[extropy-chat] The Immortal Class: Admissions Criteria

[Anders Sandberg]

giorgio gaviraghi wrote:
> There must be no admission rules for immortality
> Immortality must be for all, independently of wealth,
> origin, race or religion.
> Any sort of limitation could only generate a class
> revolution, the non immortals will target and kill the
> immortaals, there is no way that humanity will accept
> rules or limitations to immortality

This is a very common claim, but I regard it just as unfounded as George
Annas claim that the emergence of posthumans would inevitably cause
genocidal war (and hence we mustn't create them). Maybe we could call it a
Frinkian argument (after professor Frink: "Elementary chaos theory tells
us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok
in an orgy of blood and the kicking and the biting with the metal teeth
and the hurting and shoving.") If we don't do X, then we get class
revolution!

The problem here isn't that it might be true, but that people seem to
accept just the statement of the argument as a good reason to do whatever
suggested. But the rational thing to do is to evaluate the likeliehood of
the risk and then try to act accordingly. I'm very annoyed by Frinkian
arguments, so much that one of my main academic projects right now is to
do a more careful analysis of them (in cognition enhancement). We'll see
how it turns out.


In the case of immortality, I guess one approach would be to look at
likely scenarios of cost, how quickly the technology diffuses and becomes
cheaper, and the impact of regulations and interventions. Add to this the
desire for immortality in the population. Based on this we can make a
start at looking at whether resentment is likely to become a major
problem, whether social divisions are likely to increase and whether the
moral problems are large enough to justify particular interventions.

For example, access to computers is limited by their cost. But I think few
would claim that it is likely to produce class warfare, not even the
people most worried about digital divides and the enormous importance of
being computer literate in the digital society. It seems that the price
and ubiqity is developing enough both within societies and worldwide to
not be a huge problem (sure, we might wish to speed it anyway). Similarly,
the gatekeeping control over much of medicine is also not assumed to be a
major cause of resentment, although a lot of politics of course deals with
health care issues - possibly health care altruism in industrialised
societies is actually defusing resentment, although Robin's evolutionary
theory for it also likely plays in IMHO.

How strongly would people want immortality? WE want it. But the
impressively bad track record of cryonics recruiting and the popular
deathist memes suggest the opposite. On the other hand, lots of people eat
lots of alternative medicine to live longer (not to mention pray for it
etc.) - when real treatments become available the interest is going to be
far larger than in current theoretical discussions, no matter what they
say today. But I think people are more likely to storm pharmacies for
Tamiflu than for life extension drugs, simply because they consider a bird
flu threat more direct and serious than ageing. It might very well be that
people want immortality but are willing to wait a few years (if they are
not too old). Especially if they have reason to believe the treatment will
become cheaper and better. That is likely to soften the impact of a sudden
development of an "immortality serum". And if life extension treatments
instead evolve over a long time, giving one extra year here and there,
then the effect is likely softened even more.

Just a first tentative attack on the Frinkian argument. I'm certain it can
be done better by the other minds on this list.

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University