[coderenegade]

But it is natural. Preventing aging would be tantamount to creating forever kings, because like anything, the benefits wouldn't be distributed evenly throughout society. I'd rather a world where everyone has their time and everyone ages, than one in which a few people live forever. Not to mention, if you don't die of old age, what do you die of? The alternatives aren't great, unless assisted suicide becomes an option.

The solutions to the horrors of aging are psychological and social, not scientific, and entail coming to terms with your own mortality (life is fatal, your capacity will inevitably fade), and having mechanisms in place so that the elderly can live with dignity. Anything else seems like a sure path to dystopia.

[stephc_int13]

The forever dictator/billionaire trope is rather naïve as I think that societal changes related to technological improvements are extremely difficult to predict, and in this case they could be more profound that what some sci-fi authors imagined.

Dictators are only a problem because the population let them take power. They could not do anything or even stay in power without population consent, especially the aristocracy/priests caste of this particular society.

Dictators/Billionaires themselves are in practice only a very small part of our power distribution issues. (really the very visible but small tip of the proverbial iceberg)

[coderenegade]

We already see vastly different health outcomes for people of different socioeconomic statuses. Eternal life would be no different. I'm not even talking about dictators. It would the political class and entrenched wealth that would benefit the most, and quite frankly, I think that's worth fighting against. There's a certain comfort and equality in knowing that everyone dies, and that it's just a fact of life.

[DennisP]

But we also see universal healthcare in most developed countries. The US has moved somewhat in that direction, and has been there for decades for everyone over 65.

Speaking of which, Medicare would save enormous amounts of money if it made anti-aging meds available to all of its recipients. Mass-market drugs aren't the most expensive ones, and anti-aging drugs would have to be pretty expensive to outpace heart surgery, cancer, and extended hospital stays. My mom for example cost Medicare a million dollars just for her last year. The government also pays a lot of nursing home expenses, which would also mostly go away.

Then there's retirement. The world is facing an enormous demographic crash, because it's been urbanizing and urban populations have fewer kids. Birth rates are below replacement rates, in some cases far below. China's is around one, and its population started shrinking last year. It's going to be harder for governments to pay for retirements from shrinking tax bases. If people were healthy enough to keep working, that problem goes away too.

Shrinking populations aren't great for economic growth either. Wealthy people tend to have a lot of money invested in stocks, and if they want them to keep going up, they'll support anti-aging for everyone.

There are some other reasons for them to support it too. One is that no anti-aging treatment will be perfect right out of the gate. The more people are using it, the quicker the problems will be found and fixed. If the elite keep it to themselves, they'll be the ones encountering all the problems.

And finally, if you're not aging then accidents and violence are much more prominent risks of death, percentage-wise. Having anti-aging tech and not sharing sounds like a great way to get yourself killed by the envious masses.

[coderenegade]

Universal healthcare is not a panacea, and it doesn't guarantee equitable health outcomes. In Australia, indigenous life expectancy is 13 years lower than the life expectancy for the rest of the country. That's mostly due to preventable illness in a first world country with universal healthcare. I imagine outcomes for New Zealand Maoris and native Americans are similar.

The world will need to learn to deal with shrinking populations at some point. Economic growth is not, in my opinion, a particularly compelling argument. All systems have physical limits, and the extensive collapse of the biosphere suggests that our level of population and economic growth are both unsustainable. Aside from the cultural stagnation that an immortal aristocracy would represent, it would be an absolute disaster for the planet.

As for the wealthy sharing for their own benefit: when has that happened in history, ever? Extraction continues until the peasants storm the gates. In the short term, it's cheaper to invest in better security.

[orangecat]

The solutions to the horrors of aging are psychological and social, not scientific

Is the solution to losing short range vision in your 40s philosophizing about how literature is best left to the young, or getting reading glasses?

Anything else seems like a sure path to dystopia.

Are you opposed to researching cures for cancer or Alzheimer's? What about preventing heart disease and strokes? What about treatments to help older people preserve their mobility and short term memory? At what point does allowing people to retain their physical and mental health become a dystopia?

[coderenegade]

As I mentioned in another post, we already see vastly different health outcomes for people of different socioeconomic statuses. The wealthy already live longer and are more functional into their old age than are the poor, to the point where you can guess a person's income and education with reasonable accuracy by knowing what illnesses they have. The US is already a society where medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy, so I'd say the path to dystopia is already being walked. But preventing strokes and heart failure is vastly different to being able to prevent the aging process itself, because fixing those issues doesn't stop senescence. You can stop as many heart attacks as you like, but the person will inevitably die of old age at some point.

Stopping senescence will not be something that is equitably distributed, because modern medicine already has those same issues. There's a certain comfort and equality in knowing that everyone gets old, and everyone dies, no ifs or buts. This ride only has one exit, and you have a finite amount of time to make the most of it.

[causality0]

I'll deal with forever kings if it means not dying. I quite enjoy life.

[mensetmanusman]

You would still die though, the king would just not age…

[zirgs]

But that would also mean never retiring. You'll have to work forever.

[DennisP]

There are various options:

1) Instead of getting sick and feeble, enjoy your health until you've had enough, then take up free climbing or wing jumping, and enjoy that until you go out with a bang.

2) Save your money, and periodically take a sabbatical for a few years.

3) Find a job that doesn't seem worse than slowly falling apart until you die.

[causality0]

Do you hate your job so much that the hope of eventual retirement is the only reason you don't kill yourself?

[lostlogin]

But those that get it first will be the wealthiest. Many of those wouldn’t use their gain for good and may actually use it to do harm.

An eternal Putin? A permanent Xi?

[stephc_int13]

Don't be fooled by this idea that those individuals have any real power. They are in a silent contract with the aristocracy around them, and the same process repeats all the way down the base of the pyramid.

The only reason it is difficult to get rid of tyrants is because a large amount of people in their countries benefits from this arrangement.

[lostlogin]

Oh for sure, but that isn’t all that helpful if you’re on the receiving end of their genocidal behaviour.

[stephc_int13]

I am not saying that tyrants are non-issue.

I am saying that this particular problem is not related to the increase of life expectancy.

The fact that tyrants are dying of old age at some point does not solve anything, if they have support, they are replaced.

The Hitler issue would never be as easy as killing baby Hitler.

[lostlogin]

> The Hitler issue would never be as easy as killing baby Hitler.

I agree that killing baby Hitler wouldn’t help, but that’s not what’s being discussed.

A stroke-free Stalin would have been an issue.

Extreme environments lead to extreme leaders. I’m not sure that giving unlimited time is a good idea, as that would seem likely to cement a situation permanently.

[CamperBob2]

An eternal Putin might actually value life more than the current one does. Being ageless doesn't mean you're immortal. He would be even more worried about assassination than he is now.