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elfsHas anyone else read It bothers me that I have to go? This has to be one of the saddest, most freighted things I've read in months. Don Crowdis, the blogger behind DonToEarth, is 93 years old, and he knows his mortality is approaching fast.
I can't begin to tell you how saddened I am that the library of humanity known as Don Crowdis will someday, probably soon, burn to the ground, along with a hundred thousand like him every day. I can't begin to describe how utterly, unbelievably bloody fucking furious men like Leon Kass and Francis Fukuyama make me when they actively block the development of life-extending and life-confirming research, and who want to use government power to ensure that technology for healthy life extension is never developed or used. Kass is on the side of withholding techonolgies that can help us live longer, happier, more productive lives: he is on the side of legislative murder.
Sorry, it's been in the news a lot recently. Last week, the Guardian ran an article about how the children born this year are probably within the tipping point of voluntary immortality (personally, I hope it's 40 years earlier than that!) and how they face "unprecedented challenges" (when hasn't a generation faced "unprecedented challenges" since Newton and Darwin?) dealing with boredom and stagnation. If Mike Adams echoes from the popular tiers what his ivory tower intellectuals blather and believes that death is essential and morally compulsory for "making room," he should do the right things and embrace it now, rather than later.
As long as we continue to give ear to the Adams, and desks to the Kasses and Fukuyamas of the world, we will fail Don Crowdis, and we will continue to fail men and women like him.
At this age, I must say that I do delight in people's amazement when I tell them how old I am. But under all this is the knowledge that I am the oldest male on either side of my family, maternal or paternal, and I know I must go fairly soon. I just don't like the idea. ... There are many reasons. For too long I have behaved as if I could postpone going indefinitely, and thus have so many things that I must do first. I don't want my successors to find out how much I could have done that isn't done, not by a long shot. There are numerous notes and letters I must write. There are places I've wanted to travel, but never had the chance. Actually, each of you can, if you think yourself into my age, fill out the list. At least you can try to understand why I say that I hate to go.The man is eloquent, whole, and sane, and I have to ask why in all of creation do some people think than Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is a tragedy needing medical investigation to circumvent and prevent, but Suddon Don Death Syndrome would be natural, acceptable, even desirable?
I can't begin to tell you how saddened I am that the library of humanity known as Don Crowdis will someday, probably soon, burn to the ground, along with a hundred thousand like him every day. I can't begin to describe how utterly, unbelievably bloody fucking furious men like Leon Kass and Francis Fukuyama make me when they actively block the development of life-extending and life-confirming research, and who want to use government power to ensure that technology for healthy life extension is never developed or used. Kass is on the side of withholding techonolgies that can help us live longer, happier, more productive lives: he is on the side of legislative murder.
Sorry, it's been in the news a lot recently. Last week, the Guardian ran an article about how the children born this year are probably within the tipping point of voluntary immortality (personally, I hope it's 40 years earlier than that!) and how they face "unprecedented challenges" (when hasn't a generation faced "unprecedented challenges" since Newton and Darwin?) dealing with boredom and stagnation. If Mike Adams echoes from the popular tiers what his ivory tower intellectuals blather and believes that death is essential and morally compulsory for "making room," he should do the right things and embrace it now, rather than later.
As long as we continue to give ear to the Adams, and desks to the Kasses and Fukuyamas of the world, we will fail Don Crowdis, and we will continue to fail men and women like him.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 11:38 pm (UTC)But would million-dollar immortality and/or rejuvenation treatments be cool? Elizabeth Moon has some novels dealing (in part) with the class effects of life extension.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-28 05:13 am (UTC)But would million-dollar immortality and/or rejuvenation treatments be cool?
Yes, because they are better than no immortality or rejuvenation treatments, and also because they would be a steppingstone to cheaper (and eventually to free) treatments. Choking off the development of immortality because we don't want to implement it until everyone can afford it is simply ensuring that it will not be developed at all.
The natural development of a technology of this sort is that it comes in expensive and gradually drops in price over time until it eventually becomes universal. Spite and envy could kill this particular golden goose -- and us, with it.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-28 06:01 am (UTC)I agree that immortality and rejuvenation are good things, but I think there are other good things that have better health bang per research buck. I hesitate to name specifics, but maybe AIDS prevention or anti-malnutrition supplements?
Transhumanists seem to assume that class divisions will somehow just go away with more time and/or tech. As far as I know, class divisions perpetuate themselves unless people actually directly address the issue.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-28 04:13 pm (UTC)Most Americans, indeed most people in the Western world, live long enough that "old age" is one of the things that they die from. The precise cause of death may be "heart attack" or "stroke," but the ultimate reason for the heart attack or stroke was the body wearing out over time. Thus, an immortality technology would benefit most people in the West -- and even in the Third World, some people live long enough to die of old age.
There is also less emphasis on prevention than there might be.
The whole point of anagathics technology is to prevent death from old age.
I agree that immortality and rejuvenation are good things, but I think there are other good things that have better health bang per research buck. I hesitate to name specifics, but maybe AIDS prevention or anti-malnutrition supplements?
In the West, AIDS is primarily prevented by avoiding unprotected sex or needle exchanges with multiple or promiscuous partners. There are other ways of catching the disease, but those are the two biggies. A true vaccine would, of course, be useful if we could develop one.
In Africa, where AIDS is a true epidemic, the problem is a total social breakdown caused by warfare which results in massive levels of prostitution and of rape. Short of recolonization, I don't see a good way of preventing this.
And we already spend money on AIDS research out of proportion to the number of victims in the West.
As for "anti-malnutrition supplements," we already have them. They are called "food" and "vitamins." The reasons why people suffer from severe malnutrition are usually political and malicious, rather than technological and merely unfortunate. In brief: governments delilberately starve minorities of whom they disapprove, and this occurs overwhelmingly in the Third World, especially in Africa. The only good solution I see is recolonization.
Transhumanists seem to assume that class divisions will somehow just go away with more time and/or tech. As far as I know, class divisions perpetuate themselves unless people actually directly address the issue.
I do not believe that class divisions will "just go away." I in fact believe that they will exist eternally, though the manners in which they are expressed and the precise membership and names of the classes may change from time to time.
My point is not that anagathics will eliminate class differences, but that while they may be at first expensive, over time the technology and economy will advance to the point where they are cheap relative to the wealth of even poor people. This is a normal pattern with any technology.
Consider what has happened regarding telephones, for instance -- 125 years ago they were curiosities for the idle rich or special equipment for huge organizations; 75 years ago they were owned primarily by the upper middle classes and above; today almost everyone has a telephone or at least regular access to a telephone.
Now, imagine if we had, in an egalitarian spirit, decreed that nobody save for the government could have telephones until they were cheap enough for all to afford. Without the huge effective demand for new and better phones and phone systems, the technology would have developed more slowly, and we would still be mostly phoneless today.
The same could happen with anagathics, if we let envy and spite throttle the developing technology.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 02:27 am (UTC)Adams is wrong on a whole batch of counts -- I especially like his statement that all successful species are mortal. How long have amoebae been around? Actually, I'd settle for the lifespan of a bristlecone pine. Likewise, all great human civilizations have been mortal, but that doesn't mean much unless he can point to an unsuccessful civilization of immortals.
In any case, preventing research into areas of human health that someone thinks might imperil mortality is ridiculous. Before we get anywhere near mortality, life quality and length can be improved to such an extent that the people who have to deal with immortality may be a great deal more sane than we are now.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 02:06 pm (UTC)I think attempting to extend life by extraordinary means is trying to postpone dealing with the real issue, which is coming to terms with death. Our predecessors had to deal with death on a much more everyday basis than we do, and I think along the way we've lost their more realistic death-as-a-part-of-life attitude, replaced by the modern death-is-EVIL-and-must-be-destroyed perspective. I think the latter is holding on too tight to something (life) that wasn't meant to last forever, and if we think it should, the error is in our perspective, not with death.
"Unnatural" Life Extension Technologies
Date: 2007-01-28 04:26 pm (UTC)Anagathics technology is "coming to terms with death" -- by setting the best possible terms of which we are technologically capable.
Our predecessors had to deal with death on a much more everyday basis than we do,...
A lack of clean drinking water, antiseptic techniques, and antibiotics will, indeed, force you to "deal with death on a much more everyday basis."
This is a BAD thing.
... and I think along the way we've lost their more realistic death-as-a-part-of-life attitude, replaced by the modern death-is-EVIL-and-must-be-destroyed perspective.
Death is the END of life, and consequently as long aw life remains even slightly enjoyable, a rational man does what he can, within the limits of his honor, to stave it off as long as possible.
Note that I said "within the limits of his honor." The soldier or fireman still dies bravely, protecting others. Life is not worth the abnegation of that which makes it worthwhile. But why die uselessly? The man who dies of a cancer which was medically treatable is not helping himself or enriching the world by his death: instead, he has just converted an expensively-educated and decades-programmed organic computer into worm food. This is a net loss to humanity, in most cases.
Death IS evil, from a memetic point of view, and thus should be avoided as much as possible.
I think the latter is holding on too tight to something (life) that wasn't meant to last forever, and if we think it should, the error is in our perspective, not with death.
Indeed? How long was life "meant" to last, and who decided this? Evolutionarily, we are designed to live about 100 years, provided that nothing critical fails first; under the best pre-Information Age medical conditions this means about 70+ years (the Biblical "three score and ten"); and in practice given most pre-1850 conditions this means that most of us die in childhood; those who survive that generally live to around 30 to 60 years.
Most Westerners today already live longer than that. Should we abolish hygenic water, antiseptics, and antibiotics to bring the lifespan down to a more "natural" level? If not, why would a hypothetical technology that increased the average lifespan to 100 or 200 years be somehow less "natural?"
From the viewpoint of a man of 1800, our current situation where most people who have children survive to become grandparents and often great-grandparents would be rather "unnatural." From the viewpoint of a man of 2000, the situation of 2200, in which probably most people will only die by accident or violence, will likewise seem rather "unnatural."
The glory of humanity is that we can create and adapt to new situations, and thus extend ourselves beyond that which is in the pure genetic sense "natural" to us.
Such is the power of memetic, rather than purely genetic, progress.
What qualifies as "extraordinary means"?
Date: 2007-01-30 12:23 am (UTC)I'll bet you're just fine with all of those... why balk at newer technologies? What, is anything invented before you were born "ordinary means" for some reason?
And, as for life being "something that wasn't meant to last forever", just *who* "meant" this? I certainly didn't sign a contract to that effect.
If you think you should climb into a grave at your "three-score and tenth" birthday, that's your prerogative... but I'd kindly ask you to not stand in the way of the rest of us choosing a different path.
Yes, "death is a part of life"... as are traffic accidents and malaria. I see no reason why any of those should be passively accepted, and I see no good justification for embracing them just because they are old (aka "natural").
Re: What qualifies as "extraordinary means"?
Date: 2007-01-30 02:45 am (UTC)Look around; all life ends in death, no exceptions. You don't get a vote, neither do I, nor do all those who came before. I find the underlying idea that *we're* somehow special, that it would be a great tragedy if *we* aren't somehow spared, to be a statement of supreme ego.
"If you think you should climb into a grave at your "three-score and tenth" birthday, that's your prerogative... but I'd kindly ask you to not stand in the way of the rest of us choosing a different path. "
By what means? Or is it any means necessary, so long as the goal is achieved? If not, what is the point where we say "no, this is too far, this is too high a price to pay"? What good is immortality if we exchange our humanity for it?
Re: What qualifies as "extraordinary means"?
Date: 2007-01-30 05:37 pm (UTC)What means are acceptable when it comes to life extension? I don't intend to deprive someone else of life for the sake of my own, if that's what you're thinking. Why don't you tell me what means you find unacceptable?
Yes, death is all around us... so what? Just because my ancestors only lived for X years doesn't mean I'm for some reason destined to have that same lifespan. I see no reason why I necessarily have to die, yet I am not blind to the probabilities.
Again, you yourself are using life extension technologies right now... what determines which technologies are acceptable, and which are not?
Re: What qualifies as "extraordinary means"?
Date: 2007-01-31 08:18 pm (UTC)Ah, but we attempt to avoid death as long as possible, consistent with our other values. And if it is possible to avoid death for centuries, millennia, or longer, then why should we court earlier ends by refusing to develop and take advantage of such technology?
Even immortality is relative. No matter how strong the immortality technology used, eventually any indivdual immortal would meet some end. For some immortality technologies, this would require the collapse of the immortal's whole civilization, and possibly a malicious attempt to erase all copies of that individual, but eventually this would happen. If nothing else, eventually entropy would reduce energy gradients in the Universe to the point where continued existence of organized Mind became impossible.
I find the underlying idea that *we're* somehow special, that it would be a great tragedy if *we* aren't somehow spared, to be a statement of supreme ego.
It is simply realistic to note that we are approaching a level of technology where it will be possible to survive longer than the century or so that is our normal maximum. To refuse to take advantage of such an opportunity would be (literally) suicidal.
It is sad that this technology did not exist for earlier generations of humans, but we do them no good by denying it to ourselves.
By what means? Or is it any means necessary, so long as the goal is achieved? If not, what is the point where we say "no, this is too far, this is too high a price to pay"? What good is immortality if we exchange our humanity for it?
Immortality would not be worth it if it meant sacrificing too much else that we value as humans. On the other hand, individuals have the right to embrace whatever technologies they can afford, provided that they are not committing force or fraud against other individuals by doing so. By what right would you prohibit someone from making use of an immortality technique? And how would you morally distinguish such a prohibition from murder?
Not Enough Room
Date: 2007-01-28 05:32 am (UTC)I think that it is not so much that Kass and Fukuyama are intentionally murderous as that they are extremely unimaginative: they have grown up with the world a particular way and are puzzled and terrified at the thought of the world being any different way, even if that different way is BETTER than that preceding. Such men, unfortunately, can often do far more damage to humanity than those who are wilful murderers, because they can hold back progress that could enrich the lives of all hunanity.
I do not know their arguments, but I can guess them: I've read arguments against immortality in a lot of science fiction. Usually it boils down to (1) Not Enough Room, (2) Stagnant Society, or (3) It's Against Nature.
(1) Not Enough Room
This is the most direct argument, and it makes superficial sense. If people stop dying, and continue being born, the human population will grow far more rapidly, and eventually outstrip any conceiveable resource base.
What this argument ignores is that the same is true even if people are dying (provided that they are being born faster than they die); simple compounded population growth, no immortality required, could expand a human population far faster than it could conceivably be transported anywhere else (and of course, the notion of it being transported anywhere else is dismissed as fantasy by the Unimaginative).
The problem, thus, is not mortality but nativity; and because humans are sapient the problem contains the seeds of its own solutions. If we properly attach parenthood to responsibility to offspring, it will be against the rational self-interests of people to breed faster than they can economically support, which solves the population problem very nicely. This is more than theoretical: it is the observed reality in the developed world.
What if we have an immortal (or, pace Stapleford, an "emmortal") population? Very simply, such a population will also produce offspring less rapidly for any given expected rate of economic expansion.
(continued)
Stagnant Society
Date: 2007-01-28 05:34 am (UTC)It has been pointed out that much social and technological progress occurs because the proponents of older theories die and the proponents of newer theories replace them. Thus, if we have immortality, progress will slow and society stagnate.
Now, first of all, I will point out that this ignores the additional fact that immortality would mean that very many people with useful talents would still be alive, plying their trades and producing with skills honed for decades and centuries. How much richer would science fiction be if Weinbaum, Lovecraft, and "Doc" Smith were telling new tales? Or engineering if Da Vinci, Watt, and Edison were still inventing? And so on, and so on.
Secondly, I will add that from a moral point of view the notion of deliberately letting people die so as to encourage change is reprehensible. It is precisely the equivalent of the mass murders of the "socially obsolete" by the Communists and Nazis of the 20th century. Just because you, or I, believe that Stephen Jay Gould or Isaac Asimov or Carl Sagan has "outdated" theories does not give us the right to silence them in order to bring in newer theories. We do not own other people's lives, and we have not the right to end them because we find them inconvenient.
But finally, and I believe most tellingly, supposed that a society of immortals is "stagnant" compared to a society of mortals ...
... Well, so what? The immortals have all the time in the world to achieve their ends, and if they achieve them more slowly than the mortals, compared to their lifespans they are STILL achieving them more rapidly.
This aside from the fact that there are things immortals can do that mortals would find difficult, such as operate a sublight interstellar empire. Or, if you find that too fantastic, a planetary ecosystem with response times to some stimuli measurable in centuries -- such as the one we actually inhabit.
Re: Stagnant Society
Date: 2007-01-29 01:54 pm (UTC)I guess my faith in the fundamental goodness of humanity isn't as great as yours. IMHO we're still not anywhere near ready to handle immortality, given how as a species we are still prone towards dictatorship, genocide, destruction of the commons, etc.
Re: Stagnant Society
Date: 2007-01-29 03:26 pm (UTC)What would be immoral or unethical about immortality? And why wouldn't the technology, once developed, gradually become cheaper (as is the normal case with technologies) until whatever was "necessary" to be immortal became the payment of a small fee or even (eventually) a free public health service?
... or to limit the means the research might take to reach its goal, once that goal (immortality) seemed reachable.
I'm sorry ... what "means" are you envisioning being used to attain immortality which would be unethical or immoral? FYI, bathing in virgins' life blood doesn't actually work ... Countess Bathory was insane, rather than immortal.
Meaning, for example, an Earth where Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. would still be walking around and in power, with no prospect of natural causes ending their tyranny.
True, but it would also be an Earth in which the (future-equivalents of) Washington, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Churchill, Pitt the Elder, and so on would also be available to oppose them. And simply because the dictators were immortal would not mean that they were invincible or invulnerable to being overthrown. Note that Hitler, Mussolini, and Saddam did not die of natural causes!
I guess my faith in the fundamental goodness of humanity isn't as great as yours ...
Why, do you consider humans fundamentally evil?
IMHO we're still not anywhere near ready to handle immortality, given how as a species we are still prone towards dictatorship, genocide, destruction of the commons, etc.
I don't see that immortality necessarily makes these problems any worse, and I see ways in which it ameliorates them. For one thing, a society ofimmortals would be less vulnerable to charismatic dictatorship, because charismatic dictators draw their strongest support from youths, who are not mature enough to see their political leaders in context and are apt to be swept away by emotional support of father-figures. For another thing, immortals would tend to take a longer-term view than mortals; they would worry more about problems which take decades or centuries to manifest because they would have every expectation of living to see such consequences.
Re: Stagnant Society
Date: 2007-01-29 03:33 pm (UTC)It would mean deliberately blocking, ultimately through force, research into immortality (since you could not simply choose not to fund it, since "you" only get to choose for yourself and others would cheerfully fund such research). It would mean that every person thereafter who died of a cause which the research you forcibly blocked would have prevented would then be, to some extent, someone you had murdered.
And finally, it would bring about the very future you feared. Because ultimately, all the ban would do would be to delay the onset of immortality, and ensure that it became a secret, black market technique, affordable only by rich criminals. The honest, and the poor, would continue to die, and the world would be dominated by an immortal cabal, who by that point might be so jealous of their eternal life that they would gladly maintain the ban on immortality -- for everyone else.
Re: Stagnant Society
Date: 2007-01-29 06:18 pm (UTC)Just off the top of my head, harvesting organs without consent comes to mind. Cloning to achieve same. Extracting DNA in ways that harms the donor, again without consent. That's just three, I'm sure a scientist with a gun to his/her head and that of their family could come up with many others. Would they be more expedient than "moral" methods? Well, pursuing all lanes open to exploration are more likely to yield results than limiting oneself to certain methods. And again, not everybody is saddled with the constraints of morality: science is not without its share of sociopaths and psychopaths.
"True, but it would also be an Earth in which the (future-equivalents of) Washington, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Churchill, Pitt the Elder, and so on would also be available to oppose them. And simply because the dictators were immortal would not mean that they were invincible or invulnerable to being overthrown. Note that Hitler, Mussolini, and Saddam did not die of natural causes!"
Again, for reasons I state above, I think the dictator is more likely to be willing to do whatever it takes to achieve immortality than the "man on the white horse" would be. I'm uneasy with the assumption that the hero supply will keep up with the dictator supply, in that scenario.
"Why, do you consider humans fundamentally evil?"
Lets just say I try to have a healthy respect for the Hobbesian aspect of human nature. Self-interest is a much better predictor of behavior than relying on benevolence. Or as Heinlein put it, 'Never appeal to a man’s ‘better nature.’ He may not have one.'
"I don't see that immortality necessarily makes these problems any worse, and I see ways in which it ameliorates them.[...]"
Whereas I believe that the one of the few constants throughout history has been human nature. We've developed, but not nearly as much as we'd like to think. I doubt extended life spans/immortality will be the panacea which shifts us towards the better aspects of our nature.
Re: Stagnant Society
Date: 2007-01-29 07:56 pm (UTC)Re: Stagnant Society
Date: 2007-01-31 08:26 pm (UTC)Obviously, it would be morally wrong to achieve one's immortality by the use of force or fraud against others, save in self-defense or the defense of innocent others, because it is morally wrong to achieve anything by those means. However, there is no particular reason to imagine that immortality techniques have to work like those in horror stories: there are excellent reasons to believe that the most effective techniques would work in harmless manners.
(for instance, there are plenty of ways to obtain DNA samples without harming anyone, and one can clone organs without creating minded clones who one would have to kill in order to obtain them).
Again, for reasons I state above, I think the dictator is more likely to be willing to do whatever it takes to achieve immortality than the "man on the white horse" would be. I'm uneasy with the assumption that the hero supply will keep up with the dictator supply, in that scenario.
This assumes horror-movie immortality. It is possible that some early immortality techniques might be horrific, but in that case there would be a strong economic and political pressure in non-dictatorial societies to develop non-horrific variants, so this phase would not last very long, if it ever occurred in the first place.
Whereas I believe that the one of the few constants throughout history has been human nature. We've developed, but not nearly as much as we'd like to think. I doubt extended life spans/immortality will be the panacea which shifts us towards the better aspects of our nature.
I don't think that immortality will necessarily change human nature either for the better or the worse. It will just give human beings more time to develop themselves, in whatever directions their natures incline them.
Which I view as a good. Being, after all, human.
Against Nature
Date: 2007-01-28 05:41 am (UTC)This argument goes like this:
Humans have psychologically evolved to deal with a mortal lifespan measureable in several decades. Lifespans measurable in centuries or millennia are not natural to the kind of beings that we are and would create psychological and social problems.
Well, yes, we are and they would. That's undeniable.
First of all, what "psychological and social problem" is as serious as DEATH itself? I would personally be willing to put up with a number of additional psychological or social problems if it was the price of immortality, and I suspect that most people would too. Especially if it was worded not as "should everyone have to die" but rather "should you have to die." The threat of execution concentrates a man's mind wonderfully.
Secondly, yes, immortality is "unnatural" for Man. Humans have evolved to live an average lifespan (assuming they survive infancy) of some 20-40 years, after which one or another illness or accident kills us. Human bands of 12-50 individuals have evolved to have a few elders who live into their 60's or 70's, so as to provide the band with knowledge stretching back several generations.
Oh, and these bands wander plains and river valleys, hunting and gathering for food. Agriculture, too, is unnatural to our kind. As is industry. And computers are VERY unnatural!
We do a lot of things that are "unnatural" to great apes. This seems to be how we want to live, and we seem to be very good at adapting to new technologies. Why should we be willing to adopt agriculture, industry, and information science, but quail at the thought of immortality?