[extropy-chat] more great reasons to be dead

Damien Sullivan phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu
Sat Jul 9 18:04:10 UTC 2005


I guess there's no way to jump in and preserve threading...

BillK pharos at gmail.com wrote:

> He is certainly correct that the people will insist their governments
> provide immortality treatments for everyone as soon as practicable. If
> the people see the rich and leading politicians becoming immortal,
> 
> I think he is also correct that immortals will become very risk averse
> in lifestyle and in investments. There would be a slowdown in the
> economy as older minds don't indulge in the spending fads and toys
> that fascinate young minds.
> 
> Most immortals won't want children

All this strikes me as partaking of the same type of thinking as the article
Damien B. posted, a type I think suffers from the flaw of essentialism,
viewing immortals and mortals as distinct types, with some clean transition
point.

The article says:

> Then again, think of the recriminations from the Third World, unless the 
> elixir of life were made freely available and as UN cant puts it: "Within a 
> socially acceptable time frame."

But there are African countries where the life expectancy is under 40.  A
nearly 20 year difference between India and the top countries.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/hea_lif_exp_at_bir_tot_pop

I would say, more likely than a discrete elixir of life, let alone any way of
telling "immortals" from "mortals", or even a sense of "immortality", is
simply better and better medical care, better prevention or genetic cleaning,
more and better replacement of parts.  A whole suite of ways of enhancing the
body's ability to maintain itself in the face of entropy.  And rather than
"woot, we're immortal!" there'll just be longer and longer achieved lifespans.  

There could be the point some call "actuarial escape velocity", when someone's
life expectancy starts advancing more than a year per year, but at that point
-- a statistical one -- lots of people will still be dying, diluting the
psychological impact.

There won't be an elixir to demand, but lots of trained doctors, drugs,
medical scanners and robots.  What we have today, but more so.

-xx- Damien X-) 



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list