> I think the scenario of a despot like that keeping rejuvenation technology to himself and ruling for a long time is not likely.
That's not an assumption I'm making. Death resets ossification and concentration of power every couple of decades, regardless of whether rejuvenation therapy would be available to the top 10%, 1%, or 0.001%, or whatever. The problem is not the therapy, or even who gets it, the problem is what happens when it is available.
The problems that immortality causes are social, not technological. People with wealth and power tend to accumulate more wealth and power, at the expense of everyone else. When they die, it is distributed among their successors. A slow, and inefficient form of trickle-down, if you will.
Ever hear the expression "Science advances one funeral at a time"?
Well, so do politics, except that they have a far more dangerous (to us) positive-feedback cycle.
> Third, since the technology is not a magic ring to just hide, people who fight against the despot would be able to use the it as well, and next to despots gaining more experience, you'll have people fighting agains them living longer and having more chances to fight.
Life isn't an RPG where you punch wolves to get experience points, having a therapy that lets you live longer doesn't help after you starve to death in a GULAG, and most revolutionaries are young men with little to lose. You couldn't have picked a better example of asymmetrical technology if you tried. (Well, I suppose there's also the surveillance state, and drone armies...)
This is mostly due to age related brain function degradation, most scientists now have to relearn and try new things several times in their middle age. Unfortunately many lose that ability with the age, but retain the power they have gained before that.
If scientists could retain the abilities of their young brain for longer, science would benefit greatly from improving the ratio of learning/working time.
In general i agree that without death resetting ossification and concentration power would take longer, but is the death of billions of people worth that? Is the current interval the perfect one, or maybe we should intentionally create antibiotic resistant bacteria to make it faster again.
If no why is intentionally hindering the development of life extension any different than trying to destroy the effects of life extension we achieved so far?
That's not an assumption I'm making. Death resets ossification and concentration of power every couple of decades, regardless of whether rejuvenation therapy would be available to the top 10%, 1%, or 0.001%, or whatever. The problem is not the therapy, or even who gets it, the problem is what happens when it is available.
The problems that immortality causes are social, not technological. People with wealth and power tend to accumulate more wealth and power, at the expense of everyone else. When they die, it is distributed among their successors. A slow, and inefficient form of trickle-down, if you will.
Ever hear the expression "Science advances one funeral at a time"?
Well, so do politics, except that they have a far more dangerous (to us) positive-feedback cycle.
> Third, since the technology is not a magic ring to just hide, people who fight against the despot would be able to use the it as well, and next to despots gaining more experience, you'll have people fighting agains them living longer and having more chances to fight.
Life isn't an RPG where you punch wolves to get experience points, having a therapy that lets you live longer doesn't help after you starve to death in a GULAG, and most revolutionaries are young men with little to lose. You couldn't have picked a better example of asymmetrical technology if you tried. (Well, I suppose there's also the surveillance state, and drone armies...)