People who have lived a long time have generally accumulated huge amounts of wisdom and realizations, and if these people disappear, all this knowledge just evaporates (assuming they haven't written it down). This is really tragic, in my opinion. I mean, if people WANT to die, then I am certainly not going to stand in their way, but what I am concerned about is social pressures that encourage people to line up unquestioningly for their doom. There is nothing OK, healthy, or ethical about this. I think that medicine should be entirely devoted to saving lives and preserving health, no matter what the person's age.
Witholding treatment or favoring one age group over another is discrimination, plain and simple. I don't think that any of us can decide whose life has "a lot of possibilities" -- only the person whose life is in question can decide. If you deny an older person a chance at living longer because they don't have enough "potential", would you also deny this chance to a disabled person, or simply someone you didn't like? I am not trying to be inflammatory here, I am just trying to make the point that how long a person has already lived is a very, very bad way to determine the worth of their lives. It's like making such a judgement based on gender or disability, which is just plain wrong.
Some very intelligent friends of mine have attempted to elucidate their own rationale (for death being an essential part of being human) in light of their beliefs about nature and whatnot. I'm trying to take these arguments and consider them in a rational manner, and I plan to treat anyone who comments here with the utmost respect, realizing we all come from different philosophical frames of reference shaped by everything from our life experiences to our very neurological structure.
This blog is intended to explore ideas pertaining to the following aspects of radical life extension:
1. Is it even possible?
My take on the matter: Theoretically, yes, and I'll try to explain why I think so. I am quite excited about the notion of Escape Velocity, and I consider cryonics to be a good last-resort sort of thing (and I plan to arrange for it myself as soon as I am able). I also see such things as nanotechnology and stem cell-based therapies as having huge potential for addressing the problem of age-related decline.
The way I see it, the frailty and ill health associated with aging is just another engineering problem -- it's no more "special" than any other disease, and I think that a much of the pessimism I've seen regarding the potential to arrest aging has to do with deep cultural memes that somehow elevate death to something of cosmic significance. It is my hope that the real science, the understanding of the mechanisms behind human death, will mean the welcome dissipation of these cultural memes.
2. Is it ethical?
Again, I say yes, for reasons I hope to make very clear over the course of time and discussion here. It's been 7 years since I started studying (on a hobby basis) the issue of radical longevity. Most of my own focus has been on the "Is it possible?" question, which is indeed critical to explore. However, a recent discussion elsewhere (a text-based BBS...yes, a few do still exist!) prompted me to start thinking much more extensively on matters of ethics and social responsibility.
Things like overpopulation, competition for resources, genetic / cultural stagnation, etc., all need to be addressed when one discusses a non-dying population, or subpopulation. As do more personal issues like, "Is the drive to continue existing somehow selfish or immoral?" I hope to bring a rational voice to the discussion of these issues, and I welcome discussion from anyone who has thoughts on such notions.
1 comments:
i feel that life extension is a sensible thing to do in life. maybe people are too caught up in the materialistic world. they are more concerned about what they can see, smell and feel at the present moment. planning for long term goals is not a habit of most people.
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