15 replies to this topic

[TheFountain]

Hypothetically speaking, if the issue of cellular degeneration were solved tomorrow, and one of these scientists found a way to extend the average human lifespan by 500 to 1000 years, we all know that the government would do anything and everything to regulate this and to keep it for the elite few. The thing that irritates me is that, despite their breakthroughs in knowledge in the fields of genetics, life style/supplementation and such, Scientists like Kurzweil and De grey are not speaking about what we should do to stop the government from dictating to us how or to what age we can live, if such a breakthrough came tomorrow, or the next day. They are not making philosophical preparations for this as much as I think are necessary. The number one issue the government will invoke when summoning up their notions for why such a break through would need regulation would, of course, be population control. Despite the fact that the world is not truly overpopulated, just unevenly populated (most people reside in mass pockets of humanity, such as any major city of the world, while many regions remain largely unpopulated, including, but not limited to, the ocean). The question would be,will these scientists cower before the power of the government and allow them to usurp and control their findings and to thus dictate who gets to live foreever and who does not? This scares me profoundly.

[JLL]

Yes, and this is exactly why I feel that a free society is necessary for true lifespan extension to occur.

Edited by JLL, 15 December 2008 - 06:02 PM.

[forever freedom]

I don't share any of such fears. I don't think that there will be barriers for anyone with enough money to buy these treatments, and in time they will be affordable for most of the population (in developed countries, at least).



Do you really think that if news spread that there were treatments that could extend the human lifespan significantly, the government would still deny access to it, through force? Use some common sense, the government could never do it. And in this information age, it's impossible for anyone to cover/hide such a huge breakthrough (unless you're also paranoid enough to believe that the government is hiding captured UFOs in some underground top secret hangar).

[brokenportal]

I dont understand this fear at all. Maybe Im just looking at it from the wrong perspective.

For one, we are the government. Who do you think is going to be elected in the future? People like us and or people that we elect.

How is it that you think that the government is going to keep control over this? Do you think three is going to be a big iron clad tower with a 15 foot thick steel door with all the non elite cowering outside in the cold with no access to these therapies?

Keeping this out of the hands of some would cause a violent revolution. Do you really think they want that? And for what? They can be elite over there, and we can be peasants over here. Who cares, they need the labor force for labor and future innovations and stuff anyways. If population becomes a problem then breeders can forfeit their therapies so they can have kids. The non breeding people with indefinite lives dont have to die because Tom and Suzy want to have kids.

When say, cell phones came out, did the government conspire to keep such fluid and useful communications in their hands only? Im pretty sure a somalian living in a mud hut could get a cell phone if they really wanted to.

Besides, of course the therapies are going to be expensive in the beginning, let the rich get the first ones and be the "guinea pigs" in the trial years as the therapies become more and more developed.

Your right, things may go awry, a "Hitler" may work his way back into power, but that concern applies to the world at large, not just the concept of life extension. We work to keep that thing from happening anyways. I do agree that this concern should be addressed, and is being addressed through organizations like Lifeboat and the IEET, and I could be wrong but it doesnt seem to be such a huge end all factor and concern to me.

[TheFountain]

I don't share any of such fears. I don't think that there will be barriers for anyone with enough money to buy these treatments, and in time they will be affordable for most of the population (in developed countries, at least).



Do you really think that if news spread that there were treatments that could extend the human lifespan significantly, the government would still deny access to it, through force? Use some common sense, the government could never do it. And in this information age, it's impossible for anyone to cover/hide such a huge breakthrough (unless you're also paranoid enough to believe that the government is hiding captured UFOs in some underground top secret hangar).

What a condescending statement. The government lies through its teeth about anything and everything it can, depending on the administration and its representatives. Iraq war is a perfect example, first it was tied to 9/11 (proven false) then it was to 'liberate a country from an evil dictator' (proven false by the fact that the U.S now is that evil dictator and has caused over a million iraqi deaths). Mk ultra is another example. It eventually escaped into public knowledge but ultimately was intended not to. Whether or not they kept treatments a secret was not the brunt of my post though, it was whether or not they would allow access to it by average citizens. Average citizens do not have access to healthcare that allows most former presidents to live till their mid-90s even. Do you not believe population control would serve as a cause in the mind of the government elite to keep this out of the hands of most people? I am not saying it must be this way, but it can.

[vyntager]

The government is made up of other human beings, just like anyone on earth. They're not sociopathical monsters, neither are they out there to get you. What's with this tendancy to believe that because someone has power he's necessarily corrupted and rotten to the core, and that anyone could do a better job than "them".

This is not to say that they'll necessarily embrace all those technologies wholeheartedly at once, few people would I, I think, and if they do they'd still have to go through the painstaking process of changing laws, customs, opinions, etc. Blame the current system, blame the traditionalism, blame human nature if you must . But could we cut down on the paranoid adversarial viewpoint ?

[TheFountain]

What's with this tendancy to believe that because someone has power he's necessarily corrupted and rotten to the core, and that anyone could do a better job than "them".

That is why I said depending on the administration. Obviously not all U.S administrations are concealing truth, one U.S president, I believe it was Jimmy Carter? admitted to seeing a UFO. That was taking a big chance I imagine, especially with that environment. On the other hand, a runner up for the presidential nomination 2008 (Dennis Kucinich) admitted during a debate that he had seen a UFO and most people mocked him. So it is not only the government, but the people, who need to open their heads up.

This is not to say that they'll necessarily embrace all those technologies wholeheartedly at once, few people would I, I think, and if they do they'd still have to go through the painstaking process of changing laws, customs, opinions, etc. Blame the current system, blame the traditionalism, blame human nature if you must . But could we cut down on the paranoid adversarial viewpoint ?

I am just expressing my opinion based on history. The U.S government is the one who has strict patent laws on the production of herbal supplements, which is why so many are diluted down to uselessness. The laws of the U.S government prohibit doctors from exercising 'alternative medicine' because it would not be in the interests of the pharmacutical industry, who are tied to the FDA. The reason being? Keeping people sick with pharamucitcals that make matters worse in some cases, is more profitable than healing them. So, no thank you, I will keep my paranoia where it needs to be to help keep me grounded.

That said, I foresee a strong possibility for change and openess with the Obama administration. But let us continue to hope, as we are coming off of 8 years of pure terror.

Edited by TheFountain, 15 December 2008 - 08:45 PM.

[brokenportal]

Help stratagize and discuss stuff with organizaitons like Lifeboat and the IEET.

I think that skepticism is healthy to a point too, but it seems like sometimes people insinuate, whether intentionally or not, that we are like slaves dreaming of building homes. Try to build it and it will just get knocked down by our slave drivers, and so we may as well not even plan on these things, but rather focus on a "revolution" against "them". But I can see you dont mean exactly that through this developing discussion.

We are the world, we all work hand in hand with everything everybody does. We care about taking precautions against all these things too, and like I keep mentioning, help lifeboat, IEET and places like that, get more into it and help keep us all more connected to them, but try not to scare people away with "if then" types of arguements.

As for things like, pharmaceutical products not being as on point as they should some times, I blame that on out of control loop hole capitalism. Its supposed to be supply and demand for the best products, but its dillute the products and pay off the inspectors and monopoly and oligopily style economics in the disguise of capitalism that is messing everything up. Or to sum it up more succinctly, unchecked, short sited greed.

And I dont neccessarily villianize the greedy either. Wealth is a powerfully seductive temptress. I blame it on the system of checks and balances that cant always hold its integrity.

Edited by brokenportal, 15 December 2008 - 09:48 PM.

[medicineman]

Cancer treatment costs over 12.5 billion dollars a year.
Treating one HIV patient costs around 650,000 dollars in the patients life time. There is an estimated (I think) 2.2 million people in Europe alone, with AIDS.
Medication for heart disease can cost up to 200 dollars a month per person. There are alot of heart disease patients, so Im not going to mention any statistics there.
In 2002, the American government alone, gave 300million dollars to pharma companies to make and distribute anti-depressants.
Cholesterol lowering pills cost 80million dollars per year in America.
The annual drug cost per year in America was 4.3 billion dollars, that was up until 2003.

These are the numbers, now whatever reason the government has to not prolonging life, it doesn't matter. The few elite certainly don't want the people to live forever, and there is 4.3billion reasons not to for America. Now Europe and other developed countries face the same exact problem. I don't think there is a cure to death as of yet, but if it was to come out, there is more and more need to suppress it, seeing how the economy is going down the shitter.
And you are living a fantasy if you think otherwise.

Reminds me of the show the 4400...... I liked it.

[Forever21]

The old MF website talked about this concern.

[forever freedom]

Cancer treatment costs over 12.5 billion dollars a year.
Treating one HIV patient costs around 650,000 dollars in the patients life time. There is an estimated (I think) 2.2 million people in Europe alone, with AIDS.
Medication for heart disease can cost up to 200 dollars a month per person. There are alot of heart disease patients, so Im not going to mention any statistics there.
In 2002, the American government alone, gave 300million dollars to pharma companies to make and distribute anti-depressants.
Cholesterol lowering pills cost 80million dollars per year in America.
The annual drug cost per year in America was 4.3 billion dollars, that was up until 2003.

These are the numbers, now whatever reason the government has to not prolonging life, it doesn't matter. The few elite certainly don't want the people to live forever, and there is 4.3billion reasons not to for America. Now Europe and other developed countries face the same exact problem. I don't think there is a cure to death as of yet, but if it was to come out, there is more and more need to suppress it, seeing how the economy is going down the shitter.
And you are living a fantasy if you think otherwise.

Reminds me of the show the 4400...... I liked it.

You live in a fantasy if you think that radical life extension = forever old and decrepit. Life extension treatments will ultimately aim for people to remain young and strong, so that diseases most related to aging (cancer, alzheimers, heart diseases, etc) will become a much smaller issue. Life extension treatments may even make the government save money, since the cost of these treatments will probably be lower than the current cost of treating the diseases related to aging i just mentioned.

[medicineman]

Yea, if it becomes available, it surely won't be you or me, unless you are in the top .01%... This system we are living under is perfect for that .01%, for the fact that anyone not part of that group is put on the invisible handcuffs. We need the governments and the big companies because they make it so that we can't live without them, and at this point, we are conditioned and taught that we need this system of slavery. I think you have high hopes that out of the kindness of governments and scientists, maybe someday we will live a long and disease free life. You are too caught up in this empty hope, that you can't see that your interest does not lie with the powers that be.

I am not saying that the possibility of long life is nil, but even if the medicine is around, we won't be the one taking it. The human lifespan from 2000 yrs ago until the turn of the 20th century has doubled. And since has doubled till now. The reason for this telescoping, or jump from 2000yrs til 20th century, and from 20th century til now is due to notable changes occurring in the field of medicine in that period:
-discovery and introduction of vaccines and antibiotics
-discovery of corticosteroids and insulin
-highly advanced imaging techniques
-and safe analgesia + anaesthesia (a bit before the 20th century)

Until today, pharmaceutical companies hold rights to the brand names of these vital medicines, and hospitals continually prescribe brand names. There aren't many people in the developed world that don't know Co-amoxiclav or Augmentin duo. There arent many people in the developed world that don't know tylenol or panadol. And people, who have the money, still buy Panadol rather than the generic brand paracetamol.

Now what you (and all of us) are hoping for is that we live a long and disease free life. I went through the figures already and gave my opinion on how that is going to be difficult with all the money going one direction. With the beautiful patent system (I mean beautiful in a sarcastic way,,, im sure some of you remember the wanker Al Gore visiting the sub-saharan African countries to convince the leaders not to allow making generic highly active anti-retroviral drug (AIDS) therapy because it will make the American and European pharma companies lose alot of cash) things are efficient, but will never be efficient enough to give you what you want.

An example is cars.... Car companies are able to manufacure better, sturdier, and more economical cars, yet they don't.... Sure they would charge more, but Im sure no one would refuse a car that is better, and will save you alot of money long term, for a bit of extra cash.... But that can't happen.. one the company will lose out since you wont buy anymore cars for a while, and two parts will never go bad, since the car is of better quality, and hence the company loses again..... In the end, you buy the car, you wash, repair, almost worship your car, and end up throwing it away to get another one... You are none the wiser, and everyone is happy.

[JLL]

I dont understand this fear at all. Maybe Im just looking at it from the wrong perspective.

For one, we are the government.

Uh, no. The government is not the people living under the jurisdiction of the government. You can look this up in Wikipedia or any other dictionary.

Keeping this out of the hands of some would cause a violent revolution. Do you really think they want that?

Well, they could monopolize it and charge extraordinary prices. How much would you be willing to pay for immortality? Everything? I probably would.

Of course the government never monopolizes things and/or makes them illegal. Right? And of course, the people will revolt, violently. Like in China, when they blocked Internet access. Right?

[brokenportal]

I dont understand this fear at all. Maybe Im just looking at it from the wrong perspective.

For one, we are the government.

Uh, no. The government is not the people living under the jurisdiction of the government. You can look this up in Wikipedia or any other dictionary.

Keeping this out of the hands of some would cause a violent revolution. Do you really think they want that?

Well, they could monopolize it and charge extraordinary prices. How much would you be willing to pay for immortality? Everything? I probably would.

Of course the government never monopolizes things and/or makes them illegal. Right? And of course, the people will revolt, violently. Like in China, when they blocked Internet access. Right?

Semantically speaking your right. The point is, if we can go through all the trouble to pull these deep seated cures out of our biology and get indefinite life extension, then we can figure out a way to get it from the government and the elite or whoever too. If they fly it off to some other part of the galaxy, and we need to go get it from an army of feirce monsters on a distant planet, then we'll go do that too. Where there is a will there is a way, and this is a war and life extensionists arent going to stop fighting until they are dead or the war is won, bring on sens, bring on the government, bring on them all, we'll fight our way through all of it.

[Moonbeam]

The thing that irritates me is that, despite their breakthroughs in knowledge in the fields of genetics, life style/supplementation and such, Scientists like Kurzweil and De grey are not speaking about what we should do to stop the government from dictating to us how or to what age we can live, if such a breakthrough came tomorrow, or the next day. They are not making philosophical preparations for this as much as I think are necessary.

I agree with what you are saying, however you can't expect just a few people to take care of it all--scientifically, politically, philosophically, etc.

Yes, and this is exactly why I feel that a free society is necessary for true lifespan extension to occur.

That is the solution we should all be concerning ourselves with.

[brokenportal]

I agree with what you are saying, however you can't expect just a few people to take care of it all--scientifically, politically, philosophically, etc.

Yes, and this is exactly why I feel that a free society is necessary for true lifespan extension to occur.

That is the solution we should all be concerning ourselves with.

Exactly on both of those, and thats part of the reason we need to get more radical life extension moving around here now. Some people think things arent really going anywhere. The exposure this cause needs is related pretty much directly to how fast we discuss out how to get it done right now. We arent figuring out who can do what and who we need to help with what and attracting all the new life extension pioneer minded people we can by keeping the forums flooded with supplements and off topic convo.

We can help get the discussion going more around here by joining the 72 team project. Sign up for it today, its an easy way to help keep yourself around as this incredible existence and universe is pioneered.

There is a list of projects called "LEEP" coming to the imminst wiki soon. We are also developing a "300" to work on this projects. We need discussion to help get that stuff going as effeciently as it can though.