Haseltine: regenerative medicine may lead to immortality
from the The-long-view dept.
An excellent article in the New York Times ("Apostle of Regenerative Medicine Foresees Longer Health and Life", by Nicholas Wade, December 18, 2001) profiles Dr. William A. Haseltine, chief executive of Human Genome Sciences, a biotechnology company in Rockville, Md., and his views on the potential for regenerative medicine, the concept of repairing the body by developing new tissues and organs as the old ones wear out. The article describes how Haseltine sees the field advancing in four stages. Some excerpts:
The first, making use of the body's own signaling factors to stimulate healing processes, is already being implemented. According to the article, the second phase of regenerative medicine, in his view, "kicks in when the body is injured beyond the point of repair, at which point you want to put in a new organ," he said. Tissue engineers have already learned to grow sheets of skin and are starting to learn how to grow replacement organs such as blood vessels and more complex tissues.
"Further in the future, he believes, biologists may learn how to fashion new organs outside the body from adult stem cells, the body's guardians and regenerator of adult tissues. These would be taken from the patient's body so as to avoid problems of immune rejection. . . . This, he says, is the point at which regenerative medicine merges into rejuvenative medicine. . . . ëSince we are a self-replacing entity, and do so reasonably well for many decades, there is no reason we can't go on forever,í Dr. Haseltine said."
"In the fourth phase of regenerative medicine, according to Dr. Haseltine's timetable, nanotechnology ó microscopic-scale mechanical devices ó will merge with biological systems. Humans are already becoming partly inorganic when they receive organ- mimicking machines like the AbioCor artificial heart. Artificial devices are likely to improve to the point that they will eventually interface with evolution's form of engineering. . . . Some people find immortality disturbing, seeing it as transgressing the line that separates people from gods. Dr. Haseltine sees it as an inherent property of life. . . . ëWhat distinguishes life from other forms of matter is that it is immortal — we are a 3.5-billion-year-old molecule,í he said, referring to the time when life on earth began. ëIf it were ever mortal, we would not be here. The fundamental property of DNA is its immortality. The problem is to connect that immortality with human immortality and, for the first time, we see how that may be possible.í "
December 21st, 2001 at 9:03 AM
Repugnance at psychological scarecrows
Some people find immortality disturbing, seeing it as transgressing the line that separates people from gods.
Apparently the kinds of people with such a low disturbance threshold don't find it repugnant when someone they approve of politically, like Dick Cheney with his implanted pacemaker (without which he might die at his "appointed time"), or Rush Limbaugh with his cochlear implant, trangresses the line between between people and machines.
Why is becoming a cyborg acceptable to such people, but they freak out at the prospect of using advanced technologies to become "immortal," or perhaps more accurately, "immorbid"? Is it because such people assume that "god" creates life, but is unable to create the sorts of machines humans are good at?
Is that why trying to improve human biology is often denounced as "playing god," while computer engineering is acceptable?
December 21st, 2001 at 10:31 AM
Re:Repugnance at psychological scarecrows
As nearly as I can tell, one (deeply repugnant!)
writer who disapproves of extending human lives,
Leon Kass appears to basically be motivated
by enmity towards freedom. He disapproves of
technologies that give us choices in reproduction
(in cloning, in assisted fertility, even in
contraception), choices in averting aging or in
ending a lingering death. As nearly as I can
tell, the man hungers for chains.
I do not know if he accepts cyborgs such as
Cheney.
December 21st, 2001 at 3:11 PM
Re:Repugnance at psychological scarecrows
I'm willing to bet that hubris has been condemned since human culture began millions of years ago.
We never cease playing with matches no matter how many times we've burned ourselves. Despite all the warnings, we keep messing with things "man was not meant to know."
I doubt we'll ever stop tinkering, short of destroying ourselves. It's human nature to mess with things–it's our monkey curiosity.
We are doomed to be novelty generators. The moment brains emerged that were complex enough to sustain culture we were doomed.
So where does that leave us? Are we on the road to hell or heaven?
Neither. To say there is a heaven or hell waiting for us as we continue to tinker with things is based on the incorrect assumption that there is some kind of goal to this process.
I argue that there is no goal. I think the only thing we can say for certain about the future is that it will be tragic in parts and wonderful in parts. It will be a complex, ambiguious mass of change. It won't be heaven. It won't be hell. It will be different.
There will horrors and triumphs aplenty waiting for us as we develop nanotech and artificial life and sapience. But what's the alternative? The static perfection of a crystal? The boring feedback loops of an insect?
I argue for progress not because it will bring utopia. I advocate progress because it generates novelty. Progress as entertainment. That's all.
December 21st, 2001 at 5:15 PM
Re:Repugnance at psychological scarecrows
I wouldn't say that I personally was disturbed so much as cynical, and I'm not exactly a big fan of Dick Cheney. There are lots of reasons to hold views different to yours, and not everyone who holds them is a conservative or a God botherer.
Again, let's try not to portray all doubters as nervous nellies. To some, the question is simply that of working out which part of the continuous spectrum of choices represents their own personal limit. Some people will not take aspirin. Others will accept morphine when it is truly needed. Some will enjoy the odd snifter of brandy at Christmas. Others steal from their parents to feed their smack habit. It does not have to be hypocritical to utilize lifesaving medicine but question the wisdom of attempting to become immortal.
A valid point. There is no distinction between nature, humanity and technology. Any forms of machine phase life that arise in the future are just as 'natural' as a slime mold or giant panda.
December 22nd, 2001 at 5:32 PM
Re:Repugnance at psychological scarecrows
"Is that why trying to improve human biology is often denounced as "playing god," while computer
engineering is acceptable?"
It is not playing god that bothers me as much as people desiring to be gods.
Should we just blindly accept a new immortality (if it were indeed possible, which it is not) when it would be the most significant change in human history?
Why should society allow anyone to become immortal? Should society allow anyone to not become immortal? Would two cultures evolve? If so, would they live in peace or try to annihilate each other? We must ask these questions without condemnation for asking.
December 23rd, 2001 at 9:55 AM
Re:Repugnance at psychological scarecrows
Wishing to live without aging is a very far cry
from wishing to be a god. In most mythologies,
gods possess great power. A treatment for aging
does not grant this.
We should accept peoples' attempts to save their
own lives. To stop someone from saving their life
is murder. To systematically stop a group of
people from saving their own lives is mass murder.
The answers to these questions are worth far less
than a cure for aging would be worth. The point
of joining together into societies in the first
place is to make our lives better and longer, to
escape from conditions making our lives "nasty,
brutish, and short." If the rulers of a society
choose to execute those of their subjects who
commit the crime of living past a set age, then
the subjects are more than justified in rising up
and destroying those rulers.
Avoiding conflict has some value, but remember
that aging kills far more than even the bloodiest
conflicts of the 20th century.
December 23rd, 2001 at 11:30 AM
Immortality is about Freedom, Period!!
Immortality is as much a matter of personal choice as deciding to change one's hair colour or starting into body-building. I am of the opinion that matters of life and death and self-image are of such a personal nature that it is not a proper role of government to make these kinds of decisions for people. The issue of immortality is no different than any other moral issue. The basic question of morality is: does the individual have the right to live for his/her own personal goals, or mush the individual be forced into serving the goals of something/someone else? How is it that the issue of immortality is different than any other issue? Since when is immortality not purely a matter of civil liberties? Pray Tell? The Declaration of Independence clearly states that the fundamental role of government is the defense and protection of individual liberties, including the right to live as long as one wishes (right to life) and what ever form one chooses to live in (morphological freedom). It also states that one does not replace a government for light and transient causes. However, the right to an open-ended future strikes me as being as fundamental as the right to free speach and press. If the government should refuse to allow for our immortality, then we do have the moral right to remove that government and replace it with one that will allow for immortality, unquestionably!! Vastly extended human youthspan (a.k.a. "immortality) goes hand in hand with entreprenureal freedom and individual liberty. It is logically inconsistant to deny the first and still believe in the second and third one.
December 23rd, 2001 at 2:20 PM
Re:Repugnance at psychological scarecrows
I don't agree that his questions are worthless. I think asking those questions is worth a lot. Because it is very well possible that not everybody who wants the immortality drug will be able to get it. I guess that it will be very expensive when it hits the market first, because extensive development and research costs have to be put into the calculation, and because many many many people would be willing to pay a lot for it.
So: there will be two sets of people. Those who can afford it and are willing to do it, and those who cannot or are not allowed to do it – due to religious or governmental prohibitions.
That situation will bring a lot of tension.
It makes sense to think about it beforehand and ask those questions before the situation is actually there.
December 23rd, 2001 at 2:38 PM
Re:Immortality is about Freedom, Period!!
Suppose this technology exists but is very very expensive during your lifetime. You may find that you cannot attain it and it may not be your right to have it without the money. You may demand that government make it avaiable to you but then government would be making life and death decisions for people.
Also, consider the consequences of virtually everyone alive now becoming immortal. Even mature MNT may not be able to meet the exponential demand for resources in time to prevent catastrophy. Thus governments may have to restrict access to immortality until society can deal with it.
December 23rd, 2001 at 3:46 PM
Re:Repugnance at psychological scarecrows
Lest anyone misunderstand me, I am not opposed to living without aging. I would likely partake of it myself but I would have no illusions that I am the sole master of my fate. I asked two deeply Christian friends how they respond to the concept of being able to stop (and even reverse) aging. Neither expressed a fundamental problem with it though one preferred to age naturally and the other wished to partake of it.
December 23rd, 2001 at 5:08 PM
Re:Repugnance at psychological scarecrows
No, but it is (in many people's eyes, particularly transhumans) a prerequisite for godhood. There are probably few people who get all starry eyed about this stuff that would be content to be a very long-lived human, as opposed to something "more"
Emotively laden hyperbole. It is statement capable of being literally true, but one that is expressed in a manner designed to cast any opposition in the mold of genocidal Nazis. What if the price of your "immortality" is the unavoidable death of others? Are you willing to become a murderer to further your obsession? Be honest. If the choice was death or murder, which would you choose? I await your answer expectantly.
Why?? Because you say so?? You may be content to be obsessively focused on the glittering prize, but others are concerned about the implications and feel that a thorough examination of the matter is imperative. If the best you can come up with in rebuttal is "Sez you, neener neener. You just don't get it" then perhaps you need to accept that your emotional response is winning out over reason. Are you saying that the questions raised by Rob will never be an issue? He was just asking questions that deserve an answer; he wasn't advocating the banning of anagathic research. Why can't you enter into discussion on the issues he raised? He's just bringing up the important issues that we need to examine in parallel with the R&D. Why not give us your opinion on the matter at hand, rather than sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "La La La?"
December 23rd, 2001 at 5:34 PM
Well, since you put a PERIOD at the end of that…
…I guess that settles the issue.
Other personal choices include getting addicted to heroin, home trepanation, suicide, serial killing and watching Jerry Springer.
Since when were all issues logically equivalent? Why is discussion of abortion exactly the same as talking about the ethics of globalisation? Try not to oversimplify.
The first thing I can think of off the top of my head is economic matters. Who gets it, how do we allocate resources. How do we deal with the untermenschen who will riot when they realize they can't afford it. And so on. To suggest that the only issue is whether or not you get exactly what you are petulantly demanding as your right is to demonstrate a dangerous blindness.
As I said in another post to this thread, if the only response you have to questions of this nature is to say "Well fuck you, I'm going to do what I want and you better not get in my way. To Hell with the consequences." then you need to examine to what degree your emotions are clouding the issue. These questions are going to be important if you get what you want. Why not discuss them now, rather than when it's too late?
December 23rd, 2001 at 6:19 PM
Already taken care of
Rob Virkus I've already considered that possibility. I am making my cryonic suspension arrangments with Alcor. So I ready am setting up my backup plan in case this turns out to be true. Ask yourself why the cost performance of semiconductor and IT tends to follow "Moore's Law", whereas medicine is currently very expensive. Do you not think that if everytime a hardware/software company had to obtain government approval thru a regulatory process costing $300-500 million and 7-10 years, computer hardware and software would also be extremely expensive? It is government regulation, not medicine itself, that makes medical technology expensive. Most rich people that I know of own the same kind of computer that I do. The factories that make semiconductor chips cost $2 billion to build and commission, far more expensive tham any pharmaceutical manufacturing plant. My point is that medical technology is not inherently more expensive than computing technology. Rather, it is the FDA burearocracy and its regulatory process that makes it cost up to $500 million for a new compound to be brought to market. It is this $500 million price tag that gives an effective monopoly to big pharma and thier minions. If you want to learn more about the FDA and life extension, I suggest you look up the Life Extension Foundation (www.lef.org) and talk to the founders, Saul Kent and Bill Falloon. These two individuals, probably the greatest heros in America today, have successfully challenged the FDA on constitutional grounds. In fact, it is Saul's conviction (and mine, too) that if it were not for the FDA's raid on the foundation in 1987, we would have significant anti-ageing therapies on the market today, and we would not be having this conversation. Instead of using the cost issue as an excuse to cop-out on immortality, I suggest that you join the LEF and help us reform and/or abolish the FDA. I also suggest that you sign up for cryonic suspension as well. If you're not willing to do these things, then my grandmother had an expression for you: Can't means that you don't want to. The issue of limits to growth has been so discredited by Julian Simon and others that I am not even going to respond to it. I will only say this: Young, healthy people are economic assets, old people are economic liabilities. It would be in the rational, self-interest of any government (if governments are capable of such as thing) to covert thier liabilities (old people) into assets (young, dynamic people) in order to further thier economic growth and development. The whole "limits to growth" rhetoric was created by disgruntled leftist academics who cannot handle the idea that the rest of society has left them behind and no longer has any use for them and their work. I suggest that you dump it as well. You're either on the side of life and freedom or you're on the side of death. There is no in between state.
December 23rd, 2001 at 6:21 PM
There's nothing to discuss
There is nothing of merit to discuss.
December 23rd, 2001 at 6:32 PM
Arguments are irrelevant
The issue of cost that Rob Virkus has brought up is a real issue, and I have responded to it elsewhere. The problem is government regulation, not the fact that medical technology is inherently expensive. Yes, some people are going to get it first. However, getting rid of government regulation so that free-market competition drives down the price of the anti-ageing treatments is the only realistic solution to this problem. All your other issues are such meaningless philosophical drivel, they are not worthy of a response.
December 23rd, 2001 at 6:52 PM
Re:Repugnance at psychological scarecrows
Why is becoming a cyborg acceptable to such people, but they freak out at the prospect of using advanced technologies to become "immortal," or perhaps more accurately, "immorbid"?
I don't think 'freak out' is the most accurate phrase you could use. I submit that the majority of people are cautious about advanced technology, and while they will embrace it, they won't sprint to adobt it, but mosey tword it.
December 23rd, 2001 at 7:17 PM
Immortality and christianity
Presummably, your religious friends believe such because they believe that human consciousness (soul) survives physical death (afterall, why would anyone believe in religion if they did not believe this). If so, why would they want life-extension at all?
When I was a teenager (before I became an immortalist), I believed that human consciousness survived physical death, and I considered life-extension and cryonics to be a joke. I became interested in mountain climbing and did not worry about dying, because I knew that I would survive physical death! I also decided that I was going to live the "free and open life" until I was about 50 years old or so, then I was planning to ditch the physical body (since its getting old) and get on with partying it up in the next or after life. I spoke of this openly to all of my friends, including christian ones, as well as my parents (who are also christian). You see, I saw no point in experiencing old age and, since I knew I would survive physical death, I saw no reason why I should have to put up with living in an ageing, decaying body.
For some reason, people (especially the christian ones) thought that this was unreasonable. I did not understand why they objected to my choices and plans. I carefully explained this to them that, if you believe the notion that human consciousness (soul) survives physical death (the basis of all religious thought), that there was no reason to fear death and that it was simply a transition (like puberty or graduation from high school) and that my life choices were logically consistant. They still didn't buy it.
I also noticed that old people do not dream and talk about all of the exciting new things they plan to do once they get free of thier physical bodies. I was never able to understand thier point of view. I ultimately decided that these people (religious people) really do not believe that you survive physical death, and that religious belief is a complete sham and farce. It is this issue and others that ultimately led me to decide that religion is complete bunk.
As for being the sole master of my fate, I am under no illusion about this as well. In the late 80's, I was the total So-Cal surfer dude (since I talked of immortality and biological self-modification, they called me cyber-dude). If you had told me that I was fated to spend the ENTIRE 1990's living in Japan, Taiwan, and Malaysia; I would have told you that you're nuts! However, I ended up have just as much fun and adventure in Asia as I did in SoCal as "cyberdude"!
My point is that you really do not have that much control of your fate and that my desire for an indefinitely extended youth is not based on this desire. Rather, my desire is always to experience new things and to enjoy my life.
I do not seek the infinite, rather I seek the indefinite!
December 23rd, 2001 at 7:51 PM
Well, I'm convinced.
That is the full extent of economic issues relating to life extension, it it? No worries about how we divide the pie amongst the immortals, or sustainable systems. How naive.
The biggest problem is government regulation?? You sound halfway as bad as Kadamose. I would rate technical challenges and unrealistic expectations as bigger problems, but the latter would require a bit of non-masturbatory introspection, whereas you would seem to be more interested in taking an adversarial position to anyone who asks difficult questions.
Where in the post that you replied to is ther any hint of philosophy? I took issue with the use of emotive language to shortcircuit intelligent debate, and the avoidance of the whole deal by use of unsupported imperatives (viz. your Period). If you want to make ad hominem attacks on me based on other postings, then you are once again evading the topic at hand.
You are free to petulantly ignore any discussion if you choose. Once again, you have shown that the highest level of debate you can enter into on the subject is "screw you."
So many extropians and transhumans seem to think that discussion of the issues extends no further than indulging in mutual circle-jerks about how exactly how they will live like gods after all the stupid sillyheads have been swept under the carpet. If you can't engage in debates with doubters without resorting to "you are irrelevant and cannot stop me" then you are a fool.
December 23rd, 2001 at 8:06 PM
Re:Already taken care of
A number of reasons. The biggest being that you are comparing apples and oranges. One has to do with semiconductor physics, the other to do with biology. You can't gauge progress in one with progress in the other. You can claim that government regulation retards development of medical technologies, and that's fair enough. But don't try to compare the states of completely different industries with entirely unique situations.
If a semiconductor company produces a chip that outputs arithmetic errors (hello Pentium Pro!) then users get pissed off and money and productivity are lost. If a pharmaceutical company does not do rigorous enough testing on a new morning sickness drug (hello thalidomide), then thousands of babies are born profoundly malformed. You might not care about that, but I suspect that you would be in the minority.
This is not to say that pharmaceutical regulation is a model of enlightened management. I'm just showing how silly a comparison you made.
ROTFL. Bugger firefighters, we've got immortalists! Congressional medals of honour right now! What overblown hyperbole.
Because that is the only economic issue relating to life extension, of course.
The fact that you equate dynamism seemingly exclusively with 'young' people, and that 'old' people are incapable of making a contribution says more about your psyche than you care to realise.
More insanely over the top hyperbole designed to corral everyone into wearing your interpretations of white hats and black hats. I love life with a passion. I love it too much to be a miser about it. I am not suicidal. I am an anarcho-syndicalist that equates life with freedom. I remain to be convinced that 'immortality' is a desirable state. This does not fit into your dichotomistic view. Your position appears to be unsophisticated in the extreme. Do you think that there are no adverse issues about life extension? Zip. Nada. Bupkiss. If you don't, then maybe you should try talking to people rather than treating them with contempt because they don't hold the same views as you. It would seem that you think that anyone who expresses doubts about your obsession is automatically trying to stop you, and is therefore an adversary. That's a teenagers perspective. Grow up a little.
December 23rd, 2001 at 8:29 PM
Let me hear you sing "La la la I am not listening"
That is a truly pathetic response. You really must be capable of better than that.
December 23rd, 2001 at 8:37 PM
Re:Immortality is about Freedom, Period!!
A treatment for aging, like treatments for the
diseases caused by aging, does not, in and of
itself, cause any exponential demands for resources.
The consequence of "everyone alive right now
becoming immortal" is to preserve a fixed
number of lives. Only breeding generates exponential
demands.
"Restricting access to immortality," when you come
down to it, means armed government employees
forcibly stopping willing consumers of anti-aging
treatments from purchasing them from willing
suppliers, with the intended effect of killing the
would-be consumers.
This would be mass murder, no different in kind from
prying vials of insulin out of diabetics' hands,
because, horror of horrors, they might live longer if they got it.
Look, we have capital punishment in the USA, but
when the government kills a prisoner, it is usually
because the prisoner has killed someone else.
Attempting to stay alive has not been made a capital
crime. It is hard to overstate how evil a law
restricting anti-aging treatments would be.
December 23rd, 2001 at 9:01 PM
Re:Repugnance at psychological scarecrows
A couple of points:
I do not think that anticipating tensions is
worthless. I think that it is worth less
than a cure for aging is worth. Political
tensions are unpleasant. They have lead to wars
that have killed people. But today, in the West,
aging kills practically everyone (barring a fairly
small fraction of us who die in accidents etc.).
This single process is worse than all of our wars
put together.
What is supposed to be the point of asking about
the effects on society? If the policy being
suggested to avoid the deleterious effects of
anti-aging treatments is to use government force
to prevent the research or the treatments, then
the policy is effectively murder – far worse than
any deleterious effects anti-aging treatments
might have.
Do you suggest any policy that might reduce some
of the stresses that anti-aging treatment could
introduce, but without killing anyone? If
so, I would like to hear them, and I think they
could be a valuable part of preparing for this
biomedical capability.
December 23rd, 2001 at 9:24 PM
Re:Repugnance at psychological scarecrows
Much appreciated, and respected. My point is that government restriction of anti-aging treatments is a type of murder, and that trial balloons for such policies should be shot at with everything available.
December 23rd, 2001 at 9:39 PM
Re:Immortality is about Freedom, Period!!
What do you intend to do about people who still plan to have children? Entire cultures of people (religious or not) may decide to bring up their children to accept their humanity. Will you do anything more interventionist than talk to them?
Do you favour the breaking of patents for AIDS drugs so third world sufferers have a better chance? I mean break patent right now regardless of the economic cost to the big pharmaceutical companies? Because surely it is mass murder not to do so immediately.
It is hard to overstate how melodramatic a statement that is. If restricting treatments is mass murder, then you can indict every pharmaceutical multinational in the world. Would such a policy be more or less evil than the World Bank encouraging third world nations to grow cash crops to service their national debt while their people starve? How about describing developing nations as "underpolluted" and suggesting that high-level toxic waste should be exported to such nations because health problems will be less noticeable due to the low life expectancy and nasty bureaucratic health regulations can be bypassed (genuine statement of a WB vice president!)? Which is more evil, to cut short someone's life for economic reasons, or refusing to indulge the selfishness of a privileged elite refuses to acccept they can only ever postpone the inevitable? There are far more evil things going on in the world than refusing rich Americans the chance to be selfish for longer.
I would still be interested, purely in the interests of establishing boundary conditions, if you would tell me if you would be willing to kill to pursue your goal. You can use words like reluctantly, under duress, improbable or irrelevant in your answer if you like, so long as you directly address the question.
December 26th, 2001 at 6:19 PM
Standing by your claims of murder
The Christmas cheer has worn off, and one of my daughter's toys has been playing an incessant little ditty for two days now, so I'm kinda grumpy. Think I'll jump on your piece of propaganda.
Because that's what your claim of muder amounts to. You chose a very specific word to label those who you feel oppose you. Murder implies transgression and moral wrongness. You attempt to cast opposition as criminal, and by implication undeserving of the benefits of society. Use of the word suggests enforcement and punishment. It is, in short, an attempt to dehumanise the opposition (curious when it is in fact your humanity you wish to discard).
Well, if you meant what you said, rather than using a glibly applied emotive phrase to attempt to sway the argument by means other than reason (read: propaganda), then you should have the guts to stand by all the implications of the statement. I asked, and you have yet to answer, if you would kill to pursue your goal. I wan't being sensational; I was simply exploring the ramifications of your statement. Most legal systems in the world recognise the right of the individual to use lethal force where it is absolutely neccessary in self defence. If you are going to use the word 'murder' in your arguments then you should have the intellectual honesty to admit to its implications. Beyond self defence, do you advocate the punishment or 'rehabilitation' of those who hold such criminal views? Is it a capital crime, since it is a premeditated position?
I will be disappointed but not surprised if you continue to fail to have the courage to address these issues. I believe that you were simply making inappropriate use of powerful words to cast your opinions in a favourable light, and that any dissection of these claims will be ignored because you would risk looking even more silly the deeper in you got.
I find it sad but predictable that a majority of the transhumans who respond to my little rants do so in terms of "you want to stop me but you can't you big poopy head nyah nyah." This is funny, because I have stated frequently that I will not stop anyone from doing whatever they want so long as it does not threaten me or my family. I will laugh from the sidelines, poke fun and ask difficult questions, but I have no intention of getting blood on my hands. And yet, my simple little words often provoke agressive reactions from people who obviously feel threatened. Perhaps you should ask yourselves why that is.
December 26th, 2001 at 11:30 PM
Rather than join in in the middle of the argument
I am only posting here because I (admintedly) feel very strongly about the subject. I am a transhumanist, but do feel that the arguments against it are valid, in a way. They are valid in the sense that if the option of becoming "immortal" is not made available to all people everywher, at the same time(relatively) then it most likely will turn out bad for society. Though some of the arguments are a bit absurd. First about the space issue, yes we have the potential to overcrowd this planet and it's rescources, we have it now. By indefinately extending life we help eliminate this problem not make it worse. When lifespans(and our overall health and resistance to injury)are increased we are better equipped to colonize and "terraform"(more accurately humanform since we even adapt terra to our needs) the rescources of space, the planets, and even other worlds. The argument of economics again is a valid concern. It's a bit more complicated than a rich versus poor issue. It also must be considered that the majority of the people today who could concievably afford it all live in america. If the "cure" were found today(and it wasn't made freely and openly) it WOULD start a war, probably several. Bad ones at that. But remember it will not be found today. Most likely it will be the culmination of several(probably 100s if not 1000s) advances in many fields over the next 10-100 years. The economic reality of the world WILL be much different then. For one thing wealth is increasing(slowly) virtually everywhere in the world. Not necessarily in straight money terms, but in the department of quality of living yes. Fewer people starve today than ever in recorded history. And the trend is toward fewer and fewer. In the coming century maybe(and its a big maybe) we can eliminate that(or come close) threat. Of Course my one big problem with all the nay sayers is that they forget one major fact. We as natural creatures are GOING to evolve or become extintc one day, with or without any direction. And when it happens i doubt mother nature will be too concerned whether or not it destroys society. Hell she won't be too concerned if it destroys the planet. I would prefer that we take the time to try and make society better through the change from us now to us future I would rather humans decide what the change is than natural selection. NS is slow and isn't based on the fact that I would like to live an open-ended life. Just that I survive to reproduce. Just wanted to share an opinion about all the arguments I have seen posted against the change. I happen to aggree that they are valid arguments, and will happily help plan ways around them(fixes for them). But I personally feel that many of them will be made obsolete over the next 50 years, as further advances in science, tech, and HOPEFULLY political structures will make many of the arguments I have seen obsolete(or just different). Of course, they might also create more arguments against it.
December 27th, 2001 at 12:07 AM
Re:Rather than join in in the middle of the argume
Congratulations. That is the most well-balanced and thoughtful statement I have ever heard out of a transhumanists mouth. Not that you have much competition
I play devil's advocate a lot. It surprises me how often I get knee-jerk responses that do not address the issue, but instead resort to the adolescent trump card of calling my arguments 'stupid'. I'm glad that there are some true believers who are not so dogmatic that the only response to questions or criticism is an emotional one, or the restatement of what amounts to articles of faith. The fact that you are willing to openly discuss the possibility that all will not be rosy in the gee-whiz future shows that you are a lot less 'religious' about your beliefs that seems to be common in the transhuman community.
I don't fully agree with what you have to say (eg I think we are more likely to 'areoform' ourselves than terraform Mars), but let's leave that for another day.
December 27th, 2001 at 6:55 AM
Constructive doubts
That's what I would like this post to be.
First, about overcrowding or not the planet:
Even without "immortality" or extended lifespan, human population is growing quasi-exponentially, despite a sharp slowdown of this growth in most industrialized countries.
I am aware of how much of our resources are currently spoiled or misused, and of how much more efficient we could become with new technologies such as MNT, but still…
If on top of our already growing population, some or all of the population is living for an extended lifetime, I am having a hard time imagining how we would not overcrowd the planet at some point. On a mere space issue at least, even if I'm willing to consider "aeroforming" or "aquaforming" ourselves, or migrating to newly terraformed planets. It seems to me that this is still a pretty long time away from today (so is immortality, you will tell me…), but they are only temporary solutions anyway…
Second, about evolving as a species:
If we reach that immortal state, how do we ensure that our human species is able to renew itself, as all species do with time (we have a lot less hairs than our prehistoric ancestors used to, we are much taller, we are also more fragile, we become resistant to some medications that used to work in the past, etc…)
Our species evolves constantly to adapt to an evolving environment, and this happens for the most part (unless I'm wrong…) through the reproductive process.
Some of these changes (mostly obvious improvements) we could do ourselves through biotech, transhumanism technologies, etc…, but isn't it dangerous to slow down or stop nature's own evolution?
December 27th, 2001 at 10:14 AM
Re:Constructive doubts
A couple of points:
I am having a hard time imagining why, for instance, a medicine that might ameliorate the free-radical component of aging is suddenly such a different animal that killing patients by forcibly witholding it is acceptable. Drugs like anti-hypertensives add say 5 years to the lives of say 40% or so of us. Why should the prospect of drugs that add say 30 years to say 70% of us give anyone the right to kill us?
In a word: no. Remember what evolution optimizes for: fecundity (yes, I know that humans are K-strategists, not r-strategists, but the bottom line, as far as gene frequency changes are concerned, is long term fecundity – roughly speaking, how many great-grandchildren get produced). It is only under certain conditions that maximum fecundity matches what we would consider improvements. If couple A has a dozen children, and their children have a dozen children, while couple B has two children, then A is favored by evolution, even if half of those grandchildren grow up to be muggers. Evolution does not select for for qualities that are individually desirable (happiness, longevity), nor for those which are socially desirable (intelligence, benevolence); it optimizes for fecundity within whatever current environmental conditions prevail. I suspect that under current conditions one of the traits most favored by evolution is probably a propensity to accept religions that forbid birth control. Personally, I don't see that direction as change for the better.
To answer one terminological point that Iron Sun keeps claiming: While he admits that my statement that "To stop someone from saving their life is murder. To systematically stop a group of people from saving their own lives is mass murder" can be "literally true," but then goes on to call it "hyperbole." In fact, calling the forcible witholding of life-extending medical care "restriction" is an Orwellian euphemism. What we are talking about here is the use of government force to murder people, plain and simple.
December 27th, 2001 at 4:56 PM
Clarification
"Areo" is the prefix for Martian (such as areostationary orbit), the prefix for air is "aero". I was implying that we may Mars-form ourselves rather than Earth-form the planet. I actually think that it is quite possible we will do neither.
December 27th, 2001 at 5:30 PM
Re:Constructive doubts
Why am I not surprised that you have deliberately misinterpreted my statements as a way of avoiding answering my questions (which you still haven't done!).
I did no such thing. I said that the statement was capable of being literally true. I was implying that sets of circumstances could be imagined in which such a policy could be used genocidally. That is very different from saying that every situation in which someone is prevented from extending their life by whatever means neccessary is murder. What if your anagathic regime requires the pituitary glands of toddlers (ridiculous example to prove a point)? Would restricting your right to set up a baby farm be murder?
No contradiction whatsoever, despite your attempt to create one. You were using a statement capable of being literally true in a hyperbolic manner. The statement "meat is murder" is capable of being literally true even if you are not a vegetarian (ask Jeffrey Dahmer), but if I use that statement to accuse all carnivores of being murderers, then I am using it hyperbolically.
I notice you still have not answered my questions. Since you have restated your belief in no uncertain terms, perhaps you will have the courage to do so now. Do you belive that lethal force in self defence is called for? Do you believe in punishment or 'reeducation' for people who oppose you? Is it a capital crime? Stop avoiding the questions and answer them directly. If you continue to make inappropraite use of emotive words then you should deal with the implications of your labeling honestly.
December 28th, 2001 at 5:33 AM
Re:Constructive doubts
You have used Orwellian doublespeak including
and
to obscure the fact that what you are really suggesting is forcing unwilling people to die; murdering patients.
This is indeed absurd. Look, the whole direction of medicine is towards synthetic drugs. Why do you think all of the work on combinatorial chemistry has been done? For entertainment??? Your questions about deaths caused by the production of anti-aging drugs are crap. I won't dignify such a wildly improbable contingency with an answer.
Despite your claim that you want no blood on your hands personally, your whole line of argument appears to celebrate the deaths of "rich Americans," apparently as a goal in itself. I would not stop you from speaking, just as I would not stop a maoist or klansman from speaking. I do condemn your position, just as I condemn theirs.
The 20th Century was bloody with examples of political systems based upon lethal class hatred. China managed to kill 30 million of its own in the "Great Leap Forward" alone, and the USSR killed 10s of millions. That is where enthusiasm for killing the rich takes us. Those deaths are historical facts, not hypotheticals piled on top of improbabilities.
Just how many deaths are you enthusiastic about enforcing? It seems likely that something like a DAF-16 enhancer which can help suppress free-radical damage in humans, will be brewed up like insulin is, from genetically engineered microorganisms or synthesized like other organic chemicals. How many people do you wish to murderously deny this to? The couple of million millionaires in the US? The 10 million people in the upper middle class? The 100 million+ in the middle class? Or do you just want to enforce death by free-radical damage on all of us?
December 28th, 2001 at 8:00 AM
Re:Constructive doubts
I was baiting, in a way. The point of my barb, well handled by Valid_Name, is that how we deal with economic gaps is going to be crucial. Keep in mind that I play devil's advocate. I don't hate Americans.
Okay, I wondered after posting if I had miscalculated this one. My intention was to draw you back from an absolutist position. I tossed it off the top of my head as a logical contrapositive, not a realistic scenario. Nobody will die to feed some vampiric immortality drug. But some people may die because not enough care was taken to give them access to the technology.
You want a more realistic scenario? Let's ignore uploading, because that's a whole different ball game. Imagine that a combination of treatments is developed to extend human lifespan to hundreds of years. But it requires tuning to the individual patient, and several sessions attended by trained professionals using sophisticated equipment. That is not the sort of process that will be amenable to mass production in the early stages when AI is not up to speed. Lesser or partial treatments are available, but they are far inferior. Money and power would talk. Keeping the lid on that would be a challenge, to say the least. The creation of an excluded underclass is an all too possible development. Get used to people throwing the elitist argument at you. I'm presenting an extreme position, yes, but not the most extreme that you will face.
None. I'm an anarchist, I have no intention of forcing anybody to do anything. I'm presenting positions, not platforms for a campaign. I would have thought that was blatantly apparent by now. I'm just trying to tell you that if you use your murder shtick as part of your platform, you are going to get stomped all over.
To take another tack, which I have mentioned before, do you advocate the immediate breaking of patent on AIDS drugs so that millions of people in developing countries stand a chance? To do any less, regardless of the economic consequences to the pharmaceutical companies, would be by your definition murder.
December 28th, 2001 at 8:40 AM
Re:Constructive doubts
None. I'm an anarchist, I have no intention of forcing anybody to do anything.
An Anarchist, my ass – more like a hypocritcal fool. How is it that whenever I, or anyone else, shares their views about a government-less world that you immediately have a temper tantrum and ask them why they have a problem with authority? You may use big words, but deep down you're a worthless bureaucrat who has no scientific knowledge whatsoever, and likes to argue just for the sake of it (probably because that's all you're good at) – you should probably take your own damn advice and grow up.
December 28th, 2001 at 9:54 AM
My Solution
As most people on here are already aware, I support 'physical' immortality in the extreme. Why? The answer is simple really – a human being cannot learn how the universe works within a 100 hundred year time frame. Of course, there are those who will bring up the subject, "What about Reincarnation?" – but what is the point of reincarnation if you can't remember anything from your previous existence? The gift of physical immortality will grant each individual human being the ability to figure out how the universe works and what the true meaning of life is.
What is the meaning of life? That's the infamous question that is always asked, but hardly anyone ever has an answer to; most answers to the question are, "live life to the fullest." – but how exactly can one 'live life to the fullest' if one does not know what life is to begin with? I believe I know what the first step of understanding the meaning of life is – it's about self discovery; it's about knowing who you are and how you operate – once that perspective is obtained, you will know why you exist and what your true purpose is in 'life'. But with our current life spans, it's impossible to obtain that perspective and break free from the 'godspell' which has plagued our existence since our creation by the Anunnaki/Nefilim 300,000 years ago.
The saying, "before you can move forward, you must first move backward", holds very true in this case. Unfortunately, only a small handful of us have decided to take that step backwards and learn about our true past and our true beginnings while everyone else continues to move forward without any clear insight on where they are going; the evidence of our past has been here all along and yet hardly anyone even bothered to interpret it; those who did interpret the findings decided to fabricate lies, mainly because they couldn't handle the truth themselves and wanted to continue to live in their illusion, or they believed that the rest of the world could not handle the truth, especially with the 'godspell' still intact worldwide.
Physical immortality will not only grant us the ability to break free from the 'godspell' but it will also allow us to achieve something that was denied to us from the beginning: to maximize our potential. We will literally become a new species, and the terms 'human being' and 'slave animal' will no longer hold true.
Before physical immortality can be obtained, however, the 'kinks' need to be taken out, otherwise the resulting pressure will not only destroy our world, but possibly all of creation as well…we will become our own grey goo. For those of you who can't read between the lines, I was refering to the overpopulation problem – which is basically the only problem that stands in the way of immortality.
There is a very easy solution to this problem – when the technology becomes available to create nanomachines that self replicate and can safely inhabit the body, one can theoretically launch them into the atmosphere where they will 'attack' all human beings indiscriminately and shut down and destroy their reprodutive systems, while at the same time fixing the cellular damage within their bodies and making them physically immortal. This is a solution that I stand by 100% – though I'm sure all of you humanists will disagree. But like I said, before you can move forward you must move backward…if you were to take that step to move backward and understand your true past, you would know that the first human beings were 'hybrids' and could not reproduce on their own – my solution simply takes us back to that point before we were tampered genetically to reproduce.
Human beings will once again become hybrids and we will either learn to love and respect each other and become gods, or we will destroy ourselves. If it ends up that we destroy ourselves, at least there will no longer be a 'seed' to continue our mistakes – the cycle will be forever broken.
December 28th, 2001 at 10:33 AM
Re:Standing by your claims of murder
Just on a related note….
In Oregon there is a couple that (so far as I know, I don't live in the state anymore so I haven't heard anything recent…) is in prison for murder. Why? They're extreme Jehovah's Witnesses. (I think. Either that or Adventists. I forget which exactly…. it's one or the other.) Since medicine is a tool of Satan, they took their critically ill daughter home and prayed over her instead of letting a doctor treat her. Guess what? She died. Guess what? That's murder. There's a provision in the law called 'depraved indifference to human life.' If you have the power to stop someone's death and simply refuse to do so, you're legally (and I'd argue morally) guilty of murder.
Would someone who, for religious or social reasons, denied people the right to use technology to extend their lives indefinitely be equally guilty of murder? I think so, particularly if that extention of life doesn't involve killing other people to sustain oneself. (As nanotech wouldn't, or at least I can't see any reason why it would.)
-Corwin
December 28th, 2001 at 10:50 AM
Re:Well, I'm convinced.
It isn't a question of 'you are irrelevant and cannot stop me.' It is however, very much a question of 'once I and others have this technology, you can do whatever you want. It won't help.' Honestly…. do you think you CAN ban an immortality nanite? (Probably a bad term… but it suits until someone comes up with a better one.)
A nanite like this would require fairly mature nanotech. Ergo, such a nanite would be quite inexpensive to produce. (Use other assemblers to build it. Potatoes anyone?) Cost, once the device has been developed, becomes much less of a problem. This is true with most nanotech, and is a foundational argument when it comes to speculating about a nano-economy. (Check out foresight.) Would it be more expensive than, say, nanites used to grow a building? Probably. It would need to be somewhat more complex. But let's be reasonable here… it's not as if we'd have to take an AFM and build the things one nanite at a time one molecule at a time. The same concepts that people have been talking about for years regarding nanotech and post-scarcity economics apply here as well.
So, if it's cheap enough that just about anybody can get it…. how are you going to prevent it? Pass a law? Puh-leeze. Go right ahead. What are you going to do? Fine me? (In a nano-economy where money as we think of it has become more or less irrelevant?) Imprison me? (Great… I'm going to live for 50,000 years and you give me a 10 year prison sentence. Damn. How upsetting. Oh well…. I guess I'll just catch up on my reading….) Imprison me permanently? Yes…. great idea. Now AFTER every major population center has been destroyed by widespread rioting….. you might be able to think about actually DOING such a thing, instead of just trying to. (Announce to the general public that it's now possible to live forever, or close enough…. but that 'We' think it's icky so anyone who actually does it is going to go to jail forever? Hmmmmm…. People in LA riot when they WIN a ball championship. What do you think this would do?) Well…. those won't work…. how about capital punishment? Well… aside from the previously mentioned problem with rioting…. how exactly DO you execute an immortal? (For an immortality nanite to work, it would have to be able to repair human tissues on the cellular level… 'hmmmm…. that .357 magnum slug through my chest really hurt…. good thing the hole it left in my chest is closing up even as we speak….') Well…. dammit we'll just go in and remove these nanee-thingys… Of course this assumes that I don't have seed nanites preprogrammed to rebuild the immortality systems hidden somewhere in my cellular structure…. and of course it would also involve forcing me to undergo a medical procedure without my consent. Sounds simple…. except that such a forced procedure violates the basic principles that this society holds dear, and those principles are what gives the government its authority. Violate those principles? Bye bye authority. You just forefit it. This has happened before…. about 220 years ago in what is (as a result) now the United States.
So honestly…. how WOULD you stop us?
-Corwin
December 28th, 2001 at 11:35 AM
Re:Immortality and christianity
"I also noticed that old people do not dream and talk about all of the exciting new things they plan to do once they get free of thier physical bodies. I was never able to understand thier point of view. I ultimately decided that these people (religious people) really do not believe that you survive physical death, and that religious belief is a complete sham and farce."
I suspect that afterlife beliefs will lose their appeal as a larger percentage of people attain their maximum "natural" lifespans without rejuvenation, otherwise known as "sqaring the survival curve," or something to that effect. Afterlife beliefs arose in a time when the death rate was a lot higher and people died under circumstances where they felt that they still had values to achieve. Someone facing death at 50 has a different view of things from someone facing it at 90.
December 28th, 2001 at 11:42 AM
I'm not really worried about this
Research into life extension will continue. When medical techniques become possible, people will use them. I believe the hubbub over fetal stem cell research and human cloning is largely temporary and mostly irrelevent. If research is banned in some countries, it will be carried out in other countries. If one method is morally repugnant, just wait briefly and a radically different method, that sidesteps the moral issues of the first, will emerge.
It is true that the "assisted suicide/dignified death" movement has gained strenth in the last few decades but I think this is mostly due to the inadequacies of current medicine. Often the patient whose life is being forcably extended is very old and their life is hardly one of any quality.
If given a choice of death versus a bed-ridden life filled with pain, mental vegatation and kludges involving artificial hearts, dialysis and repiration machines, is it any wonder patients and families often choose death?
The area of life extension research that really need to be intensified is rejuvanation. If doctors could offer not merely longer life but better quality of life, then people's minds will change. If people in their 50s and 60s had the strength, agility and durability of people in their 20s and 30s, then we'll gettin' somewhere!
December 28th, 2001 at 12:02 PM
Immortality and Tolorance
You say that you are an anarcho-syndicalist (whatever the hell that is) who equates life with freedom. If so, then why are you not convinced that "immortality" is a desirable state?
Really, I have no desire to convince you of the desirability of immortality. I desire it and if you do not, that's fine. I respect that.
I usually do not discuss the issue of immortality in social conversation because there is no point. To be honest, I do not automatically assume that anyone who doubts my obsession is necessarly trying to stop me. Most people with whom I have discussed the issue with have no desire for it themselves but think that it is perfectly OK for me to pursue it. In other words, these people believe in tolorance. Can you say the same for yourself?
I do feel, however, if some expresses doubts about my obsession, that they should at least offer me an equally attractive alternative. If I am considering buying a Ford and you think that I should buy a GM, you try to convince me to by the GM. People who express doubts about my desire for immortality usually fail to offer me any alternative. This makes me think that they have some ulterior motive in mind. If you think that I should not try for immortality, perhaps you should try to sell me on some equal or greater alternative. You might find me to be much more receptive to what you have to say.
I have no desire to "convert" you or anyone alse to "immortality". I think that immortalists and non-immortalists can peacefully co-exist in the future as long as we respect each other. Despite the tone of my rantings, I have never implied or insinuated that you or anyone else must "convert" to "immortality". I mearly wish to convey the idea that it should exist as an OPTION for anyone who DOES desire it. I do not think this unreasonable or intolorant in any manner towards those who do not want it.
If I have expressed intolorance, then I must oppologize to you and anyone else who has been offended. Do realize that intolorance cuts both ways.
December 28th, 2001 at 12:06 PM
Life planning after the Transition
Something I've been thinking about lately:
We know that today the prospect of really radical healthy life extension lacks mass appeal. Presumably if our expectations of future medicine are on target, after some period of transition the people growing up then will have the ability to life indefinitely in good physical and cognitive health.
How long would these people choose to live, on average, if they knew that radical superlongevity is "normal" and pretty much a given? I'd find it the ultimate irony if they still choose to "check out" after 100 years of perfect youth and health!
Perhaps we'll see the emergence of a new form of psychotherapy, not to intervene in the self-destructive trajectory of suicidal people, as currently practiced, but rather to counsel super-vital people who can't find a reason to want to die, even though they are socially expected to.
December 28th, 2001 at 12:21 PM
Youth, Age, and Economics
It is not I who equates dynamism exclusively with youth, but the economic system itself, particularly corporate recruiting.
You may not be aware of it, but there was a series of articles in Fortune as well as other magazines titled "Finished at 40" that basically put ice in the veins of anyone near or over 40 years old. I personally do not agree with this notion that only young people are capable of being dynamic, but the "system" does not seem to agree. I have talked to headhunters about this situation, which is comming to be called the "Grey Ceiling". Its just that I see this phenomenon as a useful political tool to promote anti-ageing research and the commercialization of such developments. You cannot deny that there has been an increase in the incidence of age discrimination. I mearly wish to point out that there would be no age discrimination if there was no ageing process.
You do have to admit that age does reduce certain options in life. For example, I may be a 38 year old R&D engineer who is a refugee from a failed optical start-up. I may decide to change fields and become a commodities and derivatives trader, instead. If I try to pursue this option, I may find it difficult to enter this career, because Wall Street considers me too "old" to become a professional equities trader. The elimination of ageing will greatly increase the range of career/financial options available to a person. Has it ever occurred to you that my desire for anti-ageing might be just to increase the range of career/business options available to me? Some of us simply resent the physical and financial "spin-down" associated with growing old.
Why do you automatically assume that those of us who desire "immortality" want to become one of Max More's posthuman superbeings. Some of us just want to become immortal, millionaire, surfer dudes. What's wrong with that, pray tell?
December 28th, 2001 at 12:48 PM
Re:Life planning after the Transition
Assuming that extreme longevity becomes possible, I don't know if the human mind/brain is really suited for long life. Is a scaled up rodent brain, which ours essentially is, really suited for this?
What negative trends will emerge in the minds of people with lifespans of tens of thousands of years, or millions?
Will some people, in a low risk environment, engage in some future equivalent of bungee jumping or sky diving, just to inject some thrill back into their lives? Will some people allow themselves to degenerate into the boring loops of boring lives?
How much of this will be due to brain hardware and how much will be due to experience and culture?
Will this be the new form of psychotherapy?
December 28th, 2001 at 12:53 PM
Again, you mis-understand me
Once again, you mis-understand me. The only real problem I see about immortality is one of access. It could be expensive (initially) and some of us who want it cannot afford it. This IS a real issue and I addressed this issue in another post. Rob Virkus brought this issue up. You, on the otherhand, brought up objections of an intangible nature, that are purely subjective in nature. Subjective issues are individual specific because they are based on beliefs that are personal in nature. Your issues ARE of value to someone who is making a personal decision on the issue of immortality. They are definitely not a part of PUBLIC (I mean for PUBLIC policy in a free society) debate.
Bear in mind that neither I, or any other "pro-immortalist" person has expressed the notion that "non-immortalists" should be killed off or have thier liberties restricted in any manner. Those of us who are immortalists (at least the ones I know personally) are of a very strong libertarian bent. Correct me if this is wrong.
I believe that the "ageless" and the people who choose the normal life can peacefully co-exist in a free society that promotes tolorance and diversity. The burden of argument is on you if you believe this not to be possible.
It is people such as you who seem to feel that some sort of "conflict" between the ageless and non-ageless is inevitable on a basis other than the issue of access. Perhaps this is a reflection of a latent intolorance in your own psyche.
December 28th, 2001 at 1:19 PM
You mis-understand Jeff
You mis-understand what Jeff is saying here, assuming that I read him correctly. He is also mis-understanding you as well. Sometimes I mis-understand you as well.
He is NOT saying that it is wrong for someone to not want to live "forever young". Neither is he advocating that such people should be killed. Rather, he is saying that if the government were to make such anti-aging technology illegal. That is, if anti-immortalism were to become a part of PUBLIC POLICY, then he feels that he has the right to self-defense, including the use of lethal force, since he really IS defending his life.
You do have a point that Jeff obviously feels threatened. He DOES seem to express such in his post. However, you must understand the context in which he is responded to. I believe that he is not responding to you personally, rather he is responding to your arguments by those expressed by others IN OUR GOVERNMENT, who DO seek to influence public policy.
I am well aware that you are expressing only your personal point of view and that you do not seek to impose it on others. However, please realize that many of your arguments against immortality are also expressed by "advisors" such as Leon Kass and others, who DO seek to influence and implement public policy. It is precisely these people (and those who back them) who Jeff is really responding to. This is the basis of how he feels threatened. Please try not to take it personally.
December 28th, 2001 at 1:27 PM
I totally agree!!!
All of us who want to live forever young, are arguing against the imposition of government restrictions, not against debate for or against immortality, per se. I know that immortality is not for everyone. I know that not everyone wants it. The point of every one of my posts is that there should be no government restrictions against the development and commercialization of anti-aging therapies. Not that everyone MUST become immortal.
I have never understood why religion should ever be a part of PUBLIC POLICY, except to ensure that the rights of religious people are protected from government interferance.
December 28th, 2001 at 1:55 PM
Immortality and Reproduction
Once again, you mis-understand the context of the argument that Jeff is responding to. Jeff was simply pointing out that population growth, not immortality per se, is the basis of exponential demands. He was responding to the argument, that he did not make in the first place, that exponential demand is an argument NOT to allow people to live forever young. He was just pointing out that if the "limits to growth" argument is a problem, that it is the fault of people who choose to reproduce, NOT the people who choose to live forever (assuming that they don't reproduce). Jeff, IN NO WAY, suggested or implied that people who choose to have kids should be restricted from doing so. He is stating that if this IS a problem, that the source of the problem should be addressed. And that is not the people who seek immortality. Since he did not say that he agree that this was a problem, you are assuming that he said that people who choose the "conventional" life should be dealt with "roughly".
My personal belief is that over-population is not going to be a problem bacause the people who choose to live forever young are going to live like they are forever young! Everyone I know tells me that if they could be physiologically 25 years old, forever, that they would live like they are 25 years old, forever. All of the people in thier 20's are either hippies, yuppies, or some combination thereof (such as myself). Such people tend not to be interested in having kids.
If my arguments are correct (and I think that they will turn out to be true), then regardless of whatever percentage of the population chooses immortality, the total world population will not be affected that much. Do realize one very powerful argumant FOR immortality. If you realize that you will be here (or at least in our solar system) 500 or 1000 years from now, you have a strong personal incentive to ensure that the Earth's environment remains clean and healthy. You should think about that a bit.
Here's a hippie/yuppie combination lifestyle for you. I know of a guy who is a trader who lives out of a van. He has satellite dishes on the top and labtops in side where he does his trading. He cruises from beach to beach to go surfing. So, this guy basically trades, surfs, and partys a lot. Immortality gives you the freedom and time to experiment with all kinds of different life-styles. That's what I meant by the expression that immortality is reall about freedom.
I think that biggest social change brought about by immortality will be the rise of the number of people living such "bohemian/alternative" life-styles. That's why I think that immortality will not result in a population explosion. You said that you equate life with freedom. Don't you want to live the eternal summer free of the storm clouds of aging on the horizon? Don't you want to try all of these different life choices? This is what immortality represents to me. They're not likely to have kids.
December 28th, 2001 at 2:27 PM
Not just America
The people in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan could certainly afford the treatment, if Americans could.
Actually, I think that such anti-aging treatments could become available sooner and be more affordable in Asia rather than the U.S. I think that a general "rejuv" will be based on some variant of stem-cell regeneration technology. If it is based on a series of injections (stem-cells and appropriate growth factors), it could be quite affordable. I don't think it will be based on the current notion of using stem-cells to grow tissues or organs in a vat, then tranplanting them into the patient, because that would be way too expensive for most of us, including myself.
Since the U.S. is trying to ban the cloning necessary to create "youthful" stem-cells necessary for the process, the process might be developed in Asia (Singapore or Thailand, perhaps) before it is available in the U.S. Also, most of the Asian countries (excluding Japan) have less the regulatory mechanisms that inhibit the development of such anti-aging therapies as well as driving up the cost of such therapies.
Medical technology is expensive in the U.S. because of the $300-500 million and 7 year period necessary for government approval of any new therapies. Once we get rid of the FDA, the cost of developing and marketing of new medical therapies will drop from the current $300-500 million down to $30 million or so. The reduced barriers of entry will result in much greater competition that will accelerate the development of anti-aging medicine as well as to erode the oligopolistic power of "big pharma".
I do not understand why those of you who are aware of the cost issue do not join the Life Extension Foundation (www.lef.org) and help us either reform or get rid of the FDA. The FDA is the single biggest impediment in the development of anti-aging medicine.
December 28th, 2001 at 3:03 PM
Re:You mis-understand Jeff
Actually I don't misunderstand him at all. I realize that he isn't the one expressing these ideas. His expression isn't the problem. The problem is that OTHER people do feel exactly this way. Unfortunately some of these other people either are in positions of influence or have the potential to get that way.
He's also expressing a fundamental frustration with the transhuman community that I understand well…. (and answer in a post further down sorta.) The whole 'nyah nyah nyah' bit is a problem with a lot of people in general who don't think about WHY they feel the way they do. This frustrates him. It frustrates the hell out of me too.
-Corwin
December 28th, 2001 at 3:09 PM
Biology, Semiconductors, and Moore's Law
I disagree with your argument that "Moore's Law" should not be applied to medicine. Development in medicine is becoming increasing based on MEMS technology, which is based on semiconductor fabrication technology. All of the gene and protein sequencing and fabrication devices are being developed by MEMS start-up companies. Also, much of the new work in molecular electronics is based on biological self-assembly that is the basis of biology. So, we are seeing the convergence of biology and semiconductors into a single field, from the standpoint of fabrication technology. However, this is not the only basis of Moore's Law.
The reason why semiconductor technology is developing so fast (despite the cost of building a fab) is because it is a relatively unregulated competitive field that has been influenced by many start-up companies. It is an entreprenureal field. Medicine, on the other hand, is a very regulated field, with large established players (think IBM in the 60's and 70's) that are not entreprenureal in corporate culture. Add to that the "reluctance" these players have (for various reasons, mostly due to FDA regulation) in trying to develop a cure for aging itself (as apposed to cancer, alzhiemer's, etc.) and you get the idea. You should also consider that the actual cost in building a pharmaceutical plant is much cheaper than that of a semiconductor fab, which can cost up to $2 billion. The actual cost of developing and manufacturing medicine is not intrinsically expensive, being that it is based on chemical engineering.
The current FDA testing system could be replaced by a simpler system that would require 2-3 years of testing before a product could be brought to market. Also, the FDA was established to ensure safety in new medical therapies. However, much of the 7 year testing period is the most expensive Phase 3 trials which are used to test efficacy, not safety. Add to that the additional one year waiting period AFTER Phase 3 that the FDA can take to approve a new medicine, application which can be rejected even if the new compound does pass Phase 3 trials. I might also add that the process is highly political as well. The result is a system that is completely hostile to any kind of entrepreneureal activity. A case in point.
I know of least one start-up company (Alteon) that cannot bring an anti-aging drug to market because they cannot afford the expensive Phase 3 trials, even though the drug has been proven perfectly safe for human use.
The probable result is that Alteon will probably be bought out by a "big pharma" company that CAN afford the unnecessary Phase 3 trials and ALT-711 will come out on the market around 2007 or so at three or four times the price that it could be sold for, again because of excessive FDA regulation.
I believe that if the current FDA regimen was replaced by a system that tested for safety ONLY, over a 2 year period, that new medical therapies could be brougth to market for $50 million or so. The reduced cost of entry would result in many new medical start-up companies that would transform the medical industry into the same kind of entrepreneureal culture that we have in silicon valley. This would radically reduce the cost of medical technology for everyone, rich or poor, and would alleviate the access issue that others have mentioned in this board. This is the course of action that the Life Extension Foundation has been advocating for the past 20 years.
Iron Sun, you say that you are an anarchist. I believe that anarchists don't like big business because of its oligopolistic tendencies. In the case of medicine and immortality, it is the FDA regimen that grants effective monopoly power to "big pharma", resulting in high prices. I know that Europe has a similiar system that is even more politicized than that of the U.S. If you really want to live up to your principles, then I envite you to join the Life Extension Foundation (www.lef.org) and to help us reform or get rid of the FDA so that we can transform medicine into the entrepreneureal field so that we all can win. My appologies if you are already an LEF member.
December 28th, 2001 at 3:27 PM
Re:Immortality and christianity
My posting was intended in response to religious people who may have an objection to the development of anti-aging therapies due to thier belief system. If religious people do not think that we should try for "immortality" in physical bodies, then why don't they try to sell us on the afterlife by telling us how great and wonderful it will be? Furthurmore, why do they say the suicide is wrong? If human consciousness does survive physical death and that our bodies are just "vehicles", like cars, why can't you dump the vehicle anytime do decide you no longer want it?
Would someone please ask thier christian friends to answer this for me? If they do not think that we should be able to continue living agelessly, they need to sell us on an equally appealing alternative. Since they do not do this, I must conclude that they really do not believe in thier afterlife, thereby rendering thier arguments meaningless.
December 28th, 2001 at 3:36 PM
Re:Well, I'm convinced.
I'll say it one last time in this thread: I am an anarchist, I have no intention of stopping anyone from doing anything.
Enforcement is of course pointless, as it will always be able to be circumvented. That was never my intent. My point, which you have admirably confirmed, is that most transhumans take any criticism as a direct threat. I was looking for honest answers, not the start to a jihad.
December 28th, 2001 at 3:42 PM
Resentment
I resent the notion that I am somehow rejecting "humanity" because I would choose to live in an "ageless" state. I am human because I feel joy and sorrow, excitment and dispair. It is my capacity to feel emotions that make me human, not any pre-defined lifespan.
BTW, I never said that I wanted to become one of these extropian post-human uploads, or whatever else they happen to believe in. Except for my desire to make my body so I do not age, I am really quite conventional in my thinking. I do not believe in the possibility of uploading (at least not in the next 200 years or so) or real artificial intelligence (however you choose to define it) and I certainly do not want to become one. I think we will remain biological for a long time to come (atleast the next 200-300 years). I do believe that we can colonize the solar system in the next 50-100 years, even without any kind of nanotechnology (read "The High Frontier" bt Gerard O'niell,which was published in 1975!).
I do think we will get "agelessness" in the next 30 years or so and that it will be based on stem-cell technology, much like the article that prompted this board. Some will choose it and some won't. There need be no conflict because the cultural devide between "immortals" and "non-immortals" will be much like the city-culture/country-culture that is prevalent in much of the world today. They will be deferent, but I see no reason why the cannot co-exist peacefully like city and country folk do today.
December 28th, 2001 at 4:07 PM
Re:Constructive doubts
"Anyone else?" Like who, Travis?
I accuse you of having problems with authority. I have no such problem. I have no chip on my shoulder, I just get on with doing my own thing. It's you who are only able to cast all matters in terms of the authority you so despise.
I think you also mistake some of my statements about your incompetent petulance as being about authority, when in fact they are about commitment, ability, drive or whatever else it is that you lack for anything real and socailly desirable.
Impressed to see you're still willing to show our face around here, Travis. Oh, we will have fun and games.
December 28th, 2001 at 4:36 PM
Criticism as Threat
I do agree that some of us "transhumanists" interpet your criticism as a threat. However, you DO carry a context. A context which is echoed by people such as Leon Kass who ARE a threat to us. A context that seems to be logically contradictory with your anarchist belief system. I argued that the moral (as opposed to access issues) question presented by immortality was no different than any other choice presented to people: should the individual be free to choose, or must the choice be made by some external authoritarian entity? Your reaction was to jump all over me with both feet.
I, for one, never considered your statements as any kind of threat. I simply stated that, aside from issues of access, that "immortality" was an issue of "live and let live". Since anarchism is a form of "live and let live", I do not see why you would have a problem with this position.
December 28th, 2001 at 4:37 PM
Re:Well, I'm convinced.
The reason is pretty simple. All too often in my experience, criticism starts out using flawed logical principles…. (ie 'oh that'll never work…. just cuz.) And develops into an attack. ('That's evil. People/The Government/God won't let you and if they do I'll stop you.')
Is transhumanism a 'jihad?' Sure. Jihad is 'pursuit of Islam to the fullest extent.' While this can include violence as an option, it doesn't have to, and in practice rarely does. Am I in favor of 'development of humanity and myself to the fullest extent?' Hell yes. Is anyone who wants to stop me 'because it's icky/God doesn't like competition' my enemy? Until they learn to leave me alone and play nice, then yes. If they don't want to take advantage of such technologies, that's their choice. I suppose we'll look back on them fondly when they're gone and miss them a little bit. But then we'll remember it was their choice to become decrepit and die, and if they'd had their way they'd have made us join them.
-Corwin
December 28th, 2001 at 5:06 PM
Re:Constructive doubts
An anarchist sure the hell wouldn't care about piracy…in fact, a true anarchist would be the one doing the piracy in the first place; something of which you are totally against. That just tells me morals from some cro-magnon authority figure (possibly a parent – that would explain things) was instilled in you during your adolescence. Therefore, as long you contain morals, you are also bound by those laws which those morals revolve around. You are NOT an anarchist – so stop claiming you are one.
If you were an anarchist, you would not believe in the money system, you would not believe in having a family…and last, but not least, you would not care if there is a God or not.
You're definitely not an anarchist, but you definitely are a overgrown, thirty something teenager who likes to speak his mind, even though there is no credibility or wisdom in your words.
And whatever made you believe that I was gone from here forever? I leave for an early chistmas vacation, and you get all antsy…you must have really missed me if you noticed I was gone.
December 28th, 2001 at 6:42 PM
Re:Well, I'm convinced.
Clarification: I meant that I was not expressing the opinions of a nascent jihad, one that would attempt to suppress your freedom to do what you want.
I throw this stuff around not because I think you should believe it so much as I am interested to see your reaction to it. Things will get hairy once more people start believing that this sort of thing is possible, and it does the memetic immune system good to be exposed to this sort of thing. If charges of elitism are to be avoided, and they will fly thick and fast, then it is neccessary to learn how to handle them without creating additional resentment or misunderstanding. The fact that it is not always possible is no reason not to try. I'm impressed with the number of responses. It's the best time Nanodot has had in a long while.
December 28th, 2001 at 6:46 PM
Re:Constructive doubts
Last response to you for this thread:
I don't. I've used plenty of unlicenced software in my time. The problem arises when that is all you do, and mistake parasitism for making a contribution. If all you do is redistribute the products of the big companies, then you are merely an adjunct to them, not an alternative. You are not helping to construct a better model, like those in the open source community are doing. I think your big problem is that you seldom distinguish between authority and achievement. Just becasue someone is doing well does not mean that they are automatically an opressor. They often are, but its best not to generalise. I value positive results, and you produce none of those.
1) I dont, particularly as it is currently manifested; 2) Sez who? Parenthood doesn't have to be about ruthless tyranny, and it's my choice as to whether I raise children; 3)I don't. Show me where I said I did. I talk about spirituality, which is very different from belief in a god. Spirituality can be defined as a refinement of perception or internal attitude. Not all talk of philosophy turns to contemplation of angels on pins.
I hereby recrhristen myself Iron Kettle.
Oh, I did, Travis. I did. I guess I agreed with The Living Fractal that you wouldn't show your face after having it rubbed in the fact that you are a failure even as a parasite. I should have known better. You might want to be careful talking up piracy now your secret identity is revealed; I bet there were all sorts of conditions set for you by the judge about continued involvement.
December 28th, 2001 at 7:38 PM
Re:Well, I'm convinced.
I agree that this has been great discussion for here. Also believe me, I can understand the whole 'devil's advocate' bit. It's important and useful for someone to do that.
As far as what we've been talking about…. you can rant all you want about using nanotech to suppress your enemies or force people to do what you want them to do. Nanoweapons could be devastating. Fortunately, they're not required. Sure…. people could attempt to stop us from using medical nanotech… but they'll lose in the end as long as we can get it. (Legally or otherwise…) Since it can be used to make us virtually immortal, (done properly at least…) we can make it so that they can't actually hurt us, and all we have to do to win? Is wait.
'There are those who say that the best revenge is living well….
I say that the best revenge… is living forever.'
- Lucien LaCroix
'Of course, with the right technology there's no reason you can't do both…'
- Me
December 28th, 2001 at 9:01 PM
Word up, dude.
Couldn't have put it better myself. The question of what we do with our extended lives is even more important than how we get there.
Someone in this forum once talked of studying chess for 50 years and then playing against a simulation of Kasparov. I replied that that was equivalent to training for decades to be a sprinter and then racing a motorized cart programmed to roll exactly as fast as the best time of Donovan Bailey. Many of the activities being mooted by immortalists will probably hold little appeal once we get there. I worry about what terminally bored superbeings would get up to. Never mind becoming gods, what about beoming demons.
December 28th, 2001 at 9:43 PM
Re:Constructive doubts
You have the audacity to say you value positive results, and yet you don't even bother looking at yourself in the mirror? I don't blame you – I wouldn't want to look at myself if I were you either. Name one thing…just one thing…that you have EVER done that was a positive result; and don't say you brought a child into the world, because that's a negative result, not a positive one.
1) I dont, particularly as it is currently manifested.
As it is currently manifested? From that, you're basically saying you hate the current money system, but would like one that works correctly. An anarchist wouldn't think like that at all – an anarchist believes in no money/trade system whatsoever; you take what you want, when you want – there are no rules.
2) Sez who? Parenthood doesn't have to be about ruthless tyranny, and it's my choice as to whether I raise children.
On the contrary, who was it that said, "Be fruitful and multiply"? It could have either been 'God' or one of the Anunnaki who made that rule (most likely Enlil – also known as Yahweh/ Jehova) If you were a true anarchist, you would consider this law to be bullshit and become celibate for the rest of your existence. You would also be able to read between the lines and realize that child-bearing is no more than a simple act of cruelty. Humans should not be allowed to reproduce until they can fix the errors in their genetic code which was caused by the combining of the Nefilim genes with that of the homo-erectus. Though the two seperate genes were compatible with each other, there were some inconsistencies, which is the reason why children are born with diseases such as Down Syndrome, Myopia, and Retardation. It's cruel, and anyone with control over their 'urges' should have no desire to have children…guess that counts you out.
3)I don't. Show me where I said I did. I talk about spirituality, which is very different from belief in a god. Spirituality can be defined as a refinement of perception or internal attitude. Not all talk of philosophy turns to contemplation of angels on pins.
If this is the case, then why are you so against the notion of "We shall be as gods"? Everytime I say that, it almost seems like you want to throw fists. What is there not to like about becoming a god? Are you satisfied with your current humble, yet inferior existence? An anarchist wouldn't think that way…an anarchist would challenge even the creator, itself.
You might want to be careful talking up piracy now your secret identity is revealed; I bet there were all sorts of conditions set for you by the judge about continued involvement.
Hehe. Is this a pitiful threat, or a mere warning? You should know by now that I live by no one's rules but my own.
December 28th, 2001 at 10:35 PM
Re:Word up, dude.
Personally I don't know WHAT we'll be doing when and if something like that happens. We can plan all we want, but if you have a lifespan of several thousand years, I feel safe predicting that when you're 500 you'll be entertaining yourself doing something you probably can't even comprehend at this point in your life.
After all…. it's a big universe out there.
December 28th, 2001 at 10:35 PM
Re:Constructive doubts
Okay, this will be my last post to this thread.
Tutored children in maths raising them from a fail to a B; helped two good friends break their heroin addiction; ran a laser tag centre; been part of a conceptual art group that performed in front of hundreds of people to a good reception; saved a mate being beaten shitless by bikies; found accomodation and other assistance for Afghan refugees; volunteered for Amnesty International; taught computer skills to long term unemployed; and organised children's birthday parties. That;s the first things I could think of in 30 seconds. What have you done apart from parasitism?
Yes, I said particularly. That means I think that the current system is really, really bad rather than just not the best way of doing things.
You have no idea what anarchism is. Go read some Kropotkin. There you would learn all about mutual aid, the heart of effective anarchy. What you are talking about is selfishness, not community-minded anarchy.
The same place that said thou shalt not kill. Just because I do not believe in or agree with everything in the Bible does not mean that everything therein is wrong. If it's wrong just because it's in there, then I guess you don't believe in doing unto others as you would have them do unto you or anything else like that.
Anyway, who says you need to be religious to want children? I'm doing so because of the joy it brings me, not because some tribal god wants me to. If child bearing is an act of cruelty, then how do you feel about having been born? Would you rather you had never existed? If not, then why would you deny others the right to exist? If you feel that everything that is wrong with your life can be fixed by the Fairy Nanomother, why can't everybody else?
Becuase there is a world of difference between arguing over the existence of a supreme being and using the word 'god' to describe a superhuman state. Check down the bottom of the page for a post by Mr Farlops and my reply, they cover why I dislike people using the word.
Why are you so hellbent on telling me what an anarchist should and shouldn't do, particularly given that it is blatantly obvious you have no knowledge of anarchist theory? Anybody that calls themself a god, and exposes themselve to all the hubris and disdain that such an attitude implies, is worthy of anarchic disgust.
Oh, puh-leeze. It was an insult.
Bye for now, failure. Hope to see you on a street corner mumbling and pushing a shopping trolley sometime.
December 28th, 2001 at 10:42 PM
Re:Not just America
The answer is pretty simple:
Not all of us are anarcho-capitalists. See?
The FDA, like most government agencies…. exists for a reason. Ever heard of Thalidomide? Ah…. I thought so.
Medical technology is expensive in the US mostly to support research. Only a few of the drugs that are researched are actually useful for anything. Remember interferon? Worked great. In mice. They jack up the prices of medicines partially to bring in big profits, and partially to fund researching the 50 drugs that didn't work. FDA regs? Minimal, and if they can't deal with FDA regs then they deserve to go out of business. Otherwise we end up with snake oil drugs that kill people.
December 29th, 2001 at 12:36 AM
Re:Word up, dude.
To digress a little, or perhaps a lot:
I had a discussion about this stuff with a friend as we were carpooling to work one day and he said that I was making a problem where there was none.
To him it seemed perfectly reasonable that some people would be entirely happy doing the exact same thing decade after millenium after eon. He said that he knew people like this at work. They seemed entirely happy having everything stay exactly the same in their lives.
He thought that some people would be too restless and for them no life, long or short, would really be satisfying to them. Other people, he thought, would alternate between periods of change and periods of quiesence. Still others would be quite happy being street sweepers until the stars burned out.
But it seems likely that a new form of psychotherapy will emerge to help the human mind cope with extreme longevity.
Perhaps a variation on the voluntary suicide movement will arise someday, advocating the freedom for the terminally bored to end their lives.
Thinking about this stuff makes me think about a lot of personal decisions and feelings.
For example, like a lot of people, I waste a lot of time second guessing myself and regretting events long past in my life. Initially, this attitude sparked my interest in life extension research. Emotionally I wanted to have enough time to get my life right. Enough time to experience things I would otherwise never have chance to experience.
But later on, I realized that this was shallow thinking. I realized that even if I had lived my life differently, and assuming my personality was still mostly the same, I would still be whining about things that I didn't do. And as such, no lifetime is long enough. The other person's grass is always appears to be greener than yours and life, long or short, doesn't really do much to change that.
It seems to be part of the human condition to whine about things we don't have. When we get the things we think that we want, we find something else to complain about. I don't know if this urge to restlessness is ancient brain hardware or not. It some ways it's good because it keeps us restless and make our culture interesting. It other ways it's a real pain in the backside.
December 29th, 2001 at 10:06 AM
Re:Not just America
Once again, I suggest that you contact and co-respond with the LEF about the negative influence that the FDA has had on the development of anti-aging medical therapies. Also, I never stated that I am an anarcho-capitalist, and I fail to see how this label is relevant to this discussion.
My point is that FDA regulation is excessive and drives up the cost of drug development enormously. The $300-500 million cost has to covered and must be covered by the customer, you and I. Furthurmore, the most expensive part of the approval process is the Phase 3 trials that are conducted AFTER the compound has ALREADY been proven safe for human use. We could safely disgard the Phase 3 trials and still be able to prevent another tholidomide disaster. I might also add that the FDA will not accept for approval any compound intended to treat ageing per se. An FDA spokesperson was quoted as saying: "ageing is not a disease". Perhaps the FDA bafoons believe that ageing is psychosomatic condition.
I suggest you talk to the LEF and other people who are actively involved in anti-ageing research and politics. I think you will find that they all agree that the biggest impediment to the development and commercialization of anti-ageing medicine is the FDA. Actually, if you're not already a member, you really need to join the LEF. You can find them at http://www.lef.org.
December 29th, 2001 at 2:56 PM
Re:Constructive doubts
Wrong – there are two types of anarchy:
1) Temporal Anarchy – temporary chaos used to overthrow and replace a government; a class action.
2) Permanent Anarchy – Chaos without order; true free will.
Number 2 is true anarchy – I'll quote from the dictionary now:
Anarchy – "Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose" Hmm. Even the dictionary agrees with me. I don't know what kind of anarchy you have in mind, but it's obviously not true anarchy and therefore you have no right to call yourself an 'anarchist'.
It's obviously you who have no idea what true anarchy is – it's not an idea, religion, or a belief that you can read in a book. Anarchy is something that everyone has, but no one uses…it's called free will.
December 30th, 2001 at 6:10 PM
Anarchy
I promised that I had made my last post to this thread, and promises mean something, so I'm irritated that you have provoked me enough to break one. But I couldn't let that go unchallenged.
The word derives its origin from the ancient Greek anarkhos, meaning 'without rulers'. It does not have to mean mass unrest or chaos; it can simply mean that the people rule themselves peacefully without leaders. This is the meaning that most political anarchists adhere to. there is a difference between societal anarchism and nihilism, which is what you are propounding.
A dictionary definition, particularly a poor one like you have used, does not get anywhere near close to describing the full extent of anarchist theory. It is also common for those in authority to define anarchy as disorder, becuase it is in their interests (or simply all their mindset can accept) to present anarchy as being the selfish rioting of an incoherent mob. But compassionate, inclusive societal anarchy can exhibit a high degree of consensus-based self-emergent order, the difference to authoritarian structures being that the order is voluntary and unenforced.
There is a large body of work by theorists who have examined the implications and possible implementation methods of anarchy. These writings in no way constitute a canonical body, as that would defeat the whole purpose. The intention is to make people think for themselves, so that they in turn can themselves question, suggest, experiment and make a positive contribution.
You can hold whatever opinions about the meaning of the word anarchy that you like, Travis. It would seem that you have bought wholesale into the authoritarian definition, which is funny but not unexpected. But you should try to accept that there are millions of people around the world (including myself) who use the word in a more positive way to indicate peaceful, cooperative self rule.
There is a good collection of anarchist writings online here. Kropotkin and Proudhon are particularly interesting. I tell you what, Travis: If you can demonstrate to my satisfaction that you have read (from cover to cover, no precis or crib notes) thought about the implications, and provided some form of commentary on Kropotkin's Mutual Aid and Anarchism:
Its Philosophy and ldeal (they are both fairly short books, available online at the above link), then I will read one of Sitchin's and give you commentary (not in this forum, though. A little too off topic.)
I would also like to know how you square being an anarchist with your plan to forcibly sterilise the entire world. That would constitute the ultimate act of authority. No glib justifications, please; if you use phrases like 'for their own good', 'they are not competent to make their own decisions', 'I know better than them, they will thank me when I'm through', 'I don't care what they think, I'll do what I want regardless of who it hurts' and so on, then you are demonstrating your true colours: a petulant toddler upset that the world does not exist to pamper him.
A poem from the preface to Philosophy and Ideal sums it all up nicely:
December 30th, 2001 at 9:42 PM
Re:Anarchy
It does not have to mean mass unrest or chaos; it can simply mean that the people rule themselves peacefully without leaders. This is the meaning that most political anarchists adhere to. there is a difference between societal anarchism and nihilism, which is what you are propounding.
I agree with this statement – I, too, envision a world where people rule themselves in peace, and at the same time, respect and love all life – in fact, that's the goal I'm aiming for. However, you're wrong about there not being any chaos or unrest; during the 'transition phase' there will be a massive uproar, due to people not willing to let go of past belief systems and restraints. The slaves in the 19th century are a perfect example…what happened to them when they were finally given their so called freedom? They couldn't handle it, so most of them begged for their 'S&M' status back – the same thing would happen if the plug were pulled on all of the governments in our world today. But, eventually, the chaos will subside and there will literally be a heaven on earth where man and beast live side by side in harmony.
There is a large body of work by theorists who have examined the implications and possible implementation methods of anarchy.
Yes, the implications are enormous. With anarchy, there is the potential of mass murder, stealing, rape etc etc and no consequences to go with it. This is because most humans never evolved correctly due to their environment. They literally grow up thinking that money is more important than anything else, and thus, literally thirst for it. This is the reason why governments still exist today – simply because people can't seem to get passed this barrier of territorialism and selfishness – this is why anarchy, just like communism, has never existed. But what if you were to come up with a technology that could not only satisfy people's basic needs in unlimited quantities (housing, food, entertainment), but could also destroy the money system overnight? You would then have an environment encased in true anarchy; the people who would be causing the chaos and the destruction would be those who would want their power back (the corporations, the politicans, and the military).
But you should try to accept that there are millions of people around the world (including myself) who use the word in a more positive way to indicate peaceful, cooperative self rule.
You don't think a heaven on earth is a positive way of thinking? Haven't you ever heard the saying, "there can be no new creation, without destroying the old?" My definition of anarchy may seem barbaric, but you have to realize something of this magnitude can't happen in a peaceful way overnight; EVERYONE has to work together to obtain a paradise where everyone and everything can live in harmony; without everyone's cooperation, of course there is going to be blood spilt somewhere. But what may seem negative to you, is actually very positive when everything is said and done. In such a scenario, people would then realize that they are their own masters and create their own realities. Isn't this what you desire, as well?
If you can demonstrate to my satisfaction that you have read (from cover to cover, no precis or crib notes) thought about the implications, and provided some form of commentary on Kropotkin's Mutual Aid and Anarchism: Its Philosophy and ldeal (they are both fairly short books, available online at the above link), then I will read one of Sitchin's and give you commentary.
That's sounds fine, I've been kind of looking around for another book to read anyway. Do I have a certain time frame to complete this book? Oh, and you're seriously depriving yourself of wonderful material if you're going to wait for me to read Kropotkin's work – Sitchin provides the remaining pieces to the puzzle about our existence. Once you get done reading Sitchin, read Breaking the Godspell and God Games by Neil Freer – he's a researcher who has read and corroborated Sitchin's work and is also an advent believer in the promises of Nanotech. It's good stuff – it would definitely broaden your mindset if anything else.
I would also like to know how you square being an anarchist with your plan to forcibly sterilise the entire world. That would constitute the ultimate act of authority. No glib justifications, please; if you use phrases like 'for their own good', 'they are not competent to make their own decisions', 'I know better than them, they will thank me when I'm through', 'I don't care what they think, I'll do what I want regardless of who it hurts' and so on, then you are demonstrating your true colours: a petulant toddler upset that the world does not exist to pamper him.
Actually, that would be just an act of my own 'free will'. I have no desire to rule the world or to become exalted in some strange way. I want none of that. I simply want a heaven on earth; a utopia where everyone loves each other, including all animals. The idea of sterilizing the entire world would only be a temporary thing 'in a sense' – as I said before, what man makes…man can break. Sterilizing the human populace will give the much needed time to correct the errors in our genetic code. Once those errors are fixed, it would then be possible to 'artificially' create a new human being 'by the use of our hands and minds'; one that is perfect in every way, and yet still unable to reproduce on its own – it would be a hybrid, just like us. We are not mere animals, and we should stop acting like it – it's time to move past the mindset of 'reprodution'. The whole point in sterilizing the human race would be so that people would stop thinking that, "our children are our future", and would finally take action into their own hands and create their own futures. Right now, mankind is stuck in an endless, destructive loop – sterilizing them will free them of this cycle and they can move on to new and better things, possibly even in higher dimensions, as well.
I don't hate children – hell, I was one too not very long ago. But I do hate the endless cycle of being born, growing up, getting married, 'having children', growing old, and then dying – and if you believe in reincarnation, repeating the process over and over again. My 'goal' simply breaks that cycle…not just for me, but for everyone.
If you didn't look at that idea as if it were so negative, then you would see that the postive outweighs anything else. You know I'm right – you just don't want to admit it.
December 30th, 2001 at 11:29 PM
Re:Constructive doubts
Ah sorry bout not using Html on last post didn't realize it was necessary
To take another tack, which I have mentioned before, do you advocate the immediate breaking of patent on AIDS drugs so that millions of people in developing countries stand a chance? To do any less, regardless of the economic consequences to the pharmaceutical companies, would be by your definition murder.
I personally do feal that withholding medicine due to concern for profit is murder. But then again I have extremely emotional views about the subject. Too many people I know have died from cancer for me not too. As the majority of cancer research is spent on finding further treatments, and not a cure upsets me to say the least.
I personally see this as protecting the companies bottom line over doing the morally right thing.
December 30th, 2001 at 11:52 PM
Re:Not just America
EDIT: Severe case of run-on sentence structure
Try this again…
I believe that the TREATMENT is just as likely to originate in east asia as in america
I believe this because of the differences in directions the two "medical models" have grown.
For the most part in asia the majority of medical treatments rely on homeopathic methods to get results. While western medicine focuses on outer tools to get the same results. The end result being that I would trust an Asian doctor to cure my cold(or cancer, Have you seen some of China's treatments? They're amazing!), but would prefer an american hospital for a bullet wound(or any severe trauma). Since I consider aging to be a disease rather than an injury I would prefer them to be the ones with the TREATMENT(sorry i can't resist adding melodrama, its a lemmings thing)
Now that being said since a discovery of this magnitude IS so amazingly huge(even if the first stage only adds 10 years of healthy life that's still a big hot damn) I doubt even the Chinese wouldn't charge outrageously for it. And since about 80% of the world's wealth is in america, I doubt the first recipients will be from anywhere else(with the exception of any test subjects).
I hate the FDA by the way. Of course I hate beauracracy and greed in all forms.
December 31st, 2001 at 1:19 PM
Re:Life planning after the Transition
I think the only reason why radical life-extension lacks mass appeal right now is simply because most people think it an impossible dream. They think of the ageing process as a part of "who they are" as they get older, rather than as "something that they have", like a disease. Most people simply cannot imagine a person 70-80 years old, yet being physiologically and looking like a typical 25 year old. Imagine seeing someone who looks like Brad Pitt, but who is 125 years old. Most people cannot imagine this. Once people start to accept this as a possibility, mass appeal will start to grow.
In the same vein, I failed to predict the emergence of the internet because I always considered computers and the internet, a "geek" thing, and I did not expect that society at large would adopt the internet. Like myself, I bought my first computer in '95 (a laptop) so that I could get on the internet and find myself a new job. Before that time, I always considered computers a "work tool" and would never consider having one at home.
I believe once the idea of being young indefinitely gets into the public consciousness, that attitudes will change dramatically in a very short time (like the same time period that the internet was adopted). As far as "immortality" (my definition of "immortality" is multiple-century lifespans where you never age) is concerned, most people may well decide to "check out" after 100 years or so. The immortalists will then become a sub-culture, like the gay, transgender, or hip-hop subcultures today.
During my time in Asia, I often thought about writing a novel where "immortality" is an option, but most people don't choose it. The people who do choose it exist as a sub-culture, similiar to the way we Gaijin (westerners) live in Japan. The novel would culminate where the "gaijin" (immortalists) aquire the necessary financial backing to create thier own city-state on the Pacific Ocean. This city-state, called Prometheus, would be grown by electo-accreation, powered by OTECs, and would be a Hong Kong-like freeport. The characters would be made up from all of the off-the-wall people I have known during my time in SoCal as well as thoughout Asia.
I believe that one of the biggest social effects resulting from "immortality" will be an explosive growth in the number of people pursuing free-lance and alternative life-styles. The work environment will move away from career ladder-climbing to a more project oriented, free agent nation. The socio-economic changes that have been occuring in the U.S. for the past 30 years have encouraged and re-inforced the self-reliance and individual freedom that, in my opinion, will necessitate the development of immortality in the next 20 years, if such socio-economic trends are to continue.
The reason why I do not expect immortality to be socially disruptive (at least in North America, North-east Asia, and Europe) is because in many ways these societies have already evolved towards the root-less, atomistic, free-lance social structure that I believe will be the hallmark of an ageless society. In otherwords, the social changes demanded of an ageless society have ALREADY occured or are occuring in these societies. The development of immortality will simply be the culmination of socio-economic trends that began in the U.S. in the '60s and in East Asia in the late '80s.
December 31st, 2001 at 1:51 PM
The Undiscovered Country
This is a valid point, but try the following analogy. When I was 6 years old and playing in the woods with my friends, I could not imagine what it would be like as an adult, say a trial lawyer, being immersed in the complex interpersonal relationships (like love and business relationships) that adults are in. Today, as an adult, I have experienced many of the ups and downs of what passes for adult life (love relationships, business start-ups, international travel). To ask an adult such as myself what I will be like 1000 years from now is like asking me as a six-year old what kind of life I will be living as a 35 years old adult. Immortality to us today is like adulthood to that six-year old. There is no way to answer this question, but to use it as an argument against immortality is like killing a six-year old kid because he doesn't know what he will do as an adult.
Assuming that I make it, I don't know what I will be like or what I will be doing, say, 500 or 1000 years from now. Whatever I am then, I will have evolved into that state just the same way that I have evolved from a child (playing in the woods) into an adult (doing international sales and marketing). The point is that whatever we become, we will slowly develop into whatever we become based on our experiences and desires, which are constantly changing.
This is definitely to become the new psychotherapy. Also, all of extropian types who think that they can just "upgrade" their wetware into somethink much bigger than they are now are going to be in for a surprise. Changes in our psyche are going to be slow, with much trial and error. I believe that we can upgrade ourselves, but that such changes are going to be incremental in nature, not abrupt. This is one of the reasons why I do not believe in the "singularity" or the spike. I think that changes in the future, both technical as well as social, are going to be incremental in nature, just like in the past.
As an immortalist, I look apon my open-ended future as "The Undiscovered Country", much like adulthood was to me when I was six-years old. I know that it will not be all rosy. That there will be bad times as well as good time, but I believe that it will be mostly good, and better than what I have now. The issue for today is that we have the opportunity to move into and explore the "Undiscovered Country". That is all I ask for. What the "Undiscovered Country" results in is a whole other matter.
December 31st, 2001 at 7:08 PM
Re:My Solution
First off before I begin, in case you haven't seen I AM in support of immortality for all humanity.
Man…not to down the zealousness, but come on…
Rather than argue the validity of the religous retoric. I will just move on to the couple of logical statements you make.
As it has been pointed out several times before, Overpopulation is NOT the only problem with the increase of population. In fact, I personally don't see it as a problem, as other technological advances(including the related and supporting technologies of increasing our own physical effeciency and resilience) that occuur as we progress will make it much easier to colonize space, and the solar system, as well as our own oceans. There ARE other problems though. As ANY change to our own bodies will be HIGHLY resisted by much of the population. Though I do aggree that the changes are necessary. Blindly thinking that they will all thank you afterwards is bordering on delusional.
Also assuming that you do accomplish the nigh impossible and spread this "genetic nano-virus" to everyone in the world that makes us all eunichs, it won't last. The same devices you infest the rest of us with could be reprogrammed by us(those of us that like our testicles) to rebuild us as WE see fit.
In short while I do support the human-controlled, human evolution I support it on the principle that I, AND everyone else, will have the freedom to govern my own evolotution.
Just cause you, and whatever cult fed you that drivel, think you know better than me about my needs and desires; that doesn't make it true. I will run my own life thank you very much. And if you want to become an everlasting eunich, that's all you man.
I would just like a couple modifications and maybe a few hundred years.
December 31st, 2001 at 7:15 PM
Re:The Undiscovered Country
Can't say I agree more
I look at the (possible) open road of indefinate life and the continual evolution and refinement of my physical/mental wetware to be the greatest adventure possible.
March 27th, 2009 at 3:03 PM