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A sad day for humanity when death, the great equalizer, gets closer to being controlled by rich people. Not that rich people not already have access to better h

A sad day for humanity when death, the great equalizer, gets closer to being controlled by rich people. Not that rich people not already have access to better healthcare, but still.

worldsayshi 2y ago
What if it gets controlled by everyone?
- tetris11 2y ago
  It could be a flip of a coin. Craig Venter[0] almost patented what was back then the human reference genome (based on his own genome), but thankfully publicly funded efforts prevailed to taper the profiteering. We could be in a similar situation with anti-aging drugs. Plus, with citizen science projects making ad-hoc labs more accessible than ever, there's a good chance that normal people could make their own versions of these anti-aging drugs, assuming that science journals and informatic pipelines remain accessible (the current rent-seeking of top journals lends some small but worrying evidence against this). 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter#Human_Genome_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter#Human_Genome_Proj...
vsuperpower2020 2y ago
Great, now communists are going after longer lifespans again.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> sad day for humanity when death, the great equalizer, gets closer to being controlled by rich people Sadder day for those who only sees tragedy in progress.
unsupp0rted 2y ago
Why can’t we all live in caves and chase our prey across the savannah, all equal, until a broken leg or an infected scratch causes certain death, like nature intended?
- sgu999 2y ago
  To others: how are these kind of arguments called? "We probably or may not need X" "Alright you go back to eating bananas in a tree then!" EDIT: Had forgotten for a second that we can know ask this kind of questions to a computer, "straw man argument".
  - interstice 2y ago
    Reductio ad absurdum. Possibly
  - d_tr 2y ago
    Where X = "Starting to rot from the inside out as soon as we hit forty, while simultaneously watching loved ones age badly and becoming decreasingly self-sufficient, at best." Yeah, who needs "X". I won't even bother with the "the rich" stuff, because, frankly, it's too tired, pathetic, childish and naive.
- Devasta 2y ago
  Might just be me, but I don't think the world would be a better place with a separate caste of immortals controlling the world governments and resources. Crazy, I know.
  - d_tr 2y ago
    It's not crazy, no one thinks that. My question is why do so many people think of and fear this as a plausible scenario, to the point they prefer to rot and die than see progress in that front. Now this is crazy.
    - Devasta 2y ago
      Because if you were a billionaire who had the ability to make people live forever, why would you let the working class have it and not just keep it for you and your immediate family?
      - 2y ago
cess11 2y ago
"That’s what I like about death, it’s democratic. It would irritate me if you could jog and live forever and I got stuck here smoking and having a good time and died over it. No, you’ll die too, you know, you’ll have thirty four more years to run up and down the stairmaster." https://rickroderick.org/302-heidegger-and-the-rejection-of-humanism-1993/ https://rickroderick.org/302-heidegger-and-the-rejection-of-...
65656533ddd 2y ago
[flagged]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

A sad day for humanity when death, the great equalizer, gets closer to being controlled by rich people. Not that rich people not already have access to better healthcare, but still.

worldsayshi 2y ago

What if it gets controlled by everyone?

tetris11 2y ago
It could be a flip of a coin. Craig Venter[0] almost patented what was back then the human reference genome (based on his own genome), but thankfully publicly funded efforts prevailed to taper the profiteering. We could be in a similar situation with anti-aging drugs. Plus, with citizen science projects making ad-hoc labs more accessible than ever, there's a good chance that normal people could make their own versions of these anti-aging drugs, assuming that science journals and informatic pipelines remain accessible (the current rent-seeking of top journals lends some small but worrying evidence against this). 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter#Human_Genome_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter#Human_Genome_Proj...

vsuperpower2020 2y ago

Great, now communists are going after longer lifespans again.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> sad day for humanity when death, the great equalizer, gets closer to being controlled by rich people Sadder day for those who only sees tragedy in progress.

unsupp0rted 2y ago

Why can’t we all live in caves and chase our prey across the savannah, all equal, until a broken leg or an infected scratch causes certain death, like nature intended?

sgu999 2y ago
To others: how are these kind of arguments called? "We probably or may not need X" "Alright you go back to eating bananas in a tree then!" EDIT: Had forgotten for a second that we can know ask this kind of questions to a computer, "straw man argument".
- interstice 2y ago
  Reductio ad absurdum. Possibly
- d_tr 2y ago
  Where X = "Starting to rot from the inside out as soon as we hit forty, while simultaneously watching loved ones age badly and becoming decreasingly self-sufficient, at best." Yeah, who needs "X". I won't even bother with the "the rich" stuff, because, frankly, it's too tired, pathetic, childish and naive.
Devasta 2y ago
Might just be me, but I don't think the world would be a better place with a separate caste of immortals controlling the world governments and resources. Crazy, I know.
- d_tr 2y ago
  It's not crazy, no one thinks that. My question is why do so many people think of and fear this as a plausible scenario, to the point they prefer to rot and die than see progress in that front. Now this is crazy.
  - Devasta 2y ago
    Because if you were a billionaire who had the ability to make people live forever, why would you let the working class have it and not just keep it for you and your immediate family?
    - 2y ago

cess11 2y ago

"That’s what I like about death, it’s democratic. It would irritate me if you could jog and live forever and I got stuck here smoking and having a good time and died over it. No, you’ll die too, you know, you’ll have thirty four more years to run up and down the stairmaster." https://rickroderick.org/302-heidegger-and-the-rejection-of-humanism-1993/ https://rickroderick.org/302-heidegger-and-the-rejection-of-...

65656533ddd 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]