Ron Bailey doesn't think so. Neither do I. And I sure hope we don't.

I've noticed this kind of "argument" a lot with people who want to hold back true progress (as opposed to the "progress" proposed by many "progressives"):

So what about the social consequences of radically longer and healthier lives? In that regard, Diana Schaub in her reaction essay raises many questions for reflection about those consequences, but curiously she fails to actually reflect on them. Schaub isn’t “willing to say that agelessness is undesirable,” but she simultaneously “can’t shake the conviction that the achievement of a 1,000-year lifespan would produce a dystopia.” She then simply recapitulates the standard issue pro-mortalist rhetorical technique of asking allegedly “unnerving questions” and then allowing them to “fester in the mind.” Sadly, all too many bioethicists think they’ve done real philosophic work by posing “hard” questions, then sitting back with steepled hands and a grave look on their countenances.

Yeah, these sorts of questions have been "festering" in my mind for decades. I don't ever seem to come up with the sort of scary answers that she won't tell us, though.

Thanks for changing the subject, Rand. If I have to read one more word on two-tier class systems being the reason for violent crime in the U.S. from Jim Harris, I think I'm gonna scream.

I love the images conjured up by the last line of your quote. I can easily imagine the ever-so-slight smirk on the corner of their mouths.

It's true that any radical change in life expectancy might create negative externalities and could even lead to a dystopic society. However, I'm not sure how quickly such a change can occur. Furthermore, such technological changes are most likely going to be applied primarily to highly developed nations. And many of these nations are quickly drifting towards negative population growth.

We're still at a replacement birth rate here in the U.S., but it has been dropping. Extended life spans is one way to maintain equilibrium.

“The dumbest thing for us to do would be to wander into this new world and say, ‘We’ll deal with the problems as they come along.’”

Since our ability (quite apart from willingness) to precisely forsee the future has always been rather limited (which is no reason not to think *anything* through, now mind you), I submit that that describes most of human history. Where's he been? But more to the point, how many must unnecessairily die (and dying of 'old age,' whatever we judge that to be, is still dying) until all those forseeable problems are ironed out, and who decides when that time has come?

This smells far too much like tha argument that we should wait 'until all our problems are solved on Earth, before going into space.' Anyone holding their breaths for that mythical day? Not I.

Is this a civilization that can't walk and chew gum at the same time, so to speak? I very much hope not. Otherwise, even all the 'Politically Correct' (even though real) problems must be prioritized by someone (Anyone want that job?) and 'solved' one at a time, too.

This smells far too much like the argument that we should wait 'until all our problems are solved on Earth, before going into space.'

Nice point. I may steal that for a piece or two.

Thanks. This is why I have a blog.

Funny innit? The inevitability of death was always considered a curse so bad that whole theologies had to be created to explain why we deserve it. But as soon as it seems possible to lift the curse, suddenly it becomes the foundation of all that is good.

It's almost as if people just like to whine.

Diana Schaub seems to think that if we lived forever young, that we would somehow loose our ability to have interpersonal relationships.

This has got to be the dumbest thing I have heard in a long time (and I hear a lot of dumb things too). Where do people like her come up with this kind of claptrap?

I have moved several times in my life. I moved to SoCal upon my graduation from university, then moved to Japan upon graduating with MIM. Everytime I moved, I have always been able to make new friends and create a new life for myself. Does she honestly think that if I am cured of aging, that I will in some way loose my ability to find new mates to hang out with?

Sorry to be offensive, but this is just stupid.

Daniel Callahan's response is almost as lame. He thinks if we all live forever, that people won't get promoted in companies and that the companies will always have the same CEOs and what not. He totally ignores what Ron Bailey said about this when he said that Bill Gates did not wait around to become the CEO of Microsoft. He started Microsoft.

Callahan has obviously been asleep for the past 15 years. He totally ignores the whole silicon valley phenomonon where ambitious young people do not join existing companies. They go out and start new ones.

Besides, Daniel Callahan's criticism is not of immortality. It strikes me more of a defense of the dynamism of free-market capitalism than of a death-oriented society.

Callahan is obsessed with protecting conventional social structures and institutions.

Why the f**k should I give up an iota of personal freedom and openess, just to protect social institutions and structure? As far as I'm concerned, these things exist to serve me, not the other way around. If a certain social institution or structure cannot handle the possibility of ageless people, then I say junk such institutions and structures so that we can get on with being ageless.

Callahan is trying to defend the horse and buggy industry against the advent of automobiles. He should really hang it up and retire.

I cannot believe how lame pro-death people can be.

I would posit, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, that there's nothing wrong with immortality that can't be fixed by what's right with immortality.

I haven't read the article but the idea brings up a lot of questions. Would we fear death as much or would we fear it more? Would suicide be as frowned upon as somepeople would just get tired after a long time. What would that do to the political balance as religious folks are less likely to suicide because of fear of the afterlife. Since old people vote political partcipation would go through the roof, but would that change because the old people have to work now rather than protect their social security/medicare benefits?

There's a science fiction story or two in there somewhere. We've had teh Logans Run with no old, but what about the time when they take over.

I talk to people on the left and I have played wack-a-mole trying to get them to defend a path to dystopia rather than assert yet another new scary potential cause.

Some changes from longer lifespans: estate taxes will fall, charitable giving will fall, great people will have time and opportunity to do more than one major great thing, population will increase, suicide and homicide will become a greater percentage of the mortality statistics, political change will take longer and be more pronounced (think FDR), the US constitution will need to change to allow someone to be President every hundred years or so and prevent Supreme Court Justices from serving for more than 100, generation ships will only need one generation, old people will go back to school to retrain every so often, retirement and marriage will become understood to be temporary as a rule, social security and medicare will become universal healthcare and universal income support unless modified heavily and funerals will be more heavily attended. Birthdays will be a once-a-decade thing.

GDP and per-capita GDP will rise as human capital remains.

Memoirs and scholarship will become somewhat more delayed and controversial since everyone in the books and papers will still be alive.

What problems? Overpopulation? No. Plenty of room on Earth and in the Universe. Ossification? It hasn't taken death to increase GDP, decrease energy intensity, adopt major innovations and make major discoveries. Old age is just another disease that is getting in the way of work-force productivity, leisure and pursuit of happiness.

IMHO functional immortality would change things up a bit, sometimes in conflicting ways that would lead to results that we probably can't guess. That said, my guess is that it would lead to people becoming a lot more conservative (in the textbook sense), and frankly a lot more afraid of death.

Every death would become a senseless tragedy. Every lost life would be someone cut down in their prime. While some would certainly take the dystopian view that life was boring and meaningless, such a view would tend to have the same result as Zardoz--those who hold it would find some way to remove themselves from the picture, leaving immortality to those who valued it.

Wandering into sci-fi territory here, I'd speculate that given immortality and enough technology, people would tend to become wanderers and nomads in space, spreading out far enough that they could avoid each other--and thus the dangers inherent in interpersonal contact--while still maintaining some ability to communicate. The same thing could be accomplished by a The Machine Stops style city, where nobody ever meets face to face (with the same inherent dangers as the story). Either result, of course, is far outside of my expected lifetime--unless someone invents functional immortality before then.

"Yeah, these sorts of questions have been "festering" in my mind for decades."

You sound like you're mocking Diana. You shouldn't. They are VERY important questions; and I suggest that we answer all of them ASAP!

I know I'd just keep going back to school periodically and amass doctorates and masters degrees in all those fields I was interested in. Who wants to be just a rocket scientist, when you can be a rocket scientist/particle physicist/nuclear/electrical/chemical engineer/neuro-surgeon/.....

Granted, by the time I'm done with my third or foruth field, my knowledge in the first one would be obsolete. But it would be more interesting.

Well, in the end the only way to find out if something like immortality produces a dystopia in so complex a system as human society is to try it and find out. The acheivement of something that gives individuals more of something, more time, more opportunities, more options, more resources (rather than things that tend to restrict these) seldom tends to impoversh society.

Aaron - I like your list of occupations, but you left out rock star.

If I could live forever, I'd probably be the one who develops the technology necessary for intergalactic flight -- and then not share it with anyone.