From: Alex Future Bokov (alexboko@umich.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 22 2003 - 15:40:36 MDT
First of all, I'm thrilled that you are on this list Dr. DeGray! The more
practicing researchers participate, the better.
By productive detente I mean: we do science, they do science, and nobody calls
anybody else 'kooks', at least not in public. By moving *any* legitimate
scientific study forward, even people who disagree with my goals contribute
to them. Just some more directly than others. Active cooperation is best
of course, but I'll take passive cooperation over active opposition any
day. 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.
With regard to logic being on our side. I agree, but a PhD does not
automatically confer rationality in all facets of life. I've been trying all
my life to understand the knee-jerk "hubris" reaction people like us seem to
provoke, and still cannot understand it. It's almost as if the majority of the
world is somehow programmed to want to die. The only useful thing I've learned
from years of debates on this topic is to circumvent the issue by focusing
attention on more 'mundane' aspects of the research.
Furthermore, there is one anti life-extension argument that I cannot accept,
yet also cannot fully refute: overpopulation. The basic rebuttals are...
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*.
2. Anti-aging treatments could be conditional on the patient opting for
permanent birth control. This would cause a massive cultural backlash in
most of the world. It also assumes one or a few discrete treatments that
could be controlled in such a manner by one or a few entities. It also
assumes that these entities would have the political will to impose such
conditions. Finally, there would be nothing preventing people from reproducing
first and then undergoing rejuvenating treatments, and their children doing
likewise, and so on... thus reducing the effectiveness of the permanent birth
control requirement.
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. Life extension will result in this
bottleneck being approached faster.
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.
Again, I'm not presenting my own views here. I'm presenting opposing views I
cannot refute, and am seeking suggestions on.
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?
---- This message was posted by Alex Future Bokov to the Extropians 2003 board on ExI BBS. <http://www.extropy.org/bbs/index.php?board=67;action=display;threadid=56792>
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