I'm not very impressed by the article. I'm sympathetic to the idea behind it, but the analogy is misleading and intended to make an emotional appeal. The Drago

I'm not very impressed by the article. I'm sympathetic to the idea behind it, but the analogy is misleading and intended to make an emotional appeal. The Dragon is an external malevolent force. The Dragon wants to eat more just because. People often die due to the natural evolution of their own bodies or choices other people make, and death is impersonal (Prachett books aside). Replacing Death with Dragon is a rhetorical device to allow hate to colour our judgement, and make the issue simpler than it is (you can't 'kill' death. Even a perfect medical science will still have the problem that some people may want to kill other people). The effects and choices here are also a tiny bit more complicated. We could spend a lot more on health after all. Presumably the author isn't fine with redirecting 100% of the budget to the health sector, and I don't think he judges each allocation decision by 'this could have gone to health!'. How about merely winding down all AI research and redirecting the funds to hospitals? So there must be some limiting principles. By the same token, I doubt anyone (even a 'deathist') thinks 'We should have a lower average lifespan'. So it's just an allocation decision, and the criteria are probably boring and political. --- This does leaves us with the 'sexy' issue, that of mortality itself. It's actually not much of an issue in practice? Barring absurdly extreme scenarios*, even people who favour mortality won't kill anyone who refuses to die, or prevent Bostrom et. all from trying. Given the wealthy are just as subject to the 'Dragon' as the rest of us, I'm sure they'll have no shortage of funds. If they succeed, society will 'suffer' the consequences, no matter what theoretical discussion may think. * e.g. a life extension tech based on parasitism. Or an uploading tech that warps the subject to the point we can't say they have anything nearing a morality allowing them to participate in society.