[9point6]

Any kind of life extension breakthrough is going to introduce heaps of problems in how our society functions. It is fundamentally not designed to cope with people not retiring and dying.

Plus, if we've not figured out how to live away from this planet in perpetuity around the same time, we're going to quickly run out of space too.

[542354234235]

Yet we have seen that reducing disease, improving mortality rates, increasing life expectancy and quality of life leads to lower fertility rates. When people don’t have to put their children to work in the fields and factories, and children don’t die all the time from disease, people have less kids and focus more effort on them. Those were/are life extension breakthroughs that, while introducing their own societal problems and changes, were a huge benefit to society as a whole.

Living in a rich country vs a poor country is living with life extension breakthroughs. Living now vs 200 years ago is living with life extension breakthroughs. Saying that the breakthroughs up to this point were ok, but any more would be some sort of unnatural abomination feels myopic and short sighted. Plus the idea that it is better to let people die rather than figure out how to adapt our society feels grotesque. How is the right answer “don’t research this life saving thing because if we save people’s lives then they will keep hanging around existing”?

[belltaco]

> Any kind of life extension breakthrough is going to introduce heaps of problems in how our society functions. It is fundamentally not designed to cope with people not retiring and dying

Looks like Japan is already there, and many developed countries are only increasing in population because of net immigration.