[ExI] Extropian Politics

[Russell Wallace]

On 10/14/07, Morris Johnson <mfj.eav at gmail.com> wrote:
> can the list post the files attached?

Seem to have come through okay.

> As you can see I may on November 07 become one of the first politicians with
> a
> background covering bioproducts from the food, fuel and pharma areas.....
> As well being part of the mangerial team overseeing  the public medicare
> system with a view to
> not just emeliorate but to augment and improve the human condition.

Good luck!

> I would ask for advice from all interested to suggest how to apply the KISS
> rule
> to explain  notions like SENS and an integrated food/fuel/pharma
> bioeconomy to an electorate which generally speaking has very little
> knowledge of such AND COME OFF  AS CREDIBLE AND NO SOME KIND OF
> UNINTELLIGIBLE GEEKY NUT CAKE.

I don't know how an integrated food/fuel/pharma bioeconomy would work,
or the issues involved, but as far as SENS goes, it seems to me that
the key is to avoid presenting it as immortality, because that's the
domain of religion. In the strict sense it really is - there's no
scientific evidence for the possibility of literally infinite
lifespan. (I'm not claiming to know infinite lifespan to be
impossible, only that there's no evidence for it, so belief therein
has to come down to faith.)

Instead, as others have remarked (I believe there were links posted on
the topic awhile ago), SENS should be regarded as a form of medical
treatment justified not by unintelligible geeky arguments about what
might happen in a million years, but by common sense in the here and
now.

So I think this is one of the two keys to justification of SENS:

If an 8 year old is dying of pneumonia, do we try to treat the disease
or let him die because it's the will of God/nature/fate/whatever?
Every sane and moral person agrees on the former.

If an 80 year old is dying of Alzheimer's, do we try to treat the
disease or let him die because it's the will of blah-blah? Every sane
and moral person should agree on the former. And it's better to tackle
the root cause than only the symptoms. The best way to tackle
Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease and the other myriad conditions of
old age, is to slow down or even partly reverse (not fully - that's
not on the cards in the foreseeable future - but partly) the
deterioration that's the real cause.

The second key is disambiguation of the type missed by the fabled
sorcerer who wished for eternal life but whose genie didn't by default
include eternal youth in the package.

Do I want to live to be 100? Frankly as things stand right now, no, I
don't. The last yea many years of such a lifespan tend to consist of
little but pointless suffering with neither productivity, joy nor
hope. Do I want to be alive _and healthy_ at 100? Damn right I do!
It's commonplace for people to say they'd turn down a longer lifespan,
but how many people over the age of 30 would turn down the opportunity
to look and feel younger? Damn few, judging by the market for cosmetic
treatments that don't even work.

The term "healthspan" has been suggested. Maybe that'll work, maybe
not, I'm not a marketing expert, but the point is that what's being
advocated isn't immortality, nor additional years tacked onto the end
of a life as we currently know it - but the opportunity to stay young
and healthy for longer.