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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

You might want to live for a very long time, but I don't want you to live for a very long time (beyond your normal life-span, that is). After all, we already have the problem of those that have been around for a bit longer owning pretty much everything that's worth owning and renting it out at a premium to those that are born later.

Besides of course the resource consumption problem, the fact that these treatments - assuming they ever really materialize - will further increase the gap between rich and poor and so on. I honestly believe that the world as we know it would not be able to deal with a bunch of billionaire immortals. We'd be slaves in all but name.

And I don't believe that such a medical advance would be made available to all.

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It does puzzle me that most reactions to these problems are not "let's solve them", it is "I want people to die".

Let's have your proposed solutions then given our present day limitations. I'm all ears.

“Horse shit piling up in the roads is just our way of life. What would you have us do? Stop riding horses? How would we ever get anywhere? If you’re so smart, let’s have your proposed solutions given our present day limitations. I’m all ears.” ~ Someone a century or two before 1914 probably.

Sarcasm and condescension do nothing to drive the conversation forward and really just mask your own ignorance to solving the problem as well. If a solution already existed to the degree that it was common knowledge in public forums then I guess there wouldn’t be a problem would there?

The fact that massive divisions of companies like Alphabet (Calico) are dedicated to solving these problems seems to indicate that not all of us are deathists satisfied to recuse ourselves to mortality on the basis of some flimsy naturalistic fallacy.

Edit: Typo, changed our to are

> Someone a century or two before 1914 probably.

Given the degree to which industrialization has gotten us in trouble they may well have had a point. Good luck re-designing all your cities for non-motorized transport once that luxury becomes unaffordable.

Billionaires trying to extend their life-spans is as old as the Pharaos, 'deathists' is a great way to spell 'realist'. You too will die, get used to it and make your peace with it lest you die frustrated and old.

Oh, and don't forget to give your fortune to de Grey, after all, if he can't nobody can, better to have him succeed and then allow you access to life eternal. In fact, everybody should give all their money to de Grey, that will all but guarantee success.

This is how you spell immortality: cancer. The one thing that keeps us in check right now is death. Without that safeguard there would be very little standing between us and eventual total collapse. Right now we still have a chance.

I didn't say I had solutions to propose. Lots of other people have though, I can do some googling for you if you like. What problems trouble you most?

I have also noticed this. Obviously life extension would create a bunch of problems (wealth accumulation, overpopulation) as well as solving others (short term thinking, cost of medical treatment in old age).

But the vast majority of people in my experience instantly reject it citing some possible problem that might arise, and no further discussion can usually be had with them.

I've come to believe that the subject of mortality just triggers a huge irrational reaction in most people. They don't want to think about it at all.

It's very funny to call those that don't believe life extension should or will happen irrational. I think you have your parties mixed up. Thinking about something does not automatically make you rational, nor does thinking that something should happen.

I don't think it is realistic, if for whatever reason it does happen I think we are not ready for it. That's all there is to it.

You misunderstand the point I am making. I am not calling all those who don't believe in life extension irrational.

I am saying that in my experience, most people do not want to discuss it at all. They will bring up some obvious possible problem that might be caused by it, and then refuse any further discussion.

I think (but don't know) that this is an irrational reaction to the topic of mortality.

Now that’s an interesting take. Aside from the likelihood that aging treatments are likely to be free or subsidized by governments to avoid having increasingly old populations, what do you define as my normal lifespan? Should I avoid cancer treatments if I get it later in life? What about heart disease? Or Alzheimer’s?

For better or worse, you cannot make those value judgements on others.

No, feel free to get all those. But the moment that your life-extension becomes the shortening of someone else's is where the problems really begin. Resources are finite, we are already straining our eco-systems to (and beyond) the breaking point. At some point we will need some limits to avoid losing it all. Quite possibly we are already past the point of no return in that sense.

I think the first time when humanity will really be ready for a major boost in longevity is when we go interstellar, until then it would just complicate matters.

And whether or not I'm allowed to make those value judgments of others does not bother me, I am happy to apply the same judgments to myself.

Still, why are those okay when treatments for the causes of age related diseases are not?

Humans didn’t commonly live to 90 in the past, yet we do now. An 80 year old getting cancer treatment could be using a bed that a 25 year old with COVID could have used.

Fair enough. But it's a bit of a difference between tackling disease that also can affect the younger generations versus fixing aging itself. That's on a different level.

It's the difference between a quantitative change and a qualitative one, the one is merely an improvement, the other is revolutionary and will have many unintended side-effects that we are likely not going to be able to accurately predict.

I'm not looking forward to a world ruled by a gerontological elite that we can not get rid of who hold all the cards as well as the levers of power.

At least right now we have death as the limit to how much power an individual can amass, if you take that limit away I suspect that it will not end well and it might get us into a situation that we can no longer back out of.

The SENS programme, as speculative as it might be, is really about rejuvenation as opposed to mere life extension. And younger, healthier people put a lot less strain on resources than if they were older and sicker.

Great, bring it on, a world with 150 year olds who look like they're 30, what could possibly go wrong.

Either it will be very few ultra wealthy people (in which case the resources argument wouldn't matter so much anyway) or we are in for a population explosion the likes of which we've never seen.

350K people are born every day, 150K people die every day (lots of those children in the developing world). For a net of 200K, in other words, the world population increase would be roughly double what it is today without death.

> Resources are finite, we are already straining our eco-systems to (and beyond) the breaking point.

That has simple solution - you could have either life extension or children, but not both.

Are you proposing forced sterilization of people that have received their longevity treatments?

There's a good sci fi novel by Bob Shaw that has this trade off.

"One Million Tomorrows"

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1025074.One_Million_Tomo...

So that's a 'yes' then.

I'm not condoning or condemning, just offering it as a story that explores some of these issues.

In this story, the sterilisation (and complete loss of sexuality) is an inevitable consequence of the treatment, not something forced on you. But only males lose sexuality, while women do not. It sets up some interesting tensions.

> Aside from the likelihood that aging treatments are likely to be free or subsidized by governments to avoid having increasingly old populations, what do you define as my normal lifespan?

Pessimistic/dystopian take: what about in a future with much more automation and robotics to take care of the older wealthy-elite class? Do they really need that many young people, aside from their own offspring? In this possible future, perhaps they merely need enough to service the machines, which can each do the work of hundreds or thousands of humans each.

That's not a problem with longevity. Mortality isn't even a solution; it barely qualifies as a workaround, what with dynasties.

Are you grandstanding opposition to life extension just to make a statement about capitalism? You really would ditch immortality right off the bat rather than try to solve the wealth inequality in some other way?

No, I've been around long enough to be cynical. Immortality with humanity's present state of ethical development, inequality and resource exhaustion would introduce problems, it would not solve anything.

Had you caveated your original post with the second sentence I would have agreed

It would give strong incentives for long term thinking, which would help solve many of the issues we currently face.

Alternative take. The 'haves' would get rid of the have nots because the have nots are the biggest risk to their continued existence. And in one fell stroke also solve all those issues. Why bother will billions when a few million slaves will do?

Seriously though, this is all just wishful thinking, it isn't going to happen. You, like all those before you will die, probably at an age well below 100. And by that time you'll be cynical, old and tired, if you're very lucky not even disease ridden.

The biggest medical breakthrough in the field of life extension was doctors washing their hands and a couple of vaccines.

You want some life extension advice, here it is free of charge: get rid of your car, buy a bicycle. Eat healthy. Go live in the countryside rather than in a city. If you smoke stop doing that. If you drink alcohol, stop doing that.

There, added at least a decade to your life which is more than de Grey will ever do for you.

You're welcome.

You haven't actually responded to my rebuttal of your assertion that life extension has no positives.

I'm getting the feeling that you aren't interested in debating it at all. You've made your point repeatedly that you think it's a bad idea. So I guess we'll just leave it there.

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