My only objection to life extension, philosophically speaking, is a political one. What if life extension becomes another tool of dominance for the rich and powerful? An eternal, dystopic corporatocracy sounds pretty damn horrible to me.
Yeah, and hence moral education(which imparts critical thinking and rational moral values) of next generation seems like the most important task to me. Why too much money and power are not the most important things in this world and showing them examples of how they can corrupt you. Learning, sharing and making the world a 'better' place is what should motivate next generation and we urgently need to find a way to bring about that motivation. Right now most of the behavior revolves around what was selected by natural selection and we need to find a way to overcome that(atleast see if it can be overcome).
But do we really know what we are supposed to teach them? Imagine this magic pill was available three hundred years ago. Imagine what the world would be like, if people who believed slavery was part of life, and that women were inherently inferior to men, were not only alive, but still calling the shots.
We are not sure what will work but thats why new models need to be experimented starting now. Coming up with tools for teaching critical thinking and morality should be on high priority in SV.
Yes, magic pill invented 300 yrs ago would have had devastating consequences. But I am not sure whether that sort of thing is practically possible. It seems there is somewhat direct correlation between scientific revolutions(like renaissance) and moral values of the society(dont have data to back that up, just using history as an example).