[chrisjsmith]

I'm against life extension. I think science has the wrong end of the stick.

Whilst death looks like a scary thing and the primary motivation is to avoid the scary bit, people need to keep dying or the population increase caused by them not dying is going to make the standard of living for everyone very low. It's pretty selfish really.

It's better to had a prosperous and happy existence than live 5x as long and suffer through it.

[pyrhho]

> people need to keep dying or the population increase caused by them not dying is going to make the standard of living for everyone very low

It's very kind of you to offer to make more space for the rest of us. You're welcome to refuse/object-to life extension on moral grounds. Somehow, though, when push comes to shove, I don't think you would.

[chrisjsmith]

You are welcome :-)

[loup-vaillant]

Let's compare the two: without anti-ageing tech, we all die young¹, period. With it, we have a choice: die young (but healthier), or have much fewer children, if at all (also, mind the transition period).

Sure, if we choose to live longer, our standard of living may decrease. But I'm not sure. Our current world has many problem which if solved, may allow us to dramatically increase our standard of living even if we live longer.

Plus, anti-ageing tech give us the choice. Even if we go for the Logan's Run route, we'll be better off than right now, where we die young and senile and not at the same age (yet another inequality factor).

The only "justification" for the current situation is Mother Nature. But Mother Nature isn't All Mighty God. We don't have to listen to her.

1: lets consider for the sake of the argument that 80 years is "young", whether you are senile or not.

[chrisjsmith]

A lot of assumptions there.

Most of us die old bar any Darwin award entries. We're just redefining the term/symbol "old" when looking at anti-ageing.

Circumventing "mother nature" will just get us fucked another way. I reckon the first will be due to the social divide and emotional problems caused by those who can afford to live substantially longer.

[astrofinch]

What if the problem is not too many people but too few?

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/11/fertility-the-big-prob...

[prodigal_erik]

Ending that with the "labor shortage" bit really undermined the rest. I read that in much of India it's a faux pas to buy a washing machine rather than hire the little old lady down the block. Labor shortages drive technological innovation, while labor surpluses lead to desperate workers taking menial jobs which are beneath their potential as human beings, as well as Luddism.

[chrisjsmith]

My hypothesis is that population is self-regulating in some way, be that socially or evolutional.

Personally, I really do think the fact that people put their careers before reproducing, therefore leading to problems later on is why there are fertility problems amongst developed nations. A huge number of people here in the UK don't have children until very late on and then have to rely on IVF which is not a flawless process.

The less "developed" (which is ironic) nations have less of a fertility crisis [1].

At the risk of sounding like some crazy hippy, this is all down to the short-sightedness of capitalism and globalisation self-destructing under its own rules. I think the article you linked neatly describes the arrogance that people should be able to control fertility rates.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de...

* edit - cite your sources!

[danssig]

So you're against us still having people like Einstein around? I think it's been demonstrated pretty clearly that breeding habits follow the environment. If we were all suddenly thrust into a world where we all live to be a thousand years old you think people would still be having kids at the same pace?

I think a lot of people wouldn't have kids at all. After all, having kids is our only means of achieving "immortality" at the moment. That's no longer needed if we can just live forever ourselves.

[chrisjsmith]

And you believe the mind and its internal processes are capable of surviving that long even with no ageing?

As with all chaotic processes, I reckon it will decay faster than our no longer ageing meat containers [1]...

[1] http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html

[delinquentme]

> people need to keep dying or the population increase caused by them not dying is going to make the standard of living for everyone very low.

as peter theil said: " this is a problem, i think we want to have"