25 replies to this topic

[brokenportal]

Should we even be trying to reach the goal of indefinite life extension? Won't only the rich be able to get it?

[niner]

Only the rich will be able to take a trip into outer space, too. (Maybe they could have anti-aging therapy on space flights...) But over time, the price of anti aging therapies will drop. It will be both more expensive and more risky for early adopters. At least some anti aging technology will probably be considered medical care and may be covered by insurance. The state may be very much in favor of this because of the Longevity Dividend, particularly if it means that retirement ages can be extended.

[brokenportal]

Ya but they'll get it first, and for who knows how long? It's not fair that they get it first. It's just not fair. We can't do indefinite life extension if that will happen, why would we want to allow them to take it without us?

[blurb]

Depends on what therapies prove to be effective (which in itself might take some time to crystallize). Biology is more and more an informational science. If treatments won't rely on fancy medical equipment they'll probably spread pretty fast and become available to all.

[brokenportal]

Depends on what therapies prove to be effective (which in itself might take some time to crystallize). Biology is more and more an informational science. If treatments won't rely on fancy medical equipment they'll probably spread pretty fast and become available to all.

Yes but the rich will all but inevitably have them first, and do we really want to do this if that is what is going to happen?

[Arcanyn]

Only the rich will be able to afford mobile phones. Well, that used to be the case (the first ones costing around $10,000), but look at how cheap and ubiquitous mobile phones are now.

[niner]

Ya but they'll get it first, and for who knows how long? It's not fair that they get it first. It's just not fair. We can't do indefinite life extension if that will happen, why would we want to allow them to take it without us?

It's the American Way. It has long been enshrined in our tax and healthcare policies that the rich are more worthy than the 99%. "He who pays the piper calls the tune." The rich fund the political process in America, so of course they will call the tune. That's why our policies look the way they do. Newt Gingrich would and his fellow candidates would tell you that the poor, desirous of indefinite life extension, would finally get off their fat asses and start a web consulting company or something. All except Rick Santorum, who would rail that life extension violates God's plan. He would argue that it should be outlawed, or at least made harder to get. Of course all politicians would get the treatments, so they could continue doing their important work to help society.

[Droplet]

All technology eventually falls in price. I remember as a kid I wanted a PC and could never have one due to price. However, nowadays most people can afford to pick up a half-decent PC. I had to wait until my late teens but eventually they fell enough in price to own. What about the Internet? I remember when that was pricey but nowadays, most of us have regular access at home.

Also, even if it is only the wealthy who can afford it for a while, at least the hope of everyone one day getting it is there. Healthcare is already like that in some ways. There was a recent news story about the NHS refusing certain life-saving drugs due to cost. Yes, this is wrong but at least those drugs exist and hopefully the system can find cheaper ways to source them. Banning them/refusing to develop further ones just through expense would help no one. Also, there are many things that only a few people or only people on reasonable incomes can afford that exist. Cosmetic surgery such as botox to look younger is accessible mostly to well of people but no one gets up in arms over that even though looking younger/more attractive can be helpful for getting where you want.

[mpe]

You forget good old industrial espionage , life extension will be the most actively pirated technology in the world.

Every science, medical, vetinary and pharmacy student and professional will make it their sole aim to acquire the technology and materials.
Once the "secret" is out its price will fall exponentially.

I imagine the developers/patent holders would realize this and decide its better to make a small unit profit on a very large sales base than a huge unit profit on a very small sales base.

[niner]

You forget good old industrial espionage , life extension will be the most actively pirated technology in the world.

Every science, medical, vetinary and pharmacy student and professional will make it their sole aim to acquire the technology and materials.
Once the "secret" is out its price will fall exponentially.

I imagine the developers/patent holders would realize this and decide its better to make a small unit profit on a very large sales base than a huge unit profit on a very small sales base.

Good point, mpe. this may even occur at the nation level; a country may decide to set aside Intellectual Property law on this particular item, and offer whatever treatment it is to their citizens for free. The motivation for this would be the Longevity Dividend, essentially allowing older people to be more productive. Pharmaceuticals are simple to copy. Something more elaborate involving cell lines or sophisticated procedures would be more difficult.

[brokenportal]

Ya but they will still maybe have it for years, 2 years, 5 years before we can even get it on a price drop or from somebody else that works to copy the techniques. Could we really go through with this if they will have it for all those years first without us? But how?

[Arcanyn]

Well, it's really a matter of whether or not our desires to watch rich people die horrible deaths outweighs our own desires to go on living. Is spiting the rich important enough to sacrifice our own lives, and the lives of millions of others?

[brokenportal]

[Droplet]

Someone has got to have it first. I don't care who as long as it's out there for us. I also agree with mpe and think that others would try to copy it anyways and sell it cheaper. Yes, I wish I was rich and a lot of us do but I've no reason to spite them even if they have so many advantages.

[mpe]

I really don't care that the rich have life extension first, after all somebody has to pay for its development and as we are unlikely to get any western government to see sense and foot the bill, it will have to be funded by the wealthy.

Indefinite lifespans can make everyone truely wealthy, there will be no need to ration by price or decree and we shouldn't allow it to happen.
Death by aging is the ultimate scarcity in our scarcity driven economics system, but it needn't be nor should it be allowed to be.

Hopefully Open Cures will go a long way to keeping everything in the public eye, but failing that my prior comments will stand.

Recently whilst enrolling my youngest in University, I discovered that I could return and enrole in a bioscience degree without having go through their competitive admission system (business degree 25 years ago). I've long thought of going back and doing a science based degree, this sort of speculation provides both carrot and stick, hmmmm.

[Sdescon]

Indefinite lifespans can make everyone truely wealthy

There's more to that than meets the eye. Extending the lifespans of people by any amount also means that people, both rich or poor, have an increased capability to generate work and income for far longer. This increases their chances to procure the resources to obtain whatever technology or method it is that can grant indefinite life extension.

Think of it as the ultimate loan or investment. A person that cannot afford life extension technology may sign an exclusive contract to work or pay the debt off eventually, or until the technology matures enough to be cheaper and more affordable. Earning the necessary millions may seem daunting for those who make minimum wage for example, because of the time constraint. But what if you had over a hundred years to work with, if not more? This is of course highly simplistic and assumes scarcity based economics stays the way it is today.

Not the best solution obviously, but a real possibility.

[forever freedom]

Should we even be trying to reach the goal of indefinite life extension? Won't only the rich be able to get it?

Yes, the rich will get the best treatments in the beginning, although it may take several years to more than a decade(s) for the to become available to everyone.

The fact is that in a world of scarce resources, there has to be a way to screen who gets what, and like it or not, in a free enough economy (in which model the US, despite the democrats doing everything in their power against it, still fits), in general, the richer people are the more competent/able/smartest/fittest people.

So we should all get moving and provide real value to the economy/society so that it may reward us with wealth.



YES, IT IS FAIR. STOP WHINING AND BITCHING.

Edited by forever freedom, 15 February 2012 - 02:23 PM.

[niner]

in general, the richer people are the more competent/able/smartest/fittest people.

The genetic idea that leads to US economic policy...

It has long been enshrined in our tax and healthcare policies that the rich are more worthy than the 99%.

Allowing the poor to die on schedule is the ultimate form of economic Darwinism. I suppose we could shoot the poor, and hurry things along. I wonder if the Catholic Bishops would be cool with that? There wouldn't be any need for contraceptives.

[forever freedom]

in general, the richer people are the more competent/able/smartest/fittest people.

The genetic idea that leads to US economic policy...

Indeed. That's why it's one of the best policies in the world, despite the democrats trying to transform the US into agonizing Europe.
.

It has long been enshrined in our tax and healthcare policies that the rich are more worthy than the 99%.

Allowing the poor to die on schedule is the ultimate form of economic Darwinism. I suppose we could shoot the poor, and hurry things along. I wonder if the Catholic Bishops would be cool with that? There wouldn't be any need for contraceptives.

Don't dramatize things. Things are this way because the world has scarce resources. If out of 10 people only 2 can be saved, it makes sense to save the better among us. And, as i said, in a free enough economy, which the US still is, generally, the better a person, the more wealth he will generate and receive. It's a goddamn fact, so don't argue with it, unless you believe in the fantasy that the degree of wealth of a person, in a free enough economy, has nothing to do with his ability, in which case i'll label you hopelessly deluded and won't waste my time arguing with you any further.

[Ampa-omega]

I have a bad feeling about this as well, i mean if many of the rich would steal or commit some form of crime to gain their wealth, who currently is causing chaos and massive wealth robbery in the financial system?, There is a wealth gap. what makes it a good idea to let them have unlimited access to immortality technologies? The financial system is a Mess, Its definitely a bad idea to combine fire with fire (or fuel to cause an exponential growth) in power of some peoples hands.. Maybe some form of fairness and applicance should be applied. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts completely.

Edited by Ampa-omega, 15 February 2012 - 10:10 PM.

[Sdescon]

I think it would also be good to categorize who we define as "rich" in this scenario and how rich enough do they have to be to obtain indefinite life extension. Is it rich as in those who are billionaires, the absolute elite of the elite, or merely rich as in those who are multi-millionaires and the top 1-10% of their respective countries in terms of wealth?

And in what society will it be fostered in and how closely guarded will this technology be? Will it be secretive, held behind closed doors like nuclear technology, or will it be disseminated like scientific knowledge, with the final product and the blueprints easily accessible to all? If it is guarded, influence and group identity can be more important than wealth in deciding who will get it first.

[brokenportal]

I post this topic here to play the devils advocate. Of course this isn't a concern that should stop us from pursuing indefinite life extension.

I am playing the devils advocate because we need to explore these sorts of topics more here at Longecity for a variety of reasons. One is its the kind of thing that indefinite life extensionists are compelled to talk about when they see such a discussion. Another reason is that we need to practice this sort of discussion to stay sharp and collect insight. Then also we want discussions like this to be common in the forum because indefinite life extension minded people that stop by to check us out will learn from it and or stick around to read up on and join in. When 95% percent of the discussions are about supplements then that doesn't happen as much. Sometimes there isn't even one indefinite life extension topic in the active topics list. Supplements discussions are good, but we need to also continue to supplement then with active engaging indefinite life extension discussions. Another reason for them is that new people need to have a chance to practice these arguments and think about them.

Edited by brokenportal, 15 February 2012 - 11:16 PM.

[niner]

And, as i said, in a free enough economy, which the US still is, generally, the better a person, the more wealth he will generate and receive. It's a goddamn fact, so don't argue with it, unless you believe in the fantasy that the degree of wealth of a person, in a free enough economy, has nothing to do with his ability, in which case i'll label you hopelessly deluded and won't waste my time arguing with you any further.

Generally speaking, the rich will have higher IQs than the poor. That's a "fact on the ground" with which I have no argument. However, this is only true in an average sense. Among the wealthy, there will be a distribution of talents; there will be some real geniuses, some morons, and a lot in the middle. Likewise, you'll see the same among the poor. Although IQ and other talents are partly genetic, all of these talents can be developed. Consider this thought experiment: take 100 infants with rich parents and 100 infants with poor parent(s), and switch them in the maternity ward. Which set of 100 babies do you think will grow up to be more successful? Which batch is more likely to end up in prison? To make it even more realistic, provide the pregnant poor mothers with good food and health care during gestation, and make sure they are living in a safe, pleasant, location and are economically secure. Toss the pregnant rich moms into a ghetto-like world, with little money, where they get by however they can. Consider the effect that both prenatal environments will have on the children, and their long term outcomes.

I would argue that pure genetic endowment has a hell of a lot less to do with success than your environment from conception forward. One might argue that poor people may have developed various dysfunctional habits, like drug addiction, that permanently reduce their chances of success, and that this is their own fault. Plenty of rich kids get high, but you don't seem to find the highly addictive drugs in the well-to-do suburbs. One might argue that a poor woman who has a child while she is still a child herself has locked herself and her child into a cycle of poverty, and again, this is no one's fault but her own. Rich teenage girls also have sex, yet somehow avoid getting pregnant. Birth control costs money, but their respective cultures have more to do with it than anything else.

By the way, I've known some rich people who weren't worth a damn. Inheriting money doesn't make you good.

[blurb]

And, as i said, in a free enough economy, which the US still is, generally, the better a person, the more wealth he will generate and receive. It's a goddamn fact, so don't argue with it, unless you believe in the fantasy that the degree of wealth of a person, in a free enough economy, has nothing to do with his ability, in which case i'll label you hopelessly deluded and won't waste my time arguing with you any further.

Economy is very much about Evolution, which is not at all about who is best, but who is fittest for a given environment. Frankly speaking that translates mostly to whoever excels at bullshitting their way over others thrives, as competition is a stronger force than altruism.

[hivemind]

YES, IT IS FAIR. STOP WHINING AND BITCHING.

Nothing is fair, everything is about power. Poor people have numbers on their side.

[brokenportal]

So they say the ones that survive are those able to adapt best right? These days there are those well adapted to thrive in a world driven by ecomony, a set up of penny and dollar filters. As time goes on its the ones that can adapt to a world in need of more and more innovation and less and less bauble and trinket manufacturing. I think that the thinker will likely be the new wall street fat cat of the future. A wall street fat cat type is really just a really clever 3 card monte player aren't they? They displaced the ones best adapted to haul the heaviest bushels of potato's, and they replaced those best adapted to fight off a wolf and etc.