Forever Young...

[Morilore]

“There is no known social good coming from the conquest of death.”

This is unquestionably the stupidest thing I've read in the past month. Some social harm may arise indirectly, but the obvious social good is that large numbers of lives will be saved.

[Molyneux]

QED.

See, there's no better way than to end an argument with QED. Nobody knows what it means, so the user can look smarter.

"Quod erat demonstrandum."

HA! Didn't even have t'look it up!

[Joe]

I know what it means, I'm just not a fan of arbitrary use of Latin phrases.

[Aeolus]

I hate to pop in and be a bitch, but what does the average person contribute that is worth handing them five centuries or so to do it in? The foremost scientists, yes. The greatest minds, the most exceptional, sure. But Billy Bob Cumberbum in Hokeypokey, Nebraska could probably step aside after a century and let a new life take his place. Just saying.

Maybe but who are you decide that for them? Who has the right to decide that for you?

My pocketbook. It's the American Way!

More seriously, I'm sure that the value that one contributes to society could be set to a value for such determinations. "No one can put a value on a human life" my butt. Financiers do it all the time. The Department of Transportation, for instance, has a number for each life lost in a train-related intersection accident to see if it's worth it to put a sign there. I'm sure we'd adapt a system for the process. And I'm not saying that we don't help them live longer (and more importantly, healthier) lives, but I also think there comes a point for every person to move over and let something new come from his or her absence.

I dont deny that it will be expensive. I don't even argue against letting the market decide. What I am arguing against is the idea that life extension be limited to people you specifically dislike or feel to be unworthy. Sure if that farmer in Nebraska cant afford to live an extra 500 years I can understand that. Heck maybe insurance could be set up so he can save for it or maybe finance it..givin time prices will drop. But saying he is just some bumpkin from a rural state and therefor has no right to live 500 years while this artist or scientist or politican etc.. is so much more deserving is not something I can agree to. Hell I would support a lottory over that.

[The_Nice_Guy]

That's another argument entirely, the important question of who should have access. Another important question to be pondered over.

So who'll decide? The market? Genetics(iq and wealth, and all that)? The government(I hope nobody seriously considers the state as final arbiter)?

Of course, the best outcome would be that the treatment eventually becomes cheap enough that everybody can have access to it with a little foresight and hard work.

TWG

[Darth Tanner]

This is an intersting point in that future medical technology, such as gene therapy and stem cell stuff, is going to be very expensive. How will the NHS (UK) deal with this? The gov can't afford to give out this stuff to everyone withoug massive tax rises but if the treatment is left fot private health care only then you are in effect creating a two level society, with poor people left to die at 80 while rich people live on for hundreds or thousands of years.

Lets just hope that the technology is eventually cheap and cheerful!
maybe a £1 pill that you have to take once a month or something?

[Lord Zentei]

No, science progresses by the introduction of new ideas, which older minds tend to resist simply by virtue of being set in their ways. It's not a knock on older scientists, it's a knock on the way the human mind works in general. I pointed out an example, specifically Darwin's natural selection, which you ignored.

And I only brought up science as sort of an extension of my main idea; that the old attempt to preserve the status quo, while the young(er) tend to challenge it with new ideas. I didn't mean to single out science specifically.

Darwin's ideas were highly contientious and still are due to its impact on the importance of religion. But you show that older scientists were less likely to accept it at the time. Other ideas, such as Einstein's theory of relativity were accepted almost immediately by the scientific community. The progress of science works by hypotyheses being supported and refuted, not by scientists dying off. To claim otherwise is to reject the validity of the scientific method, and embrace Kuhn's stupididy.

I don't think you can possibly make the case that third world countries are in a bad spot because of their younger populations. The difference between Iran's older, religious ruling class and its relatively secular younger population is like night and day, for example.

Irrelevant. You insinuated that society as a whole would be more resistant to new ideas as the average age of the population overall went up. There is nothing that suggests that.

Do you think that let's say Cuba, North Korea, and Iran will be better off in 30 years if Castro, lil' Kim, and Khamenei are still in charge? No, if those countries progress, it will be because younger leaders with new ideas take over as the older ones die off and aren't able to challenge their ideas.

Oy, and the epheneral promise of Lil' Kim dying off is worth advancing medical knowledge. Gotcha.

QED.See, there's no better way than to end an argument with QED. Nobody knows what it means, so the user can look smarter.

Especially when the other guy has not refuted the argument presented.

I am not against life-saving medical advances. What I am uncomfortable with is medical advances effectively eliminating the natural cycle of life and death to the point where the old die at a far slower rate and the young are unable to displace them with their new ideas.

All medical advances cause the old to die at a slower rate. Where do you draw the line?

Moreover, did you miss my point with the population having been heavily skewed in favour of the young in the past? Yet, today, technological advances and the progress of ideas are unprescedented. You have not shown that there is a negative correlation between average age and innovation at all.

[Lord Zentei]

I know what it means, I'm just not a fan of arbitrary use of Latin phrases.

It's become more of a generic phrase than a Latin one by now.

[Jadeite]

Hell, I'd take an extended lifespan or virtual immortality in a heartbeat if I was offered the chance. I wouldn't be truly immortal since probability would eventually catch up to me and ruin my day.

Of course, it'd probably be expensive, but there's always taking out loans from banks to afford it, and simply paying them back over the course of a century or so.

[Guardsman Bass]

Actually, another reason to support this is that it would eliminate the problem of an increasingly elderly population that doesn't work versus a declining younger population necessary to support them (unless you allow in large amounts of immigrants). Hell, if you could do as the article suggests and increase longevity while maintaining vitality and healthiness, it would allow you to scale back heavily on your Social Security Costs.

One of the reasons I dislike the idea of "people need to die" is that it assumes that we live in a closed environment in which somebody has to give up, or die, in order to make room for someone else, be it in terms of mental achievement, physical resources required, and so forth. The thing is, there are plenty of resources out there to use if we have to, in space, even on Earth.

[SCRawl]

I know what it means, I'm just not a fan of arbitrary use of Latin phrases.

It's become more of a generic phrase than a Latin one by now.

Anyone with even a minor background in science or math knows what QED stands for and means, and since that's (pulls number out of ass) at least 50% of the population of this board, I'd say that it's a fairly safe expression to use.

It still sounds awfully snarky in the context of an argument, though.

[Lord Zentei]

Darwin's ideas were highly contientious and still are due to its impact on the importance of religion. But you show that older scientists were less likely to accept it at the time. Other ideas, such as Einstein's theory of relativity were accepted almost immediately by the scientific community. The progress of science works by hypotyheses being supported and refuted, not by scientists dying off. To claim otherwise is to reject the validity of the scientific method, and embrace Kuhn's stupididy.

I meant "you did NOT show that older scientists were less likely to accept it at the time", obviously.

Anyone with even a minor background in science or math knows what QED stands for and means, and since that's (pulls number out of ass) at least 50% of the population of this board, I'd say that it's a fairly safe expression to use.

It still sounds awfully snarky in the context of an argument, though.

Arr. It's mostly that I have heard that argument a number of times before but never any justification for it beyond "that's how people are".

[Pick]

*stuff*

Oh, please. It was a cliche example of the below-average, not specifically those who live in more rural areas. For the love of God, I can hear my neighbor's sheep baa-ing outside my Goddamn window. I'm anything but a city-slicker myself.

[Aeolus]

*stuff*

Oh, please. It was a cliche example of the below-average, not specifically those who live in more rural areas. For the love of God, I can hear my neighbor's sheep baa-ing outside my Goddamn window. I'm anything but a city-slicker myself.

My point was not aimed at that in particular it was the idea that somepeople are unworthy of life extension just because someone else doesnt think they have contributed to society. Rural was just an example. It could have been the other way around too.

[wolveraptor]

Socially, I do not see any proof that society would stagnate. In fact a case can be made that it won't stagnate: people in western societies are far older on average than in the third world, yet are more liberal and progressive. Which was to be demonstrated.

The bolded section is what QED translates into. I don't understand what you're trying to say with that.

Personally, I'd like people to prove that age, without the detriments of neuron death and physical maladroitness, coagulates thought.

[Lord Zentei]

I don't understand what you're trying to say with that.

No? That places us on an equal footing since I'm not sure what the problem is. I think my post was quite clear.

[wolveraptor]

I understand your post, but not the last section, "Which was to be demonstrated." What does that mean in the context of your post?

[Lord Zentei]

I understand your post, but not the last section, "Which was to be demonstrated." What does that mean in the context of your post?

The preceding makes that clear, I should think:


"In fact a case can be made that it won't stagnate: "

"1) people in western societies are far older on average than in the third world"
"2) yet are more liberal and progressive"

[Alferd Packer]

Wouldn't atheism and agnosticism dominate in a world of functional immortals? I'd think that most truly religious people would want to check out heaven eventually, even after five centuries. Or would a sort of ennui towards living take hold equally across the population, resulting in people offing themselves?

[Aeolus]

Wouldn't atheism and agnosticism dominate in a world of functional immortals? I'd think that most truly religious people would want to check out heaven eventually, even after five centuries. Or would a sort of ennui towards living take hold equally across the population, resulting in people offing themselves?

Most people are in no hurry to go to heaven..of course that alwasy amuses me. You would think they would want to go to paradise.

[SCRawl]

Wouldn't atheism and agnosticism dominate in a world of functional immortals? I'd think that most truly religious people would want to check out heaven eventually, even after five centuries. Or would a sort of ennui towards living take hold equally across the population, resulting in people offing themselves?

Most people are in no hurry to go to heaven..of course that alwasy amuses me. You would think they would want to go to paradise.

Well, that's the thing: for the big religions with a concept of heaven -- namely Christianity and Islam -- you aren't allowed to actually do anything that would hasten your arrival in paradise, and doing so means that you go the other way. Of course, this fact is conveniently omitted by the extremists when suicide bombers get praised for their final work on this mortal plane.

[Zero]

*stuff*

Oh, please. It was a cliche example of the below-average, not specifically those who live in more rural areas. For the love of God, I can hear my neighbor's sheep baa-ing outside my Goddamn window. I'm anything but a city-slicker myself.

How exactly would you choose to quantify who does and doesn't contribute to society? Who would get to make this decision? Is it simply based on finance? I'm curious.


Personally, I think more than a millenium of life would get repetitive and dull. Hell, it happens to enough people without living for 1000 years. Besides this, all the reasons that Joe mentioned make a lot of sense to me. My grandfather's a racist bigoted fuckwit who hates th japanese. I still love the crazy fucker, but I wouldn't want him being around for another 400 years to talk about what the japanese did to us in WWII. How are people supposed to get over shit if the people who are pissed about it stick around for millenia?

I feel the same about myself, too. If I stick around and continually advocate old ideas because they're familiar to me (and we do tend to promote the familiar), then society is a lil teensy bit slower. If there's a lot of folks doing the same thing, and birth is strongly regulated because overpopulation is a huge deal, then old ideas will very rarely be replaced with new ideas. Society would stagnate, and we'd all be bored motherfuckers by age 500.

Oh, and overpopulation may already be a problem, but if you take all deaths that result from age and eliminate them, then the problem will get worse a lot fucking faster. This doesn't mean that allowing people to die from old age is moral, but it definitely indicates that quality of life might go down if we all lived forever.