This post fills me with questions. Foremost: What makes anti-aging technology unnatural compared to other medical treatments? To take one example, the smallpox vaccine was initially considered unnatural, and an affront to God[1].
I think reflexive appeals to tradition and novelty are both kind of dumb. But if people are going to err, I'd rather they erred on the side of tradition: at least that shit has been demonstrated to work in one fashion or another. I always try to keep in mind examples like Eben Byers [1], the THERAC 25 [2], and rabbits in Australia [3]. All sorts of stupid ideas look appealing at first.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Byers
[2] http://courses.cs.vt.edu/cs3604/lib/Therac_25/Therac_1.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia#Effects_on...
Could someone counteract me, please?
Just kidding.
Maybe I'll consider thumb-thinning surgery instead ;)
The patent medicine Byers took was legal. Indeed his doctor recommended it to him. Unsurprising given that its seller, William J. A. Bailey, offered doctors a 17% kickback to prescribe the stuff. Even after this product was banned (because it finally killed a rich guy?), Bailey was never prosecuted, and continued to sell radium-related products after this. He died wealthy and free at the age of 64, nearly 14 years after killing Byers, and who knows how many other people.
It's a fine example of what I was talking about, where erring on the side of the shiny and new was not a good heuristic; the people who stuck with the traditional and natural did better for themselves despite Bailey and Byers surely scoffing at them.
I'm a giant fan of technology, and there are many amazing advances in medical tech. But I'm not a fan of thoughtless adoption of something just because it a) sounds good and b) is shiny and new.
So kids born to families who think its an affront to god would not have the social / cultural / monetary resources to even begin to compete with kids born to more rational families?
Not that I'm saying a selection pressure against irrational belief would be a negative or a problem, I'm just saying it would be strongly selected against?
I had a grandfather who rose to pretty high levels in the Army and executive level in a major national railroad, he could provide some advice about management. A G-Grandfather who was a good enough CPA to never end up unemployed in the great depression, he presumably could teach me a thing or two about accounting. A grandpa-in-law who was a successful combat medic, after treating combat injuries normal lifestyle trauma would make him handy to have around (edited to add, patching up blown off limbs made him a peace activist type in his later years, another good reason to keep him around). One of my grandma was one of those flapper / womens suffrage / womens lib radical types and she'd be a good influence on my daughter. If we extend life over 200 years, I have a Harvard lit prof in my ancestry who would be a handy tutor for my kids, and a civil war era land surveyor who could probably teach even me a thing or two about wilderness hiking and survival, etc.
If you do enough genealogy, everyone's got enough "cool" in their ancestry, that if those ancestors were still alive, kids lifestyle would be radically improved compared to folks with dead ancestors.
Of course human nature being what it is, the 10% of cool would come with 90% of hatred, bigotry, ignorance, blah blah, so you'd have to take it all with a grain of salt. (edited to add, and learning the critical thinking skills to take it all with a grain of salt, would overall be one of the most valuable skills...)
In hell, conservatives will have the ability to turn off the flames.