From: Reason (reason@exratio.com)
Date: Sun Mar 02 2003 - 15:13:26 MST
---> Robert J. Bradbury
> On Sat, 1 Mar 2003, Reason wrote:
>
> > See my other post on this point. We need to increase funding by
> managing,
> > growing and presenting demand for improvements in real
> anti-aging medicine.
>
> Some of us, esp. David Kekich and Aubrey de Grey are trying to
> do this (each based on their own expertise, David with TransVio
> and Aubrey with his structuring of the fall IABG conference).
There's certainly a bunch of people talking...needs to be more cross-talk,
though. The communities need to discover each other, collaborate and share.
> > Realistically, assuming that the US and more governments manage
> not to shut
> > down all avenues of anti-aging research, we're looking at minor
> anti-aging
> > medical technologies becoming available in ten years,
>
> The US will not shut it down. I've just recently had a long conversation
> with Natasha about how to prioritize ExI efforts. Unknown to most people
> is the fact that China is going "over the edge" with regard to
> cloning research.
> This was documented in a recent Nature article and I've had
> personal confirmations.
> (We are talking more money than the principle investigators know
> how to effectively spend...).
<laughter> Would that I ever find myself in that situation...but that's
heartening to hear. You have any URLs for articles?
> As I have made the argument that GM crops cannot be stopped -- anti-aging
> research cannot be stopped as well. As Spock so well observed in
> Star Trek II: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... or
> the one". The "deathist" bioethicists will fail.
Stopped no, slowed down yes. Irrespective of final effect, I don't think we
should miss this chance to build up our own strength and position by
opposing something so easy to oppose. As has been pointed out, Kass makes a
wonderful villain.
> My conclusion (and suggestion to Natasha) is that ExI should not focus
> too much energy on dealing with anti-stem-cell/cloning efforts. It
> is a question of inertia -- opinions in the U.S. or Europe are only
> going to have a limited impact on global inertia.
Well, a bunch of us orgs are stomping on ahead with the opposition in any
case. Why leave it to China if you could have the US and China working at
it? I'm not confident enough of results happening fast enough to let things
ride. Who knows what parts of anti-aging medicine could turn out to be far
more expensive and complex (= add another 5 years of research) than we knew?
I think that the struggle against AIDS shows plenty of precedent for moments
like that.
> > This is conditional on us winning the war of memes with the
> deathist bioethicists.
> > If they convince the world that no-one should have anti-aging
> technology, that it's immoral
> > and unimportant, that it will be legislated against, then the
> markets will
> > never come into being. The research will never happen.
>
> Highly unlikely to happen. I'll cite everything from personal
> self-interest
> (the Ellison Medical Foundation) to the cultural self-interest (see China
> above). We can be very annoyed with any deathists but they aren't going
> to win in the long run (they would have to eliminate our instincts for
> survival).
I think you're right in the *long* term, but the 20th century has had many
places and times in which progress towards a generally desired ideal was
blocked or subverted for decades. The long term could easily be postmortem
for many of us. It's a big existential risk -- we shouldn't sit back and
take it while we can fight.
> > So I see the problem
> > as being a lack of funding, rather than a failing of human nature.
>
> Agreed! I would only make a slight modification that one of the
> major reasons for the lack of funding is that most people think
> the problems cannot be solved -- we didn't go to the moon until
> we went to the moon. In many respects what is lacking is someone
> saying "let us go to the moon". Aging may be somewhat more complex
> than going to the moon but it isn't *that* much more complex.
I also think that there's a more suble case of mistaken thinking going on.
This is from my many discussions with non-technical people-in-the-street.
Most people my age and younger accept that medical technology can make you
live longer -- it's on the level of obvious thinking for them. However, they
fall into Tithonus belief; that living longer wouldn't be worth it, as you
would just be old and crippled for longer. I'd say an easy 70% of the people
I talk to think that way.
Reason
http://www.exratio.com/
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