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Comment by bschne | Hacker News Reader

There's something interesting about the way we as a species think about death. Say you're working on "immortality" or on "solving aging", and most people outside a small subset of the tech/SV crowd will think you're a megalomaniac or just plain crazy -- death is obviously a fact, and to attempt to overcome it pure hubris. Yet we spend an incredible amount of resources on prolonging life in various ways through lifestyle interventions, treatments, cures -- and handsomely reward and revere those who succeed in pushing our life expectancy ever so slightly upwards.

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This is because chasing immortality with expensive but questionable procedures has a thousands of years long history (it's a safe bet this stretches into pre-history) of being an obsession of the ultra-rich, so far without success, but with plenty of tragedy (for others), waste, and/or comical self-pwnage.

Eventually, sure, someone might get it right, but it's easy to see why people would be dismissive.

Courtesy of The Epic of Gilgamesh, this trope is Older Than Dirt.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImmortalitySeeke...

The history of heavier-than-air flight is pretty similar.

I think one of the major issues is that people associate longer life expectancy with old age.

For most people, the idea of being kept alive by machines, bed ridden for decades into their 80/90s as far worse than death. They never consider that improvements could promise them a strong body and agile mind in addition to the extra years.

Who ever does the life extension technology marketing really needs to push the "keep people younger, longer" message.

It's worth noting, though, that people think of it this way because that's historically what life extension has looked like. I'm still ultimately in favor, but I see a nontrivial chance of a disaster scenario where "keep people barely alive till they're 150" is the low hanging fruit.

As far as disasters go, one you can opt-out of is not the most terrifying.

Often you can't opt out. My great-grandma was basically non-functional for her last decade: she couldn't move without assistance, couldn't taste anything, and seemed to be in constant pain. But her dementia came first, so by the time we started worrying about it, she couldn't think clearly enough to make any decisions about anything. We never put her on life support as such because we were pretty sure she wouldn't have wanted it, but there was no specific life-sustaining intervention to consider withdrawing, just a bundle of meds which each meaningfully improved her quality of life. So she kinda bumbled along in a cloud of permanent confusion and misery until the end.

I want to take a slightly different approach to this, as someone who thinks it somewhat is 'megalomaniacal' to fight death. I don't think it's because the attempt to overcome it is pure hubris, however. And I fear we will eventually one day succeed.

For me, it's because -- let's face it -- it'll only be available to the extremely wealthy and well-off. It won't be available to the average citizen. This will just further cause our immortal overlords to be able to concentrate power and wealth, even moreso than they're already doing. That's not a good thing. Death is the Great Equalizer (especially if there's a very progressive estate tax), and if it is conquered there's nothing to stop that anymore.

As to why we treat doctors and those who prolong life now differently, well, it's reasonably accessible to everyone, especially in a first world country. Sure, you might not get the cutting-edge treatment the rich and powerful can get, but you can get very good quality treatment and prolong your healthspan for a while based on what we have. And, even if you don't get the treatment the rich and powerful do, they are still going to die one day, so at least there's that.

I see no reason to believe that whoever figures out how to stop aging/death will open it to the public, or that it will ever be accessible to the populace. For me, it's a vanity project of the rich that will only harm the poor, and I think that quite decently fits the definition of megalomaniac.

Why would it only be available for the extremely wealthy and well-off? Where do you get the idea that such therapies must invariably be expensive?

Do you know what's really expensive? The imploding cost of healthcare, especially when concerning people who's entering old age.

That would be like saying we shouldn't develop mRNA technology because it will only be available to rich people.

> Why would it only be available for the extremely wealthy and well-off?

Why wouldn't it?

> Where do you get the idea that such therapies must invariably be expensive?

Because those with power and wealth will want to keep it from those who aren't as well off, and they control the pricing of it. It seems the logical endpoint to me.

I don't see them working on making it cheaper for the common person out of the goodness of their heart. And I see their desire to keep their power as stronger than their desire to worry about healthcare costs.

Maybe I'm super cynical and pessimistic, but if the cure for aging is found, I don't see it being made widely available, ever, for simple reason of power and politics. Humanity isn't at that point, and likely never will be.

Life isn't some game of throne that incentivized the creation of bloodthirsty ruthless power mongers except in some of the most dystopian place on earth.

Economic and technological force might make such attempt at control a pointless exercise, especially since a cure will likely be made public by scientists.

> Life isn't some game of throne that incentivized the creation of bloodthirsty ruthless power mongers except in some of the most dystopian place on earth.

I mean, even in the United States I see people doing everything they can to hold on to power and wealth and accumulate more at the expense of those who don't have it, and who are simply doing their best to survive.

> Economic and technological force might make such attempt at control a pointless exercise, especially since a cure will likely be made public by scientists.

Might. But will the cure be made public by scientists if it's funded by those who don't want it public? And even if it is made public, will the average person have the resources to make it even if the cure itself is available? Will they be allowed to have those resources?

Why wouldn't it? Two reasons:

1) The people making it can make more money. Sell it to the rich people first at a high price, then gradually broaden the market until you're selling near cost to as many people as possible. That's probably how it has to work out anyway but it gives you great price segmentation.

2) Governments can spend less money. Vast amounts of government money goes to expensive treatments for chronic age-related illnesses. It's a no-brainer for Medicare to cover anti-aging treatments even at fairly significant cost.

The only people who might want to restrict it to rich people are rich customers, and even they don't have a clear economic incentive for doing so. In fact, lowering costs for Medicare can help lead to lower taxes.

Wouldn't the cost of it roughly follow every other technological innovation? Extremely expensive and only affordable by the wealthy at first, then cost will go down over time as competition ramps up and economies of scale take effect.

I think this all is assuming that those who have the power to will allow competition to ramp up and the price to come down. I can't help but feel they won't with the cure for aging, as it's in a different category than other medical and technological inventions.

As I said in a reply to a sister comment, maybe I'm just cynical and pessimistic, but this is the one thing I don't see those who have money and power allowing to ever reach those who don't; if nobody had to age, it might threaten their power too much.

maybe it isn't so crazy, if you look at the increases in average lifespans over the fast couple centuries - prolonging lifespans is something humans seem to have a good track record with (at least at a high level)

"solving aging" is the above taken to the limit, which no one has ever even come close to solving ever - so the societal consensus is "why fight it"?

Yes. People get really confused when you try to take all these arguments apart and prove to them that we're not done with medicine as a science as long as there are untreatable conditions. And if there are no untreatable conditions any more, then what people would be dying of, barring accidents and crime? So it follows that the end goal of the development of medicine is to make people live forever, in perfect health.

Also, it's absolutely bonkers that what we consider good health is a function of one's age. If you have thin skin and brittle bones being 20yo, that's a serious illness. But if you're 70yo, that suddenly becomes perfectly normal.

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