3 ms·

> allowing the rich to live longer and accumulate more wealth, from a societal standpoint Accepting this line of reasoning means accepting that there are situa

by chr1 8y ago

> allowing the rich to live longer and accumulate more wealth, from a societal standpoint Accepting this line of reasoning means accepting that there are situations where society is allowed to kill some people for some greater good, which is deeply wrong. The argument also depends on several assumptions about the way this technology will work, which are likely to be wrong (e.g. that price of extending life will never be reduced enough to be available to poorer people, that having more time to learn, won't help poor people to become richer, that reduction of the fraction of resources spent on reproduction won't help society to become more stable and more wealthier). But even the worst case scenario, when everything on earth belongs to old people, is actually good, because it means there is more incentive for other people to go explore other planets and stars!

village-idiot 8y ago
> The argument also depends on several assumptions about the way this technology will work, which are likely to be wrong (e.g. that price of extending life will never be reduced enough to be available to poorer people, that having more time to learn, won't help poor people to become richer, that reduction of the fraction of resources spent on reproduction won't help society to become more stable and more wealthier). I think you’re being overly optimistic. First of all, we already have a society where the rich have access to life extending services. The life expectancy gap between the rich and poor is 20 years[0] in the United States. While in theory we absolutely could provide this to the poor and they would probably accumulate wealth and reproduce more slowly, politically and socially I see zero evidence that this would happen. Second, the price for a life extending treatment will be arbitrary. How much do you think a company that can tack 30 years onto your lifespan will charge? Again we could force them to sell cheap, but we can’t prevent ERs for charging $200 for aspirin, the political will just isn’t there. > Accepting this line of reasoning means accepting that there are situations where society is allowed to kill some people for some greater good, which is deeply wrong. A good point. However I’m a utilitarian at heart, if trading the rich only having 80 years keeps us from going into revolution or neufeudalism, I am will to accept that trade, even if I’m in the group who could probably afford said treatments. > But even the worst case scenario, when everything on earth belongs to old people, is actually good, because it means there is more incentive for other people to go explore other planets and stars! Or wealth could concentrate into few hands, and people could start binding themselves to richer patrons to guarantee access to life saving food and medicine, and the world descends into neufeudal torpor. Humanity has killed off massive amounts of itself for dumber reasons, don’t assume that a new tech will lead to your desired outcome just because it’s futuristic. 0. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/may/08/life-expectancy-gap-rich-poor-us-regions-more-than-20-years https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/inequality/...
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  No, that's the life expectancy gap between different counties. There are plenty of poor people in the nicely blue LA County.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    15 years if you don't separate out by county. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/06/us-healthcare-wealth-income-inequality-lifespan https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/06/us-healthcar.... Even if you stick with the article I linked above, living in a poor part of the US takes 20 years off your life expectancy, which is still my point. The US can and does restrict the poor from access to resources that will add decades to their lives.
    - SamReidHughes 8y ago
      The U.S. doesn't restrict the poor from access to anything, besides illegal drugs. We can already tell from the Oregon health care experiment that access to Medicaid doesn't really matter the way you'd be expecting. What drives life expectancy gaps is what you put in your body, what you do with your body, and, especially with the bottom 1%, causation in the other direction, which is the effect of bad health on your income. It's literally impossible for a healthy person to be in the bottom 1% by income unless they choose not to work. So you're comparing regular rich people to a set of people that pretty much by definition have major substance abuse and health problems. If other countries have better stats in this regard it's because they've less opportunity for functional people to pull themselves out of the bottom 1%.
      - village-idiot 8y ago
        There’s no functional difference between “you can’t have this” and “this is too expensive for you”. Neither affects my original point in the slightest. “The poor do it to themselves” is an argument that you can take back to the Victorian era where it belongs.
close04 8y ago
The problem with such a topic is that you cannot discuss it without walking through a galaxy sized minefield where you're guaranteed that every step will land on a mine. It's deeply subjective and tied to values that are different between the societies each of us might belong to. But I think I can mention some facts without pointing at any conclusion: - Not allowing people to live longer than is otherwise natural is not the same as killing. - Societies today are allowed to kill some people for some greater good via the death penalty. A vast majority of people on the planet live in such societies: US, China, India, Pakistan (most of Asia), most (all?) of the Middle East, most of North-Eastern and Central Africa, etc. - Having to leave your planet because you're being "pushed out" is not what I'd call an incentive or good (for who?). At least not more than the bank taking away your house is an incentive to explore living in an underpass. It's rather just a disincentive to stay.
- chr1 8y ago
  - Not allowing people to live longer than is otherwise natural is not the same as killing. The problem with this argument is that it is not clear what is a "natural way". By that logic one can argue that letting half of the children to die before reaching 5 years, and not spending money on accessibility infrastructure is good, because the natural way is for all these people to die. The only logical solution is to accept, that not allowing life extension, because one wants to get specific distribution of people in society, or because a corporation wants to get money for copyrighted drug, is murder. > - Societies today are allowed to kill some people for some greater good via the death penalty. In more civilised parts of world (e.g. Europe, Russia, Mexico, some states in USA:) death penalty is not allowed. And in general the fact that something is allowed in many places is not a good argument for it being ok, since from history we know many widely accepted things that are considered abhorrent now. > - Having to leave your planet because you're being "pushed out" is not what I'd call an incentive or good Having to leave your planet (and explore underworld) because there is a law that forbids you to get resources required to sustain your life, is way worse than young people looking for better place to leave going somewhere else. It's actually the most natural things for all living beings as most of the young always have to leave their place of birth, and find a better place to live. I agree that there is a lot of subjectivity in topics like this, but it mainly comes from not knowing the tradeoffs a technology like this will introduce. But if life extension doesn't make people less smart, societies that disallow life extension will lose, because people simply will run from there to societies that allow life extension.

by chr1 8y ago

village-idiot 8y ago

> The argument also depends on several assumptions about the way this technology will work, which are likely to be wrong (e.g. that price of extending life will never be reduced enough to be available to poorer people, that having more time to learn, won't help poor people to become richer, that reduction of the fraction of resources spent on reproduction won't help society to become more stable and more wealthier). I think you’re being overly optimistic. First of all, we already have a society where the rich have access to life extending services. The life expectancy gap between the rich and poor is 20 years[0] in the United States. While in theory we absolutely could provide this to the poor and they would probably accumulate wealth and reproduce more slowly, politically and socially I see zero evidence that this would happen. Second, the price for a life extending treatment will be arbitrary. How much do you think a company that can tack 30 years onto your lifespan will charge? Again we could force them to sell cheap, but we can’t prevent ERs for charging $200 for aspirin, the political will just isn’t there. > Accepting this line of reasoning means accepting that there are situations where society is allowed to kill some people for some greater good, which is deeply wrong. A good point. However I’m a utilitarian at heart, if trading the rich only having 80 years keeps us from going into revolution or neufeudalism, I am will to accept that trade, even if I’m in the group who could probably afford said treatments. > But even the worst case scenario, when everything on earth belongs to old people, is actually good, because it means there is more incentive for other people to go explore other planets and stars! Or wealth could concentrate into few hands, and people could start binding themselves to richer patrons to guarantee access to life saving food and medicine, and the world descends into neufeudal torpor. Humanity has killed off massive amounts of itself for dumber reasons, don’t assume that a new tech will lead to your desired outcome just because it’s futuristic. 0. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/may/08/life-expectancy-gap-rich-poor-us-regions-more-than-20-years https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/inequality/...

SamReidHughes 8y ago
No, that's the life expectancy gap between different counties. There are plenty of poor people in the nicely blue LA County.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  15 years if you don't separate out by county. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/06/us-healthcare-wealth-income-inequality-lifespan https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/06/us-healthcar.... Even if you stick with the article I linked above, living in a poor part of the US takes 20 years off your life expectancy, which is still my point. The US can and does restrict the poor from access to resources that will add decades to their lives.
  - SamReidHughes 8y ago
    The U.S. doesn't restrict the poor from access to anything, besides illegal drugs. We can already tell from the Oregon health care experiment that access to Medicaid doesn't really matter the way you'd be expecting. What drives life expectancy gaps is what you put in your body, what you do with your body, and, especially with the bottom 1%, causation in the other direction, which is the effect of bad health on your income. It's literally impossible for a healthy person to be in the bottom 1% by income unless they choose not to work. So you're comparing regular rich people to a set of people that pretty much by definition have major substance abuse and health problems. If other countries have better stats in this regard it's because they've less opportunity for functional people to pull themselves out of the bottom 1%.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      There’s no functional difference between “you can’t have this” and “this is too expensive for you”. Neither affects my original point in the slightest. “The poor do it to themselves” is an argument that you can take back to the Victorian era where it belongs.

close04 8y ago

The problem with such a topic is that you cannot discuss it without walking through a galaxy sized minefield where you're guaranteed that every step will land on a mine. It's deeply subjective and tied to values that are different between the societies each of us might belong to. But I think I can mention some facts without pointing at any conclusion: - Not allowing people to live longer than is otherwise natural is not the same as killing. - Societies today are allowed to kill some people for some greater good via the death penalty. A vast majority of people on the planet live in such societies: US, China, India, Pakistan (most of Asia), most (all?) of the Middle East, most of North-Eastern and Central Africa, etc. - Having to leave your planet because you're being "pushed out" is not what I'd call an incentive or good (for who?). At least not more than the bank taking away your house is an incentive to explore living in an underpass. It's rather just a disincentive to stay.

chr1 8y ago
- Not allowing people to live longer than is otherwise natural is not the same as killing. The problem with this argument is that it is not clear what is a "natural way". By that logic one can argue that letting half of the children to die before reaching 5 years, and not spending money on accessibility infrastructure is good, because the natural way is for all these people to die. The only logical solution is to accept, that not allowing life extension, because one wants to get specific distribution of people in society, or because a corporation wants to get money for copyrighted drug, is murder. > - Societies today are allowed to kill some people for some greater good via the death penalty. In more civilised parts of world (e.g. Europe, Russia, Mexico, some states in USA:) death penalty is not allowed. And in general the fact that something is allowed in many places is not a good argument for it being ok, since from history we know many widely accepted things that are considered abhorrent now. > - Having to leave your planet because you're being "pushed out" is not what I'd call an incentive or good Having to leave your planet (and explore underworld) because there is a law that forbids you to get resources required to sustain your life, is way worse than young people looking for better place to leave going somewhere else. It's actually the most natural things for all living beings as most of the young always have to leave their place of birth, and find a better place to live. I agree that there is a lot of subjectivity in topics like this, but it mainly comes from not knowing the tradeoffs a technology like this will introduce. But if life extension doesn't make people less smart, societies that disallow life extension will lose, because people simply will run from there to societies that allow life extension.