[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jan 22, 2008, at 8:51 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> On 23/01/2008, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
>> 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).
>
> Conventional medicine seeks to treat and prevent the problems
> associated with aging.

No, it very much does not do any such thing.  Doctors act like and  
actually say that one can expect various aches, pains, reductions of  
capacity across the board as "normal".  It is not the business of  
medicine as generally practiced to fight what is "normal", certainly  
not to enhance beyond the "normal" or "natural" range.    Medicine  
treats "disease".  It does not consider aging a disease.


> It's difficult to see how this could be
> conceptualised as something different from preventing aging.

As above.

> It would
> be like saying, we want to treat and prevent the problems associated
> with pneumonia, but we don't actually want to prevent pneumonia
> itself, as that would be wrong.

I wish it was that simple.  But human universal averages especially in  
the face of currently not being able to do anything about them, let to  
aging not be considered a disease for medicine to treat.   I sure wish  
it was not so.

- samantha