
The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant (2005) - forloop
http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html
======
reasonattlm
If you agree with the sentiments in this piece, then the best way to help make
the end of aging come about in the real world is to materially support ongoing
early-stage research into the repair of the known causes of aging. The best
way to do that is to make a donation to the SENS Research Foundation, an
organization with a stellar track record of helping to unblock languishing
fields of research - such as senescent cell clearance - and convincing other
funding sources to join in or strike out on their own in the resulting
research programs:

[http://sens.org](http://sens.org)

[http://sens.org/donate](http://sens.org/donate)

~~~
JoshTriplett
Personally, while I'm entirely in favor of all reasonable efforts to eliminate
aging, and I think it quite likely that SENS could buy us more years, maybe
even centuries, I don't think SENS is a complete solution to the problem of
_mortality_. Not least of which because if we eliminate aging but not
mortality, the leading causes of death will become accidents, and people are
no less dead when hit by a bus.

Plus, SENS eliminates the hard boundary at ~120, but doesn't ensure that we
actually get there, and I don't relish the whack-a-mole fight against a
thousand random diseases (even if we sensibly prioritize those lower than
eliminating aging).

So, personally, I'd suggest donating at least as much to to efforts like MIRI
rather than (or in addition to) SENS. My main hope for SENS is that it will
buy us enough years for MIRI to give us a trillion more.

~~~
DennisP
According to estimates I've seen, if accidents are the only cause of death and
we maintain our current accidental death rate, we get an average lifespan of
about a thousand years. Assuming people become more cautious, it could extend
to five thousand.

To actually achieve that we'd need to be good with infectious diseases,
cancer, acquired auto-immune disorders, etc. But a lot of this stuff hits
older people harder anyway.

So I'm thinking I'll stick with SENS and related efforts for now, and if I
make it through the next century or two, I'll have another millennium or two
to support mind upload research.

------
Zarkonnen
One day, an anti-dragonist on a speaking tour visited a town. When he arrived,
most of the town's inns were already full, and he had to make do with a small
room in a small in in a run-down part of the town.

The next morning, he stood outside the inn on his soap box and told people
about how the dragon could be defeated. A small crowd gathered around him.
When he had finished speaking, a woman asked: "My children are hungry. My
husband went off to war against the tigers and never came back. How does
killing the dragon help them?"

"Well, they too will one day be fed to the dragon!"

"But they are hungry now. My baby is very weak. She cries all the time. Even
if she doesn't die, she's going to grow up stunted."

"I'm sure you can find a way. Anyway, I'm here to talk about the dragon,
it's..."

Another interrupted him: "My son was killed by the king's men three weeks ago.
They laughed as they cut him down. No one will hear my case."

"Well, I'm sure they had a good reason. Your son was probably a criminal."

Another said: "My family beats me because I don't want to marry the man they
chose for me. Right now, I wouldn't mind being eaten."

"Listen. I'm not interested in the problems of you little people. They're not
my problems, and anyway, you're probably lying, or exaggerating, or just not
trying hard enough. But I'm scared of the dragon, because the dragon's going
to eat _everyone_ , including me. So we should concentrate on that, don't you
agree?"

And the people rolled their eyes and walked away.

~~~
gwern
Few people die of hunger or being shot by police (Seriously, _that_ is your
example?). Yes, even in Africa. (Think about the implications of a global life
expectancy of 70+, and African life expectancies ranging from 47-74, and 59
average.)

~~~
Zarkonnen
Yes, we can take preventable diseases as an example instead, if you prefer.

~~~
JoshTriplett
That sentiment was already expressed in the article, in the form of the tigers
and snakes. There are far too many small-scale distractions that people find
appealing to focus on, whether because they seem more approachable or because
they're the actual culprit in the death of specific people.

~~~
pavlov
Hunger and diseases are not "small-scale distractions".

Every year about 3 million children under five die of hunger-related causes.
Is that not another dragon, one that specializes in babies and toddlers? If
this dragon is easier and cheaper to slay than the other, why not fight it
first?

~~~
reasonattlm
And 3 million of malaria, and 38 million due to aging. Enormous sums are spent
on removing the former, very little on removing the latter. None of the
priorities are correct, and it isn't even a matter of resources going to one
or the other to get it done first - it's a matter of convincing people to
direct more than the present tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of
overall resources to these goals.

Early stage medical research funding and programs aimed at prevention of
poverty are both small potatoes in comparison to the throughput of the alcohol
industry or the professional sports edifice, for example. In a world in which
the beer and the circuses are a massive expenditure, there is plenty of room
to convince more funding for things that actually matter without taking from
one beneficial program to prioritize another.

~~~
Zarkonnen
I'm all in favour of funding for anti-aging research if the money gets taken
out of our beer and circuses budget. What I object to is the way the article
insists that aging is some kind of low-hanging fruit we could pick if only we
realized it, and describes all other problems in the world as distractions.

------
gitpusher
Every single day, we give birth to ~400,000 new people. All of them will most
certainly die -- many of them after a difficult, heart-rending stint on this
planet.

Allowing people to live longer (while an admirable goal, to be sure) doesn't
improve the overall human experience at all. The same % of us will still live
in poverty (and most likely that % would be even higher).

Before making people live longer... we should get better at providing for the
folks who are already here.

~~~
michaelmcdonald
^^

This dude is like the guy that tried to convince everyone that killing the
dragon was a bad idea...

------
SilasX
Biological death is like a dragon that kills a bunch of people every day, but
which can be defeated with technology if society makes the investment.

I just saved you from reading 5000 words waiting for the point.

~~~
smoyer
Too late for me but future generations of HN readers thank you!

------
Delmania
On one hand, I am in favor of people striving to increase longevity and maybe
even eliminate death.

On the other hand, I view organizations such as SENS as nothing more than
"wizards" of the past who promised kings that if they drank the blood of their
foes or consumed gold, they would find eternity.

I think, for me at least, the comparison of death to a dragon is a poor one.
Death is not some malignant entity that causes harm. It is, now, and for the
foreseeable future, the reality for all living creatures. I understand people
are afraid of it, but I think the real dragon is the fear of death, not death
itself.

------
JoshTriplett
> As he strode to the podium, a small boy yelled out from the audience: “The
> dragon is bad!” ... "The dragon is bad and it eats people"

Sometimes I wonder if the only thing between us and widespread support for
ending mortality is someone standing up and stating the obvious for everyone
to hear: "Death is bad!"

We see high-profile people acting as spokespeople for various health-related
causes. Where are the high-profile people calling for an end to death? Not
just the people that scientists and engineers will listen to, but the people
that everyone will listen to?

~~~
UnquietTinkerer
But what would happen if we actually succeeded in preventing aging and death?
Death is, as far as I can tell, not an accident or some kind of cosmic
tragedy. It's the constant, forced renewal that makes biological and social
evolution possible.

Of course I'd love to live more than a paltry few decades, and I'm desperately
afraid of losing my loved ones someday. But to just end death - assuming we
had the means - would be robbing our descendants of their birthright and put
the brakes on the main force for human adaptation. I honestly believe that the
death of individuals serves a key role in the health of our species as a
whole.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Please go read the article again, and think carefully about what you're
advocating for. _Why_ do you believe that? What, precisely, is death buying us
as a species that's worth 150000 lives ended every single day? In what way are
we incapable of "renewal" without it? And wouldn't you prefer to solve those
problems some _other_ way? Wouldn't that be a _wonderful_ problem to have?

Death _is_ an accident: it's the result of an evolutionary process that
selects for reproduction but pointedly _not_ for longevity.

And we've already curtailed many of the large-scale forces of evolution, for
the better. We go to great lengths to help people survive who would have
simply died if born mere hundreds of years ago, let alone thousands of years
ago. Would you let them die for being "unfit", so that evolution works more
efficiently?

If the cure was available within your lifetime, in reality rather than in a
hypothetical, would you really _choose_ not to take it? Why? What would you
possibly have to gain by doing so? You mentioned not wanting to lose your
loved ones; presumably they wouldn't want to lose you either.

But if you feel so strongly about dying, nobody's stopping you. I certainly
don't think it's sensible to _force_ anyone to accept a cure for mortality. On
the other hand, attempting to prevent others from creating and using such a
cure would be tantamount to mass murder.

Please, think very carefully about the implications of what you're advocating
before repeating the romanticisms that have sprung up around death. Death is
bad. Aging kills a hundred thousand people a day, and other causes kill
another fifty thousand. Let's make it stop, and the sooner the better.

------
michaelmcdonald
First, that was an amazing story and extremely well written! Second, the
analogy it represents and your critique afterwards were fabulous! Kudos to you
sir!

~~~
forloop
It's by Nick Bostrom[0].

He's the same guy that wrote 'Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers,
Strategies'[1]; which is reportedly the book which 'alerted' Elon Musk to the
dangers of AI.

\---

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Bostrom](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Bostrom)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence:_Paths,_Dange...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence:_Paths,_Dangers,_Strategies)

------
falcolas
I hope this day does come about, when we have slain the dragon, for the rich
and poor alike. But there is one huge challenge we must solve first, where do
we put those extra 100,000 people every day? How do we clothe them, or more
importantly feed them?

Watching the first half of torchwood "Miracle Day" was both enlightening and
frightening in that regard.

That's the real problem we need to solve first

~~~
reasonattlm
There is no overpopulation and no realistic prospect of it. It is a myth, a
mistaken belief arising as a consequence of the fundamental Malthusian
misunderstanding of human action and economics - that what is now is what will
be in the future, the false prediction of stasis rather than technological
progress and change, the constant creation of new resources and more efficient
use of old ones. There is inhumanity and kleptocracy and poverty in plenty in
this world, and much could be done about it, but those issues are not a
function of the number of people involved. They are a function of societal
organization, of disuse of resources, and individual willingness to let evil
be done. All of that takes place in the midst of plentiful resources, were
they actually being used.

Demographic Consequences of Defeating Aging:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192186/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192186/)

Too many people? No, too many Malthusians: [http://www.spiked-
online.com/newsite/article/7723](http://www.spiked-
online.com/newsite/article/7723)

Superlongevity Without Overpopulation:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=EakLzDV-
xJ0C&pg=PA169&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=EakLzDV-
xJ0C&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=Superlongevity+Without+Overpopulation&source=bl&ots=wZY27U15KZ&sig=TwxKFF5Idv9BfD9mKSivmGnJ1EA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_ctYVbG9Hs77oQSs9YPwBg&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Superlongevity%20Without%20Overpopulation&f=false)

The Eternal Return of Overpopulation:
[http://reason.com/archives/2010/10/19/the-eternal-return-
of-...](http://reason.com/archives/2010/10/19/the-eternal-return-of-overpopu)

~~~
falcolas
> There is no overpopulation and no realistic prospect of it.

If everyone stopped dying, there's a very real prospect of this occurring.
Unchecked, it results in the population equivalent of compound interest: when
combined with our current population growth rate of 1.1%, we end up with a
projected population in 100 years to over 46 billion.

Even Japan, with their currently negative growth rate of -.14%, would
experience sudden and staggering (for them) population growth rate of upwards
of .6%.

To address the Malthusian argument: could we alter our behaviors to reduce the
birth rate to mitigate the population growth caused by "slaying the dragon"?
Definitely.

Could we potentially find a way to support humanity's exponentially growing
energy and dietary needs sustainably? For a little while (there are hard
limits[1] to how much more energy we can create while limited to the Earth).

Could we convince everyone to cope with an even higher population density?
That one's harder.

The real problem is that most of these hurdles aren't technological. They're
sociological - a place where we have historically advanced much more slowly;
the eradication of death worldwide couldn't tolerate slowness. China's current
condition is a great example of how hard it is to impose checks on population
growth.

All that said, there's an even more fundamental question: could we find a way
to prevent an asteroid from hitting earth and wiping out all benefits of
"slaying the dragon"? Unless something major changes, no, we could not. In my
opinion, this is more important than creating any form of superlongevity. It's
the difference between the continuation of humanity and our extinction.

The Earth has a ticking clock, and we don't know the position of the hands.
What will we do with the time we have?

[1] [http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-
scale-e...](http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-
energy/)

------
fsk
Even if there was a technology that halted aging and let you live indefinitely
(barring accidents), there's no way that treatment could be given to everyone.

For all you know, the technology already exists in some military research lab
but is being kept secret.

