11–20 of 99 posts
Interestingly the people who say others should die to “fix” overpopulation change their minds when they’re up. We can solve overpopulation in other ways than letting people die.
If science invented a way to turn each human into an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God, bioethicists would have an essay five minutes later about how deeply problematic it was. No one loves throwing cold water over literally everything more than bioethicists.
No one is paying you to say everything is fine!
If science invented a way to turn each human into an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God, bioethicists would have an essay five minutes later about how deeply problematic it was. No one loves throwing cold water over literally everything more than bioethicists.
As a bioethicist, your job description is to find a problematic angle on anything. No one is paying you to say everything is fine!
Yes. No question. "Blah blah eternal life oligarchs or whatever" - who cares it's not like we don't have that problem now. Those people are powerful because we let them be, it's not innate. Maybe we might do something about the problem when there's a risk it'll last forever rather then pretending it's not a systemic failure. If it's possible to do, it's going to be done: the question is actually "should we let poor p…
You do realize it's only going to be available for very rich people right? Assuming that the technology is not trivial, only the rich will ever get it. Same thing with genetically modified kids. Even if it is trivial, corporations will just hike up the price because clearly everyone wants it.
After a while the slightly less rich get it, and after a few decades, it's everyone's absolute birthright.
Interestingly the people who say others should die to “fix” overpopulation change their minds when they’re up. We can solve overpopulation in other ways than letting people die.
It's obviously bad to want other people to die but there is a case to be made that no life (that can suffer) should be created. It also depend on what we mean by immortal, are they technically just alive? Or actively flourishing?
Lionel Shriver’s ‘Should We Stay or Should We Go’ (book, 2021) is a fun look at this idea. No-spoiler TL;DR: a couple decide to end it when she hits 80, because they know that life only gets worse. The book plays through various scenarios: some positive, some negative.
Imagine that the status quo was that everyone lived forever. If someone suggested that we should kill literally everyone to solve overpopulation or rich people or meaning of life or whatever, they would rightly be called batshit insane.
The problems that would arise as a result of a “cure for aging” should result in societal decisions that fix existing problems we just push to the side because death kind of solves them.