I’ve a definite interest in life extension technologies.
I like my life, and I want to enjoy it as long as possible, experiencing the many cool things that will happen in the future.
There are a few interesting companies doing work in this area, Geron for instance.
They are working on Telomerase, an enzyme that can extend the telomer chains on the ends of chromosomes, setting back the aging clock of the cells.
They’re also working on embrionic stem cell research, harvesting stem cells to repair damaged tissues.
Watching the work being done now, I find it very likely that these techniques may be able to extend my life significantly. Everyone with the $ may be able to extend their lives.
So it seems to me that these technologies would cause significant problems with the various religious groups of the world, who use ‘fear of death’ and ‘promise of an afterlife’ as their primary mechanism for controlling their ‘flocks’.
Who needs an afterlife if you can live forever…
We’re already seeing fetal stem cell research labeled ‘un-Christian’ or ‘morally wrong’. Are these other technologies far behind? Or is the possability of life extension going to be the straw the broke the camels back for these religions…something that finally breaks them down?
First off, wondering whether a backlash against age-extending technologies will occur in the future isn’t necessary. It’s starting to happen already. Try a Google search for articles by Francis Fukuyama, Leon Kass, or Eric Cohen. It’s worth noting that the objections these people raise are not entirely on religious grounds. They also have discussed the possibility that increased life-spans would have a negative effect on society overall, for a variety of reasons.
As to having a serious effect on religion, I doubt it. Not immediately, anyway. most religious people, at least those of Fundamentalist stripes who honestly believe in rewards or punishments in physical locations after death, are set in their ways very firmly and would not have trouble rationalizing a decision to remain religious even after such a discovery. Also, at least in modern societies, the quest to reach Heaven/avoid Hell is probably not the main driving force behind religious beliefs for the majority any more.
I think it’s primarily the prolifers who have problems with the methods used to acquire the stem cells, not necessarily the research or its applications.
I too have a strong fascination with life extension technologies. I consider myself a Transhumanist, and have actually signed up on their website. I think there are some very good questions to be asked, and perhaps some optimism to be quelched.
I think that life extension will come within my lifetime. I believe that my lifetime will no doubt be stretched on for about 200-500 years. I don’t think I will live much longer than that to be truthfull, though that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try. I am pretty certain in my lifetime I will see people living to be 200 years old.
However, as to your statement about living forever and afterlife. As an Athiest, you probably can guess how I personally feel about all that, but for those with different beliefs?: Life extension is NOT immortality. The universe will eventually die, and life extension technology will only keep your body healthy from disease and old age, not from accidents, like war, asteroids, space ship crashes, car wrecks and inceneration.
Sure, someday they may have the ability to store memories and upload, etc, but that stuff is so far from now, estimations and the like are impossible. I would say it is best to assume we will never develop those technologies, and save moral ramifications until they pop up. Keeping Life extension seperate from other technologies allows us to keep some bias and religious objections out of it, and since they really are two different things, makes it more fair.
One serious consideration one must look at (I have not read those authors you mentioned above yet, ITR, so they might cover this) is the problem of change. With death, new generations occur with slightly different outlooks on life, and I believe that these differing changes are what allow society to grow and prosper, filling nitches and the like. With people living 200 years, old and outdated ideas will last longer and social change might come slower. At a time when we reach Singularity, this could cause some major problems, even disaster.
As a counter argument, it is possible with longer ages, people feel more need to beome better educated, and learn to grow and change throughout their lifetimes, rather than stagnate after 25. The old ideas of Birth, childhood, adolescence, young adult (party, college, etc) then marriage and wait for retirement, then death may become obsolete. It may be replaced with ideas of an open ended lifetime, with no stages, just constant growth, a constant slope upwards towards infinity. This could counterbalance the idea of stagnation. Of course great sociological changes and paradigms must take place. Not just on the techological front.
I am also a Transhumanist. Based on research that I have seen, it looks like science is making great strides in understanding aging. It may be that evolution has benefited from death, and as a result there are programmed kill switches in our genetic code. It is quite likely that in the next 20 years we will be able to flick these switches on and off. Once we can do that, we then just have to worry about free radical damage and accidental death. There is a contest called The Methuselah Mouse which rewards whoever can get a mouse to live the longest. Already we have doubled a mouse’s lifespan, and quadrupled the lifespan of nemotode worms. This technology is coming.
As far as ending natural evolution, so the fuck what. The next steps in human evolution will not require the death of billions of people to make small incremental improvements. Instead, we will conciously decide to alter ourselves. Natural selection goes out the window, to be replaced with a much better intentional way of improving ourselves. I think Eliezer S. Yudkowsky put it best:
In the next thirty years we will probably gain the technology to extend lifespans out to around 200 years at least. But in those 200 years we can expect more advances, accelerating at an exponential rate. By the time we get towards 200 I suspect they will be able to extend life indefinitely. I plan to live for millions or perhaps billions of years.
The major problems faced should I be correct:
Over population
If people stop getting dead, then we are going to need to move out into the solar system to have enough room and resources. There will have to be new laws created that allow only a certain number of people on the Earth at any given time. Perhaps regulations on child birth. Fortunately, the solar system should contain more than enough resources to keep us going for millions of years. Without space travel, life extension will result in taxing this planet to the point of destruction.
War
If the treatments are only affordable to the rich, expect war. A system where the rich live forever and the poor die will not be tolerated. Expect much strife and suffering if the treatments are not given to everybody.
I plan to live forever or die trying, as the old saying goes, and I really think I have a chance. To hedge my bets I have taken out a life insurance policy which I plan to have pay out to Alcor to freeze me should I be declared clinically dead. I want to see cities on the moon and mars and the asteroids, I want to take part in fully immersive realistic virtual reality, I want to be telepathic, I want to look at Saturn’s rings close up. All of these things are coming, assuming we don’t kill everybody first. I’d like to stick around and see how it all unfolds.
I expect a long lived society to be the norm in a few centuries from now; but there are aspects to that society that I find a little strange.
The low death rate will need to be balanced by a low birth rate-
there will hardly be any children. We are so used to having kids as part of our society that it is difficult to imagine a world without them.
(at last some peace and quiet).
The long-lived society will be a safe society. Unless one tires of life there will be little or no risk-taking, no dangerous sports, no getting drunk and picking a fight;
perhaps people will tire of life frequently.
Oh and when you finally do die in a flying car accident you are told by Death that you have missed your appointment.
I think the birth rate problem will balance itself out in due course. I have seen statistics showing that birth rate is already falling in America anyhow. It seems to make sense of a sort- as more people (women and men) become more progressive and move towards building careers and armed with knowledge that they can have kids at any age, they will no doubt have less, not more.
No doubt more people like myself will come about- no desire to have kids.
Oscar Niemeyer is considered the best brazilian architect and he is 92-93 years old. He is well respected for his skills (only). He made a comment a few years ago about how he admires Stalin ! Admire STALIN ! We still have a few hardcore commies here who might say they liked Lenin… and many liked Trotski (of the Russian the most respectable)… but STALIN !
This guys ideas are frozen in time and he is only 90 years old... imagine him with 150 or 200 ?! An example would be a 200 year old American for example would still be babbling about how freeing the slaves was silly !
I am convinced that people dying is a good thing after I read that comment... it helps change and renovates thoughts and culture. Naturally I would love to have good health into my 100's... but the price of stagnation is too great. Of course there are old people with new and bright ideas... overall that is not the rule.
I think economics will go totally haywire if lifespans are extended suddenly and dramatically.
What is retirement age? Is there a retirement age? Would people’s savings be huge, or even less than usual (since they’ve always got another 50 years of working ahead …)?
I think you’d also see the massive rich-poor disparity become even more massive. Imagine that all the wealthy people now living NEVER DIE. We’ll see the first trillionaire this century, quadrillionaire the next. Meanwhile, those who can’t afford to become long-lifers may very well be considered subhuman scum, fit only for high-risk manual labor that makes their short lives shorter.
In the last couple of days I have seen a couple of interesting articles on this subject (in regards to ongoing research). It really sounds like progress is being made every day. We may be facing these issues very soon. Anyway here are the articles: