[extropy-chat] Extropian Scorecard

[Reason]

--> Damien Broderick

> At 10:12 AM 11/6/2004 -0800, Mike wrote:
>
> >The one thing I'm looking forward to about practical immortality is
> >that its primary impact will be to bankrupt the social security system
> >beyond the ability of any government to fix it in any semblance of its
> >current form.
>
> As usual, I must be missing something here. If `social security' is
> shorthand for collective funding of pensions for the ill, the
> incapacitated
> and those made feeble by old-age, plus collective funding of some or all
> medical expenses, then `practical immortality' largely does away with the
> need for such a system. It could increase the need for spending on
> continuing education, say, assuming any jobs remain for humans, and that
> any humans remain in the first place. But I can't see why keeping
> everyone
> healthy and youthful would `bankrupt the social security system'. On the
> contrary, I think this is one of the great benefits of any negligible
> senescence treatment, and a major motive for governments to
> invest heavily in its development *before* the shit hits the fan.

In a moderately sane system (libertarian ethics of wealth transfer to one
side for the moment - personally I see insurance and savings as perfectly
adequate the the task at hand in the absence of a medical and fiscal commons
and suppression of freedom in these matters), where payments are keyed to
level of disability, then yes, your points above are valid. Most current
systems key payments to a given chronological age, however. Human nature
makes it a fight to take an entitlement away from those entitled, whether
they need (slippery word) it or not and regardless of long term damage to
themselves and others. See:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000088.php
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000103.php
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000151.php
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000057.php

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme