5 ms·

Against "Against Life Extension"

27 points by quadrin 1y ago

the__alchemist 1y ago
I agree with this article's arguments, and find in general, arguments philosophically opposed to extending human lifespan to be trivial to knock down (Ones listed in the article and otherwise). The elephant in the room appears to be more can we do it? And if so, will this involve genome modification (Through molecular bio techniques, or directed evolution as suggested by Dawkins). Optimists hope for treatments for the still-living... I'm not sure if this will ever be possible for significant extensions; we'll see.
- reverendsteveii 1y ago
  I think the "can we do it" can only really exist if you purposefully ignore the fact that we've been doing it for thousands of years and it has been undeniably working.
- keiferski 1y ago
  Here’s a counter argument: I don’t want to live in the kind of world implied by a focus on life extension. I’m okay with it “happening in the background” in the way that modern medicine has improved lifespans over the last century. But I wouldn’t want it to be a direct imperative part of everyday life. I don’t inherently have a problem with the idea of people living longer, and I don’t really have an issue with research going into it - but I do have a problem with the cultural environment that would exist under such a philosophy. All adventurous spirit would evaporate, all dangerous activities banned or strongly discouraged. If the only way you can die is by getting physically injured, you can expect social pressure against doing anything that is even the slightest bit physically dangerous. The world would be a scared, fearful place, and I think this is a net negative for the human spirit. I don’t worry about that too much though, as I do think you’d get a major counter cultural backlash to such a cultural situation. You can already feel echoes of it today: white collar workers looking for a job that is “more real” or with their hands; kids wanting to be Navy Seals or join the military purely because they can’t stomach the office lifestyle. A certain percentage of people will always prefer adventure to safety and cold rationality, and you can see this emerge as a trend frequently throughout history (e.g., Romanticism coming after Enlightenment rationalism.) That also touches on a second point, which is that the entire life extension project is basically a domain of the rich in hyper individualist Western countries, functioning as an ersatz replacement for a heaven they no longer believe in. It’s fundamentally a rejection of the reality of death in human existence, and that is partially why it may simply be outcompeted by more group-oriented cultures that aren’t as centered on maximizing individual experience as long as possible. I’m just guessing here, and perhaps there is no data to support this, but: I get the impression that people with robust family and community lives are less concerned with maximizing their individual lifespans as much as possible. This is probably because they derive more meaning from their place in that community than in their individualist existence. And you could probably also bring in religion and the belief in an afterlife here (see birth rates correlated with religiosity, for example.)
  - ImHereToVote 1y ago
    Bit of a leap there.
reverendsteveii 1y ago
the same Fukuyama that told us the fall of the berlin wall was "the end of history" (his words)?
cvoss 1y ago
> Dr. Fukuyama, when you plant the word "against" adjacent to the phrase "life extension," you've earned an "F" in Longevity Strawman Arguments, Volume 1. > ... > Fukuyama's syllogism boils down to: > Change is necessary > Death creates change > Therefore, death is necessary > By that logic, we'd still accept smallpox as the price of social dynamism. If your first sentence accuses your opponent of using a strawman (I think that's what that sentence means... the double negative metaphor of failing a strawman class is confusing me), you had better make sure your conclusion isn't a strawman.
topaz0 1y ago
I get the sense that the problem with "longevity" research per se is that it is largely driven by the desire of extremely wealthy and selfish people to live forever no matter the cost, rather than to extend every person's healthy lifespan incrementally. The biggest hurdle for the latter is not new research. It's lack of access to affordable healthcare, which would be easy to provide if society weren't so obsequious to the welfare of the most wealthy. I think medical research is generally a good thing (and full disclosure I am tangentially involved in it), but extending the lifespan of the ultrarich is generally going to be bad for society.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  I disagree. This is a rare case where “trickle down” actually would work: If the ultra rich want to pay their way to discovering longevity improvements, it won’t be long before companies everywhere are competing to bring those same discoveries to the masses at ever-lower prices. If ultra rich want to fund longevity research with their money then bring it on. Their personal spending on research doesn’t subtract from other issues like healthcare policy. There was a time when things like refrigeration, televisions, and mobile phones were only for the extremely wealthy, too. Imagine if we had halted research on those because we didn’t think it was fair for only rich people to have those things.
  - topaz0 1y ago
    Have you looked at the current healthcare market, where even the cheapest and most proven drugs are exorbitantly expensive? This is a laughable pipe dream in this society (read, the society that protects the profits of the ultrarich over the health of average citizens).
    - orangecat 1y ago
      Ok, let's assume we are and always will be in a capitalist hellscape where the only thing that matters is what rich people want. Even in that case, if effective longevity treatments are discovered, they'll still be made widely available because it would be hugely profitable. Obviously the sellers of the treatments would make a fortune, also insurance companies would benefit from reduced medical expenses and corporations would benefit from employees getting chronic diseases less often.
absurdo 1y ago
I read the original article. I feel like the author of this retort got nerd sniped. “Cracks knuckles”? I can find better things to grind an axe about. The original article is an opinionated rant. It’s not a scientific or a philosophical treatise, so bringing up things like how diabetes is being cured is far, far outside of the subject matter. So for me this retort is invalid from the get go. The crux of the original article can be summed up as: “I don’t want to be lorded over by morons who pay their way to live to 200 years.” Hard to argue with that. In particular I’m amused by this line from the original article: > I am not looking forward to living in such a world, and indeed I think that such a world might constitute an immense disaster for humankind. I’d argue the world/humankind is already an immense disaster and things can’t get much worse in any real way. It’s run by sadists and we don’t even know why we are here.
- CooCooCaCha 1y ago
  I agree with everything you say except the “can’t get much worse” part. I think it can get substantially worse, and death is the primary mechanism that prevents power from centralizing on individuals forever. Every death is a mini-reset in some way.
- marcodiego 1y ago
  > I’d argue the world/humankind is already an immense disaster Not exactly disagreeing because I really don't know any better. But whenever I hear comments like these, I wonder if isolated peoples or medieval/industrial revolution population have/had a better life then we do. We have conveniences that far surpasses anything a king could have just a few decades ago. Our life expectancy and IDH is (almost) monotonically increasing. I really expect that efficiency growth will make the world converge to a life style where most people don't have to work to survive, but just to acquire luxury goods. I actually think that maybe we could already be at that point if it wasn't for the "sadists that run the world", but I don't think they can prevent it from happening because that will make them make more money too. So, I really don't know if people criticizing our current state as "an immense disaster" are overly pessimistic or if the people (like myself) thinking that the world is in a never before achieved good state are realistic or uninformed. I fear deterioration beyond repair, like irrecoverable climate change, because an event like that would really separate the very rich from rest of the population in a way that only one of these two partitions could survive. But I don't think we'll reach that point my lifetime.
slibhb 1y ago
I'm in favor of research into life extension. But I don't think this response really deals with the fundamental objection of: "Change is necessary Death creates change Therefore, death is necessary" Perhaps humans are not very capable of change once we reach adulthood and so significantly (or indefinitely) extending human lifespan would result in civilizational stasis. I don't see a simple way to overcome this argument.
- orangecat 1y ago
  The argument is invalid because it ignores the possibility of something other than death creating change. As the article notes, there are plenty of examples of widespread societal change that didn't require previous generations to die off.
  - prmph 1y ago
    I agree. One other problem with the death-necessary-for-change mantra is that it assumes very change is good. There have been plenty of changes in recent memory that have been disastrous.
- GMoromisato 1y ago
  There is a logical flaw in that syllogism: Just because death creates change doesn't mean that death is the only thing that creates change. And if you can substitute some other process to create change, then death is not necessary. It's like this syllogism: 1. We must do something about unemployment. 2. Slavery is something. 3. Therefore, we must do slavery. Once the syllogism falls apart, it's obvious that there are many (and even better) ways to create change. The entire history of humanity is filled with them.
  - slibhb 1y ago
    But maybe death is necessary for change. It's cerainly necessary for evolution. It's not so much that I buy this argument...it's that I don't see a simple way to rebut it. To me, it's an empirical question that we can't answer a priori, i.e. "what would human civilization look like if everyone lived forever?"
alpineidyll3 1y ago
People love to have opinions about how technologies should develop, but time and again, market realities are what guide their development. People easily get emotional about life extension, and it grabs a lot of attention because of that, but all those feelings don't measure up to the impossible to extrapolate tertiary effects of any technology which transforms lives, life extension definitely being one. I'd argue that it's pretty clear that lipitor is partially to blame for our present gerontocracy muddle, but the issue there is that lipitor transfers mortality from the heart to many other conditions, some of which impair thinking. Life extension isn't a monolith, nor are the mechanisms of cellular age in animals. It's a blanket for 1000s of possible technologies. Productive conversations about it would be nuanced, and related to details about a particular technology, which these conversations never seem to rise to the level of. Definitely not this piece or fukuyama's either. I come to HN for nuance.
dmm 1y ago
I hope death is cured soon so the boomers can rule the world forever.
stared 1y ago
Well, when it comes to change, a sad truth is that it's generations who shift attitudes - not individuals. On average, people hold onto their established worldviews, and society evolves primarily because older generations gradually pass away. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/10/31/societies-change-their-minds-faster-than-people-do https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/10/31/societie... Here's also a cynical take on unicorns: they're immortal, so most of them hold rather outdated views. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sad-truths-mythical-creature-edition https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sad-truths-mythical-creatu...

27 points by quadrin 1y ago

I agree with this article's arguments, and find in general, arguments philosophically opposed to extending human lifespan to be trivial to knock down (Ones listed in the article and otherwise). The elephant in the room appears to be more can we do it? And if so, will this involve genome modification (Through molecular bio techniques, or directed evolution as suggested by Dawkins). Optimists hope for treatments for the still-living... I'm not sure if this will ever be possible for significant extensions; we'll see.

reverendsteveii 1y ago
I think the "can we do it" can only really exist if you purposefully ignore the fact that we've been doing it for thousands of years and it has been undeniably working.
keiferski 1y ago
Here’s a counter argument: I don’t want to live in the kind of world implied by a focus on life extension. I’m okay with it “happening in the background” in the way that modern medicine has improved lifespans over the last century. But I wouldn’t want it to be a direct imperative part of everyday life. I don’t inherently have a problem with the idea of people living longer, and I don’t really have an issue with research going into it - but I do have a problem with the cultural environment that would exist under such a philosophy. All adventurous spirit would evaporate, all dangerous activities banned or strongly discouraged. If the only way you can die is by getting physically injured, you can expect social pressure against doing anything that is even the slightest bit physically dangerous. The world would be a scared, fearful place, and I think this is a net negative for the human spirit. I don’t worry about that too much though, as I do think you’d get a major counter cultural backlash to such a cultural situation. You can already feel echoes of it today: white collar workers looking for a job that is “more real” or with their hands; kids wanting to be Navy Seals or join the military purely because they can’t stomach the office lifestyle. A certain percentage of people will always prefer adventure to safety and cold rationality, and you can see this emerge as a trend frequently throughout history (e.g., Romanticism coming after Enlightenment rationalism.) That also touches on a second point, which is that the entire life extension project is basically a domain of the rich in hyper individualist Western countries, functioning as an ersatz replacement for a heaven they no longer believe in. It’s fundamentally a rejection of the reality of death in human existence, and that is partially why it may simply be outcompeted by more group-oriented cultures that aren’t as centered on maximizing individual experience as long as possible. I’m just guessing here, and perhaps there is no data to support this, but: I get the impression that people with robust family and community lives are less concerned with maximizing their individual lifespans as much as possible. This is probably because they derive more meaning from their place in that community than in their individualist existence. And you could probably also bring in religion and the belief in an afterlife here (see birth rates correlated with religiosity, for example.)
- ImHereToVote 1y ago
  Bit of a leap there.

reverendsteveii 1y ago

the same Fukuyama that told us the fall of the berlin wall was "the end of history" (his words)?

cvoss 1y ago

> Dr. Fukuyama, when you plant the word "against" adjacent to the phrase "life extension," you've earned an "F" in Longevity Strawman Arguments, Volume 1. > ... > Fukuyama's syllogism boils down to: > Change is necessary > Death creates change > Therefore, death is necessary > By that logic, we'd still accept smallpox as the price of social dynamism. If your first sentence accuses your opponent of using a strawman (I think that's what that sentence means... the double negative metaphor of failing a strawman class is confusing me), you had better make sure your conclusion isn't a strawman.

topaz0 1y ago

I get the sense that the problem with "longevity" research per se is that it is largely driven by the desire of extremely wealthy and selfish people to live forever no matter the cost, rather than to extend every person's healthy lifespan incrementally. The biggest hurdle for the latter is not new research. It's lack of access to affordable healthcare, which would be easy to provide if society weren't so obsequious to the welfare of the most wealthy. I think medical research is generally a good thing (and full disclosure I am tangentially involved in it), but extending the lifespan of the ultrarich is generally going to be bad for society.

Aurornis 1y ago
I disagree. This is a rare case where “trickle down” actually would work: If the ultra rich want to pay their way to discovering longevity improvements, it won’t be long before companies everywhere are competing to bring those same discoveries to the masses at ever-lower prices. If ultra rich want to fund longevity research with their money then bring it on. Their personal spending on research doesn’t subtract from other issues like healthcare policy. There was a time when things like refrigeration, televisions, and mobile phones were only for the extremely wealthy, too. Imagine if we had halted research on those because we didn’t think it was fair for only rich people to have those things.
- topaz0 1y ago
  Have you looked at the current healthcare market, where even the cheapest and most proven drugs are exorbitantly expensive? This is a laughable pipe dream in this society (read, the society that protects the profits of the ultrarich over the health of average citizens).
  - orangecat 1y ago
    Ok, let's assume we are and always will be in a capitalist hellscape where the only thing that matters is what rich people want. Even in that case, if effective longevity treatments are discovered, they'll still be made widely available because it would be hugely profitable. Obviously the sellers of the treatments would make a fortune, also insurance companies would benefit from reduced medical expenses and corporations would benefit from employees getting chronic diseases less often.

absurdo 1y ago

I read the original article. I feel like the author of this retort got nerd sniped. “Cracks knuckles”? I can find better things to grind an axe about. The original article is an opinionated rant. It’s not a scientific or a philosophical treatise, so bringing up things like how diabetes is being cured is far, far outside of the subject matter. So for me this retort is invalid from the get go. The crux of the original article can be summed up as: “I don’t want to be lorded over by morons who pay their way to live to 200 years.” Hard to argue with that. In particular I’m amused by this line from the original article: > I am not looking forward to living in such a world, and indeed I think that such a world might constitute an immense disaster for humankind. I’d argue the world/humankind is already an immense disaster and things can’t get much worse in any real way. It’s run by sadists and we don’t even know why we are here.

CooCooCaCha 1y ago
I agree with everything you say except the “can’t get much worse” part. I think it can get substantially worse, and death is the primary mechanism that prevents power from centralizing on individuals forever. Every death is a mini-reset in some way.
marcodiego 1y ago
> I’d argue the world/humankind is already an immense disaster Not exactly disagreeing because I really don't know any better. But whenever I hear comments like these, I wonder if isolated peoples or medieval/industrial revolution population have/had a better life then we do. We have conveniences that far surpasses anything a king could have just a few decades ago. Our life expectancy and IDH is (almost) monotonically increasing. I really expect that efficiency growth will make the world converge to a life style where most people don't have to work to survive, but just to acquire luxury goods. I actually think that maybe we could already be at that point if it wasn't for the "sadists that run the world", but I don't think they can prevent it from happening because that will make them make more money too. So, I really don't know if people criticizing our current state as "an immense disaster" are overly pessimistic or if the people (like myself) thinking that the world is in a never before achieved good state are realistic or uninformed. I fear deterioration beyond repair, like irrecoverable climate change, because an event like that would really separate the very rich from rest of the population in a way that only one of these two partitions could survive. But I don't think we'll reach that point my lifetime.

slibhb 1y ago

I'm in favor of research into life extension. But I don't think this response really deals with the fundamental objection of: "Change is necessary Death creates change Therefore, death is necessary" Perhaps humans are not very capable of change once we reach adulthood and so significantly (or indefinitely) extending human lifespan would result in civilizational stasis. I don't see a simple way to overcome this argument.

orangecat 1y ago
The argument is invalid because it ignores the possibility of something other than death creating change. As the article notes, there are plenty of examples of widespread societal change that didn't require previous generations to die off.
- prmph 1y ago
  I agree. One other problem with the death-necessary-for-change mantra is that it assumes very change is good. There have been plenty of changes in recent memory that have been disastrous.
GMoromisato 1y ago
There is a logical flaw in that syllogism: Just because death creates change doesn't mean that death is the only thing that creates change. And if you can substitute some other process to create change, then death is not necessary. It's like this syllogism: 1. We must do something about unemployment. 2. Slavery is something. 3. Therefore, we must do slavery. Once the syllogism falls apart, it's obvious that there are many (and even better) ways to create change. The entire history of humanity is filled with them.
- slibhb 1y ago
  But maybe death is necessary for change. It's cerainly necessary for evolution. It's not so much that I buy this argument...it's that I don't see a simple way to rebut it. To me, it's an empirical question that we can't answer a priori, i.e. "what would human civilization look like if everyone lived forever?"

alpineidyll3 1y ago

People love to have opinions about how technologies should develop, but time and again, market realities are what guide their development. People easily get emotional about life extension, and it grabs a lot of attention because of that, but all those feelings don't measure up to the impossible to extrapolate tertiary effects of any technology which transforms lives, life extension definitely being one. I'd argue that it's pretty clear that lipitor is partially to blame for our present gerontocracy muddle, but the issue there is that lipitor transfers mortality from the heart to many other conditions, some of which impair thinking. Life extension isn't a monolith, nor are the mechanisms of cellular age in animals. It's a blanket for 1000s of possible technologies. Productive conversations about it would be nuanced, and related to details about a particular technology, which these conversations never seem to rise to the level of. Definitely not this piece or fukuyama's either. I come to HN for nuance.

dmm 1y ago

I hope death is cured soon so the boomers can rule the world forever.

stared 1y ago

Well, when it comes to change, a sad truth is that it's generations who shift attitudes - not individuals. On average, people hold onto their established worldviews, and society evolves primarily because older generations gradually pass away. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/10/31/societies-change-their-minds-faster-than-people-do https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/10/31/societie... Here's also a cynical take on unicorns: they're immortal, so most of them hold rather outdated views. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sad-truths-mythical-creature-edition https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sad-truths-mythical-creatu...