Weak anthropic futurism

[maradydd]

After that last post, some of you may be thinking "But, Meredith, I don't think I've ever heard you talk about transhumanism before outside of the context of Vernor Vinge's novels. Are you an extropian, too? What's up with this futurism stuff

Comments

[jordan179]

What is far more likely than humanity developing "emmortality" (Brian Stableford's term for the technology to avoid death from natural causes, but not death by accident or violence) in the immediate future, is humanity developing life extension technology over the next decade or two. Such life extension technology might add anything from 10-100 years to the maximum lifespan, based on current medical knowledge, especially the recent research into telomerase therapy, for instance

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101128/full/news.2010.635.html

which, note, would include effective rejuvenation. In fact, the main reason why this probably isn't true emmortality by itself is that telomerase can't do anything to heal cumulative damage such as that caused by radiation, toxins or mechanical contaminants (such as dust in the lungs

[maradydd]

living long enough for the cost to drop to a level that I can afford.

Yep, and that's part of why I'm so interested in scalability and accessibility. Within the scope of my lifetime, and I'm only 34, we've seen incredible advances in the scalability of networks and the accessibility of networked computers. More people in India have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet. In terms of doing the greatest good for the greatest number I think we'll derive tremendous benefit from lessons we're already learning about making complicated, expensive things simpler, cheaper and more broadly accessible. They're really two sides of the same coin.

[nibor]

I think it was about 15 years ago when I came to terms with the idea that I might be part of the *last* generation to grow old and die. I do not find it particularly useful to believe that I'll be part of the first generation to avoid it.

[neoliminal]

I had a friend in high school who referred to my generation as the "window pane" generation. At the time it was about the acceptance of fringe society and seeing through the false fronts of the older generations

[jered]

While I try not to think about it and just live my life, I think you're probably right and it's an effort to not become a bitter futurist like Marvin Minksy or Ray Kurzweil, going around and yelling at people that they're doing it wrong and risking my future.

I have pretty strong faith in science that if this is possible, we can do it, however I'm a lot more concerned about government. The reactionary, public news opinion way in which the US operates these days has the effect of a probably +-100 year swing (if not more) on the rate at which this science will be done. Stem cell research is banned, because it "destroys life'. Current FDA rules make personalized drug discovery essentially impossible. Funding for research is dropping precipitously. Those are the big problems.

[jsl32]

Uh, stem cell research is not banned, although sourcing from aborted fetuses has been constrained. All the whizbang cool results have come from adult stem cells, not fetal ones. It appears that the blank slate idea behind using fetal ones hasn't been panning out anyhow.

The bigger problems are people not having full information on things like what actually is going on in stem cell research.

[jered]

I simplify, of course, but the upshot is that "stem cell research" of any kind is demonized by so-called Christians.

[whswhs]

You are still not going to be part of either the last generation to die or the first generation not to die. There's never going to be such a generation. "Not to die" implies not merely freedom from built-in failure, but freedom from purely externally caused death

[jsl32]

I think people are conflating too many issues when they say 'omg i could never have made it to 60 in 1812!' Nuns in cloister were living into their 90s for centuries. The interplay between nutrition, mind/body interaction, physical movement/exercise and also enviroment as in infectious agents is fearfully complicated and people do their forebears a disservice by falling prey to false assumptions about life expectancy

[whswhs]

I was not expressing an absolute impossibility; I was expressing a statistical probability. If you look at life expectancies in early industrial societies, death before 65 was far more common than it is now, and old age and disability set in earlier, too. I've worked with simple simulated life tables, and I have some idea of the statistical relationships involved.

Of course, there's also the fact that I nearly died at six of an upper respiratory infection that probably couldn't have been treated a century earlier, but that's "anecdote" and not "data."

[jsl32]

considering how little hard data we have of early and preindustrial societies (much of what is called 'data' is derived, not actual), my basic point still holds. Also, there is a lot of poor knowledge of medical care in different societies at different times and places. Again, the picture is super complicated and we don't have nearly as much hard data to justify many common assumptions as people seem to think we have.

[allonymist]

The taxation of alcohol plays an enormous role in the history of chemical engineering.

Fun references, please? I totally geek out about the history of brewing and the history of tax codes, so learning more about this stuff sounds right up my alley.

[maradydd]

Nearly everything I know about alcohol and taxation I learned at the Nationaal Jenevermuseum Hasselt, which is definitely worth a visit the next time you're in Belgium.