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If history remembers Aubrey De Grey at all I suspect it will be as someone utterly abhorrent for thinking of aging as something to be "cured". Imagine he were

If history remembers Aubrey De Grey at all I suspect it will be as someone utterly abhorrent for thinking of aging as something to be "cured". Imagine he were right (he's not, for myriad reasons), and he found a way for everyone to live to be 500. He's made clear statements about ceasing pro-creation in favour of extending life spans well beyond what we experience now. What of all the people who would have lived a full life but would never get the chance because of people like him? Savage indeed.

michaelmrose 7y ago
How can someone who someone never chose to create have a right to exist?
- headmelted 7y ago
  I don't see what one has to do with the other. It's the year 2400 and recent developments in technology mean that a person (let's say John) can choose to live for 500 years, in favour of a chain of offspring. John makes this choice. John's father Harry would have made that choice had the technology been available, and would have enjoyed a longer life in favour of fathering John. The only reason John exists is because the technology was not available to Harry - so what right did John have to exist that his unrealized offspring would not also have? (Given that their reasons for existing/not-existing are the same).
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    This is a remarkable chain of bad logic. We start with a real Harry a real person with real rights at point A and then proceed to discuss 2 different hypothetical points B and C where Harry did or didn't have a kid. To discuss Johns hypothetical rights when he came into existence at point B makes sense. At point C he never did so its meaningless to discuss his rights. At A its possible to discuss B in context of B but impossible to be indebted NOW to entities in contexts in which they don't exist. The breakdown is where we reason from B to A and assign every hypothetical being that could have possibly arisen the privileges of an actual existing person in A. B's possibilities are only reasonable in context of B. To imagine otherwise we are stuck with accepting the murder of a googol potential slightly different children that could have resulted rather than the relatively few we had. Only slightly less absurd we could be morally obliged to have as many children as possible even if the result is that they are on net less successful and more miserable to avoid the greater loss of existence. Reason it out yourself and consider the plethora of absurdities.
    - headmelted 7y ago
      I have done. I could give several more reasons than you've listed above to support your own argument. That's not the point, though. John's kids are hypothetical. But so is John. As is Harry. As is a 500 year old Aubrey de Grey. Rights are what people decide they and others should or shouldn't be entitled to based on a consensus of what most of us consider to be, you know, morally right. If there was consensus on the rights of people yet to live (who may or may not ultimately be born) there wouldn't be differing views on pro-life/pro-choice - and the terms would likely not exist. To come back to the crux of your argument, though - I don't believe our John is any more responsible for a single potential offspring that doesn't come to pass than a father is for every sperm that doesn't fertilize an egg. That would be, as you've said, absurd. My point was that suspending the natural cycle of life in a way that prevents pro-creation is, in my view, morally wrong. Something I imagine we disagree on.

michaelmrose 7y ago

How can someone who someone never chose to create have a right to exist?

headmelted 7y ago
I don't see what one has to do with the other. It's the year 2400 and recent developments in technology mean that a person (let's say John) can choose to live for 500 years, in favour of a chain of offspring. John makes this choice. John's father Harry would have made that choice had the technology been available, and would have enjoyed a longer life in favour of fathering John. The only reason John exists is because the technology was not available to Harry - so what right did John have to exist that his unrealized offspring would not also have? (Given that their reasons for existing/not-existing are the same).
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  This is a remarkable chain of bad logic. We start with a real Harry a real person with real rights at point A and then proceed to discuss 2 different hypothetical points B and C where Harry did or didn't have a kid. To discuss Johns hypothetical rights when he came into existence at point B makes sense. At point C he never did so its meaningless to discuss his rights. At A its possible to discuss B in context of B but impossible to be indebted NOW to entities in contexts in which they don't exist. The breakdown is where we reason from B to A and assign every hypothetical being that could have possibly arisen the privileges of an actual existing person in A. B's possibilities are only reasonable in context of B. To imagine otherwise we are stuck with accepting the murder of a googol potential slightly different children that could have resulted rather than the relatively few we had. Only slightly less absurd we could be morally obliged to have as many children as possible even if the result is that they are on net less successful and more miserable to avoid the greater loss of existence. Reason it out yourself and consider the plethora of absurdities.
  - headmelted 7y ago
    I have done. I could give several more reasons than you've listed above to support your own argument. That's not the point, though. John's kids are hypothetical. But so is John. As is Harry. As is a 500 year old Aubrey de Grey. Rights are what people decide they and others should or shouldn't be entitled to based on a consensus of what most of us consider to be, you know, morally right. If there was consensus on the rights of people yet to live (who may or may not ultimately be born) there wouldn't be differing views on pro-life/pro-choice - and the terms would likely not exist. To come back to the crux of your argument, though - I don't believe our John is any more responsible for a single potential offspring that doesn't come to pass than a father is for every sperm that doesn't fertilize an egg. That would be, as you've said, absurd. My point was that suspending the natural cycle of life in a way that prevents pro-creation is, in my view, morally wrong. Something I imagine we disagree on.