207 replies to this topic

[shadowhawk]

Tax money is our money unless you are in China where all money belongs to the government.  So in your scheme of things you will have to convince the government that keeping old frozen corpses around is a good idea.  They already limit you to one child and healthcare is limited.  What makes you think they will have any incentive to revive anyone?  Why not start with new blood?

Edited by shadowhawk, 11 October 2015 - 03:52 AM.

[ceridwen]

Yes but unfortunately it's not like that I was told by the Cryonics Institute that if I went to Dignitus I would be viewed as suicidal and they wouldn't accept me. So I have to go through this horrible experience where I feel like I'm dissolving instead. If I do find something that would return me to good health I'd be very glad I didn't go to Dignitus but I also know the risk of waiting may be irreversible death. I still enjoy life no matter how difficult it is but I have a family that looks after me very well. Couldn't manage on my own. I would like to have the option of being able to end my life with a standby team standing by. That would be most sensible looking at my options.

[YOLF]

Tax money is our money unless you are in China where all money belongs to the government.  So in your scheme of things you will have to convince the government that keeping old frozen corpses around is a good idea.  They already limit you to one child and healthcare is limited.  What makes you think they will have any incentive to revive anyone?  Why not start with new blood?

People elect their representatives to make decisions for them which includes how to spend their tax dollars. 

 

Families would be angry if their loved ones were left to rot or be discarded. These are citizens and the world community would see it as an atrocity for them to be disposed of. That's, of course, if everyone is doing it. If it's just a handful of rich people, perhaps only the rich will be reanimated b/c their families are eccentric about it and will get it done or build their own storage facility in haste when the government is about to dump the bodies b/c they can get away with doing it to such small numbers of individuals as few will be affected. Then the rich get reanimation, and those who financed on life insurance get turned into fertilizer when no one can afford to take in their bodies or remembers who they are.

 

We stand a better chance in numbers.

[Danail Bulgaria]

Get to the ground people

 

You started to politize the topic.

The no children for the immortals until better solutions become possible, and cryopreserved embryos as a reproduction insurance can be applied to all possible political systems.

[Rib Jig]

 

Overpopulation, regardless of population count,

will become, by 2100, what the buggy whip became

after Henry Ford's assembly line...

 

 

I hadn't heard this yet. Do you have a reference?

 

 

Google "drop world population growth rate"

Google "drop world population hunger"

 

What it is, is this:

BOTH, FOR YEARS, ARE GOING DOWN DOWN DOWN

 

Gawblimey, mate, they're selling bagged snack foods & Cokes

on dirt sidewalks of Dharavi for begging change!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only people in need by end of 21st century will be

stubborn addicts refusing to give up bad habits...

 

And if one is not prioritizing accruing enough wealth

to afford state-of-the-art cryonic preservation, one

is continuing to erode one's odds of near-immortality.

Really bad habit, IMO.  A cancer on immortality!!!!!!

Self inflicted.  BLAME NO ONE BUT YOU YOU YOU...

Edited by Rib Jig, 11 October 2015 - 10:24 PM.

[shadowhawk]

Yes, world population has been going down for several years.  Some racial and political groups are slowly aborting themselves out of existence.  See death comes in many forms and affects us in many ways.

[Danail Bulgaria]

Don't close your eyes, people. No matter what you are saying, the number of the people on the planet increases constantly. 

 

https://en.wikipedia...pulation_growth

[shadowhawk]

Well lets test your knowledge with eyes closed.  What is the sustaining birthrate? 

[YOLF]

 

 

Overpopulation, regardless of population count,

will become, by 2100, what the buggy whip became

after Henry Ford's assembly line...

 

 

I hadn't heard this yet. Do you have a reference?

 

 

Google "drop world population growth rate"

Google "drop world population hunger"

 

What it is, is this:

BOTH, FOR YEARS, ARE GOING DOWN DOWN DOWN

 

Gawblimey, mate, they're selling bagged snack foods & Cokes

on dirt sidewalks of Dharavi for begging change!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only people in need by end of 21st century will be

stubborn addicts refusing to give up bad habits...

 

And if one is not prioritizing accruing enough wealth

to afford state-of-the-art cryonic preservation, one

is continuing to erode one's odds of near-immortality.

Really bad habit, IMO.  A cancer on immortality!!!!!!

Self inflicted.  BLAME NO ONE BUT YOU YOU YOU...

 

 

I think all you're saying to most people with this statement is that we're going to turn progress around or slow it down.

Don't close your eyes, people. No matter what you are saying, the number of the people on the planet increases constantly. 

 

https://en.wikipedia...pulation_growth

We are projected to reach a peak population at some point in time. Not sure when though.

[YOLF]

Well lets test your knowledge with eyes closed.  What is the sustaining birthrate? 

 

Guessing 2.2...

[sthira]

I think it's well-established around the globe that as mortality rates drop -- people live longer -- birthrates fall. So ask yourself: if your future doctor gave you a few gene therapy injections that rejuvenated your body, reversed your aging, made you 21 forever, would you then choose to reproduce? Not me, although I guess some would.

[ceridwen]

No but then I wasn't sure that I wanted kids the 1st time. Don't think I'd want any if that happened. Forever is a very long time though. Who can say?

[Rib Jig]

>...would you then choose to reproduce?

 

By then, ~2150, or whenever as per my revival instructions,

we look forward to ordering a custom made PURC 

(personality unique robo child), probably a non-aging model

with nutrition optional.  For one of the child's birthdays

we will surprise with a replica 2M-yr old hominim child playpal.

From these we get regular parent skills grading reports.

 

Of course, all of the above will be much less expensive

than cost of real child -- not out of the question either.

Especially if parent skill reports determine real child costs...

[shadowhawk]

It is growing between 1 and two percent and presently on a decline.  Some countries have a negative growth rate right now.  Read “Fewer” by Wattenberg

“Despite the increase in earth's population, the worldwide fertility rate continues to drop and is trending very close to the replacement rate. (The current differential is less than 0.3 children per couple and is shrinking.) Once the worldwide fertility rate reaches the replacement rate the inevitable long-term outcome will be a stable worldwide population. And should the fertility rate drop below replacement the inevitable outcome will be a drop in worldwide population. For decades now the fertility rate in all the Western European countries (as well as Japan) has been below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per couple (which is the replacement rate for the most developed nations). The fertility rate of Italy dropped as low as 1.1 before rebounding slightly to close to 1.3. Even in the United States, which has historically experienced a somewhat higher fertility rate, its fertility rate has now dropped slightly below replacement (at just about 2.05). As the least developed countries become less dependent on traditional agriculture, as healthcare improves in these countries, and as the shift from rural to urban areas continues, their fertility rate (which is currently responsible for keeping the worldwide rate above replacement) will also drop.

But perhaps the larger population that we will experience in the short run (which will take place because the rather large cohort of younger people in the less developed nations will still have an effect) will have a deleterious impact on our non-renewal resources, as another reviewer opines. This is a common argument for population control. It ignores several realities. The first is the one pointed out by Julian Simon in "The Ultimate Resource" and it is that people represent brain power and people find ways of using the stuff of planet earth in new and creative ways. There is no such thing as a resource per se. Something becomes a resource only when someone figures out a use for it. Should we run short of one or another resource, human ingenuity will find a way to replace that resource with something else. The second reality is that we currently have a superabundance of many nonrenewable resources. It's just that some of the supplies of these resources are not found in readily-accessible forms and are therefore not economically feasible to extract. Once again, human ingenuity comes into play. Witness the invention of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), which has provided a way of releasing the natural gas and oil found in shale deposits, a procedure that at one time was thought to be far too expensive but has since become an economical way of making available huge quantities of these resources.

So, what should we expect world population to do in the near future? According to all the variant projections given by the United Nations, population growth will slow during the first half of the twenty-first century. According to the low variant, population growth will level off by 2040 and will decrease slightly the remainder of the century. If this leveling off is going to take place in any case, what is the benefit of taking steps to limit population growth, when so doing might simply exacerbate the problems that are already facing the more developed countries due to the birth dearth in those countries?”

http://www.slate.com..._exploding.html
http://newsfeed.time...y-be-declining/
https://en.wikipedia...ulation_decline
http://www.courierhe.../298801381.html
http://www.prb.org/P...th-decline.aspx
http://www.theatlant...se-9908/377735/
http://www.spiegel.d...u-a-795479.html
http://www.amazon.co...e/dp/1566636736

 

[sthira]

Forever is a very long time though. Who can say?

We may not have any choice in the matter. That is, like it or not, we may all be immortal right now. Even if you're hit by a bus and killed, if someone wants to bring your hide back into upright walking again, you may have no choice.

I just asked my grandfather: if you die soon, do you want to be brought back to life when the tech's available to do it? Fuck no, said grandad. But what if you're brought back as your 21-year old self again? And he got kinda quiet.

>...would you then choose to reproduce?

By then, ~2150, or whenever ...

Really you believe it'll take that long? I see this happening much faster. The light is shining brightly on the exponentialisms of these technologies, I think. A shorter matter of time. And while I agree with your (Rig Jig) assertions above that it's going to take big money to avail ourselves of what's rapidly coming our way, I think it'll only cost big money at the very beginning (i.e., right now). Millions, then hundreds of thousands, then thousands, hundreds, then free. Time will pass, rejuvenation tech may become ordinary and cheap, and then free. They'll become free (I'm just casting wild ass guesses into the wind here) because governments will realize that it's cheaper to keep us healthy and alive. The fact is that it's crazy expensive now to pay for our slow whithering death rattles. Which now cost us billions. And unless we get going here, the baby boomers are going to collapse the system with their goddamned me-generation bills that you and I gotta keep paying by working longer and longer hours in jobs that are disappearing day by day. We've got a lot of bullshit headed our way in addition to this rise of immortality.

[Rib Jig]

Really you believe it'll take that long?

 

Right.

Much quicker than 2150.

Fast, in fact.

About as fast as science found cure for something simple.

Real simple.

Like the common cold.

WAIT!!!!!!  THERE'S NO CURE FOR THE

     COMMON COLD!!!!!!!!

rovers on mars, achoo achoo???

Edited by Rib Jig, 13 October 2015 - 03:01 AM.

[PWAIN]

That might not be too far away.
http://www.dailymail...tep-closer.html

Not a bad achievement considering cold is not just one virus.

[sthira]

We certainly need major changes, that's for sure. And major changes in the US system for the sick and dying probably aren't happening anytime soon. So give up on the animal model for testing new therapies, and open them up to sick and dying people. People should have better access to experimental therapies that may or may not work. That may be one way to speed up the process.

[sthira]

Really you believe it'll take that long?

Right.
Much quicker than 2150.
Fast, in fact.
About as fast as science found cure for something simple.
Real simple.
Like the common cold.
WAIT!!!!!! THERE'S NO CURE FOR THE
COMMON COLD!!!!!!!!
rovers on mars, achoo achoo???

Is that because rather than aiming at the causes of bacterial infections we've been aiming at the results? That is, rather than aiming at the responsible bacteria we've been aiming at the sniffles and sore throat? I wonder if any current clinical trials for, say Alzheimer's, are similarly mis-targeted?

Also, do you realize that just a few hundred years ago nearly all of your ancestors died before age 30 of "the common cold" and infectious diseases? Now, deaths caused by infectious diseases have been pushed to much later in life. That's arguably a "cure" or near-cure for the "common cold."

Edited by sthira, 13 October 2015 - 08:14 AM.

[YOLF]

I think it's well-established around the globe that as mortality rates drop -- people live longer -- birthrates fall. So ask yourself: if your future doctor gave you a few gene therapy injections that rejuvenated your body, reversed your aging, made you 21 forever, would you then choose to reproduce? Not me, although I guess some would.

 

I think anyone who would generally say no really means "No, not at this time" or "I don't have it on my agenda yet." Even if they say never, it's more of a "not in a standard lifetime."

 

It's all about how much time people have. When you have all of it...

[YOLF]

 

>...would you then choose to reproduce?

 

By then, ~2150, or whenever as per my revival instructions,

we look forward to ordering a custom made PURC 

(personality unique robo child), probably a non-aging model

with nutrition optional.  For one of the child's birthdays

we will surprise with a replica 2M-yr old hominim child playpal.

From these we get regular parent skills grading reports.

 

Of course, all of the above will be much less expensive

than cost of real child -- not out of the question either.

Especially if parent skill reports determine real child costs...

 

 

Raising a robobaby and cavebaby in the place of your own? What are the motivations for that? Does an AI need parents? What are the moral hazards of "adopting an AI?"

[YOLF]

 

Really you believe it'll take that long?

 

Right.

Much quicker than 2150.

Fast, in fact.

About as fast as science found cure for something simple.

Real simple.

Like the common cold.

WAIT!!!!!!  THERE'S NO CURE FOR THE

     COMMON COLD!!!!!!!!

rovers on mars, achoo achoo???

 

 

Plenty of stuff that prevents the common cold by boosting the immune system... Do you wash your face at the first sign of symptoms? 

[PerfectBrain]

There shouldn't be rules about who can and cannot live with a drastically extended (potentially unlimited) lifespan.  However, the practicality is that some aspects of our society will have to change based on the resources available to humanity on Earth.

 

For example, as the population increases and we approach the limits for how many people can be supported under the current system of food/energy production, rules around procreation will spring up.  You will likely have to apply for (and be approved) to have a child of your own.  And if approved, you will likely be placed on a list where you will receive notification when enough people have died from unexpected causes to free up a "spot" for your child.  How to enforce that, you ask.  It is likely that men and/or women would be sterilized at birth.  The procedure would likely be reversible, but if not, you would just use a combination of your DNA and your spouses (and possibly others) to fertilize an egg.

 

Marriage would likely turn into a contract with a finite term (10 or 20 years) that had optional renewal periods.  Otherwise, the divorce rate would approach 100% after say 100 years.  

 

Standard diets would likely change to be more (or almost entirely) vegetable based.  It takes a lot of natural food resources to grow an animal, such that it's not an efficient process.  (Humans could just eat the grains/vegetables fed to the animals instead of the meat.).

 

Technological advances could of course mute/postpone the implementation of some of those changes, but only time will tell.

 

There would be no retirement age...but people would perhaps get sabbaticals where they could periodically take time off (5 - 10 years) to pursue personal interests.

 

The concept of money would change dramatically.  The time value of money (how it grows overtime) would essentially become moot.  And if it didn't, inflation would be so crazy as to negate its effect anyway.  Otherwise, everyone could just work really hard for the first 100 - 200 years to grow a nest egg and then "live off the interest".  Having a world full of people living off interest isn't possible if they are the ones providing the labor.  If all of the labor is being provided by robotic workers, then the value of money and goods/services drops dramatically.  The only cost to such systems are the cost of maintenance for the robots and the opportunity cost of allocating those "work units" to one task versus another.  If all labor is done by robots, and all intellectual work is done by big data/AI, then what's left is creative pursuits and enjoyment.

 

One positive note related to your question is that there is probably a correlation between lifepsan and wisdom/tolerance.  The longer people live, the less likely they may be to hold onto ignorant points of view (like racism).  Even if that weren't true, the result wouldn't be much different than what you find today...racist people would choose to live removed from the target of their hatred.  It is likely that all instances of intentional murder would be punishable by death.  Since that person essentially robbed someone else of perhaps thousands of years of life there would be few punishments short of the death penalty could make up for that.  Otherwise, people could kill someone...and happily go to jail for 500 years (where they would likely be safe from car accidents, plane crashes, and similar accidental causes of death) and be released having paid their debt to society.  Life sentences are meant to be a deterrent to murder...as it essentially deprives the murdered of a meaningful life of their own.  Since there's no way to know how long a person will live in the "immortal" scenario, the only appropriate punishment is death.

 

 

[Rib Jig]

There shouldn't be rules about who can and cannot live with a drastically extended...lifespan.

 

There ARE rules NOW!!!!

Richer live longer.

Poorer live shorter.

Get real: poverty is #1 cause of death...

[PerfectBrain]

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.

[Rib Jig]

>the old poverty vs wealth argument.  That fails in the long term.

>Immortality will be in far more demand by people than the latest smart phone.

 

False & false again.

Lifespan of poorer shorter than richer

true since ancient history.

 

Opportunity for immortality currently

being rejected by vast vast majority

of persons who know about cryonics

& can easily afford it.  Undeniable

evidence exists that most people

are not interested in extending

their lives indefinitely...

 

Even Timothy Leary, who signed

up for cryonics, changed his mind

just before death...

Edited by Rib Jig, 13 November 2015 - 02:32 AM.

[PerfectBrain]

 

>the old poverty vs wealth argument.  That fails in the long term.

>Immortality will be in far more demand by people than the latest smart phone.

 

False & false again.

Lifespan of poorer shorter than richer

true since ancient history.

 

Opportunity for immortality currently

being rejected by vast vast majority

of persons who know about cryonics

& can easily afford it.  Undeniable

evidence exists that most people

are not interested in extending

their lives indefinitely...

 

Even Timothy Leary, who signed

up for cryonics, changed his mind

just before death...

 

 

Man...how incredibly awesome it is that you can so confidently dismiss another viewpoint that doesn't jibe with your world view.

 

The OP's question was whether or not "immortality" should be available to everyone, not whether the poor live shorter lives in the current state of medicine/technology.

 

There are some assumptions in your logic that I would challenge...

 

"There ARE rules NOW!!!!

Richer live longer.

Poorer live shorter.

Get real: poverty is #1 cause of death..."

 

While your use of punctuation definitely illustrates your passion, are you sure you don't mean old age is the #1 cause of death, and that poor people age faster because of the added stress/labor attributed to their circumstances?  Because the immortality being described is technology that reverses the damage caused by aging.  In other words, poor people will benefit more from this type of advance than wealthy people because aging is a bigger problem for them than others.

 

"Most people are not interested in extending their lives indefinitely..."

Most people haven't considered that living forever is possible.  There's no law stating that people HAVE to live indefinitely.  And people will likely still die from accidental causes...just not old age.  When the whole world is aware that the technology exists and is accessible to them, I guess we'll see what % of people are actually for dying.  Just because Leary signed up for Cryonics and then changed his mind, that isn't a representative sample of Earth's population.  And Cryonics is a far cry from going in and having a DNA treatment and nano-cleanse that turns back the clock on your body's biological systems. He (like everyone else) has the option of accepting treatment or not.

 

The nature of technological advances is that over time those advances become largely accessible to everyone.  Will the poor be the last to have access?  Probably.  But they WILL have access.  As of Jan 2015, 80% of people WORLDWIDE have a smartphone.  As we approach 2016, that number will be even higher.  

http://tech.firstpos...ort-249361.html

 

Medical treatments to reverse aging will be no different.  Eventually, they will be part of your annual physical if you want them.

Edited by PerfectBrain, 13 November 2015 - 09:45 PM.

[Rib Jig]

> you can so confidently dismiss another viewpoint

> are you sure you don't mean old age is the #1 cause of death

 

Facts = reality

within simple Google searches = facts can be discerned

https://www.google.c... cause of death

[YOLF]

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.

[YOLF]

 

 

>the old poverty vs wealth argument.  That fails in the long term.

>Immortality will be in far more demand by people than the latest smart phone.

 

False & false again.

Lifespan of poorer shorter than richer

true since ancient history.

 

Opportunity for immortality currently

being rejected by vast vast majority

of persons who know about cryonics

& can easily afford it.  Undeniable

evidence exists that most people

are not interested in extending

their lives indefinitely...

 

Even Timothy Leary, who signed

up for cryonics, changed his mind

just before death...

 

 

Man...how incredibly awesome it is that you can so confidently dismiss another viewpoint that doesn't jibe with your world view.

 

The OP's question was whether or not "immortality" should be available to everyone, not whether the poor live shorter lives in the current state of medicine/technology.

 

There are some assumptions in your logic that I would challenge...

 

"There ARE rules NOW!!!!

Richer live longer.

Poorer live shorter.

Get real: poverty is #1 cause of death..."

 

While your use of punctuation definitely illustrates your passion, are you sure you don't mean old age is the #1 cause of death, and that poor people age faster because of the added stress/labor attributed to their circumstances?  Because the immortality being described is technology that reverses the damage caused by aging.  In other words, poor people will benefit more from this type of advance than wealthy people because aging is a bigger problem for them than others.

 

"Most people are not interested in extending their lives indefinitely..."

Most people haven't considered that living forever is possible.  There's no law stating that people HAVE to live indefinitely.  And people will likely still die from accidental causes...just not old age.  When the whole world is aware that the technology exists and is accessible to them, I guess we'll see what % of people are actually for dying.  Just because Leary signed up for Cryonics and then changed his mind, that isn't a representative sample of Earth's population.  And Cryonics is a far cry from going in and having a DNA treatment and nano-cleanse that turns back the clock on your body's biological systems. He (like everyone else) has the option of accepting treatment or not.

 

The nature of technological advances is that over time those advances become largely accessible to everyone.  Will the poor be the last to have access?  Probably.  But they WILL have access.  As of Jan 2015, 80% of people WORLDWIDE have a smartphone.  As we approach 2016, that number will be even higher.  

http://tech.firstpos...ort-249361.html

 

Medical treatments to reverse aging will be no different.  Eventually, they will be part of your annual physical if you want them.

 

 

But those who can't benefit from it now will die, and they may want to live forever. All life should be valued equally. Life extension can't be solely for the rich, at the very least we need to strive to make it as affordable as possible and that means government intervention. We already spend loads of tax money subsidizing vaccines so they are within reach of everyone and they are available for free to others. Aids patients in Africa get their meds free and get better care than patients with other diseases. We distribute malaria prevention netting and all sorts of other technologies to the poor just b/c it's the right thing to do. The same should be done with life extension. With all it represents, and the problems it solves and the things it will do for us, we shouldn't not try to make it available to everyone. What we are after, rejuvenation will cure the diseases of a great number of people, 95% of healthcare goes to age related conditions and people are suffering. If we provide them with a cure for aging and rejuvenation, we eliminate 95% of the medical suffering in the world and so much more and that's 95% of the healthcare budget that can be reallocated to whatever remains. What we're going to have is a real game changer and holding it back would just be plain wrong negligence. This is the kind of thing we need to just dump into the system to save the world the way we've done with ABX, the polio vaccine, and so much more. The slow and steady as she goes not for everyone model just fails if you understand the importance of what we're doing. It's not even worth arguing, the real discussion is about what other technologies we'll need in order to do this sustainably and avoid moral hazards. Most of which are finding ethical ways to manage birth control such as permanent but reversible birth control that doesn't affect libido,  cryopreservation of the unintentionally conceived (remember the $100 ultrasound device? That'd tell you if you've conceived and the embryo could be removed and frozen just like any other ova... just need to make it a reality). After we accomplish that we won't be subject to reproductive pressures. Hope I've pre-empted enough of the usual arguments.