19 replies to this topic

[hivemind]

What happens if aging is defeated? Two scenarios:

1. The masses have access to life extension technology. There are no more young people to exploit. World will be an egalitarian world.

2. Only the elite are allowed the access to these technologies. The elite controllers live their indefinite lives controlling the masses.

Also, a world where people do not age will be much less religious world.

[mikeinnaples]

1. I am not so sure that there will be no young people to exploit. At some point we will venture beyond the confines of our own fish bowl, and to do so we will need more people.

2. This is a possiblity, but I am not so sure a reality. How many people would resist? I suspect the resistance would quickly overwhelm the elite. Perhaps explain your thought a little better on this one?

[hivemind]

2. This is a possiblity, but I am not so sure a reality. How many people would resist? I suspect the resistance would quickly overwhelm the elite. Perhaps explain your thought a little better on this one?

This is the future that Alex Jones speaks about. Resistance would be impossible like in the former East Germany. Everybody would be spied on. Only the spying technology would be something that the STASI could only dream about in the cold war era.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGbAIGLSE7A


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb7B1fHB_0I

Edited by Trip, 26 October 2011 - 05:08 PM.

[hivemind]

1. I am not so sure that there will be no young people to exploit. At some point we will venture beyond the confines of our own fish bowl, and to do so we will need more people.

But the fish bowl will still continue to exist. All people in the fish bowl are very old and experienced. They have their material needs met and know how the world works. These people cannot be pushed around or exploited. The market economy can not function like it does today. Economy will be more planned, and people will be very equal.

Edited by Trip, 26 October 2011 - 05:01 PM.

[mikeinnaples]

Wish I could view the videos in the office, unfortunately they are blocked.

[mikeinnaples]

But the fish bowl will still continue to exist. All people in the fish bowl are very old and experienced. They have their material needs met and know how the world works. These people cannot be pushed around or exploited. The market economy can not function like it does today. Economy will be more planned, and people will be very equal.

Good point. You are right in saying that market economy cannot function like it does today. In fact, what is going to happen one we reach the point where everything is replaced by computer/robotic/other automation? A socialistic society? Interesting to ponder, but I am not quite so sure our future computer overlords will have a use for us.

[corb]

2. Only the elite are allowed the access to these technologies. The elite controllers live their indefinite lives controlling the masses.

One big problem with this - the elite will need armies. The soldiers won't fight if they don't get the life extension themselves, but once they do get it some of them will want to get their family members treated and so on and so on and so on. Bottom line a lot of people will get it even if the elite takes over.

1. The masses have access to life extension technology. There are no more young people to exploit. World will be an egalitarian world.

There will be machines to exploit. Until judgment day .

Edited by corb, 26 October 2011 - 06:07 PM.

[hivemind]

2. Only the elite are allowed the access to these technologies. The elite controllers live their indefinite lives controlling the masses.

One big problem with this - the elite will need armies. The soldiers won't fight if they don't get the life extension themselves, but once they do get it some of them will want to get their family members treated and so on and so on and so on. Bottom line a lot of people will get it even if the elite takes over.

They only need a small elite army with high tech weapons. The citizens are intensively spied upon. Every attemp to organize some kind of resistance is immediately spotted and stopped. And the resistance would be futile anyway without the high tech weapons. The media feeds propaganda every day and people are not poor. They get along very well. They are just denied the life extension.

Edited by Trip, 26 October 2011 - 06:29 PM.

[mikeinnaples]

I am not sure this would get past the global brain.

[corb]

They only need a small elite army with high tech weapons.

Yeah it's a great plot for an 90's scifi action but It's not a thing that can work in reality.
The recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven this won't work. Not to mention in countries like america and russia where you have a good part of the population with military background and armed, I really can't see this happening. And you'd still need an armed police force even if a takeover succeeds. The reality is the rich and powerful are just as fucked as we are.
The way I see it, life extension will probably replace monetary currency and the pharmaceutical companies will take control of government. The age of the armed man is over, scientists will rule the world.

[hivemind]

The age of the armed man is over, scientists will rule the world.

The armed man can just shoot the scientist. Armed man(or armed robot) will always rule the world.

[corb]

The armed man can just shoot the scientist. Armed man(or armed robot) will always rule the world.

The way I see it the soldiers won't even see it coming. Biological warfare is already so advanced we won't be able to do anything if someone releases whatever killer viruses they are cooking up all the time. Truth be told if someone does want to rule the world as an undisputed immortal oligarch, I really don't see a reason why they would leave anyone alive and risk the possibility of a world war (at any point in the future, a never aging man should be able to plan millions of moves ahead if he plans to survive to see the end of the universe) besides the select few they find useful. They can always breed slaves if they ever need them, although I suspect androids would be better suited for fanning and grape feeding.

We're either going to get free live extension or a cocktail of supped up ebola malaria spanish sars viral cocktail, there really isn't a viable middle ground.

[CLR]

I'm a Marxist-Leninist. There isn't anything wrong with communism; it's a superior philosophy that humans have difficulty executing because of their incessant greed and immorality. The singularity, seed AI and brain-computer paradigm should aid in it's future success, so long as global capitalism burns to the ground due to resource overexploitation, systematic failures (the stock market is a prime example), or proletarian overthrow. Cuba has their act together, though--I'll be traveling there in several weeks.

The fact that nootropics and prescription medications are so exorbitantly expensive, and completely out of reach to the poor, is a testament to the fact that capitalism and the "free market" are incompatible with egalitarian life-extending technologies. If this system were to unnaturally continue, we would live to see a genetically superior, wealthy elite.

Was the title of this thread meant to pander an ignorant and age-old fear of communism? People need to read Marx; he is indeed the greatest philosopher of all time, in the ranks of Sigmund Freud, the existentialists, and Greek antiquity.

Edited by CLR, 30 June 2012 - 12:10 AM.

[niner]

I have a friend who designs military robots. This thread is wacky enough for a Skynet scenario, but that's not really what I expect. Don't expect your conventional arms to be much use, though. Hey CLR, you're a Marxist-Leninist? Like Obama? (ok, I'm kidding.) Wow, seriously, I didn't know they existed anymore. Well, have fun in Cuba. Have a Mojito and toast to Longecity, where the Libertarian banner waves. (along with a lot of other banners, some under the care of Mental Health Professionals)

[hivemind]

Military robots or not, I think that the Kalashnikov rifle stays as the most deadly weapon on earth.

[Danail Bulgaria]

At the beginning You said, that one of the possibilities is the masses to have an access to the immortality or life extension technology and there will be no more young people to exploit. If we presume, that the term defeating aging means to stop the process of aging itself, then the immortality technology and the life extension technology will not lead to living forever old or to living longer old. They will lead to living forever young (after all defeating aging means not aging), and the life extension technology will lead to living younger and able to work for longer time (after all postphonong aging means that). In this scenario, where everyone is young and working, or where the 60 - 70 - 80 years old people are still younger and able to work, there will not be anyone to exploit, and there will be no expolatation of the young people from the old people (if You mean the pensions and the social expendences for old people exploatation). So, according to me, this is the best scenario, and I personally do not care if it is communist, capitalist or fashist scenario. I actually support the idea everybody to live forever young, or everybody to live young longer, not only single rich or political people.

[hivemind]

At the beginning You said, that one of the possibilities is the masses to have an access to the immortality or life extension technology and there will be no more young people to exploit. If we presume, that the term defeating aging means to stop the process of aging itself, then the immortality technology and the life extension technology will not lead to living forever old or to living longer old. They will lead to living forever young (after all defeating aging means not aging), and the life extension technology will lead to living younger and able to work for longer time (after all postphonong aging means that). In this scenario, where everyone is young and working, or where the 60 - 70 - 80 years old people are still younger and able to work, there will not be anyone to exploit, and there will be no expolatation of the young people from the old people (if You mean the pensions and the social expendences for old people exploatation). So, according to me, this is the best scenario, and I personally do not care if it is communist, capitalist or fashist scenario. I actually support the idea everybody to live forever young, or everybody to live young longer, not only single rich or political people.

Young people are inexperienced and that is exploited by older people. Of course they are also able and willing to do more work even if older people take some of the results of their work away from them. So it is not all about exploitation, but a lot of it is. The most extreme case of exploitation is when young people are forced to fight wars. A forever young person is experienced but still has the maximal capacity for work. If everybody is like that, then exploitation becomes very difficult.

That is interesting because the aging process actually forces a person to be more "grown up". It is an ever progressing humiliation that piece by piece tears the person apart and makes him/her obsolete, ugly and disliked. A forever young person can have huge amounts of life experience, but he does not experience that humiliation and decay caused by aging. He can stay bold and beautiful forever. No need to grow up and face degradation.

Edited by hivemind, 09 August 2012 - 10:15 AM.

[Danail Bulgaria]

If everybody is a forever young person, or long living young person, then everyone will have enough experience not to be exploited from the older generations. The younger generations will be advised from their parents, who have more experience and thus will protect their children from being exploited. I for example follow my parents' advises. If You don't then it is Your problem, not a problem of all the people as general.

Your second thought, that a forever young person can have huge amounts of life experience, but he will not experience the humiliation and decay caused by aging and that he can stay bold and beautiful forever, and will not need to grow up and face degradation. can only support the benefits of being younger for longer time, or forever. Everyone who reads this have to ask himself/herself the question "Do I want to get the experience to be humiliated from the decay, caused by the aging?" I personally think, that this experience has nothing to do with the realisation in the life, and nothing to do with gathering experience in none of the existing jobs, and I think, that the person who wants to get the experience to get smashed from the aging is dulllllllllll....

So, I still stay to my position, that the masses must to have an access to the immortality or life extension technology.

[hivemind]

^Of course nobody wants to experience it. People are forced to experience it. In some sense a person who does not age is an eternal child or a teenager. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion though. However, almost all the leaders of the world are old and degraded people. A person who never has aged would be a very different leader.

I think this relates to communism because it seems to be an egalitarian agenda. However, in reality it could be the same as communism is in reality, a dictatorship of elite people who do not age.

Edited by hivemind, 09 August 2012 - 06:33 PM.

[Danail Bulgaria]

As I wrote above, If the masses become immortal, I do not care if it will lead to a comunistic situation. By the way, I personally do not believe, that today exists a country, which is not governed from its oligarsy.