45 replies to this topic

[Shannon Vyff]

Yes, reading through the negative rebuttals -it is scary to see people bandying about the terms "eugenics" and "master race" also to say that extreme life extension should be resisted in every possible way. In particular comments saying that high profile life extensionists (like Aubrey de Grey) want money to improve health care in Africa should be diverted to research to end aging. Those comments are simply taken out of context and construed, all the life extensionists I know, including Aubrey feel there is a need to balance donations to anti-aging research and efforts to bring up living standards globally. To help the approximate half of the world's population that subsists on less than 2 dollars a day, to achieve more equality, education and health care. It is a dangerous trend to castigate the transhumanist movement over-all, and the writings of such like James Hughes who want to use advanced technology to help everyone not a few elitists.

[Luna]

I am trying to understand why would people automatically think "take away money from helping africa and put it into anti aging".

Let's look at another "gold mine" - how about humans stop fighting and we take some of the budget the armies have all across the globe which is usually over 100 times greater (if not much more) compared to the money put into all health related things combined.

But no, of course everyone wants wars, so they assuming this is obvious, they expect it to be taken from another source used for good and not a source for bad.

Logic!

[Kolos]

"take away money from helping africa and put it into anti aging".

That wouldn't be a bad idea actually since most of this money don't really help Africa in the long run. It's either lost somewhere in the pockets of corrupt officials or it destroys local industry e.g. giving cloathes for free is terrible for textile industry that just can't compete etc.

[Shannon Vyff]

There are ways to help many countries in Africa, from within local government with the help of International charities or other governments.

Here is one highly successful and well known program: http://www.gatesfoun...es/malaria.aspx

"Africa" gets very little financial aid from other governments over all, the majority of the wealthiest countries' budgets goes to the military, as is the case in the United States: http://www.truemajor.../priorities.php

I would support taking money from the military, and increasing aid to raise the standard of living in third world countries (there are countless successful programs to point to from Save the Children to UNICEF in how education has raised standards of living, and micro-credit organizations as well) --and also increasing funding into anti-aging research.

India has more people in poverty and starving, even than Africa. There are many places that require the help of the International community. http://www.stwr.org/...rty-inequality/

[Shannon Vyff]

Just read this and yes we need the think-tank with the funding (Singularity University) -so there is something to be said about those who create a following, but we must be rational as well about the time-frame of technological growth: http://ieet.org/inde...treder20100615/

[Kolos]

But it's hard to say which time-frame is the most rational one.
Kurzweil is too obsessed with his diagrams, it wouldn't be a straight line. I would imagine it to be pretty slow before some serious advancement in nanotech that indeed offer almost exponential possibilities. In other words we need tools to make some sort of Singularity happen.
The question is would this tools arrive fast enough to prolong our lives, we already use some of them like mentioned nanotech but we just started to use it. I would say that development of Nanobots would be one of the clear signs of coming Singularity but will it happen in the next 40? I say it's quite possible.
As for the IEET article it's mostly "Where is my flying car" type of rhetoric based on some selective examples of s-f visions that didn't came true. Well some people predicted that computers would have to be the size of gas giants to be useful.

1. The big problems that exist today cannot be blithely ignored.

Sure...

2. We are not the last generation, and thus we have responsibility to those who will follow us.

Well if we were the last generation and we were here to stay wouldn't that be even stronger motivation to make things better and plan things long term than some next generations that we wouldn't even meet and thus don't really care about?

3. Other problems will increase before our magical tech emerges to solve them.

If this "problems" don't turn into some sort of Mad Max scenario it wouldn't stop the progress in fact they should even accelerate it but the progress itself will create many problems in addition to solving them.

4. Politics will not disappear.

No, but it will change. It's hard to say to what extent.

I don't think we just sit and wait for our Rapture to arrive like the author is suggesting, in fact I think most of us would agree that we should try to do the best we can with our current level of technology but also think about the future. I don't think long term thinking is something for nerds and hopeless idealists only.

[chrwe]

I still say it is a pure guessing game either way. It could happen within the next 50 years that extreme life-extension is possible and it is also entirely possible that it will never happen. The technology is imaginable and some parts of it are arriving, but we can all agree that it is not there yet and not likely to arrive with the next 10 years.

As to Science-Fiction authors, I don`t think Arthur C. Clarke meant his novel as a prediction for an exact year in the future.

Visions have their own dynamics. Look at Jules Verne, his visions came true not too late after his books.

It`s probably best to try to do your own part in making our dream come true and otherwise not put your hopes up TOO much that it will actually happen within the next 40 years.

Cryonics may take us there, if not, it is very likely that we will never know the difference.

[Reno]

The only productive thing little events like this accomplish is producing a bit of private funding. Using a glorified remote controlled car doesn't really do anything for the singularity. I guess it's just a bit of glitter for the public.

John Hogan writing for Scientific American put out a quite negative response (still it is great to see the backlash all around to the NYT article, the topic is getting much more discussion and coverage than usual ): http://www.scientifi...guls-2010-06-23

Once upon a time people thought it was a pipe dream to travel across the Atlantic. There will always be someone there standing up saying your wasting your time. What bothered me about Hogan's article was how much he downright labeled all those who believe in the singularity as geeks, fools, or conmen. People listen to Kurzweil, because most of his predictions have been close up to this point. To ignore the proven legitimacy of specific people like this is a mark of an sad stupid individual. I say stupid, because an ignorant man could be taught to know better.

There is nothing that anyone could say or do short of producing hard evidence of the singularity that would change this man's mind. I have no idea why a Magazine like Scientific America would hire such a man, because he sure as hell isn't interested in the search for truth.

Edited by Reno, 28 June 2010 - 12:41 AM.

[chris w]

I still say it is a pure guessing game either way. It could happen within the next 50 years that extreme life-extension is possible and it is also entirely possible that it will never happen. The technology is imaginable and some parts of it are arriving, but we can all agree that it is not there yet and not likely to arrive with the next 10 years.

I'd say for now it is a guessing game, but not pure, I think that the theoretical possibilty of extreme LE is just the most radical consequence of materialistic paradigm, there is no "wonder", rupturing element here that needed to be devised somewhere along the road in order for this to happen. Unless you say that in a hiperbolical fashion, as if - never for us, if we died somewhere before the tech that could save us was in place, which would be, well...sub optimal, let's put it this way.

As for the timeframe, remember that there is this important and pressing factor that on every other plain is troublesome, but working for us in the long run - the demographic situation. I assume that in Germany it's pretty much the same as here, and in fact the whole Europe practically, Japan, and US to some extent - whatever newspaper you take, you will find in there somewhere the non dying phrase "aging of societes", and info on how it's making our economies unproductive and health care systems strained. Each time I read another bit like this, I get a little annoyed, because the solution is dingling in front of these dummies' ( politicians ) eyes - all you have to do is cure aging, and voila, problem solved ! , we have a perpetualy youthfull workforce that can WORK FOR CENTURIES, and isn't this totally dreamy ?? But seriously, I think a decade is a reasonable time for the state people to finally start thinking about this stuff in a new way, the way we want them to think, they should realise at some point that the days of popping out babies by dozens are over here and not comming back, so something must be done on the other "end" if we are not to drown, and from there the research could go full steam ( so maybe another decade ), I'd hope at least. Non aging rabbits first, and after that - non aging billionaires...

Edited by chris w, 28 June 2010 - 06:27 PM.

[Luna]

any billionaire around wanna marry me? and my bf too...

But more seriously.. the problem is not just a technological one, it is also a motivational one. People don't want to cure aging or don't believe they can and/or don't care to do so.

Aubrey de Grey and that organ printing guy and even the "many" other pioneers are undernumbered and underfunded to do enough in a decade or even two, then there is the FDA and testing and politics and then price and more politics.. even if we got it made, we need to get it out. The problem is as much in the people as it is in technology, if not even more. And the people make everything harder, the technology itself and then using it. We want to use it.. I am not a super-influencing billionaire, are you? We better solve it (either the people/availability problem or us not being the super high class when it comes out.. oh, also need to solve it so it comes out for us too)

[chris w]

I am not a super-influencing billionaire, are you?

Hmm, let's see, today is tuesday ... so the answer's no, but I have the cupons sent so ask me again after the weekend.

Aubrey de Grey and that organ printing guy and even the "many" other pioneers are undernumbered and underfunded to do enough in a decade or even two, then there is the FDA and testing and politics and then price and more politics.. even if we got it made, we need to get it out. The problem is as much in the people as it is in technology, if not even more. And the people make everything harder, the technology itself and then using it. We want to use it..

I agree that there's a whole lot ifs here, but I think of it as interconnected influences, dominos. I guess I won't reveal much of a secret to you saying that people don't really want to age and die, so if they only saw a real light in the tunnel, simple survival instinct should start to work there full swing, overcomming all the silly cultural rationalisations of death, at some point the dam that deathism is should be broken by the flow of scientific achievement that will spur people's demand, and that - putting pressure on rulers, FDA and similar agencies everywhere else, putting pressure just about on every dimension of society to follow.
In a better world this should have happened for example somewhere around when Cynthia Kenyon elongated the life of nematodes sixfold, but you know, "those are just some stupid worms, why should I care ?". If anything resembling agelesness was achieved in an organism that average Joe could think as kin to himself, then ( assuming Joe is not an afterlife fanatic ) he should start to think "I want this too" and this would be the bingo moment. If not, if people despite having the real opportunity to effectively decide that death itself should be fought, still thought that it's better the painful, meaningless, traditional way, like you said - generation being born only to die giving way to the next one cursed with inevitable death, then I will just realise I was born on the wrong planet and from a mountain I will shout "Take me home, you fuckers !!"

But, I understand your pessimism, people in general are simply still too dumb to get it that deep inside they want this to happen, they fail to see that they could have the real thing instead of the subsitute ( afterlife ) that they cling to since the dawn of time.

*Sighs and goes for an angry walk*

Edited by chris w, 29 June 2010 - 04:52 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

Ah, here we go:

When evidence is unwelcome, people try to reason it away
Research results not consistent with your world view? Then you're likely to believe science can't supply all the answers

What do people do when confronted with scientific evidence that challenges their pre-existing view? Often they will try to ignore it, intimidate it, buy it off, sue it for libel or reason it away.

The classic paper on the last of those strategies is from Lord, Ross and Lepper in 1979: they took two groups of people, one in favour of the death penalty, the other against it, and then presented each with a piece of scientific evidence that supported their pre-existing view, and a piece that challenged it; murder rates went up or down, for example, after the abolition of capital punishment in a state.

The results were as you might imagine. Each group found extensive methodological holes in the evidence they disagreed with, but ignored the very same holes in the evidence that reinforced their views.

Some people go even further than this when presented with unwelcome data, and decide that science itself is broken. Politicians will cheerfully explain that the scientific method simply cannot be used to determine the outcomes of a drugs policy. Alternative therapists will explain that their pill is special, among all pills, and you simply cannot find out if it works by using a trial.

How deep do these views go, and how far do they generalise? Professor Geoffrey Munro took about 100 students and told them they were participating in a study on "judging the quality of scientific information", now published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. First, their views on whether homosexuality might be associated with mental illness were assessed, and then they were divided into two groups.

The first group were given five research studies that confirmed their pre-existing view. Students who thought homosexuality was associated with mental illness, for example, were given papers explaining that there were more gay people in psychological treatment centres than the general population. The second group were given research that contradicted their pre-existing view. (After the study was finished, we should be clear, they were told that all these research papers were fake, and given the opportunity to read real research on the topic if they wanted to.)

Then they were asked about the research they had read, and were asked to rate their agreement with the following statement: "The question addressed in the studies summarised … is one that cannot be answered using scientific methods."

As you would expect, the people whose pre-existing views had been challenged were more likely to say that science simply cannot be used to measure whether homosexuality is associated with mental illness.

But then, moving on, the researchers asked a further set of questions, about whether science could be usefully deployed to understand all kinds of stuff, all entirely unrelated to stereotypes about homosexuality: "the existence of clairvoyance", "the effectiveness of spanking as a disciplinary technique for children", "the effect of viewing television violence on violent behaviour", "the accuracy of astrology in predicting personality traits" and "the mental and physical health effects of herbal medications".

Their views on each issue were added together to produce one bumper score on the extent to which they thought science could be informative on all of these questions, and the results were truly frightening. People whose pre-existing stereotypes about homosexuality had been challenged by the scientific evidence presented to them were more inclined to believe that science had nothing to offer, on any question, not just on homosexuality, when compared with people whose views on homosexuality had been reinforced.

When presented with unwelcome scientific evidence, it seems, in a desperate attempt to retain some consistency in their world view, people would rather conclude that science in general is broken. This is an interesting finding. But I'm not sure it makes me very happy.

Self delusion is easier than changing one's fundamental view of the world

[Luna]

I think this study can be very easily used against people here, not just for. And probably more against than in favor of the thoughts here.

i don't know which side is the correct one still, beyond some philosophical choice at least.

[valkyrie_ice]

I think this study can be very easily used against people here, not just for. And probably more against than in favor of the thoughts here.

i don't know which side is the correct one still, beyond some philosophical choice at least.

The problem is that no "side" is the "correct" one, hun. Not even mine. It is only "correct" insofar as it is the most rational position I can construct given the knowledge currently available to me. It is open to revision as more data comes in, but I am willing to concede that such data most likely would still suffer to some degree from the same issue described in the article. We all of us prefer to maintain our worldviews. The sole difference is that I make an attempt to minimize the extent to which I allow such instinctive reactions to govern my behavior.


But I am perfectly will to admit I could be fooling myself.

[Cameron]

But, I understand your pessimism, people in general are simply still too dumb to get it that deep inside they want this to happen, they fail to see that they could have the real thing instead of the subsitute ( afterlife ) that they cling to since the dawn of time.

*Sighs and goes for an angry walk*

DEEP DOWN they know that belief is held irrationally and they know that truthfully it is but a lie they tell to themselves. If they truly believed in heaven, then they'd wish for an earthquake, a nuclear strike or something would kill them along with their family and friends so that they could be together in the clouds in heaven. Those with few friends or only close family would wish that a car accident would happen or their plane would crash while on a vacation, so that they could all together take the trip to their so-called heaven.

Yet even if they've no one they'd miss going to 'heaven', they still don't want to die, they still deeply want to live and if they've someone, for their loved one to at least survive if they're dying*(shouldn't it be the opposite the quicker the loved ones die the quicker they'd be reunited under this deluded fantasy.). Even if their current situation is painful and all but unbearable they still wish to live in agony above wanting a quick trip to their paradise through death... clearly reason prevails and they evaluate a trip to paradise not as a valid alternative, but as the sweet lie it is.

All of this is with ignorance of the history of their religion, and how the idea of 'heaven' and its details came to be. Should they be to understand this history, they'd openly embrace what they know deep down, that it is all a lie.

Their views on each issue were added together to produce one bumper score on the extent to which they thought science could be informative on all of these questions, and the results were truly frightening. People whose pre-existing stereotypes about homosexuality had been challenged by the scientific evidence presented to them were more inclined to believe that science had nothing to offer, on any question, not just on homosexuality, when compared with people whose views on homosexuality had been reinforced.

This is an example of one of the reasons why human politics and democratic methods are destined to fail. Humans often fail to listen to reason, to evidence, and no matter how solid the argument remain unconvinced, uncooperative, and become an impediment to the efficiency of the system, and to the selection of correct actions. If the exchange of ideas, if a forum of discussion, if arguing is almost pointless in all but the most simple and obvious decisions, if solid and convincing evidence will be ignored and debate'll continue to go in circles year after year. Then what have we but those who're less fit becoming but an impediment to those who're reasonable, those who can reach a consensus or compromise once provided solid arguments in favor of what seems to be the best alternative.

The masses have failed at selecting fit rulers and pressing their leaders into financing vital research. The self-imposed penalty for many of them is the death penalty for them and their loved ones. Sad it is that those of us who've nothing to do with this inefficiency and misuse of resources are currently affected by this.

Edited by Cameron, 12 July 2010 - 07:40 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

This is an example of one of the reasons why human politics and democratic methods are destined to fail. Humans often fail to listen to reason, to evidence, and no matter how solid the argument remain unconvinced, uncooperative, and become an impediment to the efficiency of the system, and to the selection of correct actions. If the exchange of ideas, if a forum of discussion, if arguing is almost pointless in all but the most simple and obvious decisions, if solid and convincing evidence will be ignored and debate'll continue to go in circles year after year. Then what have we but those who're less fit becoming but an impediment to those who're reasonable, those who can reach a consensus or compromise once provided solid arguments in favor of what seems to be the best alternative.

Under current conditions, yes, you are absolutely right.


The reason is the sheer lack of actual education into critical thinking skills. Our education system is designed to crank out drone workers for the industrial hive that no longer exists. It's small wonder then that it's produced so many mindless unthinking drones. Such drones are completely incompetent at making rational, informed decisions, because they were never taught how.


But education is going to change rapidly over the next decade or so, and more and more people will be learning from personal tutor AIs with constant access to factual data, and increasing transparency. We will be transforming most of humanity from rational or sub rational actors into Superrational actors, who can be trusted to actually make a democracy work.