[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.