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I hope you will not take this as me encouraging a conspiracy theory — I sometimes wonder what would happen if someone stumbled upon a simple, robust and genera
by sagebird 8y ago
I hope you will not take this as me encouraging a conspiracy theory —
I sometimes wonder what would happen if someone stumbled upon a simple, robust and general method for halting aging using the likes of stem cells. Ordinarily this sort of discovery happens in plain sight— over many years of acedemic research, published papers, animal studies and human studies. But suppose it occurred in a private lab and was kept, basically, secret. I could imagine a government being hesitant to release this info if they thought lay people could implement t the treatment themselves and live multi thousands of years.
But I also suspect that a few rich and powerful people would want to have a go. It would be interesting to see how they conceal the fact— do they fake death multiple times? Even if a government is able to restrict interested billionaires and powerful people from participating, they may feel a need to keep a population of long span humans— as a competitive hedge against other nations’ possible participation. It’s possible that this is happening now, though I know of absolutely no evidence of that.
- blockmarker 8y agoI don't believe that will happen, because that treatment would massively boost the economy. Nowadays we have to spend around 23 years until a person can be productive, then they have to learn to be more efficient, and in a few years they have children and focus less on their job. As well as they becoming older, losing efficiency until they retire and then they consume the resources of social security for twenty or more years. Eternal youth would be so good to the economy that it would never be hidden.
- throwawaymanbot 8y agoI don't agree. I think it would be like the Spanish coming to the Americas. There would be an earth war over this. Why should the Rich get it for themselves while everyone else has to die from now curable diseases. Society and economics would collapse. What resources would an earth have for people that live 1000 years? The transition would ruin the planet.