[ExI] Life extension

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2013-10-22 21:04, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> The biggest insight I think he's had is that you don't talk about life 
> extension. Particularly radical life extension. You talk about people 
> living healthy into older age.

Yes. This is important, since you do not want to give people an excuse 
for not listening.

Another approach is to point out the enormous savings. Olshansky and the 
other longevity dividend people have come out with yet another article 
looking at the healthcare economics of life extension:
http://sjayolshansky.com/sjo/Longevity_Dividend_Initative_files/Health%20Affairs%202013%20LDI%20Final.pdf 


Then there is the unavoidable boredom and overpopulation arguments. I 
usually handle the boredom with a Nietzsche quote and then discuss the 
tragedy of life projects cut short. A very cool answer to the usual 
overpopulation worry can be found in this paper:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192186/
They use Swedish demographic data to demonstrate that even with radical 
life extension the population does not have to explode.


-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University