5 ms·

Now that’s an interesting take. Aside from the likelihood that aging treatments are likely to be free or subsidized by governments to avoid having increasingly

by nynx 5y ago

Now that’s an interesting take. Aside from the likelihood that aging treatments are likely to be free or subsidized by governments to avoid having increasingly old populations, what do you define as my normal lifespan? Should I avoid cancer treatments if I get it later in life? What about heart disease? Or Alzheimer’s? For better or worse, you cannot make those value judgements on others.

jacquesm 5y ago
No, feel free to get all those. But the moment that your life-extension becomes the shortening of someone else's is where the problems really begin. Resources are finite, we are already straining our eco-systems to (and beyond) the breaking point. At some point we will need some limits to avoid losing it all. Quite possibly we are already past the point of no return in that sense. I think the first time when humanity will really be ready for a major boost in longevity is when we go interstellar, until then it would just complicate matters. And whether or not I'm allowed to make those value judgments of others does not bother me, I am happy to apply the same judgments to myself.
- nynx 5y ago
  Still, why are those okay when treatments for the causes of age related diseases are not? Humans didn’t commonly live to 90 in the past, yet we do now. An 80 year old getting cancer treatment could be using a bed that a 25 year old with COVID could have used.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Fair enough. But it's a bit of a difference between tackling disease that also can affect the younger generations versus fixing aging itself. That's on a different level. It's the difference between a quantitative change and a qualitative one, the one is merely an improvement, the other is revolutionary and will have many unintended side-effects that we are likely not going to be able to accurately predict. I'm not looking forward to a world ruled by a gerontological elite that we can not get rid of who hold all the cards as well as the levers of power. At least right now we have death as the limit to how much power an individual can amass, if you take that limit away I suspect that it will not end well and it might get us into a situation that we can no longer back out of.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  The SENS programme, as speculative as it might be, is really about rejuvenation as opposed to mere life extension. And younger, healthier people put a lot less strain on resources than if they were older and sicker.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Great, bring it on, a world with 150 year olds who look like they're 30, what could possibly go wrong. Either it will be very few ultra wealthy people (in which case the resources argument wouldn't matter so much anyway) or we are in for a population explosion the likes of which we've never seen. 350K people are born every day, 150K people die every day (lots of those children in the developing world). For a net of 200K, in other words, the world population increase would be roughly double what it is today without death.
- zajio1am 5y ago
  > Resources are finite, we are already straining our eco-systems to (and beyond) the breaking point. That has simple solution - you could have either life extension or children, but not both.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Are you proposing forced sterilization of people that have received their longevity treatments?
    - MattPalmer1086 5y ago
      There's a good sci fi novel by Bob Shaw that has this trade off. "One Million Tomorrows" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1025074.One_Million_Tomorrows https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1025074.One_Million_Tomo...
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        So that's a 'yes' then.
        MattPalmer1086 5y ago
        I'm not condoning or condemning, just offering it as a story that explores some of these issues. In this story, the sterilisation (and complete loss of sexuality) is an inevitable consequence of the treatment, not something forced on you. But only males lose sexuality, while women do not. It sets up some interesting tensions.
mahogany 5y ago
> Aside from the likelihood that aging treatments are likely to be free or subsidized by governments to avoid having increasingly old populations, what do you define as my normal lifespan? Pessimistic/dystopian take: what about in a future with much more automation and robotics to take care of the older wealthy-elite class? Do they really need that many young people, aside from their own offspring? In this possible future, perhaps they merely need enough to service the machines, which can each do the work of hundreds or thousands of humans each.

by nynx 5y ago

jacquesm 5y ago

No, feel free to get all those. But the moment that your life-extension becomes the shortening of someone else's is where the problems really begin. Resources are finite, we are already straining our eco-systems to (and beyond) the breaking point. At some point we will need some limits to avoid losing it all. Quite possibly we are already past the point of no return in that sense. I think the first time when humanity will really be ready for a major boost in longevity is when we go interstellar, until then it would just complicate matters. And whether or not I'm allowed to make those value judgments of others does not bother me, I am happy to apply the same judgments to myself.

nynx 5y ago
Still, why are those okay when treatments for the causes of age related diseases are not? Humans didn’t commonly live to 90 in the past, yet we do now. An 80 year old getting cancer treatment could be using a bed that a 25 year old with COVID could have used.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Fair enough. But it's a bit of a difference between tackling disease that also can affect the younger generations versus fixing aging itself. That's on a different level. It's the difference between a quantitative change and a qualitative one, the one is merely an improvement, the other is revolutionary and will have many unintended side-effects that we are likely not going to be able to accurately predict. I'm not looking forward to a world ruled by a gerontological elite that we can not get rid of who hold all the cards as well as the levers of power. At least right now we have death as the limit to how much power an individual can amass, if you take that limit away I suspect that it will not end well and it might get us into a situation that we can no longer back out of.
zozbot234 5y ago
The SENS programme, as speculative as it might be, is really about rejuvenation as opposed to mere life extension. And younger, healthier people put a lot less strain on resources than if they were older and sicker.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Great, bring it on, a world with 150 year olds who look like they're 30, what could possibly go wrong. Either it will be very few ultra wealthy people (in which case the resources argument wouldn't matter so much anyway) or we are in for a population explosion the likes of which we've never seen. 350K people are born every day, 150K people die every day (lots of those children in the developing world). For a net of 200K, in other words, the world population increase would be roughly double what it is today without death.
zajio1am 5y ago
> Resources are finite, we are already straining our eco-systems to (and beyond) the breaking point. That has simple solution - you could have either life extension or children, but not both.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Are you proposing forced sterilization of people that have received their longevity treatments?
  - MattPalmer1086 5y ago
    There's a good sci fi novel by Bob Shaw that has this trade off. "One Million Tomorrows" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1025074.One_Million_Tomorrows https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1025074.One_Million_Tomo...
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      So that's a 'yes' then.
      - MattPalmer1086 5y ago
        I'm not condoning or condemning, just offering it as a story that explores some of these issues. In this story, the sterilisation (and complete loss of sexuality) is an inevitable consequence of the treatment, not something forced on you. But only males lose sexuality, while women do not. It sets up some interesting tensions.

mahogany 5y ago

> Aside from the likelihood that aging treatments are likely to be free or subsidized by governments to avoid having increasingly old populations, what do you define as my normal lifespan? Pessimistic/dystopian take: what about in a future with much more automation and robotics to take care of the older wealthy-elite class? Do they really need that many young people, aside from their own offspring? In this possible future, perhaps they merely need enough to service the machines, which can each do the work of hundreds or thousands of humans each.