Posted 14 November 2015 - 12:48 AM
> Life extension can't be solely for the rich
The best plastic surgery can't be for the rich.
The best doctors in the world in each specialty can't be for the rich.
The safest cars in the world that go beyond minimum standards can't be for the rich.
The safest neighborhoods in the world can't be for the rich.
Body guards, butlers, & maids who indirectly extend life for those who employ them can't be for the rich.
Now let's get real...
Edited by Rib Jig, 14 November 2015 - 12:50 AM.
Posted 14 November 2015 - 02:15 AM
Ya ya....the old poverty vs wealth argument. That fails in the long term.
Once upon a time it was expensive to get vaccinated for diseases, to get lasik, to get an x-ray, etc. In the short-run, early adopters tend to be the wealthy who can afford to pay the premium that comes with buying goods with low supply. Eventually, those technologies/treatments trickle down to the masses. Patents run out, generics become available. Eventually, almost everyone can afford it. The first people to buy computers paid a hefty price for them. Now, the majority of the world has one or two computers on them at all times...and that's in the span of 35 years and something as basic as a phone. Immortality will be in far more demand by people than the latest smart phone.
Not true, that Pharma Bro guy just upped the cost of treatment for an out of patent drug to $750k from like a few hundred bucks tops... Kind ridiculous... government regulations prevent more affordable and effective versions of drugs from even becoming available as does the market demand for various drugs. Some are not available or not affordable b/c they've been largely replaced by others despite still being quite effective. It should be easy to be a generic manufacturer, just get a COA... But it's apparently alot more of that, so only the rich have access to ALL the drugs and insurance companies can decline to pay for things. The relative benefit of those living behind the technology curve is also consistently lower. By the time a generic can become available, the patient has suffered the condition for as much as 20 years. If youth were a patented pill, most of us would be 20 years older by the time we could get the generic. Many would die.
The system needs a huge overhaul. Health/Medicine should be a 4th and independent branch of government, or at least be administered by an independent branch of government with more power than the Federal Reserve. In fact the Fed should get it's orders from the Med and money should be created by commissioning research, discoveries, and the successful distribution of safe and effective medicine in order to put the health and wellbeing of people first. This also assures that in the global scheme of things that the countries who best care for their people have the most recognized wealth. Exchange rates would be set by how well a country's citizens were taken care of and their currency would have greater value simply for being better providers/discoverers. This would drive efficiency, and the burden of profiting within a given time frame would disappear, the drug would be broadly available for any purpose and made redundant for some purposes as soon as something better became available. The system as it is, is it's own wrench in the gears in this sense. Drugs much remain profitable, so if Pharma Co makes x1drug to treat xdisease, they don't have an incentive to develop/release x2drug for xdisease until either more people have xdisease or they can't profit from x1drug anymore. We could be churning out new drugs daily and all those promising things you see come across your FB wall would immediately be developed on a large and efficient scale rather than there being limited funds to fund research and discoveries. Want to be filthy stinking rich? Lay your cards on the table with the Med and get a contract to get paid by the Fed for ALL the R&D you can do. Like an all you can R&D buffet. The only limits you'll have will be determined by the human resources you can attract or cultivate. Education for the Health Sciences would be free, you'd probably get paid to do it, get things like sports car club benefits, free cutting edge cosmetics and gene therapies, and whatever else it takes for a Pharma to put your ass to work and make money off of you in the long run and there'd be no risk of Pharma defaulting on their loans and no limit to the amount of capital that could be raised. Who knows... we could actually run out of things to R&D in 50-100 years and have to reallocate all those sustainably young, healthy, cognitively enhanced and experienced scientists to new careers in space development! We'll just have to cross that astronomical unit when we get there.
So yes, we can make it cheap, sustainable, and available. Plus with enough lead time we can exponentially expand the size of our civilization to support ever growing populations and support better human outcomes than have been previously forecasted.
No contradiction. A said at first the wealthy would have it. And that it would eventually be affordable by the masses. It's simply not possible to keep this type of treatment from the masses. As soon as something is patented...the clock begins on that patent's expiration. More importantly, there are many countries where patents mean nothing and counterfeits are readily available for cheap. And a "cool" byproduct of a patent is that the process for creating the treatment is public record for everyone to see.
It's not reasonable to think that a disruptive medical advance like this would be available universally instantly. But in the span of eternity, waiting 20 years for it to be available to everyone isn't really that long.
Posted 14 November 2015 - 02:23 AM
> Life extension can't be solely for the rich
The best plastic surgery can't be for the rich.
The best doctors in the world in each specialty can't be for the rich.
The safest cars in the world that go beyond minimum standards can't be for the rich.
The safest neighborhoods in the world can't be for the rich.
Body guards, butlers, & maids who indirectly extend life for those who employ them can't be for the rich.
Now let's get real...
Yep...the rich get the best houses.....but just about all of us have a dwelling. The rich get the best cars. But just about all of us have a car. The rich get the best medical treatment. But we can all get treatment at any hospital in an emergency. The rich live in the safest neighborhoods, because they move far away from poverty.The rich can spend $120k on the best TV....but just about all of us have 3-5 TVs in our houses/apartments. Plastic surgeons in the US are pretty expensive, which is why many Americans take "medical vacations" to have procedures done outside the US.
To quote Jurassic Park..."Life finds a way". There're few biological imperatives stronger than the need to reproduce and to continue living. I still believe that despite the wealthy having the "best" access to the things we are discussing...all will eventually have "enough" access to achieve the same result.
The rich will always get the best...no argument against that...but that doesn't mean the rest of us don't get something that functions pretty close to that. I may not drive a McLaren F1....but a 2 year old Crossover SUV works just fine for me.
Posted 15 November 2015 - 08:02 PM
Ya ya....the old poverty vs wealth argument. That fails in the long term.
Once upon a time it was expensive to get vaccinated for diseases, to get lasik, to get an x-ray, etc. In the short-run, early adopters tend to be the wealthy who can afford to pay the premium that comes with buying goods with low supply. Eventually, those technologies/treatments trickle down to the masses. Patents run out, generics become available. Eventually, almost everyone can afford it. The first people to buy computers paid a hefty price for them. Now, the majority of the world has one or two computers on them at all times...and that's in the span of 35 years and something as basic as a phone. Immortality will be in far more demand by people than the latest smart phone.
Not true, that Pharma Bro guy just upped the cost of treatment for an out of patent drug to $750k from like a few hundred bucks tops... Kind ridiculous... government regulations prevent more affordable and effective versions of drugs from even becoming available as does the market demand for various drugs. Some are not available or not affordable b/c they've been largely replaced by others despite still being quite effective. It should be easy to be a generic manufacturer, just get a COA... But it's apparently alot more of that, so only the rich have access to ALL the drugs and insurance companies can decline to pay for things. The relative benefit of those living behind the technology curve is also consistently lower. By the time a generic can become available, the patient has suffered the condition for as much as 20 years. If youth were a patented pill, most of us would be 20 years older by the time we could get the generic. Many would die.
The system needs a huge overhaul. Health/Medicine should be a 4th and independent branch of government, or at least be administered by an independent branch of government with more power than the Federal Reserve. In fact the Fed should get it's orders from the Med and money should be created by commissioning research, discoveries, and the successful distribution of safe and effective medicine in order to put the health and wellbeing of people first. This also assures that in the global scheme of things that the countries who best care for their people have the most recognized wealth. Exchange rates would be set by how well a country's citizens were taken care of and their currency would have greater value simply for being better providers/discoverers. This would drive efficiency, and the burden of profiting within a given time frame would disappear, the drug would be broadly available for any purpose and made redundant for some purposes as soon as something better became available. The system as it is, is it's own wrench in the gears in this sense. Drugs much remain profitable, so if Pharma Co makes x1drug to treat xdisease, they don't have an incentive to develop/release x2drug for xdisease until either more people have xdisease or they can't profit from x1drug anymore. We could be churning out new drugs daily and all those promising things you see come across your FB wall would immediately be developed on a large and efficient scale rather than there being limited funds to fund research and discoveries. Want to be filthy stinking rich? Lay your cards on the table with the Med and get a contract to get paid by the Fed for ALL the R&D you can do. Like an all you can R&D buffet. The only limits you'll have will be determined by the human resources you can attract or cultivate. Education for the Health Sciences would be free, you'd probably get paid to do it, get things like sports car club benefits, free cutting edge cosmetics and gene therapies, and whatever else it takes for a Pharma to put your ass to work and make money off of you in the long run and there'd be no risk of Pharma defaulting on their loans and no limit to the amount of capital that could be raised. Who knows... we could actually run out of things to R&D in 50-100 years and have to reallocate all those sustainably young, healthy, cognitively enhanced and experienced scientists to new careers in space development! We'll just have to cross that astronomical unit when we get there.
So yes, we can make it cheap, sustainable, and available. Plus with enough lead time we can exponentially expand the size of our civilization to support ever growing populations and support better human outcomes than have been previously forecasted.
No contradiction. A said at first the wealthy would have it. And that it would eventually be affordable by the masses. It's simply not possible to keep this type of treatment from the masses. As soon as something is patented...the clock begins on that patent's expiration. More importantly, there are many countries where patents mean nothing and counterfeits are readily available for cheap. And a "cool" byproduct of a patent is that the process for creating the treatment is public record for everyone to see.
It's not reasonable to think that a disruptive medical advance like this would be available universally instantly. But in the span of eternity, waiting 20 years for it to be available to everyone isn't really that long.
The idea behind a government subsidy is that the investment is recovered instantly and economies of scale are also created instantly, so the product is immediately affordable. At the very least, the cure for aging should fit this model. The casualties, loss of health, and cost to the system in terms of treating all the other health related ills that those who don't have the aging cure more than justifies the cost of mass producing the cure for aging. After that, you've freed up 95% of the industry to reallocate to those points of dissatisfaction that remain, but all of that is still on a lesser path than the one I previously described. If there's something to it besides elitism, could you make it more clear? I'm unable to see it. Is it satisfying to laugh at the sick and the dead? 100,000 people die every day. Over 20 years that's 730,000,000 people dead just so the rich can have it first. Granted, not all of them may want to live forever, but why would that happen to be the case? Why should it be the case?
Was it reasonable to think vaccines shouldn't be universally available? This is essentially the vaccine to 95% of health problems. We can't afford not to make it common place and any withholding of it is just a waste of resources and unnecessary suffering.
Posted 15 November 2015 - 08:16 PM
> Over 20 years that's 730,000,000 people dead just so the rich can have it first
I blame the rich that I don't have a Rolls Royce.
I blame the rich that I don't always fly first class.
I blame the rich that I don't live in 5* hotels 24/7/364.
Its easier than working hard to be rich...
There's no gang of rich people controlling cryonics.
Alcor, the current best quality service, MUST charge to cover expenses
plus a reasonable profit converted to salaries...
Edited by Rib Jig, 15 November 2015 - 08:17 PM.
Posted 15 November 2015 - 09:58 PM
Ya ya....the old poverty vs wealth argument. That fails in the long term.
Once upon a time it was expensive to get vaccinated for diseases, to get lasik, to get an x-ray, etc. In the short-run, early adopters tend to be the wealthy who can afford to pay the premium that comes with buying goods with low supply. Eventually, those technologies/treatments trickle down to the masses. Patents run out, generics become available. Eventually, almost everyone can afford it. The first people to buy computers paid a hefty price for them. Now, the majority of the world has one or two computers on them at all times...and that's in the span of 35 years and something as basic as a phone. Immortality will be in far more demand by people than the latest smart phone.
Not true, that Pharma Bro guy just upped the cost of treatment for an out of patent drug to $750k from like a few hundred bucks tops... Kind ridiculous... government regulations prevent more affordable and effective versions of drugs from even becoming available as does the market demand for various drugs. Some are not available or not affordable b/c they've been largely replaced by others despite still being quite effective. It should be easy to be a generic manufacturer, just get a COA... But it's apparently alot more of that, so only the rich have access to ALL the drugs and insurance companies can decline to pay for things. The relative benefit of those living behind the technology curve is also consistently lower. By the time a generic can become available, the patient has suffered the condition for as much as 20 years. If youth were a patented pill, most of us would be 20 years older by the time we could get the generic. Many would die.
The system needs a huge overhaul. Health/Medicine should be a 4th and independent branch of government, or at least be administered by an independent branch of government with more power than the Federal Reserve. In fact the Fed should get it's orders from the Med and money should be created by commissioning research, discoveries, and the successful distribution of safe and effective medicine in order to put the health and wellbeing of people first. This also assures that in the global scheme of things that the countries who best care for their people have the most recognized wealth. Exchange rates would be set by how well a country's citizens were taken care of and their currency would have greater value simply for being better providers/discoverers. This would drive efficiency, and the burden of profiting within a given time frame would disappear, the drug would be broadly available for any purpose and made redundant for some purposes as soon as something better became available. The system as it is, is it's own wrench in the gears in this sense. Drugs much remain profitable, so if Pharma Co makes x1drug to treat xdisease, they don't have an incentive to develop/release x2drug for xdisease until either more people have xdisease or they can't profit from x1drug anymore. We could be churning out new drugs daily and all those promising things you see come across your FB wall would immediately be developed on a large and efficient scale rather than there being limited funds to fund research and discoveries. Want to be filthy stinking rich? Lay your cards on the table with the Med and get a contract to get paid by the Fed for ALL the R&D you can do. Like an all you can R&D buffet. The only limits you'll have will be determined by the human resources you can attract or cultivate. Education for the Health Sciences would be free, you'd probably get paid to do it, get things like sports car club benefits, free cutting edge cosmetics and gene therapies, and whatever else it takes for a Pharma to put your ass to work and make money off of you in the long run and there'd be no risk of Pharma defaulting on their loans and no limit to the amount of capital that could be raised. Who knows... we could actually run out of things to R&D in 50-100 years and have to reallocate all those sustainably young, healthy, cognitively enhanced and experienced scientists to new careers in space development! We'll just have to cross that astronomical unit when we get there.
So yes, we can make it cheap, sustainable, and available. Plus with enough lead time we can exponentially expand the size of our civilization to support ever growing populations and support better human outcomes than have been previously forecasted.
No contradiction. A said at first the wealthy would have it. And that it would eventually be affordable by the masses. It's simply not possible to keep this type of treatment from the masses. As soon as something is patented...the clock begins on that patent's expiration. More importantly, there are many countries where patents mean nothing and counterfeits are readily available for cheap. And a "cool" byproduct of a patent is that the process for creating the treatment is public record for everyone to see.
It's not reasonable to think that a disruptive medical advance like this would be available universally instantly. But in the span of eternity, waiting 20 years for it to be available to everyone isn't really that long.
The idea behind a government subsidy is that the investment is recovered instantly and economies of scale are also created instantly, so the product is immediately affordable. At the very least, the cure for aging should fit this model. The casualties, loss of health, and cost to the system in terms of treating all the other health related ills that those who don't have the aging cure more than justifies the cost of mass producing the cure for aging. After that, you've freed up 95% of the industry to reallocate to those points of dissatisfaction that remain, but all of that is still on a lesser path than the one I previously described. If there's something to it besides elitism, could you make it more clear? I'm unable to see it. Is it satisfying to laugh at the sick and the dead? 100,000 people die every day. Over 20 years that's 730,000,000 people dead just so the rich can have it first. Granted, not all of them may want to live forever, but why would that happen to be the case? Why should it be the case?
Was it reasonable to think vaccines shouldn't be universally available? This is essentially the vaccine to 95% of health problems. We can't afford not to make it common place and any withholding of it is just a waste of resources and unnecessary suffering.
OK...just to clarify our positions. The original question was whether or not "immortality" treatments should be available to everyone.
Rib Jig says that it won't happen.
I say that not only should it happen, but that you can't stop it from happening. The only question, then is how long it takes to be available.
You say that it should happen immediately, with no delay of availability among people simply because of cost.
I believe that any delay between "exclusive" availability and widespread availability would come from:
1. Penetration pricing from the various patent holders. (It's likely that initial anit-aging treatment will be cumulative and will not be necessarily "owned" by one company.) While they hold these patents, they can charge pretty much whatever they want. The government might not be willing to shell out $$ to subsidize for a variety of reasons. It may worsen unemployment levels (since a large number of people will be able to work again, and would probably need to considering how underfunded retirement is.) Perhaps people could sign away their right to social security in exchange for a number of treatments as a means of payment?
2. There would likely need to be social policy changes (around reproduction rights, retirement, healthcare, education, marriage, economic, criminal justice, natural resource sustainability) that result from the possibility of "immortality". Some of those changes would likely need to be worked out before it was "rolled out" planet-wide. If the "treatment" became available tomorrow, and the entire world received it the day after, there would be some huge economic repercussions for humanity. What would happen in countries where access to food was already limited? Is social security obligated to pay retirement benefits to an individual forever? if people were "stuck" at age 25 forever and never died of old age, what would happen to the overall birthrate? It might drop initially, since people would always feel that they "had plenty of time" to be parents. But as more and more people hovered at that age, the population would eventually start to explode without birth constraint policies.
I have faith that the pharma companies who develop these technologies will spend a lot of money on determining the ideal penetration pricing structure for their patented treatments. However, the desire to continue living is so strong that the higher they price the treatment, the more likely people will be to use blackmarket/counterfeit options that achieve the same results.
Posted 15 November 2015 - 11:02 PM
> Rib Jig says that it won't happen.
No -- Rib Jig said its not happening now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOW NOW NOW!!!!!!!!!!! 
And that there is always likely to be a range
of cryonics+revival services offered & the
highest standard will always cost much more
than the lowest standard.
The current lowest standard is nearly free, but no guarantee:
a. get in freezer or go to permafrost location
b. freeze to death, probably inside plastic bag
c. leave message, hope for free revival, probably ~2200
d. hope your crude cryonics scheme didn't blow a hole in your memory & personality...
Posted 16 November 2015 - 01:15 AM
Perhaps there is a difference in our definition of "immortality". Cryonics is the suspension of life. An argument can be made that if you can't experience each day, you're not really living a life. You're just (hopefully) in a state where you can be restored at a later date in order to resume life. That's a far cry from immortal....though it may well be a bridge to the days when immortality treatments are available. I'm thinking of treatments that reverse/undo the damage from aging so that the number of years that you experience is increased by hundreds or thousands of years (or much more). Is good cryonics available to wealthy people relative to poor people? Sure. Will there be "good" vs "bad" immortality treatments? I'm not so sure.
Since immortality will likely be achieved through a series of "incremental" improvements in medicine, it follows that the wealthy will have a first crack at those treatments because of cost restrictions. But the topic of this question is should immortality be withheld from people. I see Rig's response is that Cryonics is a current example where it is obviously not available to all. But it's not necessarily clear that Cryonics doesn't kill the subject or render them effectively dead. Which is why everyone in the world isn't clamoring to risk the rest of their "good" years to be frozen while they are healthy...and people with only bad years left may lean towards embracing the finality of death since the alternative is living with a number of ailments/trouble.
But what if you were 65...your grand kids are about to start 1st grade...and a treatment is available that will "eliminate" the metabolic damage your body has sustained over the last 20 years by refreshing your DNA to an earlier snapshot of yourself...effectively making you 40-45 again. You can have this treatment every 20 years or so, and it has seen consistently successful results over the last few years. On a scale of 1-10, you going to sign up if you can afford it? If you can't afford it in the US, but could get it in Mexico or China for 1/20th the price, would you "take a vacation" and come back feeling/looking much younger?
Posted 16 November 2015 - 01:29 AM
> Which is why everyone in the world isn't clamoring to risk the rest of their "good" years to be frozen while they are healthy.
Healthy persons cannot cryonize ANYWHERE in US now.
Its called suicide, murder.
Its against law in ALL US states...
What will suddenly boost popularity of cryonics services, IMO:
news that A-list celebrities have signed up;
Larry King considering it, but not yet signed up;
he's not going to spike interest, IMO, as he's butt of jokes about being REAL old...
imagine if Kanye announced he had a cryonic plan to live forever...
Edited by Rib Jig, 16 November 2015 - 01:31 AM.
Posted 16 November 2015 - 02:05 AM
And to be more precize, your lowest standart is absolutely wrong
You will reach only -20C temperatures and you will not be able to stop many chemical reactions in your body and will face loss of DNA, protein detoriations, and others. You will turn simply into a mummy, surrounded by ice.
Posted 16 November 2015 - 02:28 AM
Posted 16 November 2015 - 02:53 AM
> your lowest standart is absolutely wrong...You will turn simply into a mummy, surrounded by ice.
It is absolutely right!!!!!
a. it is very cheap
b. it requires revival at a time when scientific advances allow
for successful revival of complete mummies wrapped in plastic
& THAT TIME WILL COME, even if 2300, 2400, or whenever
But time it takes doesn't matter whether Alcor A+ standards
or frozen-body-in-plastic-wrap standards because both
persons will experience nearly NO passage of time -- the experience will
be "Oh my God, I'm dying" followed almost instantly by "Oh my God, I'm revived!!!!"
Edited by Rib Jig, 16 November 2015 - 02:55 AM.
Posted 16 November 2015 - 05:08 AM
Posted 16 November 2015 - 03:46 PM
> Over 20 years that's 730,000,000 people dead just so the rich can have it first
I blame the rich that I don't have a Rolls Royce.
I blame the rich that I don't always fly first class.
I blame the rich that I don't live in 5* hotels 24/7/364.
Its easier than working hard to be rich...
There's no gang of rich people controlling cryonics.
Alcor, the current best quality service, MUST charge to cover expenses
plus a reasonable profit converted to salaries...
The argument flew over your head, you're focusing on stupid material things rather than what's important. No one dies when they don't get a RR, or when they have to fly coach, or stay in a <5* hotel... People die when you want life extension as a privilege for your (future) wealth. It shows me that you really don't understand what the actual arguments for and against cryonics and rejuvenation are. I think the applicable euphemism is that you're not seeing the forest for the trees? Something like that? But there's a world full of pieces and your forcing you puzzle piece in with a golden hammer.
Have you seen Ralph Merkle's plans for the Really Big Dewar? It's model allows for $5k whole body cryonics using the Alcor procedures at economy of scale. The people who first envisioned cryonics imagined that it would be for everyone.
Posted 16 November 2015 - 04:05 PM
Ya ya....the old poverty vs wealth argument. That fails in the long term.
Once upon a time it was expensive to get vaccinated for diseases, to get lasik, to get an x-ray, etc. In the short-run, early adopters tend to be the wealthy who can afford to pay the premium that comes with buying goods with low supply. Eventually, those technologies/treatments trickle down to the masses. Patents run out, generics become available. Eventually, almost everyone can afford it. The first people to buy computers paid a hefty price for them. Now, the majority of the world has one or two computers on them at all times...and that's in the span of 35 years and something as basic as a phone. Immortality will be in far more demand by people than the latest smart phone.
Not true, that Pharma Bro guy just upped the cost of treatment for an out of patent drug to $750k from like a few hundred bucks tops... Kind ridiculous... government regulations prevent more affordable and effective versions of drugs from even becoming available as does the market demand for various drugs. Some are not available or not affordable b/c they've been largely replaced by others despite still being quite effective. It should be easy to be a generic manufacturer, just get a COA... But it's apparently alot more of that, so only the rich have access to ALL the drugs and insurance companies can decline to pay for things. The relative benefit of those living behind the technology curve is also consistently lower. By the time a generic can become available, the patient has suffered the condition for as much as 20 years. If youth were a patented pill, most of us would be 20 years older by the time we could get the generic. Many would die.
The system needs a huge overhaul. Health/Medicine should be a 4th and independent branch of government, or at least be administered by an independent branch of government with more power than the Federal Reserve. In fact the Fed should get it's orders from the Med and money should be created by commissioning research, discoveries, and the successful distribution of safe and effective medicine in order to put the health and wellbeing of people first. This also assures that in the global scheme of things that the countries who best care for their people have the most recognized wealth. Exchange rates would be set by how well a country's citizens were taken care of and their currency would have greater value simply for being better providers/discoverers. This would drive efficiency, and the burden of profiting within a given time frame would disappear, the drug would be broadly available for any purpose and made redundant for some purposes as soon as something better became available. The system as it is, is it's own wrench in the gears in this sense. Drugs much remain profitable, so if Pharma Co makes x1drug to treat xdisease, they don't have an incentive to develop/release x2drug for xdisease until either more people have xdisease or they can't profit from x1drug anymore. We could be churning out new drugs daily and all those promising things you see come across your FB wall would immediately be developed on a large and efficient scale rather than there being limited funds to fund research and discoveries. Want to be filthy stinking rich? Lay your cards on the table with the Med and get a contract to get paid by the Fed for ALL the R&D you can do. Like an all you can R&D buffet. The only limits you'll have will be determined by the human resources you can attract or cultivate. Education for the Health Sciences would be free, you'd probably get paid to do it, get things like sports car club benefits, free cutting edge cosmetics and gene therapies, and whatever else it takes for a Pharma to put your ass to work and make money off of you in the long run and there'd be no risk of Pharma defaulting on their loans and no limit to the amount of capital that could be raised. Who knows... we could actually run out of things to R&D in 50-100 years and have to reallocate all those sustainably young, healthy, cognitively enhanced and experienced scientists to new careers in space development! We'll just have to cross that astronomical unit when we get there.
So yes, we can make it cheap, sustainable, and available. Plus with enough lead time we can exponentially expand the size of our civilization to support ever growing populations and support better human outcomes than have been previously forecasted.
No contradiction. A said at first the wealthy would have it. And that it would eventually be affordable by the masses. It's simply not possible to keep this type of treatment from the masses. As soon as something is patented...the clock begins on that patent's expiration. More importantly, there are many countries where patents mean nothing and counterfeits are readily available for cheap. And a "cool" byproduct of a patent is that the process for creating the treatment is public record for everyone to see.
It's not reasonable to think that a disruptive medical advance like this would be available universally instantly. But in the span of eternity, waiting 20 years for it to be available to everyone isn't really that long.
The idea behind a government subsidy is that the investment is recovered instantly and economies of scale are also created instantly, so the product is immediately affordable. At the very least, the cure for aging should fit this model. The casualties, loss of health, and cost to the system in terms of treating all the other health related ills that those who don't have the aging cure more than justifies the cost of mass producing the cure for aging. After that, you've freed up 95% of the industry to reallocate to those points of dissatisfaction that remain, but all of that is still on a lesser path than the one I previously described. If there's something to it besides elitism, could you make it more clear? I'm unable to see it. Is it satisfying to laugh at the sick and the dead? 100,000 people die every day. Over 20 years that's 730,000,000 people dead just so the rich can have it first. Granted, not all of them may want to live forever, but why would that happen to be the case? Why should it be the case?
Was it reasonable to think vaccines shouldn't be universally available? This is essentially the vaccine to 95% of health problems. We can't afford not to make it common place and any withholding of it is just a waste of resources and unnecessary suffering.
OK...just to clarify our positions. The original question was whether or not "immortality" treatments should be available to everyone.
Rib Jig says that it won't happen.
I say that not only should it happen, but that you can't stop it from happening. The only question, then is how long it takes to be available.
You say that it should happen immediately, with no delay of availability among people simply because of cost.
I believe that any delay between "exclusive" availability and widespread availability would come from:
1. Penetration pricing from the various patent holders. (It's likely that initial anit-aging treatment will be cumulative and will not be necessarily "owned" by one company.) While they hold these patents, they can charge pretty much whatever they want. The government might not be willing to shell out $$ to subsidize for a variety of reasons. It may worsen unemployment levels (since a large number of people will be able to work again, and would probably need to considering how underfunded retirement is.) Perhaps people could sign away their right to social security in exchange for a number of treatments as a means of payment?
2. There would likely need to be social policy changes (around reproduction rights, retirement, healthcare, education, marriage, economic, criminal justice, natural resource sustainability) that result from the possibility of "immortality". Some of those changes would likely need to be worked out before it was "rolled out" planet-wide. If the "treatment" became available tomorrow, and the entire world received it the day after, there would be some huge economic repercussions for humanity. What would happen in countries where access to food was already limited? Is social security obligated to pay retirement benefits to an individual forever? if people were "stuck" at age 25 forever and never died of old age, what would happen to the overall birthrate? It might drop initially, since people would always feel that they "had plenty of time" to be parents. But as more and more people hovered at that age, the population would eventually start to explode without birth constraint policies.
I have faith that the pharma companies who develop these technologies will spend a lot of money on determining the ideal penetration pricing structure for their patented treatments. However, the desire to continue living is so strong that the higher they price the treatment, the more likely people will be to use blackmarket/counterfeit options that achieve the same results.
But shouldn't the government just license or buy the patents for the public good? I'm not saying that we develop it in isolation, we need also to develop ethical birth control technologies. Let's not even give the black market a chance. People shouldn't have to die because something that should be given to everyone is being withheld.
Posted 16 November 2015 - 04:11 PM
Perhaps there is a difference in our definition of "immortality". Cryonics is the suspension of life. An argument can be made that if you can't experience each day, you're not really living a life. You're just (hopefully) in a state where you can be restored at a later date in order to resume life. That's a far cry from immortal....though it may well be a bridge to the days when immortality treatments are available. I'm thinking of treatments that reverse/undo the damage from aging so that the number of years that you experience is increased by hundreds or thousands of years (or much more). Is good cryonics available to wealthy people relative to poor people? Sure. Will there be "good" vs "bad" immortality treatments? I'm not so sure.
Since immortality will likely be achieved through a series of "incremental" improvements in medicine, it follows that the wealthy will have a first crack at those treatments because of cost restrictions. But the topic of this question is should immortality be withheld from people. I see Rig's response is that Cryonics is a current example where it is obviously not available to all. But it's not necessarily clear that Cryonics doesn't kill the subject or render them effectively dead. Which is why everyone in the world isn't clamoring to risk the rest of their "good" years to be frozen while they are healthy...and people with only bad years left may lean towards embracing the finality of death since the alternative is living with a number of ailments/trouble.
But what if you were 65...your grand kids are about to start 1st grade...and a treatment is available that will "eliminate" the metabolic damage your body has sustained over the last 20 years by refreshing your DNA to an earlier snapshot of yourself...effectively making you 40-45 again. You can have this treatment every 20 years or so, and it has seen consistently successful results over the last few years. On a scale of 1-10, you going to sign up if you can afford it? If you can't afford it in the US, but could get it in Mexico or China for 1/20th the price, would you "take a vacation" and come back feeling/looking much younger?
Vacation? Yes? Anytime I can have fun and get something I want, I'm going to want both 
But seriously, if the government immediately buys and distributes your incremental immortality patent, you make a ton of money NOW NOW NOW! Not only that, but you're also incentivized to do it again and again and again and again and make it perfect and better each time. Though you could start micro incrementalizing it and get really fricken annoying about it... I've seen tech companies do that and have fallen off of their bandwagon. But then the competition would do it better and faster.
Posted 16 November 2015 - 04:18 PM
Mummies will be revivable in future, despite brain molecular degradation.
Brain molecular degradation will be reversible.
Like solving a complicated crime.
In fact, its prototype already exists.
Namely, science's ability to rewind
the history of The Universe back to its black hole origin!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted 16 November 2015 - 04:52 PM
Ya ya....the old poverty vs wealth argument. That fails in the long term.
Once upon a time it was expensive to get vaccinated for diseases, to get lasik, to get an x-ray, etc. In the short-run, early adopters tend to be the wealthy who can afford to pay the premium that comes with buying goods with low supply. Eventually, those technologies/treatments trickle down to the masses. Patents run out, generics become available. Eventually, almost everyone can afford it. The first people to buy computers paid a hefty price for them. Now, the majority of the world has one or two computers on them at all times...and that's in the span of 35 years and something as basic as a phone. Immortality will be in far more demand by people than the latest smart phone.
Not true, that Pharma Bro guy just upped the cost of treatment for an out of patent drug to $750k from like a few hundred bucks tops... Kind ridiculous... government regulations prevent more affordable and effective versions of drugs from even becoming available as does the market demand for various drugs. Some are not available or not affordable b/c they've been largely replaced by others despite still being quite effective. It should be easy to be a generic manufacturer, just get a COA... But it's apparently alot more of that, so only the rich have access to ALL the drugs and insurance companies can decline to pay for things. The relative benefit of those living behind the technology curve is also consistently lower. By the time a generic can become available, the patient has suffered the condition for as much as 20 years. If youth were a patented pill, most of us would be 20 years older by the time we could get the generic. Many would die.
The system needs a huge overhaul. Health/Medicine should be a 4th and independent branch of government, or at least be administered by an independent branch of government with more power than the Federal Reserve. In fact the Fed should get it's orders from the Med and money should be created by commissioning research, discoveries, and the successful distribution of safe and effective medicine in order to put the health and wellbeing of people first. This also assures that in the global scheme of things that the countries who best care for their people have the most recognized wealth. Exchange rates would be set by how well a country's citizens were taken care of and their currency would have greater value simply for being better providers/discoverers. This would drive efficiency, and the burden of profiting within a given time frame would disappear, the drug would be broadly available for any purpose and made redundant for some purposes as soon as something better became available. The system as it is, is it's own wrench in the gears in this sense. Drugs much remain profitable, so if Pharma Co makes x1drug to treat xdisease, they don't have an incentive to develop/release x2drug for xdisease until either more people have xdisease or they can't profit from x1drug anymore. We could be churning out new drugs daily and all those promising things you see come across your FB wall would immediately be developed on a large and efficient scale rather than there being limited funds to fund research and discoveries. Want to be filthy stinking rich? Lay your cards on the table with the Med and get a contract to get paid by the Fed for ALL the R&D you can do. Like an all you can R&D buffet. The only limits you'll have will be determined by the human resources you can attract or cultivate. Education for the Health Sciences would be free, you'd probably get paid to do it, get things like sports car club benefits, free cutting edge cosmetics and gene therapies, and whatever else it takes for a Pharma to put your ass to work and make money off of you in the long run and there'd be no risk of Pharma defaulting on their loans and no limit to the amount of capital that could be raised. Who knows... we could actually run out of things to R&D in 50-100 years and have to reallocate all those sustainably young, healthy, cognitively enhanced and experienced scientists to new careers in space development! We'll just have to cross that astronomical unit when we get there.
So yes, we can make it cheap, sustainable, and available. Plus with enough lead time we can exponentially expand the size of our civilization to support ever growing populations and support better human outcomes than have been previously forecasted.
No contradiction. A said at first the wealthy would have it. And that it would eventually be affordable by the masses. It's simply not possible to keep this type of treatment from the masses. As soon as something is patented...the clock begins on that patent's expiration. More importantly, there are many countries where patents mean nothing and counterfeits are readily available for cheap. And a "cool" byproduct of a patent is that the process for creating the treatment is public record for everyone to see.
It's not reasonable to think that a disruptive medical advance like this would be available universally instantly. But in the span of eternity, waiting 20 years for it to be available to everyone isn't really that long.
The idea behind a government subsidy is that the investment is recovered instantly and economies of scale are also created instantly, so the product is immediately affordable. At the very least, the cure for aging should fit this model. The casualties, loss of health, and cost to the system in terms of treating all the other health related ills that those who don't have the aging cure more than justifies the cost of mass producing the cure for aging. After that, you've freed up 95% of the industry to reallocate to those points of dissatisfaction that remain, but all of that is still on a lesser path than the one I previously described. If there's something to it besides elitism, could you make it more clear? I'm unable to see it. Is it satisfying to laugh at the sick and the dead? 100,000 people die every day. Over 20 years that's 730,000,000 people dead just so the rich can have it first. Granted, not all of them may want to live forever, but why would that happen to be the case? Why should it be the case?
Was it reasonable to think vaccines shouldn't be universally available? This is essentially the vaccine to 95% of health problems. We can't afford not to make it common place and any withholding of it is just a waste of resources and unnecessary suffering.
OK...just to clarify our positions. The original question was whether or not "immortality" treatments should be available to everyone.
Rib Jig says that it won't happen.
I say that not only should it happen, but that you can't stop it from happening. The only question, then is how long it takes to be available.
You say that it should happen immediately, with no delay of availability among people simply because of cost.
I believe that any delay between "exclusive" availability and widespread availability would come from:
1. Penetration pricing from the various patent holders. (It's likely that initial anit-aging treatment will be cumulative and will not be necessarily "owned" by one company.) While they hold these patents, they can charge pretty much whatever they want. The government might not be willing to shell out $$ to subsidize for a variety of reasons. It may worsen unemployment levels (since a large number of people will be able to work again, and would probably need to considering how underfunded retirement is.) Perhaps people could sign away their right to social security in exchange for a number of treatments as a means of payment?
2. There would likely need to be social policy changes (around reproduction rights, retirement, healthcare, education, marriage, economic, criminal justice, natural resource sustainability) that result from the possibility of "immortality". Some of those changes would likely need to be worked out before it was "rolled out" planet-wide. If the "treatment" became available tomorrow, and the entire world received it the day after, there would be some huge economic repercussions for humanity. What would happen in countries where access to food was already limited? Is social security obligated to pay retirement benefits to an individual forever? if people were "stuck" at age 25 forever and never died of old age, what would happen to the overall birthrate? It might drop initially, since people would always feel that they "had plenty of time" to be parents. But as more and more people hovered at that age, the population would eventually start to explode without birth constraint policies.
I have faith that the pharma companies who develop these technologies will spend a lot of money on determining the ideal penetration pricing structure for their patented treatments. However, the desire to continue living is so strong that the higher they price the treatment, the more likely people will be to use blackmarket/counterfeit options that achieve the same results.
But shouldn't the government just license or buy the patents for the public good? I'm not saying that we develop it in isolation, we need also to develop ethical birth control technologies. Let's not even give the black market a chance. People shouldn't have to die because something that should be given to everyone is being withheld.
Maybe. But they have no legal right or option to buy/license the patent if the patent holder doesn't wish to sell/license it. And let's just say that we're talking about the US government. Do you see the US then giving free access to this technology to every other citizen of Earth? There are probably GeoPolitical reasons why you don't want the entire world to have access to life extension treatments immediately. Countries with existing severe food/water/resource shortages could experience humanitarian crises of varying magnitudes that would lead to extensive military conflict (of the type we already see) around the world.
You are right that people shouldn't have to die because of something that should be given to everyone is being withheld. Victims of malaria, tuberculosis, measles, and the like would also likely agree with you. But the fact is that it does happen today already despite very wealthy people dedicating significant resources to minimize/eliminate those pointless casualties. If you abstract the argument up one level...we could be addressing the question of whether or not anyone anywhere should be denied a life-saving (and by definition a life extending) treatment for any illness (whether a virus, bacteria, or old age). The answer is probably not, but it happens everyday. Slowly, over time, we are making progress towards making sure those life saving treatment make it to everyone who needs them. The polio vaccine was first discovered in the 1950s, and it's taken about 65 years to get close to eradicating it. Smallpox wasn't eradicated overnight either.
Even if the US Government purchased/licensed it and offered to make it freely available to everyone...some governments would still deny their citizens the opportunity to receive those treatments because of deeply held religious views. Do you think the Pope would "bless" the decision of Catholics to pursue immortality? Do you think North Korea would allow its citizens to receive a treatment from the US that gave them "eternal" life? What would that do to their decades of brainwashing that the US is evil and their fearless leader is their God? The world is such a complex place, that there will inevitably be some people who do not have early access to these types of treatments...and those people will likely be poor, religious, or oppressed in some way.
It can/should happen....and if treatments are shown to be effective, they can/should happen in the fastest way possible. I've not considered Cryonics to be a very viable form of achieving immortality as I'm not aware of anyone who has been frozen for an extended time (like 1 or more years) and then brought back as a successful test case. Current science seems to indicate that Cryogenics in it's current form results in massive cell damage from rupture from ice crystals that form inside the cells. The subject becomes a mass of frozen, ruptured dead tissue that is preserved in that damaged state. At the end of my life, absent any other alternatives, I'd probably opt for Cryo treatment anyway, since worst case I'm still just as dead as I would be had I not tried. But I'd much rather survive to a point where either the cryogenics process has been successfully proven to work or until I can begin receiving incremental life extension treatments instead.
Posted 17 November 2015 - 01:39 PM
Ya ya....the old poverty vs wealth argument. That fails in the long term.
Once upon a time it was expensive to get vaccinated for diseases, to get lasik, to get an x-ray, etc. In the short-run, early adopters tend to be the wealthy who can afford to pay the premium that comes with buying goods with low supply. Eventually, those technologies/treatments trickle down to the masses. Patents run out, generics become available. Eventually, almost everyone can afford it. The first people to buy computers paid a hefty price for them. Now, the majority of the world has one or two computers on them at all times...and that's in the span of 35 years and something as basic as a phone. Immortality will be in far more demand by people than the latest smart phone.
Not true, that Pharma Bro guy just upped the cost of treatment for an out of patent drug to $750k from like a few hundred bucks tops... Kind ridiculous... government regulations prevent more affordable and effective versions of drugs from even becoming available as does the market demand for various drugs. Some are not available or not affordable b/c they've been largely replaced by others despite still being quite effective. It should be easy to be a generic manufacturer, just get a COA... But it's apparently alot more of that, so only the rich have access to ALL the drugs and insurance companies can decline to pay for things. The relative benefit of those living behind the technology curve is also consistently lower. By the time a generic can become available, the patient has suffered the condition for as much as 20 years. If youth were a patented pill, most of us would be 20 years older by the time we could get the generic. Many would die.
The system needs a huge overhaul. Health/Medicine should be a 4th and independent branch of government, or at least be administered by an independent branch of government with more power than the Federal Reserve. In fact the Fed should get it's orders from the Med and money should be created by commissioning research, discoveries, and the successful distribution of safe and effective medicine in order to put the health and wellbeing of people first. This also assures that in the global scheme of things that the countries who best care for their people have the most recognized wealth. Exchange rates would be set by how well a country's citizens were taken care of and their currency would have greater value simply for being better providers/discoverers. This would drive efficiency, and the burden of profiting within a given time frame would disappear, the drug would be broadly available for any purpose and made redundant for some purposes as soon as something better became available. The system as it is, is it's own wrench in the gears in this sense. Drugs much remain profitable, so if Pharma Co makes x1drug to treat xdisease, they don't have an incentive to develop/release x2drug for xdisease until either more people have xdisease or they can't profit from x1drug anymore. We could be churning out new drugs daily and all those promising things you see come across your FB wall would immediately be developed on a large and efficient scale rather than there being limited funds to fund research and discoveries. Want to be filthy stinking rich? Lay your cards on the table with the Med and get a contract to get paid by the Fed for ALL the R&D you can do. Like an all you can R&D buffet. The only limits you'll have will be determined by the human resources you can attract or cultivate. Education for the Health Sciences would be free, you'd probably get paid to do it, get things like sports car club benefits, free cutting edge cosmetics and gene therapies, and whatever else it takes for a Pharma to put your ass to work and make money off of you in the long run and there'd be no risk of Pharma defaulting on their loans and no limit to the amount of capital that could be raised. Who knows... we could actually run out of things to R&D in 50-100 years and have to reallocate all those sustainably young, healthy, cognitively enhanced and experienced scientists to new careers in space development! We'll just have to cross that astronomical unit when we get there.
So yes, we can make it cheap, sustainable, and available. Plus with enough lead time we can exponentially expand the size of our civilization to support ever growing populations and support better human outcomes than have been previously forecasted.
No contradiction. A said at first the wealthy would have it. And that it would eventually be affordable by the masses. It's simply not possible to keep this type of treatment from the masses. As soon as something is patented...the clock begins on that patent's expiration. More importantly, there are many countries where patents mean nothing and counterfeits are readily available for cheap. And a "cool" byproduct of a patent is that the process for creating the treatment is public record for everyone to see.
It's not reasonable to think that a disruptive medical advance like this would be available universally instantly. But in the span of eternity, waiting 20 years for it to be available to everyone isn't really that long.
The idea behind a government subsidy is that the investment is recovered instantly and economies of scale are also created instantly, so the product is immediately affordable. At the very least, the cure for aging should fit this model. The casualties, loss of health, and cost to the system in terms of treating all the other health related ills that those who don't have the aging cure more than justifies the cost of mass producing the cure for aging. After that, you've freed up 95% of the industry to reallocate to those points of dissatisfaction that remain, but all of that is still on a lesser path than the one I previously described. If there's something to it besides elitism, could you make it more clear? I'm unable to see it. Is it satisfying to laugh at the sick and the dead? 100,000 people die every day. Over 20 years that's 730,000,000 people dead just so the rich can have it first. Granted, not all of them may want to live forever, but why would that happen to be the case? Why should it be the case?
Was it reasonable to think vaccines shouldn't be universally available? This is essentially the vaccine to 95% of health problems. We can't afford not to make it common place and any withholding of it is just a waste of resources and unnecessary suffering.
OK...just to clarify our positions. The original question was whether or not "immortality" treatments should be available to everyone.
Rib Jig says that it won't happen.
I say that not only should it happen, but that you can't stop it from happening. The only question, then is how long it takes to be available.
You say that it should happen immediately, with no delay of availability among people simply because of cost.
I believe that any delay between "exclusive" availability and widespread availability would come from:
1. Penetration pricing from the various patent holders. (It's likely that initial anit-aging treatment will be cumulative and will not be necessarily "owned" by one company.) While they hold these patents, they can charge pretty much whatever they want. The government might not be willing to shell out $$ to subsidize for a variety of reasons. It may worsen unemployment levels (since a large number of people will be able to work again, and would probably need to considering how underfunded retirement is.) Perhaps people could sign away their right to social security in exchange for a number of treatments as a means of payment?
2. There would likely need to be social policy changes (around reproduction rights, retirement, healthcare, education, marriage, economic, criminal justice, natural resource sustainability) that result from the possibility of "immortality". Some of those changes would likely need to be worked out before it was "rolled out" planet-wide. If the "treatment" became available tomorrow, and the entire world received it the day after, there would be some huge economic repercussions for humanity. What would happen in countries where access to food was already limited? Is social security obligated to pay retirement benefits to an individual forever? if people were "stuck" at age 25 forever and never died of old age, what would happen to the overall birthrate? It might drop initially, since people would always feel that they "had plenty of time" to be parents. But as more and more people hovered at that age, the population would eventually start to explode without birth constraint policies.
I have faith that the pharma companies who develop these technologies will spend a lot of money on determining the ideal penetration pricing structure for their patented treatments. However, the desire to continue living is so strong that the higher they price the treatment, the more likely people will be to use blackmarket/counterfeit options that achieve the same results.
But shouldn't the government just license or buy the patents for the public good? I'm not saying that we develop it in isolation, we need also to develop ethical birth control technologies. Let's not even give the black market a chance. People shouldn't have to die because something that should be given to everyone is being withheld.
Maybe. But they have no legal right or option to buy/license the patent if the patent holder doesn't wish to sell/license it. And let's just say that we're talking about the US government. Do you see the US then giving free access to this technology to every other citizen of Earth? There are probably GeoPolitical reasons why you don't want the entire world to have access to life extension treatments immediately. Countries with existing severe food/water/resource shortages could experience humanitarian crises of varying magnitudes that would lead to extensive military conflict (of the type we already see) around the world.
You are right that people shouldn't have to die because of something that should be given to everyone is being withheld. Victims of malaria, tuberculosis, measles, and the like would also likely agree with you. But the fact is that it does happen today already despite very wealthy people dedicating significant resources to minimize/eliminate those pointless casualties. If you abstract the argument up one level...we could be addressing the question of whether or not anyone anywhere should be denied a life-saving (and by definition a life extending) treatment for any illness (whether a virus, bacteria, or old age). The answer is probably not, but it happens everyday. Slowly, over time, we are making progress towards making sure those life saving treatment make it to everyone who needs them. The polio vaccine was first discovered in the 1950s, and it's taken about 65 years to get close to eradicating it. Smallpox wasn't eradicated overnight either.
Even if the US Government purchased/licensed it and offered to make it freely available to everyone...some governments would still deny their citizens the opportunity to receive those treatments because of deeply held religious views. Do you think the Pope would "bless" the decision of Catholics to pursue immortality? Do you think North Korea would allow its citizens to receive a treatment from the US that gave them "eternal" life? What would that do to their decades of brainwashing that the US is evil and their fearless leader is their God? The world is such a complex place, that there will inevitably be some people who do not have early access to these types of treatments...and those people will likely be poor, religious, or oppressed in some way.
It can/should happen....and if treatments are shown to be effective, they can/should happen in the fastest way possible. I've not considered Cryonics to be a very viable form of achieving immortality as I'm not aware of anyone who has been frozen for an extended time (like 1 or more years) and then brought back as a successful test case. Current science seems to indicate that Cryogenics in it's current form results in massive cell damage from rupture from ice crystals that form inside the cells. The subject becomes a mass of frozen, ruptured dead tissue that is preserved in that damaged state. At the end of my life, absent any other alternatives, I'd probably opt for Cryo treatment anyway, since worst case I'm still just as dead as I would be had I not tried. But I'd much rather survive to a point where either the cryogenics process has been successfully proven to work or until I can begin receiving incremental life extension treatments instead.
Eminent intellectual domain? Why would the gov not be able to afford it? Regardless, I'm sure there's some FEMA statute that allows for this kind of thing.
The Pope is purportedly a moral man, he shouldn't have a problem with rejuvenation technology. I'm still not sure, but I don't think the NABRE is saying that love for the flesh is anything but a sin b/c it causes suffering for those who want it. Considering all the spirit that they had to offer, the churches of the world should like to dole out the flesh as well, it just hasn't been available. Though tbh, I could just be an optimist... I haven't gotten a straight answer on any of this, though that could be b/c I haven't spent much time pursuing it. Obviously, the Pope is against birth control and that's part of the plan, but I don't see why we or even they can't just develop better birth control. Once there is the capacity to change the reality of reproductive pressures, you don't have to worry about the birth rate anymore. Plus, keeping people young means filling more pews with their followers.
North Korea? Are we going to let them die the way we let them starve just b/c our relationship has gone south (no pun intended)? Just let Kim Jong Un say he discovered it or something. Use it a gift of peace. This solution is one that bring much change and peace. Maybe he just gives it out in the flu shot...
Cryonics can work, anything can work... you just need to sit down and develop it. It just doesn't have alot of resources going into it and all your life insurance money is wasted as soon as they cure aging... that stuff relies on new people buying into it... That's a bigger reason for the Pope to let people die as expected... Though certainly not a moral one. In this case, insurance would just be something you bought just in case but didn't need, only it's more than a spare tire... it's a ton of cash paid for the duration of your life so far. Then again, if they're making money off the life insurance such that it is sustainable regardless of how many people are paying premiums, then they'll just not have a whole lot of money that they need to pay out and it makes them richerer.
Posted 17 November 2015 - 02:56 PM
Your vision is a good one....it just assumes that people/governments/religious leaders act morally and rationally. I'd argue that, to date, there's a lot of evidence to the contrary.
There are plenty of people who subscribe to religions where any medical treatment is "against the will of God". They think that if God means you to live, then you will live. If not, then you should accept the impending death as opposed to using medical resources to "thwart" his will. Your argument that the Pope may "support/endorse" immortality treatments based on what it does to their membership is a very valid one. But that's not necessarily a moral argument as much as it is a financial one. The religions whose members die of old age will be replaced by religions whose members do not die from old age.
In an information-based economy, governments have to be very careful about "seizing" intellectual property for the public good. It can have a negative effect on future R&D efforts when people believe that any IP they develop won't be protected by the governing laws.
I don't think the insurance industry and the sunk cost people have in insurance premiums are what's keeping immortality advances from being developed. I think people have grown up hearing phrases like "the only thing certain in life is death and taxes". Mortality is a fundamental belief that most humans have internalized by the time that they reach adulthood. Changing the "social inertia" behind a belief that deeply held is no easy task. Having an ACTUAL treatment (as opposed to a lifestyle choice like healthy eating or calorie restriction) that will extend the life of each recipient would go a long way towards opening up that dialog among the general public. The "fountain of youth" has been sought after/dreamed of for about as long as man has been able to put a quill to papyrus. The current hope is that medical advances and the understanding of human processes are developing at an accelerating pace that will hopefully provide enough insight into all of the interconnected systems to give us ways to slow/reverse metabolic damage or to "replenish" the degrading store of information that is housed in our DNA. Sort of like a biological RAID array for our DNA where there is always a perfect backup copy of our genetic makeup somewhere that can be used to "rewire a malfunctioning biological system to a previous state where things were functioning properly.
If/when those treatments are developed and proven...the logistics behind delivering them to everybody immediately would likely not be possible. So who gets them first? It will be one of two groups (or more likely the union of those two groups). Sick old people, or wealthy people, or most likely sick old wealthy people. As the technology is developed, improved, and made more cost efficient in delivery they will be available to a larger and larger group of citizens...until eventually it's part of your routine physical. (Talk about a good reason to go to your regular annual checkup!)
Insurance carriers would likely have a banner decade as current clients ceased to die at expected rates and the "excess" premiums that were collected drop to the bottom line as policies expire. The insurance industry will for sure have to adapt. People will be insured against the risk of accidental death/disease over a certain time period (50 year blocks?).
There may still be outbreaks of deadly influenza (or other viruses) that rejuvenation can't protect against. We may develop conscious AI that determines humanity has had it's day and is time to be "retired". There may be an increased number of military conflicts such that citizens of every country have compulsory service (like Israelis) in order to safeguard and defend their countries resources/borders from rival countries who are resource poor. There will surely be things that we can still die from in that future...old age just won't be one of them.
Posted 18 November 2015 - 12:14 PM
I'm in the anti-patent camp, but I don't think they will be a problem for life extension. Apart from political reasons that make expensive rejuvenation meds unlikely (population ageing is a huge economic problem for many countries), there is medical tourism and exports. Pharmaceutical patents are practically non-existent in India: https://en.wikipedia...dustry_in_India . If needed, I could buy some meds from there, or go there and pay for a treatment. According to the SENS plan, rejuvenation treatments will be needed only every 10-20 years, so it's perfectly affordable.
Edited by Antonio2014, 18 November 2015 - 12:16 PM.
Posted 19 November 2015 - 12:40 AM
> Life extension can't be solely for the rich
The best plastic surgery can't be for the rich.
The best doctors in the world in each specialty can't be for the rich.
The safest cars in the world that go beyond minimum standards can't be for the rich.
The safest neighborhoods in the world can't be for the rich.
Body guards, butlers, & maids who indirectly extend life for those who employ them can't be for the rich.
Now let's get real...
Yep...the rich get the best houses.....but just about all of us have a dwelling. The rich get the best cars. But just about all of us have a car. The rich get the best medical treatment. But we can all get treatment at any hospital in an emergency. The rich live in the safest neighborhoods, because they move far away from poverty.The rich can spend $120k on the best TV....but just about all of us have 3-5 TVs in our houses/apartments. Plastic surgeons in the US are pretty expensive, which is why many Americans take "medical vacations" to have procedures done outside the US.
To quote Jurassic Park..."Life finds a way". There're few biological imperatives stronger than the need to reproduce and to continue living. I still believe that despite the wealthy having the "best" access to the things we are discussing...all will eventually have "enough" access to achieve the same result.
The rich will always get the best...no argument against that...but that doesn't mean the rest of us don't get something that functions pretty close to that. I may not drive a McLaren F1....but a 2 year old Crossover SUV works just fine for me.
I'm not all that savvy on the distinctions, but you're talking about sounds more like an oligarchy... The idea of capitalism is that everyone can be increasingly wealthy, the system I described would create wealth very efficiently and satisfy that end at a greater rate than what is being created at present and would yield more human resources on top of everything else. Anyone choosing to die when not in terrible circumstances would be seen as wanting to deprive mankind of their existence. Choosing not to give rejuvenation to everyone deprives humanity of those people and their talents... but maybe that will make you more valuable for 20 years so you can suck up more wealth for yourself? Is that worth such a tremendous loss of life? Has any war even taken a figure like that from us? 730 million people dieing in the mean time is like everyone in the US dieing twice. At the very least and in the worst circumstances, I could only imagine mass cryopreservation being done... but what's stopping us from giving this to everyone?
Anyways, the material things you're talking about are incentives that would be offered to motivate more people, and to make their youth more efficiently satisfying as they sacrifice their time and youth to our great cause.
Did I already post this?
Posted 19 November 2015 - 07:13 AM
If you give immortality to all, many people will continue to overmultiply and overpopulate the planet. The same fractions who overpopulate the world now, in a mortal human scenario, will become immortal and will fload the world with their immortal offsprings.
Has anyone decided how to stop that except me? Yes or no?
Posted 19 November 2015 - 07:17 AM
P.S.
The death of people is important for the existence of the human race as much as the death of cells is important for our bodies being alive.
The key is who to be left to die. And these are the people, who can't control their multiplications.
Do something else and you will be death together with the entire human race.
Posted 19 November 2015 - 04:43 PM
If you give immortality to all, many people will continue to overmultiply and overpopulate the planet. The same fractions who overpopulate the world now, in a mortal human scenario, will become immortal and will fload the world with their immortal offsprings.
Has anyone decided how to stop that except me? Yes or no?
Birth control... I don't have any problem with that as long as it's an ethically sound type of it. The current medical ways are sketchy at best, but I think we can do better. There's no reason we couldn't develop a gene therapy that would disable our reproductive capacities and another one to turn it back on without affecting or unbalancing our hormones/pheromones... I'm not saying it'll be easy, but that's really the extent we'll need to take it to IMO. Then you'll have to apply to have children or wait your turn unless we can grow our population using orbitals etc.
What's your approach?
Edited by YOLF, 19 November 2015 - 04:44 PM.
Posted 19 November 2015 - 04:48 PM
P.S.
The death of people is important for the existence of the human race as much as the death of cells is important for our bodies being alive.
The key is who to be left to die. And these are the people, who can't control their multiplications.
Do something else and you will be death together with the entire human race.
I don't think we can do it that way... We can't assume that people aren't worth their lives, if they aren't it's b/c we as a society haven't been successful in producing them better and will have to try harder. For them, we will have to find soft methods and create mutual understanding as well as work for an acceptable solution.
Posted 19 November 2015 - 05:47 PM
Nature NEVER allows overpopulation of ANY species, including man.
Nature's definition of overpopulation trumps any man's definition or effort.
But some men will apppropriate nature's actions as their own...
There is no free will, anyone's concern with overpopulation is NOT their choice...
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