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[personal profile] 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]

Date: 2004-02-26 12:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] delascabezas.livejournal.com
if you like Robinson's mars series, i highly suggest "The Years of Rice and Salt" - great stuff!

Date: 2004-02-26 01:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 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.

Date: 2004-02-26 01:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] elnigma.livejournal.com
I'd care if this kept me a HEALTHY alive for a hundred years - perhaps even fix a few things.

Date: 2004-02-26 03:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 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.
(deleted comment) (Show 1 comment)

Date: 2004-02-26 09:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 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.

Date: 2004-02-27 05:51 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] surrealmagnolia.livejournal.com
May I add you to my friends? You seem intelligent and insightful and I really respect that.

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