(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

Currently I am reading Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Among other things, this book has me contemplating the ethics of longevity treatment. At this point, the prospect of a gene-based therapy to stave off the effects of aging appears to be more of a matter of when as opposed to if. The implications of this are far-ranging and deserve attention.

[Poll #254699]

Comments

[delascabezas.livejournal.com]

if you like Robinson's mars series, i highly suggest "The Years of Rice and Salt" - great stuff!

[queenofhalves]

i second that! and i love the mars books too. green mars is my favorite of the trilogy.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Thank you both for the suggestion. But I beat you to it! I read that last year. It is an excellent book, I agree, and second your recommendation thereof.

ha

[delascabezas.livejournal.com]

reverse order of operations eh?
i got into robinson because of the mars trilogy, and only found out about rice and salt afterwards. while i disagree with some of the assertions he makes about the his potential future, his dscussion and integreation of different mythos, cultures, ideaologies, and faiths is truly stunning.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

My major concern for me personally would be if I actually trusted the procedure. As you know I have a big distrust of alopathic doctors & the billion dollar pharm industry. On the bigger picture, I would very much be concerned about people continuing to breed at a prodidious rate & then not having the decency to die. Were I the lord high dictator of the world, life extension treatments would only be made available to those with 0 or 1 living offspring, and the procedure would involve a mandatory sterilization procedure until the population was reduced to a billion or so.

[cullent.livejournal.com]

"Were I the lord high dictator of the world, life extension treatments would only be made available to those with 0 or 1 living offspring"

That's racist and classist. Wealth and family size are inversely proportionate, while wealth and resource use are directly proportionate. I'd let all the poor folks get the therapy, and let the rich motherfuckers perish.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

I speak pragmatically. If the population keeps growing we are doomed. If people breed like flies & have much longer lives, we perish more quickly. If one is rewarded for not breeding by being given the opportunity for a longer life, that is incentive.

[cullent.livejournal.com]

Breeding like flies? That would be mostly brown people you know. White folks mostly only have 1 or 2, but they still use up a lot more of everything than anybody else.
Bigots often take refuge in pragmatism, but you're idea isn't even pragmatic. It's stupid. You'd reward a wealthy American couple, with one trophy baby. Sweet. But the reason they only had one is that they waited until they'd made plenty of money for their McMansion, their suv, their jetskis and snowmobiles, etc. They had expensive therapies just to pop this one out, and they'll make sure it takes up many times it's fair share of the Earth's resources. You'd let 'em live longer, and they'd take advantage by exploiting the Earth's resources (human and otherwise) that much longer. Meanwhile, all the poor folks will continue to fight for survival, and their babies will be exploited in their turn to feed the gluttonous appetites of your new and improved, longer living, mostly white, suburban, Americans. That's not pragmatic. It's bigoted and stupid.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

Don't give yourself a nosebleed here. Fomenting at me is not likely to change anything. And no, not just brown people breed like flies. While my parents had one kid & I had none, my mother's sister had 6 kids & even though 2 of them had 0 kids, she still was granny to 15 kids & I don't know how many great grand children by now.

But of course huge resource use is a problem. Ever hear of Peak oil? It sure looks like *everything* is gonna fall apart long before any life extension treatments are gonna extend anyone's life. I am nearly 59 & sure looks to me like I will wind up being kiled in rioting long before I die of old age. Cutting back on resources is a great idea. So is cutting back on population. But both are things which the human race should have done 50 years ago. I have done my very small part for both, but there were not billions of people doing similarly to me.

You speak of gluttonous appetites like you are outside of them. You own a car? You travel by air? You own a computer? I take a bus once a week to by food. Other than that I walk everywhere. Sure I consume far more than someone doing subsistance agriculture, but given the opportunity, there are few people consumming little would would not rather consume more.

Large families are useful if one is doing agricultural work by hand. Humans have not outgrown the genetic programming to spawn regularly. Lots of people make huge numbers of babies who are not engagesd in farming with manual labor. And yes, I fully agree that the ones who best get the lesson of limiting family growth are the very ones who consume the most resources, and exploit others who are poor.

If free life extension is given to everyone (which it won't be because those with the power are gonna hog it to themesleves) we must drastically cut back on population. But, as I said above, it is all just a fun exercise thinking about it. We are already grossly overcrowded, most of the topsoil is gone, and the oil is running out. Think of this thread as a game. I suggest you lighten up on the political correctness or you are gonna hurt yourself with your own righteous anger.

[cullent.livejournal.com]

No nosebleeds here. No political correctness either. I spoke my beliefs, and done myself no harm. Focusing on family size rather than resource usage is shallow and bigoted. No, brown people aren't the only ones to have large families, but they are far more likely to than white people. Same goes for poor folk. Large family size is useful not just for agricultural work, but for populations with little or no political power.

"You own a car?" No.
"You travel by air?" Never.
"You own a computer?" No.


I share a house in the city with another paying housemate, and with itinerants. I buy used or do without as much as possible. I share what I have with others, I help folks in my community, and I work hard. Yes, I think I'm at least realtively free of gluttony.

[the_borderer]

The increase in population from people reproducing and not dying would be my major concern too, but I doubt that limiting such a treatment to a few people who are then sterilised would make a difference. Some people (doctors in this case) would do anything if you throw enough money at them, and with the extra time to pay off loans many less well off people may be able to cheat the system.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

I know. I kust threw out my silly comment to start conversation. I see no way for humanity to doule its lifespan without precipitating doom even faster than we are already generating it. Those who expend the most resources are likely to be the ones who can cheat any regulation system & their cheating is likely to have a much greater negative impact on resources than if dirt poor people involved in subsistance agriculture were to cheat the system.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

My major concern for me personally would be if I actually trusted the procedure.

My poll assumed that the procedure "worked," but if/when I hear such a thing announced I will have the same concern.


On the bigger picture, I would very much be concerned about people continuing to breed at a prodidious rate & then not having the decency to die.

Unfortunately I don't have much faith that we (as a species) will talk this kind of thing out before just plunging headfirst.

You know, this helps me to see why people tend to get conservative as they grow older. I have become much more cynical about the prospect that any kind of contemplation will precede big, important changes. Not that caution is always the best path, but many of the problems we're in now, we created by not thinking things out in any meaningful way.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

I know it is silly from a rational extrapolation, but I do keep wondering about whether the idea of singularity is just a nice little bedtime story to prevent nightmares, or if if will actually manifest.

[elnigma.livejournal.com]

I'd care if this kept me a HEALTHY alive for a hundred years - perhaps even fix a few things.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Generally I picture this as a genetic therapy that would arrest the aging process where it is at the point where you take it. But there would be no way to know what the long-term effects look like. OTOH while you wait to see, you aren't getting any younger. :)

[t-head.livejournal.com]

First, let's pretend I'm Spinoza. And that a quasi-mathematical ethics proof is not entirely preposterous prima faciae.

Let N be the net effect of existence of a longevous person on an entity's wellbeing.
Thence,
... N(p) = effect of the longevous person on themselves, by dint of their longevity
... N(!p) = effect of the longevous person on the non-longevous
... N(e) = effect of a longevous person on the environment, minus the effect they would have had they normal lifetimes.

Let k be the ratio in which the treatment extends a person's life and L be the ratio of people who undergo longevity treatment.

Then, the net gain/loss of wellbeing on a society of mixed longevity (S) of a given size R would be

S ~= R * ( k * L * ( N(p) + N(e) ) + ( (1-L) * N(!p) )

From which we can state that a affirmative effect can only be obtained if

- BOTH the N terms (N(e)) being most likely negative) are positive OR
- only N(p) is positive but L is sufficiently small AND k is sufficently large

In plain English, longevity is good if BOTH the methuselah better themselves AND make things better for non-methuselah. It's also acceptable if the methuselah live long enough so that their own added well-being outpaces the loss of well-being they cause others AND the ammount of methuselah is kept small.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Good thoughts. I can follow your train of thought, actually. I wonder, though, whether society would accept being divided into "methuselahs" and, um, "non-methuselahs." Why not, though? We seem to have evolved with a natural acceptance of aristocracy and social heirarchy.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I second all of this. :)

[dragonguyver.livejournal.com]

more: I would wait to see how early results were like, to see if there were any physical side-effects or such.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I can understand that. But keep in mind, you're not getting any younger. ;)

[dragonguyver.livejournal.com]

LOL. I'm not too old though. If this stuff came out today, I could wait until I was thirty before jumping into it, I think.

I'd be worried that it would halt the personal advancement of the human being.

[surrealmagnolia.livejournal.com]

May I add you to my friends? You seem intelligent and insightful and I really respect that.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Yes, you may. I will return the favor.