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Cure aging and you either: a) Have a quite sudden and very severe overpopulation problem, or b) Are forced to ration babies. Both of these are pretty damn dy

by hugh3 16y ago

Cure aging and you either: a) Have a quite sudden and very severe overpopulation problem, or b) Are forced to ration babies. Both of these are pretty damn dystopic. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to live forever, but not necessarily at the cost of having everyone else live forever too.

orangecat 16y ago
c) Institute a Logan's Run policy where you get 80 or 100 years of good health and are then painlessly euthanized. I think we can do better than c, but it's a lower bound: it avoids your concerns and is still a large improvement over the status quo. I'd like to live forever Curing aging doesn't let you live forever. There would still be diseases (at a much lower rate), accidents, murder, suicide, natural disasters, etc. All it would do is prevent the deterioration of our bodies and often our minds that generates large medical expenses, prevents us from being productive, and impairs our quality of life. It would also give us the option of living for several centuries longer than we do today, which we could take or not.
- hugh3 16y ago
  I think we can do better than c, but it's a lower bound: it avoids your concerns and is still a large improvement over the status quo. I'm rather unconvinced that's an improvement over the status quo... you've just granted the government the power to euthanize people. And you just know that they're going to find a way to abuse that. They'll start by giving extensions to really valuable people we don't want to lose; great scientists, artists, writers. And then it'll be "gee, I guess politicians are pretty awesome as well, perhaps politicians should get another hundred years too..." Pretty soon it's effective-immortality for political favours. No thanks, I'll take my chances with old age. The best solution is: (d) Build starships and expand into space. But I worry that curing aging might come first.
  - orangecat 16y ago
    (d) Build starships and expand into space. We can agree on that at least. Our eggs definitely need more than one basket.
johngalt 16y ago
Consider how much time/energy humans spend in training/development. Imagine having 30 years to get your PHD without the pressures of having to start a family in the same time frame? It's truely a very short "maximum productivity time" we have. Possibly as little as 10 years. And in many cases it's that very time where most real progress is made. Could you imagine if Einstein were still at work today with the mind of a 25 year old? Or Von Neumann with today's technology? I think that most problems presented in this scenario could be solved.

by hugh3 16y ago

orangecat 16y ago

c) Institute a Logan's Run policy where you get 80 or 100 years of good health and are then painlessly euthanized. I think we can do better than c, but it's a lower bound: it avoids your concerns and is still a large improvement over the status quo. I'd like to live forever Curing aging doesn't let you live forever. There would still be diseases (at a much lower rate), accidents, murder, suicide, natural disasters, etc. All it would do is prevent the deterioration of our bodies and often our minds that generates large medical expenses, prevents us from being productive, and impairs our quality of life. It would also give us the option of living for several centuries longer than we do today, which we could take or not.

hugh3 16y ago
I think we can do better than c, but it's a lower bound: it avoids your concerns and is still a large improvement over the status quo. I'm rather unconvinced that's an improvement over the status quo... you've just granted the government the power to euthanize people. And you just know that they're going to find a way to abuse that. They'll start by giving extensions to really valuable people we don't want to lose; great scientists, artists, writers. And then it'll be "gee, I guess politicians are pretty awesome as well, perhaps politicians should get another hundred years too..." Pretty soon it's effective-immortality for political favours. No thanks, I'll take my chances with old age. The best solution is: (d) Build starships and expand into space. But I worry that curing aging might come first.
- orangecat 16y ago
  (d) Build starships and expand into space. We can agree on that at least. Our eggs definitely need more than one basket.

johngalt 16y ago

Consider how much time/energy humans spend in training/development. Imagine having 30 years to get your PHD without the pressures of having to start a family in the same time frame? It's truely a very short "maximum productivity time" we have. Possibly as little as 10 years. And in many cases it's that very time where most real progress is made. Could you imagine if Einstein were still at work today with the mind of a 25 year old? Or Von Neumann with today's technology? I think that most problems presented in this scenario could be solved.