As much time as I've spent arguing against what I perceive as "death apologism", I'm beginning to wonder if that kind of argumentation represents so much noise blowing in the wrong direction.
It would be one thing if this line of argument actually helped save people's lives, but at this point I'm not convinced of its practical efficacy nor the accuracy with which it chooses its "targets".
Most people (unless they're Christian Scientists or similar) don't oppose medicine in principle. This is important. Even though we've seen a few rather bizarre arguments from some supposed death apologists (e.g., "But people are going to get so bored if they live longer!"), it doesn't seem that there are enough such people making those kinds of arguments in positions of power so as to make rebutting those arguments of any real use.
But there are clearly barriers to getting longevity medicine off the ground. What are they really, if they aren't actually coming from the "but we'll get bored!" or the "your children are entitled to an inheritance, so just die already!" folks?
I'm beginning to wonder, quite seriously, whether perhaps what (a fair number of) people do oppose is not longevity medicine at all, but "medicine for people who can't function easily within the status-quo economic system".
That is, if there were effective longevity treatments available, it seems a fairly safe bet that (so long as they didn't entail embryonic stem cell research) they wouldn't be banned by a bioconservative congress. You wouldn't have world leaders debating over whether anyone should be "allowed" to seek such treatments, any more than we have people debating over the use of modern sanitation to reduce infant mortality, or over (per the familiar example) hypertension medication.
But you would likely still have people arguing against ideas like universal healthcare. And you'd also still have folks claiming that we live in an "everyone for him/herself" world in which you only get to live so long as you can "earn" your right to do so, or so long as you have enough powerful cronies backing you up.
It makes plenty of sense that a lot of what manifests as "ageism" is actually a kind of economic phobia -- non-wealthy older people are considered (like disabled people, regardless of whether or not they would classify themselves as "disabled") to be "bad investments" with regard to employment, medical care, other forms of support, etc. This, combined with the independence myth can lead to particularly pernicious conditions for many.
This is not, of course, to say that rapid technological development cannot sometimes occur in contexts other than the very large, very bureaucratic, and very mainstream. As someone who still often struggles to function optimally in a culture that wasn't designed primarily by or for people with cognitive/sensory differences like mine, I can fully appreciate the attraction of working outside systems and processes that seem bloated, stifling, and unaccommodating.
And certainly, some such systems fit that description -- suggesting that every problem must be solved through the same exact process, regardless of its nature, (and that no process revisions or reviews are ever appropriate) would be very silly indeed. But it would be foolish to suppose that by circumventing bureaucratic bloat in one's endeavors, that one is somehow "operating outside culture" or "operating outside politics." In that sense, longevity (and all associated research and advocacy) is a class struggle.
This is not just some flowery, abstract, "nontechnical" point, but one that is of direct concern to anyone who figures they'd like to support better outcomes for older people now and in the coming decades. As an engineer, an unabashed nerd, and a lifelong science enthusiast who has only very recently (and rather grudgingly) come to see that no, progress cannot occur in an insular vacuum of well-practiced technological experts, this is not something I would have imagined myself ever saying in public even a year ago.
It's just that it's becoming more and more clear to me that, for instance, biogerontology is not likely to get much further unless great strides are made socially to affirm the value of older people and not push them to the corners, marginalize, or warehouse them by default.
20 comments:
I'm thinking that as the baby-boomers become that older generation, we'll begin to see a larger shift in emphasis (as is already evident) in our culture.
That is true fran. A lot of countries are starting to develop a much larger elderly population with a decreasing worker population.
And I personally think that religious organisations would not like longevity treatments. Depending on the length they would most likely label them unnatural and claim that you are: "Merely trying to avoid the fires of hell" (Because every christian knows real scientists go to hell *insert eye roll*)
The biggest problem in any research project is not so much the social aspect but more the economic one. However you can easily say that these two are very tightly intwined with few companies being prepared to finance science that is not liked by the public.
Gash said:
Depending on the length they would most likely label them unnatural and claim that you are: "Merely trying to avoid the fires of hell"
Ha, I just listened to this story recently -- about a guy who is trying to do just that.
But still, not liking something doesn't mean someone has the power to block people from doing it. Though it's certainly important to avoid establishing theocracies!
Just as some might fear an infinitely non-working class of people, others may fear that even an additional twenty years of healthy life might condemn them to becoming an infinitely *working* class of people.
I half-jokingly said recently that I thought people wanted to continue the current pattern of remission followed by death for the distinction that failing health gives one. Being close to death makes you the star of any family or group of friends; being without the faculties of youth excuses every complaint and need for aid.
Do you envision yourself working if science "blesses you" with immortality? (The obvious answer to me would be yes, but I supposed it worth asking as I like not to attribute answers to those who've yet to have the chance to give them).
sarah rose said:
Just as some might fear an infinitely non-working class of people, others may fear that even an additional twenty years of healthy life might condemn them to becoming an infinitely *working* class of people.
Both scenarios sound like "lack of imagination" to me. :) I think part of the problem is in the definition of what "work" is. Not everyone hates their work, and not all work is the same. I think that when people say that they fear working for an extra twenty years, what they really mean is that they don't want to be "wage slaves" or "cubicle drones" for an extra twenty years. If they were doing something fulfilling and interesting to them, they'd probably not feel quite the same.
And with regard to the "infinitely non-working class of people", that seems a very unlikely scenario -- most people don't want to be idle all the time as it is. This might be a weird idea, but I sort of like the notion of establishing a "work culture" that allows people to choose how they work to a greater extent. I think some people assume that in order to have a company that is "productive", you need to have certain cultural elements present in the workplace -- dress code, hierarchy, relegation of certain basic accommodations to "status indicators", etc. But I don't believe this is necessarily true.
Certainly, some people will seek that kind of structure, and that's fine for them, but it's not for everyone. And I don't think that "productive" has to be defined by the fact of contributing toward the manufacture of saleable widget for Company X. Even now, there are people who make their living writing, making art, writing music, teaching public school (tax-funded and all), and it would be incoherent to suggest that those folks are somehow disengaged from the economy.
Additionally, there are people who don't get a "paycheck of their own" in the usual sense, but who nevertheless spend a lot of time volunteering, taking care of others, etc. Again, it would be incoherent to suggest that these folks are disengaged from the economy.
I think some people tend to assume that unless you're making a widget, you're not working. But I'd guess they'd change their tune VERY quickly if all the artists, musicians, volunteers, free childcare providers (a.k.a., "grandparents"), etc., stopped doing their thing(s) and either disappeared or joined the ranks of the widgetmakers.
I half-jokingly said recently that I thought people wanted to continue the current pattern of remission followed by death for the distinction that failing health gives one. Being close to death makes you the star of any family or group of friends; being without the faculties of youth excuses every complaint and need for aid.
Wow, there's a huge can of worms in that statement that I'm not even sure I can fully explicate right now. But you've touched on some issues that I think are very close to disability advocacy. First of all, there's the idea that people should even need an "excuse" in order to get the help they need, or in order to have the right to speak up about what is bothering them. From where I sit, it's pretty easy to see that everyone gets assistance from others, every day (and that everyone complains, basically every day).
Needing assistance and complaining are not at all limited to the elder demographic, or to persons with disabilities/atypicalities, and yet, it is very often assumed that people who aren't running in the "corporate rat race" and doing everything the standard way for whatever reason are somehow "getting away with something". Never mind the fact that these people may not need help with some of the standard things most people tend to need help with, and never mind that they might be doing things with their time that will ultimately benefit the world more than Widget X will.
Second of all, I personally find the idea of being the "star" in any group of family/friends to be very unsettling, especially if it were due to being ill or infirm. That kind of thing might sound superficially nice to those who feel like they're not getting as much of a "free ride" as they perceive others to be getting, but honestly, it's kind of depersonalizing. And smothering. (I'm guessing most people, unless they happened to be incurable narcissists, would probably get really tired of the "OMG, you're dying! Did I ever tell you how wonderful you were?" stuff pretty fast.)
I think that if it were generally recognized that different people have different needs (and that everyone is already unique, and therefore doesn't need to "try to be special"), there wouldn't be any incentive for people to feel shortchanged by the fact that they weren't getting as many supposed "excuses" as someone else. I think that the wishing for the "distinction of failing health" that some people engage in is probably a symptom of a culture that is, overall, not accommodating enough to anyone outside a fairly narrow set of parameters.
Do you envision yourself working if science "blesses you" with immortality?
I definitely see myself staying busy and engaged in interesting projects for as long as I possibly can (regardless of how long I live). Whether or not someone's always going to be paying me for it has yet to be determined. ;P I'm guessing that if very long lifespans do become a reality at some point, assuming we still use money into the indefinite future, people might decide to "work" at one thing for a number of years, save up, and then take intermittent mini-retirements/long vacations. And I'd hope as well that by that point (in this imaginary could-be future) that the definition of what "work" is will have been expanded to recognize all the very real, very substantive work a lot of people do now, but that isn't generally recognized as such.
Anne,
Your argument seems strangely disconnected from actual patterns of healthcare spending today. In the United States, the only advanced country without a universal coverage scheme, Medicare provides universal coverage for the elderly, while younger adults may be left uninsured. Combined Social Security and Medicare spending vastly exceeds the sum of investments in basic science that will benefit younger people and future generations, e.g. medical research or alternative energy research to combat global warming.
Carl, I don't think I said anything about Medicare or Social Security. I'm not talking about established social programs (of dubious efficacy) here when I mention "valuing people" -- I'm talking about pervasive social attitudes that affect how people are treated and how resources are applied.
Obviously, Medicare and SS are not keeping older people from experiencing employment discrimination, institutional abuse, substandard treatment, pressure to just "kick off" so that they won't "drain the inheritance" via paying for their own care needs, etc.
I'm coming at this issue from a position very connected with disability rights, and both the disabled and elderly (despite the existence of "programs" ostensibly to help them) are very much vulnerable to devaluing attitudes and the effects thereof.
At present, disabled/elderly people are probably *the* most vulnerable groups in terms of the "pressure to die" they experience. For instance, people who require ventilators and/or feeding tubes in order to survive are very vulnerable to attitudes like, "It's wrong/unnatural/too expensive for people to be kept alive 'artificially'."
I see longevity medicine (the research, development, and application thereof) as suffering from an analogous problem -- e.g., some people see it as a kind of luxurious idea that should only, if ever, be pursued if we can achieve universal good health for all the young/"normal" people out there.
Whereas I think it just needs to be accepted that different demographic groups are always going to have different healthcare needs, and that it doesn't make sense to push anyone's survival needs (no matter how old or disabled they are) to the fringes where they are considered "luxuries".
I was responding to this, which I took to be suggesting a threat that the elderly would be denied access to treatments even after their development:
"That is, if there were effective longevity treatments available, it seems a fairly safe bet that...they wouldn't be banned by a bioconservative congress...[b]ut you would likely still have people arguing against ideas like universal healthcare."
Politically, the elderly are a very powerful group (which will grow as a share of the electorate as populations age), and the non-elderly are more frequently (although perhaps less intensely) supportive of Medicare than older people. So I don't see it as very likely that effective therapies will not be available to elderly people who need them. This is distinct from informal social pressures, e.g. pressure from family members who wish to be relieved of caretaker responsibilities or receive inheritance.
"For instance, people who require ventilators and/or feeding tubes in order to survive are very vulnerable to attitudes like, "It's wrong/unnatural/too expensive for people to be kept alive 'artificially'."
The 'too expensive' argument doesn't require valuing life experienced by such people as less important than the lives of others. If the cost per year of life granted by medicine is much higher for some individuals than others, then if you value a year of life equally for both groups you will focus on the area where medicine is most cost-effective. Likewise, there is an egalitarian argument that the elderly may have longer expected lifespans than younger people depending on the rate of advance of medicine and the exact ages at play (they have already won the longevity lottery in evading early causes of death), so the longevity-poor should be favored over the longevity-rich in the provision of additional longevity.
"I see longevity medicine (the research, development, and application thereof) as suffering from an analogous problem"
I disagree about the application, but think that the case is much more relevant to R&D. People may feel compelled to use any available existing means to help the sick (signaling that they care?), but want to avoid the costs of doing so by limiting their ability to help.
Hi Anne, this is Chris/Ananda.
As usual with your wonderful posts, I find all sorts of thoughts stirred up about what longevity could mean to people, both as individuals and society as a whole. I don't know that finding greater value in the old would affect attitudes about longevity treatments or not. I do agree that changes must be made in how we treat the elderly - hiding them away in nursing homes removes much of the value the *do* have as loved family members, and as sources of stability and wisdom in families and communities.
Re: the dependency argument - I think you are on to something here but you might look at it from a different angle. Currently *huge* profits are made by drug companies and health care providers based on the long-term institutional dependency of the old. If we can sell longevity treatments on the basis that they restore health, *remove* unwanted dependency, and thus make the elderly once again capable of being an active part of their families, then we would be restoring true value to the old.
Maybe the trouble is convincing drug companies to work on things that would mean long-term users of their products would no longer have to buy?
Carl:
You could be right about the availability of treatments (you seem a lot more knowledgeable about Medicare, etc., than I am), however, I think the "informal social pressures" are a bigger deal than many people realize. They can end up driving a lot of decisions that directly affect people's lives.
You said: ...there is an egalitarian argument that the elderly may have longer expected lifespans than younger people depending on the rate of advance of medicine and the exact ages at play (they have already won the longevity lottery in evading early causes of death), so the longevity-poor should be favored over the longevity-rich in the provision of additional longevity.
I've considered that argument before (in my head -- I don't think I've written about it yet, though), and while I can see how some people might find it logical to think that way, it still doesn't sit well with me. For one thing, it's not like there's really a forced choice between "funding these people OR funding those people" -- rather, I think the choice exists between funding healthcare for anyone and funding other things. For another thing, it just bothers me that any group of people X would presume to have authority over whether another group of people Y got to continue living or not, regardless of the average age in group Y.
And it also seems that this line of reasoning would lead to an absurd, Logan's Run-esque conclusion if taken all the way. Not that I think something like that would ever actually happen at this point, but still -- many, if not most, people like to say, "Oh, it's the quality, not the quantity, of life that matters!" If that's the case, then I'd anticipate that very few would find compelling the notion that we ought to try and equalize the "number of years" people get to have before trying to push anything further.
You said: People may feel compelled to use any available existing means to help the sick (signaling that they care?), but want to avoid the costs of doing so by limiting their ability to help.
This is a really, really good point. I do think this "signaling" comes into play a lot, and that it's responsible for a fair amount of abuse/neglect. Sadly enough.
(sorry if my comment here seems somewhat rambly and random; I'm pretty tired right now)
Chris/Ananda: You said: If we can sell longevity treatments on the basis that they restore health, *remove* unwanted dependency, and thus make the elderly once again capable of being an active part of their families, then we would be restoring true value to the old.
This is a fairly powerful argument from a "getting things done" standpoint, however, I don't really like it very much. It edges too close for my comfort to eugenic arguments.
I think that longevity treatments should be developed and provided because they benefit individuals first and foremost, not because of possible secondary socioeconomic effects. I guess I just see it as a sad state of affairs that one of the most likely routes to getting longevity research funded is via arguing that it would provide an economic benefit, and that so many people/policymakers would find this argument more compelling than the simple notion that it is good to save lives.
I mean, I know the money has to come from somewhere, and I don't claim a great understanding of economics -- I didn't even have any credit cards until I was 25 because I didn't understand the point of spending money I didn't have. And it still seems utterly preposterous to me that I've had to use credit cards just to build up a "credit history", when I don't buy a whole lot as it is -- it feels like some bizarre game.
Wow, that was a tangent. Bedtime for me...
"For one thing, it's not like there's really a forced choice between "funding these people OR funding those people" -- rather, I think the choice exists between funding healthcare for anyone and funding other things."
Well, taking the absolute highest standard of medical care available to anyone today and applying it to everyone in the United States along with new and experimental treatments would result health care expenditures beyond total GDP. Since you also need to grow food and construct buildings and computers and medical devices and such for all those medical professionals, and there are limits on the amount of taxation the economy can sustain even in the short run (quite a lot higher than current American levels but nowhere near 100%) you will inevitably need to draw a line somewhere on total medical spending. That means you have to prioritize that spending.
Also, people don't want to spend their lives in miserable drudgery without leisure or luxury to eke out minimal extra healthcare. An absolute right to healthcare would demand the reorganization of society to serve it to the utmost, squeezing out everything else we value (this is true of pretty much any 'absolute right.')
"For another thing, it just bothers me that any group of people X would presume to have authority over whether another group of people Y got to continue living or not, regardless of the average age in group Y."
That's unfortunate, because it's inevitable. If all wealth other than health was evenly distributed (say $5 million per person), and someone happened to be struck with a disease that would cost $10 million to treat intensively, delaying death for 5 years, then everyone else with the resources to help in some sense has the authority to decide whether that person lives or dies.
At a societal level, you face finite resources, as discussed above, and ultimately have to ration care at some margin. You can do this randomly, on the basis of political connections, or by treating the life-years of some groups as intrinsically more or less valuable than those of others. All of those methods will result in fewer life-years being saved than allocating funds to those who will benefit the most from them, so I recommend triage.
"I think that longevity treatments should be developed and provided because they benefit individuals first and foremost, not because of possible secondary socioeconomic effects."
Longevity treatments that extended decrepitude and economic incapacity, e.g. the ability to freely replace tissues with youthful cloned versions but not to prevent senility in the irreplaceable brain could actually be immensely harmful. An enormous tax burden on a dwindling population of economically productive workers compelled to maintain the lives of their elders could dominate the economy and choke off economic growth and investments in science/future environmental protection/renewable resources. In that scenario eventually many of those being sustained would have to be allowed to die, and the total number of life-years saved could be much smaller than if resources had been available to invest in long-term and widely beneficial projects (a robotic economy capable of supporting unemployed elders, rejuvenation that restores economic productivity, treatment of simple non-aging related diseases in Africa, a planet not subject to severe global warming with an effective defense against comet impacts, etc). So the truth-value of the Longevity Dividend argument is in fact important for saving lives.
I'm personally amazed and optimistic with the huge amount of capital being pored into promising anti-aging technologies through private investments and start up ventures. GERON, SIRT and a whole gamut of public companies are open to public investment.
This is a fairly powerful argument from a "getting things done" standpoint, however, I don't really like it very much. It edges too close for my comfort to eugenic arguments.
Hmm, I don't really understand how what I said relates to eugenics. Maybe it was an assumption about who to sell to? I meant sell the idea of longevity to individuals, help an individual restore themselves to health and get rid of unwanted age-related debilitating conditions. Not sell to governments or insurance companies for some kind of coercive social program. I didn't mean to imply there was anything remotely like imposing this on people, just convincing them that such treatments might be possible and worth investing research in.
See from my perspective we've got millions of people living in at least somewhat coercive institutional conditions, and I think quite a lot of them would want to participate in society better than they do. It's worth asking.
Carl said:
Also, people don't want to spend their lives in miserable drudgery without leisure or luxury to eke out minimal extra healthcare.
Maybe so, but I think things could be a little better than they are now, at least. I don't think that the system(s) we have now are the best possible systems. Not that I have a detailed plan for reforming them or anything, but still...
If all wealth other than health was evenly distributed (say $5 million per person), and someone happened to be struck with a disease that would cost $10 million to treat intensively, delaying death for 5 years, then everyone else with the resources to help in some sense has the authority to decide whether that person lives or dies.
Yes, I suppose that's true. I guess I'd just hope that in that sort of situation, people would generally tend toward choosing to help the person in need if possible.
At a societal level, you face finite resources, as discussed above, and ultimately have to ration care at some margin. You can do this randomly, on the basis of political connections, or by treating the life-years of some groups as intrinsically more or less valuable than those of others. All of those methods will result in fewer life-years being saved than allocating funds to those who will benefit the most from them, so I recommend triage.
I'm still not quite at the point in my understanding of these kinds of things ("resource management", etc.) to know how particular distribution plans will benefit particular demographics (and the population at large), so I feel like I'm in a bit over my head at this point in the discussion.
Nevertheless, I would say that yes, please do what will help the most people (really help, not just "help" in a tokenized sense), but don't over-rely on models and abstractions that result in individuals being forgotten about in the process of maximizing variables. (Not that you're doing this necessarily, I'm just making a general point.)
Longevity treatments that extended decrepitude and economic incapacity, e.g. the ability to freely replace tissues with youthful cloned versions but not to prevent senility in the irreplaceable brain could actually be immensely harmful.
Well, I'm not really convinced that the idea of longevity medicine effective on every part of the body except the brain is all that realistic -- you're describing a variant of the Tithonus error here. But I do think that the brain should be a primary focus of longevity research, for sure, since (as you point out) it's irreplaceable. I'm encouraged in that regard, at least, by the fact that there's already a fairly concerted effort going on to research and find effective treatments for Alzheimer's, etc., even outside nominally "longevity-oriented" communities.
Thanks for your recent comments, by the way -- if anything, they've shown me in sharp relief how little I know about economics and resource distribution. I know I wouldn't be able to hold my own in any "debate" over economic strategy, so I try not to get into them. But I do hold a few basic principles which inform my values and views: such as the idea that poverty exists not because some people are naturally lazy, but because of very complicated factors which limit the opportunities of some while increasing the opportunities of others, and the idea that when making policy decisions that affect people, it's important to avoid "over-abstraction" which makes you forget you're dealing with people's actual lives (and not just numbers in a computer). And I also think that the way resources are being distributed right now could definitely be improved; I don't think many people would disagree on this.
Lynn: Yes, there's definitely a growing interest in biotech right now from a lot of people. I'm just hoping something more comes of it than new incarnations of Viagra. I get enough spam as it is!
Chris/Ananda said:
Hmm, I don't really understand how what I said relates to eugenics.
I think it was the phrase, "restoring true value to the old". My perception of the word "value" is probably very biased toward it referring to an intrinsic quality of a person -- something that no amount of age or disability can possibly remove. So my eugenics comparison had to do with the fact that eugenics programs were very much centered around the idea that some kinds of people had more value than others. If you are "restoring true value" to someone, does that mean they lacked value? Earning potential does not equal "value" in my mind. (But it's possible I just got stuck on a semantic point; I was really sleepy last night when writing comments.)
I meant sell the idea of longevity to individuals, help an individual restore themselves to health and get rid of unwanted age-related debilitating conditions. Not sell to governments or insurance companies for some kind of coercive social program. I didn't mean to imply there was anything remotely like imposing this on people, just convincing them that such treatments might be possible and worth investing research in.
This is very much in line with what I think, actually -- I guess I'd just never have phrased it in terms of the "value" of people. I actually think most people would be very receptive to longevity medicine if it actually existed; I think some of the objections to it some people come up with are sort of rationalizations in the face of not having it. Lately I've been trying to focus on the "now" state of things as opposed to leaping into the future so much, because it hit me like a ton of "duh"-bricks last week (or thereabouts) that medicine is already "longevity medicine".
Medicine already helps people live longer, healthier lives (when it works, when it is ethically applied, and when people have access to the services they actually need), and there's little/no opposition to the idea of medicine, so extending the effectiveness of medicine to an older demographic should be the logical extension of it.
See from my perspective we've got millions of people living in at least somewhat coercive institutional conditions, and I think quite a lot of them would want to participate in society better than they do.
I'm sure they would as well, but the "institutions" thing is yet another can of worms entirely. I actually advocate for the abolishment of all institutional care settings -- I don't think they work very well, I don't think they're necessary (that is, there's nothing accomplished in an institution that couldn't be provided via community-based services), and I think they tend to create far more problems than they solve.
I read something recently that said that elderly people fear nursing homes more than they fear death itself, and that's pretty telling, IMO.
But I wouldn't say that we should have longevity medicine so people don't "have to" end up in institutional settings (since I don't think anyone should "have to" end up in such a setting) -- rather, we should have it for the same reason we have antibiotics and sanitation and heart bypass surgery (that is, because it saves and improves people's lives).
"Well, I'm not really convinced that the idea of longevity medicine effective on every part of the body except the brain is all that realistic -- you're describing a variant of the Tithonus error here."
The Tithonus scenario won't necessarily turn out to be erroneous. I think that the problems involved in brain rejuvenation are not insoluble, but that they will be more difficult than those involved in rejuvenating the rest of the body and take longer. So, depending on the rate of technological advance in various fields, you could well have a window in which the Longevity Dividend reverses. I consider it unlikely that this will be a severe or lasting problem, but then I think that technology will advance faster than many people do, and want to point out that economic qualms about aging research are not wholly irrational.
Carl, just out of curiosity, what is your take on cryonics? I am a bit more optimistic than you, I think, that we probably won't have to deal with anything that looks like the Tithonus error, but I would be very much in favor of expanding and promoting cryonics R&D in the short term. I think that cryonics is going to need to successfully suspend (for a number of months, at least) and then successfully revive a mammal in order to garner real credibility.
I don't know much about the cost issues associated with cryonics vs. standard funerals, but I would think there might be a way to eventually establish a cost-effective cryonics program. It's not as if death isn't an "industry" already -- someone is paying for all the coffins, headstones, cemetary maintenance, embalming, mortician training, etc. I realize that energy is going to be needed to keep suspended folks cool over long periods of time, but it seems logical to surmise that there might be a way to calculate the "recurring costs" associated with the funeral industry and propose a cryonics program that would pose similar costs.
Consensual cryonics for people with severe degenerative brain disease doesn't really seem any more bizarre to me than the idea of putting someone in a medically-induced coma during recovery from an accident in order to prevent futher brain damage, though I realize it still gets the "yuck reaction" from many. I'm at a loss to figure out why, though, since the notion of being drained and pumped full of formaldehyde, then painted with makeup, and then being placed into a wooden box where you swell up and leak and turn various different colors before eventually disintegrating seems a lot grosser than being vitrified.
The only pitfall I see to suspension popularization from an ethics standpoint is the possibility that some people might find ways to justify suspending their family members just to "get them out of the way" -- e.g., claiming that the family member's "quality of life" is so low that they should be suspended until a "cure" is found, regardless of what the family member in question thinks about the idea. But we can help prevent that situation by supporting elder and disability rights movements (which are strongly associated with morphological liberty/bodily autonomy principles). That way, when new technologies are developed, it is more likely that they will actually be applied ethically (e.g., with acknowledgment of power imbalances and the kinds of coercion that certain people/groups tend to be particularly vulnerable to as a result of being in positions of lesser power).
Anne,
Cryonics is quite a lot more expensive than most funerals. Alcor demands $150,000, or $80,000 for neurosuspension. Much of that is money invested to pay for maintenance. The Cryonics Institute charges $28,000, and $100,000 for a package including a standby team of medical professionals to help ensure you actually get preserved.
Traditional funerals with casket, etc, can cost $6,000-$10,000, or more if people choose to be lavish.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/services/funeral.shtm
There is a rather large probability that too much information will be lost to satisfactorily reconstruct a person's mind, even with arbitrarily advanced revivification technology. Financial difficulties, social collapse, warfare, or existential risks could destroy all preserved people. You could instead allocate the savings of a traditional funeral to saving the lives of 100+ young African children. If there is a substantial chance of major life extension and no massive catastrophes, then as a social policy this would be expected to result in far more people alive today reaching the age of 1000.
Now, a large competitive for-profit cryonics industry would result in major improvements in technology (reducing costs and increasing the expected value of preservation), reducing costs, allowing economies of scale in storage, etc, making the situation closer. Funding cryonics research to produce impressive results like revived mammals might trigger the creation of such a cost-effective industry (and most of the funding of that industry would just be diverted from cosmetics or professional dog-walkers).
With respect to the personal decision whether to use cryonics, thorough altruists would just direct their life insurance money to reducing existential risks (my preference), or funding aging or cryonics research. For an individual concerned with her personal lifespan, cryonics is a much better expenditure than almost all others.
"I realize it still gets the "yuck reaction" from many. I'm at a loss to figure out why, though,"
Fear of being revived in an alien place without loved ones, superstitious fear of being in limbo between life and death (lack of closure and uncertainty are unpleasant), social conformity (attachment to cremation vs burial varies greatly by culture, and widespread adoption of cryonics could be a stable equilibrium if it could be bootstrapped), fear of being associated with strange people, fear of signaling concern for one's own life over the loved ones who would otherwise receive an inheritance, religious beliefs about the afterlife (and fear that cryonics would prevent the soul from moving on), etc, etc.
I agree that the 'yuck' reaction is silly, inconsistent with other beliefs people hold, and destructive. As with aging research, if some form of cryonics were demonstrated to work (rather than just having a good expected value) well enough to allow revival in mammals it would be widely embraced, but right now people don't want to think about it (people also resist writing wills and buying life insurance in general unless pressured by hard-sell insurance salespeople) and are very very resistant to the idea.
Unfortunately, the 'yuck' factor will be with us for a while, and we should be wary of letting its social taint contaminate more important causes like reducing the risk of global catastrophe, advancing the development of beneficial technologies, etc. If one were to work on it directly, in my view the best way to advance cryonics today would be to push hard on developing the field to store human organs (from donors and grown via tissue engineering) for extended periods. That is something that funding agencies can actually get behind, and can directly pave the way for further developments. Working with organ donation groups, patient groups for those needing transplants, sympathetic philanthropists, etc, could mobilize meaningful resources.
Greg Fahy has done serious work on human organ preservation, and is furthering his research (including whole-body vitrification of animals) with a multi-million dollar anonymous donation.
http://www.betterhumans.com/blogs/reason/archive/2007/06/05/Notes-From-the-Advances-in-Human-Cryopreservation-Conference.aspx
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