From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Fri Aug 22 2003 - 18:30:03 MDT
On Fri, 22 Aug 2003, Alex Future Bokov wrote:
> Heck, even in the field of aging I suspect most people view it as 'just
> an interesting puzzle' and don't concern themselves with the implications.
There seems to be a point in researcher's lives where they come to the
conclusion they can't make any difference. Just from my casual observations
I think Raj Sohal may have gone through a transition like that sometime in
the last couple of years.
(Of course the way to answer this is to point out cryonics, but then
you have to point out reanimation strategies (e.g. Ralph's paper), then
you have to explan nanotech to "disbelievers" when Nobel prize winners
say "it can't be done", etc. Its a *very* long conversation.)
> I agree, but a PhD does not
> automatically confer rationality in all facets of life.
Richard Smalley being a possible case in point. :-(
I could (and have) named others.
> It's almost as if the majority of the
> world is somehow programmed to want to die.
How about "Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot
change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know
the difference".
The "common sense" wisdom is that you cannot evade death. And they
have 2 very real things going for that side of the argument (a)
"You cannot evade your hazard function"; and (b) "The universe will
someday be a very dark and cold place". You trump (a) via something
like "interstellar travel" and/or "uploading" (of course these tend
to be only slightly less accepted than lifespan extension) :-;. Then
you trumb (b) with something like Dyson's arguments, or Multiverse
arguments but they are on swampy ground as well.
> Furthermore, there is one anti life-extension argument that I cannot accept,
> yet also cannot fully refute: overpopulation. The basic rebuttals are...
Yep in the back of everyone's mind (or at least the educated people)
Malthusian concepts will creep into the discussion.
Usually at this point one brings up nanotechnology and planetary dismantlement
and gets even more raised eyebrows.
> 1. We need to get off the planet anyway. The problem with this rebuttal
> is that it assumes the cost of launching payloads will go down far enough
> and quickly enough to outpace the rate at which the population grows and
> thereby allocates resources away from space colonization toward day-to-day
> survival. This *may* happen, but we cannot assume that it *will*.
Personal nanotech allows it (cheaply) as would "public" nanotech, e.g.
space elevators (there is a company in Seattle working on this, NASA
*is* funding the research). You can also argue that if you live long
enough, and invest wisely early enough, then everyone ends up sufficiently
wealthy that they can use 30+ year old Soviet technology at $20 million a pop
to get off the planet. You could also probably manage it quite cheaply
with a large mass driver, though you might need to be either frozen
or have a fair amount of "in" board nanotech to deal with the G-forces.
> 2. Anti-aging treatments could be conditional on the patient opting for
> permanent birth control.
This is similar to the argument that Tom Kirkwood makes at the end of
his recent book. You can reproduce, but only if you plan to end your
"immortal" life.
> This would cause a massive cultural backlash in most of the world.
Populations in Europe *and* Japan *are* declining. The U.S. I think
is barely above the replacement rate. (No legislation required at
all -- simply the means to control reproduction and perhaps a desire
to pass on more of ones intellectual or economic capital to ones
offspring.)
> 3. The earth's carrying capacity is unlimited. The problem with this rebuttal
> is that it's untrue. Granted, the environmentalists may be exaggerating
> the immediacy of the overpopulation threat because of their own political
> agenda. However at some point, be it in the next 50 years or the next 500,
> *something* is *going* to become a limiting factor-- be it habitable land,
> fresh water, or utilizable energy.
Plenty of habitable land if you look at the density of New York City
or Tokyo. We just have to think in 3D rather than 2D. (I have
lived in NYC (both a typical brownstone as well as classical Manhattan
high rise), San Francisco area (both suburban house and city house)
and in Seattle "neighborhood"s (both condominium complex as well as
a tall thin house) -- all of these were relatively high density.
Humans *are* capable of adapting to high density environments.
Plenty of fresh water if you can afford to remove the salt from it.
Plenty of solar energy as well as plenty of radioactive energy to do
this. (Do you realize how many *tons* of plutonium are currently
being stored?) And that doesn't even begin to tap the power we could
harvest from solar power satellites. And don't get me started on the
the significant reductions in power per capita that advanced biotechnology
and nanotechnology will enable.
> Life extension will result in this bottleneck being approached faster.
So what? More people means more bright and creative people means the
singularity happens that much sooner. (Only argument against this that
I know of is one that suggests that scientists become less productive after
they get married.)
> 4. By keeping our geniuses alive longer, more concentrated expertise can be
> brought to bear on all problems including overpopulation. Not impossible, but
> highly speculative... we really have no way to even estimate the likelihood of
> the overpopulation problem being solved in any given time frame.
Phooey. We *have* the technology to get people off the planet. If it were
being mass produced it would be *much* cheaper. We know there are probably
cheaper alternatives. We do have the energy resources. Long-lived people
*will* have the wealth.
> Again, I'm not presenting my own views here. I'm presenting opposing views I
> cannot refute, and am seeking suggestions on.
The problem with all of my comments above is that they are based on a decade
or more of nearly continuous self-education in a variety of fields. Most
scientists will not have the depth of experience in a variety of fields
to be able to evaluate many of the claims I make above. I believe that Eric
Drexler entered MIT about the same time I entered Harvard (circa 1974).
[Aside, Somewhere in the Multiverse there is a Robert Bradbury who went to MIT
instead of Harvard, met Eric Drexler, and became close friends with him...
That would be a very interesting universe to live in.]
Anyway, Nanosystems, which was essentially Eric's PhD thesis, was published in
1992. That means it took 18 years for someone who is probably one of the
brightest persons on the planet to accumulate enough knowledge to devise
a robust picture of nanotechnology. A "average" scientist is *not* going to
easily grok anything one says about nanotech given most of the crappy summaries
that the press produce. Scientists would really have to get *into* it -- that
takes time that most people do not have. So you can't even use many of the
"reasonable" arguments above.
> PS: I understand in general principle why the argument of death being "good
> for the next generation" doesn't hold up-- group selection is a very weak
> evolutionary force. Does anybody know of a rigorous, quantitative paper
> explaining exactly what the limitations are on how much group selection could
> have influenced evolution?
Looks like Steve Austad has 4 pages on group selection in "Why We Age" (58-62).
I would start there. The Gavrilov's might also discuss it but I can't lay
my hands on my that book right now.
I think you are doing a good job anticipating the responses -- I don't
know however if it is possible to have a "reasoned" debate due to knowledge
scale differences.
Robert
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