As hard as it is to say for someone whose mom is battling cancer, I feel similarly about a complete cure for cancer. Death ultimately needs a way to come for us all. The alternative is so much worse.
As hard as it is to say for someone whose mom is battling cancer, I feel similarly about a complete cure for cancer. Death ultimately needs a way to come for us all. The alternative is so much worse.
I'm really sorry to hear about your mom. It's tough to see a loved one going through something like that. Wishing her strength and recovery, and hoping you get to spend many more happy moments together.
In other words, extending healthspan is not the same as extending lifespan.
An improved immune system response (aimed at infectious diseases) may also do well at suppressing cancer rates (2nd leading cause of death), or if not, may at least improve remission or survival rates for treatments, but that is somewhat speculative, and you might also (or instead) get an increase in various autoimmune problems.
So, from a "reversal" of a decade or more of aging by those measures, you might find that longevity is only increased by a couple of years.
> resources will become more scarce
No more so than the same total population aging normally. And as we're already below replacement rates in developed nations, no risk of that happening before some other radical change to the human condition (like mind uploading, WW3, Von Neumann probes on the positive side, or the consequences of existing consumption on the negative) gets in the way first.
The parts of the world rich enough to afford state-of-the-art medical treatments mostly have declining populations and the exceptions are only growing through immigration.
If anything, anti-aging treatments likely would mitigate some future population concerns by giving more time for the economy to adapt to a shrinking population.
The most important book written in the 21st Century is Dr. Robert Zubrin's "Merchants of Despair." Just read the first chapter is all you need to absorb.
OTOH, I would love for someone to disprove Dr. Zubrin's claims.
What makes you assume that trajectory will continue if the average lifespan suddenly increases 3-5x?
No. The controversial opinion is saying that death is unnecessary. Your opinion represent the 'mainstream' opinion. I would argue that it's status quo bias, or justification and rationalization for having death.
Humans are very good at justifying things after the fact.
But taking a look at the individual objections, it either falls apart or a lot more complicated than you think. For example, the fear of societal stagnation. I think this is an overblown concern. People are always changing, however slowly and imperceptible it may be. An 80 years old is going to think very differently than 8 years ago.
People are always worried about overpopulation, but you know who pollute the most? Rich countries. The richer you are, the more meat you eat, the more 'resources' you consume. Currently, overpopulation is really about pollution than running out of raw resources, such metals and minerals and energy. We would overheat ourselves before running out of space. Obviously, there's going to be a finite limit, but that limit is so far off that it's basically ludicrous to think about.
Dictatorships holding power for unbounded length of time? Sure, dictators might live forever, but it's clear that their society often basically 'stagnate', more like went backward. If you see North Korea and South Korea, you know that South Korea have more lights. Plus, just because you're a dictatorship doesn't mean it's a stable governing structure. There are dictatorships and military junta that are short lived or had been overthrown. Dictators can blunder into serious strategic mistakes, like Mr. Putin. Some even voluntarily democratized, like Taiwan!
Human societies are inherently dynamic system that changes over time. It would be difficult to imagine a system that somehow managed to keep things exactly the same. There's always room for disruption.
When a dictator dies, there is tremendous disruption that often leads to a replacement of the ruling junta.
Taiwan's government lost a fight with the communist revolutionaries and allied themselves with whoever they needed to to survive. Elections were a means to an end for Taiwan.