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There's a common perception in the academic community that they face heavy resistance from those who think that "death gives life meaning," and that ending agin
by GavinB 17y ago
There's a common perception in the academic community that they face heavy resistance from those who think that "death gives life meaning," and that ending aging would harm "human dignity."
These feelings may be strong among philosophers and ethicists and the debate may rage in journals, but I don't think there's nearly so much resistance in the general population.
The challenge is proving that dramatic longevity extension is really possible. Most of modern medicine is really treatment of symptoms, not cures. We don't understand or have effective treatments for the underlying causes of most conditions.
- reasonattlm 17y agoThere are some pro-engineered-longevity ethicists. This fellow, for example, is a good example of someone mired in stereotypical ethicist viewpoints (e.g. social justice, redistribution, equality uber alles, etc) nonetheless constructing a rationale within his paradigm for all-out longevity research as fast as possible: http://colinfarrelly.blogspot.com/2009/06/idealism-meets-realism-tackling-chronic.html http://colinfarrelly.blogspot.com/2009/06/idealism-meets-rea...
- rw 17y agoGolly, a transhumanist interested in social justice issues! If you're a humanist, you ought to be a transhumanist. Eliezer argues convincingly on this point. What is so hard about noting that if you are a transhumanist, you ought to be a humanist?
- gaius 17y agoThe onus on "ethicists" is to do the work in what they consider to be an ethical way. But all I see is people who've nothing to contribute to science themselves but nevertheless feel entitled to dictate terms to those that have.