune]

Every so often, I see yet another news story that scientists are making groundbreaking discoveries developing pills to:
a. stop the aging process
b. get rid of all of our unnecessary fat
c. make us young and beautiful again.

If scientists should happen to ever reach their goal, would you actually take the pill?

Not likely. I pretty much have that all covered.

[jim stone]

Also I would wish for my own youthful immortality for the sake of others.
God's gift to women, don't you know!

By the way, I expect that, within the century the human life
span will double.

[mutepointe]

Jim's posts confirmed my suspicions. Many of the wrong people for all the wrong reasons would take the pills. Will I really want to see a 1000 year old Paris Hilton in yet another expose video?

[missy]

The idea of not having chronic pain in my older years is appealing. Any substance that would allow me to have more energy and vitality would also be welcome. However, I don't think that I would be interested in a pill that would greatly extend my life.

Totally agree with you on this Doug.

With some of the "later age" issues that I've probably inherited, I don't look forward to "old age". While my grandfather lived until he was 85, and my mother (who takes after him) is still going strong at 78, they are the exception. Most of my relatives (my dad included) have died before age 70, and most with either cancer or diabetes complications.

Tom's dad is 87. He's had knee replacements, back surgery, catarac surgery, has a pacemaker / defibrulator, high BP, and is suffering from fluid build up (he's been in the hospital twice this winter for pnuemonia like symptoms). He is completely in his "right mind" however, and it's horrible to watch his body fail him.

[emmline]

He is completely in his "right mind" however, and it's horrible to watch his body fail him.

No question. The opposite is equally unpleasant. (Fine body, disappearing brain.)
I'm sure there are very few people who would turn down a drug that could enable us to get to the end without the faltering, failing systems that so often plague the end of life. I envy people such as my father-in-law who came home from his hardware store at the age of 75 and dropped dead. A perfect way to check out, given the usual options.

An interesting question is, when would such a regimen begin? I've noted that most people who sign up for cryo-preservation are going to be freezing a body that's already really way past its prime. An effective anti-aging serum would have to be begun prior to whatever you'd consider the downhill slide.

[dwest]

It would be nice not to have to wait till the cocktail hour to be pain free. I would also like to have less hair in my ears and more on my head, and no more of the stuff that grows out of my eyebrows and scratches my lenses. Otherwise I'm relatively perfect. A friend of ours recently had his mother decide to go into a "home", she realized at 102 she no longer had the energy to keep the house up and she didn't trust her vision for safely using the kitchen stove.

[izzarina]

If scientists should happen to ever reach their goal, would you actually take the pill?

I'm beginning to get suspicious about all these questions. What are you doing with all this useless information you're gathering, mute? I hesitate to answer until you tell us. Or re-extend that invite to you island. No, I'm not bitter.

[Denny]

at least ya didn't mention his swimming pool


that really sets 'im off!

[A-Musing]

I'm TAKING the pill.

It has turned me into a god.

I take PayPal.

[Nanohedron]

Every so often, I see yet another news story that scientists are making groundbreaking discoveries developing pills to:
a. stop the aging process
b. get rid of all of our unnecessary fat
c. make us young and beautiful again.

If scientists should happen to ever reach their goal, would you actually take the pill?

My first instinct is to take it. But then I couldn't get away with the pleasure of being a crotchety old dustbag to those callow whippersnappers taking over the world. I dunno.

Aw, heck with it. I can be a crotchety dustbag later on.

[anniemcu]

There are Scientists, and then there are 'scientists'. I'd be hard pressed to trust those trying to sell me something that went entirely against nature's designs. Science is, after all, the ongoing study of why nature is what nature is, and almost always proves that our efforts to thwart nature end badly.