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faster, forever, and the infinite cups of tea
Posted by
nootrope
,
05 January 2008
·
847 views
Someone has noticed my awesomeness! Based just on my first entry here I was nominated for a $100 "best blog of the month" award! (And it appears by no less than the Director!)
I've started to think about the HUGE disparity in time scales on which people interested in life-extension have to think about.
On the one hand, time is accelerating. Everything's moving, in some views, towards a "singularity". Moore's law, exponential growth of technology, bio and nanotech, all that will converge around 2040 and there's no predicting what human abilities will be then.
On the other hand, there's immortality--or at least a very long life. If you're going to live to be hundreds of years old, you could laze around playing video games, or read Shakespeare forward and backwards, or slowly become an expert in every hobby to cross your mind: you could have "all the time in the world" and not feel rushed or hurried at all.
I think part of the attraction of life-extension for me--and reading back on my last entry I think the idea that it's a way of "procrastinating" is maybe too much of a negative spin--is the idea that everything in modern life has to move fast. (There was that popular book by Gleik--sp?--a few years back.) If I had the feeling that I wasn't going to run out of time in my life, I think I'd relax more.
Of course if the technology to live to 200 is developed by 2040, the first humans won't actually be turning 200 until some time later.
A more mundane topic: tea.
I've been making "teas" or I guess "tisane" may be the proper term for herbal infusions that don't include the tea leaf. Sometimes I make sage tea, or black rice tea flavored with clove and cinnamon, etc. The idea is that I could ingest lots of great plant compounds without any calories.
I think the idea is similar to juicing, which was a bit of a fad for a while. But with juicing you still get the sugars (while skipping the fiber), while with tea you only have to part with the chemicals that break down under heat.
The problem with all this is that drinking so much tea (and tea and other supplements I take act as diuretics) is, um, that I have to make frequent bathroom visits. In the middle of the night, for example. Or on my daily hike I end up breaking into a run at the end to visit the restroom.
One solution may be to make stronger teas. I bought some blueberry juice concentrate this week, and maybe instead of diluting it I'll mix it with yogurt. In general I have to figure out a way of cutting down on my fluid intake. Anyone else have a similar problem?
Edit: One obvious solution would be to take green tea pills instead of drinking the tea. On the other hand I've read there are benefits to the digestive system and to the mouth and teeth (tea has flouride and kills germs) from actually drinking tea. Maybe I'll try to get some more powdered green tea (matcha).
I've started to think about the HUGE disparity in time scales on which people interested in life-extension have to think about.
On the one hand, time is accelerating. Everything's moving, in some views, towards a "singularity". Moore's law, exponential growth of technology, bio and nanotech, all that will converge around 2040 and there's no predicting what human abilities will be then.
On the other hand, there's immortality--or at least a very long life. If you're going to live to be hundreds of years old, you could laze around playing video games, or read Shakespeare forward and backwards, or slowly become an expert in every hobby to cross your mind: you could have "all the time in the world" and not feel rushed or hurried at all.
I think part of the attraction of life-extension for me--and reading back on my last entry I think the idea that it's a way of "procrastinating" is maybe too much of a negative spin--is the idea that everything in modern life has to move fast. (There was that popular book by Gleik--sp?--a few years back.) If I had the feeling that I wasn't going to run out of time in my life, I think I'd relax more.
Of course if the technology to live to 200 is developed by 2040, the first humans won't actually be turning 200 until some time later.
A more mundane topic: tea.
I've been making "teas" or I guess "tisane" may be the proper term for herbal infusions that don't include the tea leaf. Sometimes I make sage tea, or black rice tea flavored with clove and cinnamon, etc. The idea is that I could ingest lots of great plant compounds without any calories.
I think the idea is similar to juicing, which was a bit of a fad for a while. But with juicing you still get the sugars (while skipping the fiber), while with tea you only have to part with the chemicals that break down under heat.
The problem with all this is that drinking so much tea (and tea and other supplements I take act as diuretics) is, um, that I have to make frequent bathroom visits. In the middle of the night, for example. Or on my daily hike I end up breaking into a run at the end to visit the restroom.
One solution may be to make stronger teas. I bought some blueberry juice concentrate this week, and maybe instead of diluting it I'll mix it with yogurt. In general I have to figure out a way of cutting down on my fluid intake. Anyone else have a similar problem?
Edit: One obvious solution would be to take green tea pills instead of drinking the tea. On the other hand I've read there are benefits to the digestive system and to the mouth and teeth (tea has flouride and kills germs) from actually drinking tea. Maybe I'll try to get some more powdered green tea (matcha).
