[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

[Damien Broderick]

At 07:16 AM 1/22/2008 -0800, Spike wrote:

>Life extention technology must be simply a market commodity, otherwise they
>will never happen.  Reason: there is no one to pay for it.

What a strange claim! There is no other threat menacing absolutely 
*everyone* as brutally and terrifyingly as aging and death. If the 
lunar and space probes programs and weather forecasting could be paid 
for from the common purse, I don't see why life extension ought not 
in principle be funded the same way (with philanthropic funds and 
propaganda, perhaps, used to kick start it).

Or are you considering as crucial the irrationalist opposition of 
many death-hugging ideologues, who would prevent it being accepted as 
worth central funding, as with stem cell research, until after all 
the hard initial work has been done in private labs?

Damien Broderick