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The consequences of longer lifespan to social order are unimaginable. Even increase by dozen of years may result in wars and chaos, especially if the treatment

by dandare 10y ago

The consequences of longer lifespan to social order are unimaginable. Even increase by dozen of years may result in wars and chaos, especially if the treatment will not be available to everyone. From where I stand it seems that relatively little resources are spent on the research of consequences of longer lifespan compared with the discussions we have about friendly/enemy AI, machines replacing jobs, universal income and other social order changing themes. While I am not saying scientists will stumble upon immortality tomorrow, a serious increase in lifespan may happen relatively soon.

ekianjo 10y ago
> While I am not saying scientists will stumble upon immortality tomorrow, a serious increase in lifespan may happen relatively soon. We have been hearing that for a while though, when do you think "soon" will be ?
Jaruzel 10y ago
I echo this. We're already over-populated on this planet as it is. Yes there's still a lot of available land, but there are reasons we're not using it either to live on, or to farm - too hostile, too wet, too hot/cold, and the cost of terrafirming those areas is prohibitive. Unless we manage to escape this rock, and find a nice Earth 2.0 out there, extending lifespans is pointless. It's driven by pure selfishness, and if ever comes to fruition, will create a subdivide of people who can afford to live longer and healthier and those that can't; Homo-Richus vs. Homo-Poorus.
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  Escaping this rock is no relief either. What happens when there's a Muskovite Empire on Mars and all the rich people move there to let the poor die on an old planet stripped of resources to make that possible? Transfers of wealth like that are already happening - let's not make it interplanetary. Humanity has changed so much in the last few generations and we are still catching up. Maybe we don't understand the consequences. We definitely have to figure out it soon because we'll either never make it to another planet or we'll just bring it all with us.
  - splesjaz 10y ago
    You mean the poor going to mars to work there, rich people will stay at earth ( sounds like the expanse )
- hueving 10y ago
  That's ridiculous. There are vast chunks of land in the US that are perfectly fine to live on, it's just that nobody wants to because the good jobs aren't there (i.e. nearly everything between the coasts).
  - Jaruzel 10y ago
    I was talking about the world view, not just the US. But you've actually backed up my point, despite there actually being large chunks of land, no one actually wants to live there, so we continue to squeeze ourselves into small urban areas.
    - hueving 10y ago
      No, I didn't back up your point. There are plenty of places that are liveable that we can start to move to if cities become too expensive. Just because lots of people want to live in NYC and can't afford to live there doesn't mean we are in any kind of crisis.
sho 10y ago
> Even increase by dozen of years may result in wars and chaos Care to explain? I don't see why humans living on average a dozen years longer would inevitably lead to "wars and chaos" and a breakdown of social order. Indeed, we saw lifespans increase by two dozen in the last 80 or so years and nothing happened at all. The usual arguments about overpopulation don't seem to apply to developed countries; if anything it's the opposite. So what's the big deal? And why do you assume that any negative externalities created by life extension technology are inherently unfixable?
- jjoe 10y ago
  I can think of a few pertinent cases. With every new generation you get fresh perspectives. Old practices die because generations die with them. Can you imagine slavery practices getting a "lifespan increase." I bet the "cold war" mind set works the same way. You rarely see cold war brought up by much younger folks. It's always an old gen rehash. What about a ruthless dictator like Kim Jong Un getting 12 extra years on earth?
  - bassislife 10y ago
    All these dictators in Africa ruling for (eternal) life ?!! What a nightmare !
    - somanychoices 10y ago
      The nightmare would be, as Hannah Arendt pointed out, the perfection of the concentration camps: the ability to torture someone forever while keeping them alive.
      - bassislife 10y ago
        That's not different from having a bad leader ruling forever... That's torture. 1789 occured for a reason.
  - chongli 10y ago
    With every new generation you get fresh perspectives. Who says we can't solve that problem as well? We've already had a bunch of research into psychedelics and countless anecdotes about people who claim drugs like LSD completely changed their outlook on life. I could envision a future where people effectively live forever and continually renew their interest in life with drugs. Selective amnesia, personality-altering drugs -- a new person from the same body!
visarga 10y ago
Don't worry, the treatment won't be available to all, unless it's a cheap pill with no IP constraints on it. Imagine the profits for the producers of a life extending miracle drug. It would be more like spice on Dune. Hmm... if I recall correctly, the fremens (who had unlimited access to it) were a bloody waring bunch.
- pandler 10y ago
  > if I recall correctly, the fremens (who had unlimited access to it) were a bloody waring bunch They were, but not because they had spice. They had spice long before they became a bloody warring bunch. The interplanetary jihad was at the behest of Paul Muad'dib. The Spartan and militant culture that existed before Muad'dib was mostly out of self preservation in the face of a brutal Arrakis environment and colonial oppression.
- HaveCourage 10y ago
  It's a common misunderstanding that curing aging can be a pill. Aging is a quite loaded word. It means at least, curing cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, cell loss, hardening, muscle loss, vision loss... So what an aging cure really looks like is lots and lots of cures because there's lots and lots of causes. The easy way to categorize what needs fixed is: Cells: too many, too few. Junk: inside and outside cells. Mutations: nuclear and mitochondrial. Finally crosslinking.
Nursie 10y ago
My main fear around longevity treatments is that a panicked, conservative reaction will condemn me to an unnecessary death while arguments rage and people moralise endlessly.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kahoon 10y ago
If you get longer lifespan wrong you might get the problems you mentioned. If you get AI wrong you get the end of the world, possibly not just for humans.
HaveCourage 10y ago
Historically, as Lifespan increases war and poverty decrease. Its very easy to imagine the parade of imaginary horribles. Those horribles look out of place on a graph of global human fulfillment over time. It's so easy to dream how bad it could all go, that comments focusing on that are 10x the number of comments imagining any of the positive outcomes. Apparently the amazing and wonderful things people create together by not rotting and disappearing are harder to imagine.
RangerScience 10y ago
Not every change is an improvement, but every improvement is a change. You could also pull out "make an omelet", but I'm partial to "more steps forward than steps back". Also, the consequences of longer lifespan are not only imaginable, they're imagined (frequently) _and can be studied_, because it's _happened_. Even the (other) canonical problem situation - rich people live longer than poor people, by a lot - has occurred. On the other hand, you are also correct that there an unimagined and unimaginable consequences. If people end up waiting until to have kids until they're older, will that be better for the kids (more stable / wise parents) or worse (further from similar experiences)?

by dandare 10y ago

ekianjo 10y ago

> While I am not saying scientists will stumble upon immortality tomorrow, a serious increase in lifespan may happen relatively soon. We have been hearing that for a while though, when do you think "soon" will be ?

Jaruzel 10y ago

I echo this. We're already over-populated on this planet as it is. Yes there's still a lot of available land, but there are reasons we're not using it either to live on, or to farm - too hostile, too wet, too hot/cold, and the cost of terrafirming those areas is prohibitive. Unless we manage to escape this rock, and find a nice Earth 2.0 out there, extending lifespans is pointless. It's driven by pure selfishness, and if ever comes to fruition, will create a subdivide of people who can afford to live longer and healthier and those that can't; Homo-Richus vs. Homo-Poorus.

aaron-lebo 10y ago
Escaping this rock is no relief either. What happens when there's a Muskovite Empire on Mars and all the rich people move there to let the poor die on an old planet stripped of resources to make that possible? Transfers of wealth like that are already happening - let's not make it interplanetary. Humanity has changed so much in the last few generations and we are still catching up. Maybe we don't understand the consequences. We definitely have to figure out it soon because we'll either never make it to another planet or we'll just bring it all with us.
- splesjaz 10y ago
  You mean the poor going to mars to work there, rich people will stay at earth ( sounds like the expanse )
hueving 10y ago
That's ridiculous. There are vast chunks of land in the US that are perfectly fine to live on, it's just that nobody wants to because the good jobs aren't there (i.e. nearly everything between the coasts).
- Jaruzel 10y ago
  I was talking about the world view, not just the US. But you've actually backed up my point, despite there actually being large chunks of land, no one actually wants to live there, so we continue to squeeze ourselves into small urban areas.
  - hueving 10y ago
    No, I didn't back up your point. There are plenty of places that are liveable that we can start to move to if cities become too expensive. Just because lots of people want to live in NYC and can't afford to live there doesn't mean we are in any kind of crisis.

sho 10y ago

> Even increase by dozen of years may result in wars and chaos Care to explain? I don't see why humans living on average a dozen years longer would inevitably lead to "wars and chaos" and a breakdown of social order. Indeed, we saw lifespans increase by two dozen in the last 80 or so years and nothing happened at all. The usual arguments about overpopulation don't seem to apply to developed countries; if anything it's the opposite. So what's the big deal? And why do you assume that any negative externalities created by life extension technology are inherently unfixable?

jjoe 10y ago
I can think of a few pertinent cases. With every new generation you get fresh perspectives. Old practices die because generations die with them. Can you imagine slavery practices getting a "lifespan increase." I bet the "cold war" mind set works the same way. You rarely see cold war brought up by much younger folks. It's always an old gen rehash. What about a ruthless dictator like Kim Jong Un getting 12 extra years on earth?
- bassislife 10y ago
  All these dictators in Africa ruling for (eternal) life ?!! What a nightmare !
  - somanychoices 10y ago
    The nightmare would be, as Hannah Arendt pointed out, the perfection of the concentration camps: the ability to torture someone forever while keeping them alive.
    - bassislife 10y ago
      That's not different from having a bad leader ruling forever... That's torture. 1789 occured for a reason.
- chongli 10y ago
  With every new generation you get fresh perspectives. Who says we can't solve that problem as well? We've already had a bunch of research into psychedelics and countless anecdotes about people who claim drugs like LSD completely changed their outlook on life. I could envision a future where people effectively live forever and continually renew their interest in life with drugs. Selective amnesia, personality-altering drugs -- a new person from the same body!

visarga 10y ago

Don't worry, the treatment won't be available to all, unless it's a cheap pill with no IP constraints on it. Imagine the profits for the producers of a life extending miracle drug. It would be more like spice on Dune. Hmm... if I recall correctly, the fremens (who had unlimited access to it) were a bloody waring bunch.

pandler 10y ago
> if I recall correctly, the fremens (who had unlimited access to it) were a bloody waring bunch They were, but not because they had spice. They had spice long before they became a bloody warring bunch. The interplanetary jihad was at the behest of Paul Muad'dib. The Spartan and militant culture that existed before Muad'dib was mostly out of self preservation in the face of a brutal Arrakis environment and colonial oppression.
HaveCourage 10y ago
It's a common misunderstanding that curing aging can be a pill. Aging is a quite loaded word. It means at least, curing cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, cell loss, hardening, muscle loss, vision loss... So what an aging cure really looks like is lots and lots of cures because there's lots and lots of causes. The easy way to categorize what needs fixed is: Cells: too many, too few. Junk: inside and outside cells. Mutations: nuclear and mitochondrial. Finally crosslinking.

Nursie 10y ago

My main fear around longevity treatments is that a panicked, conservative reaction will condemn me to an unnecessary death while arguments rage and people moralise endlessly.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

kahoon 10y ago

If you get longer lifespan wrong you might get the problems you mentioned. If you get AI wrong you get the end of the world, possibly not just for humans.

HaveCourage 10y ago

Historically, as Lifespan increases war and poverty decrease. Its very easy to imagine the parade of imaginary horribles. Those horribles look out of place on a graph of global human fulfillment over time. It's so easy to dream how bad it could all go, that comments focusing on that are 10x the number of comments imagining any of the positive outcomes. Apparently the amazing and wonderful things people create together by not rotting and disappearing are harder to imagine.

RangerScience 10y ago

Not every change is an improvement, but every improvement is a change. You could also pull out "make an omelet", but I'm partial to "more steps forward than steps back". Also, the consequences of longer lifespan are not only imaginable, they're imagined (frequently) _and can be studied_, because it's _happened_. Even the (other) canonical problem situation - rich people live longer than poor people, by a lot - has occurred. On the other hand, you are also correct that there an unimagined and unimaginable consequences. If people end up waiting until to have kids until they're older, will that be better for the kids (more stable / wise parents) or worse (further from similar experiences)?