Your logic can be dismissed as nonsense with a very easy thought experiment.
Imagine you have two groups of people: Group A and Group B. You are voting on a technology that can prevent 90% of deaths in Group A. Do you vote yes or no?
If you vote no, congratulations, you just condemned a large group of people to continue dying for the sake of egalitarianism.
(The reason this thought experiment is powerful is that it strips the scenario of value-judgments such as "elite" and "poor.")
Of course. After all, it is simply a stripped down version of the parent comment that I responded to. He polarized the scenario such that it was a false dichotomy, but even then it was flawed.
Simple: indefinite lifespan for the members of tiny minority Group A will turn them into a ruling elite even if they're not one already. You can't separate the issue of lifespan from social hierarchy.
Okay, let's attach numbers to the scenario. Assume there are 1 million people in Group A and 990 million people in Group B.
By voting no, you just condemned 900,000 people in Group A to eventually die, simply because you wanted to prevent them from becoming the ruling elite.
Stated differently, you had the power to prevent 900,000 deaths (and in fact many more than that, moving forward), and you chose not to because of ideology.
Surely it is better for people to not die - to not cease to exist - even if that means they rise to the top of the social hierarchy?
>>We eradicated smallpox for everyone, without distinction between rulers and ruled. That's the difference!
You may want to familiarize yourself with the history of smallpox eradication before continuing this debate. The vaccination was available mostly in wealthy countries first.
"...coordinated efforts against smallpox went on, and the disease continued to diminish in the wealthy countries. By 1897, smallpox had largely been eliminated from the United States.[66] In Northern Europe a number of countries had eliminated smallpox by 1900, and by 1914, the incidence in most industrialized countries had decreased to comparatively low levels..."
>We eradicated smallpox for everyone, without distinction between rulers and ruled.
Notwithstanding the daughter comment that disproves this, try substituting 'smallpox' for 'cancer'. Cancer treatment is by no means available to everyone, or even the majority, yet it extends lifespans (of good people and dictators alike). Should we not have developed treatments for cancer?
There have been several times in human history where the majority have decided it would be best if the 'elite' should have their lifespans shortened. Arguably with positive results.
I can't think of any times when people have had their lifespans shortened for fear they would become the elite, and the shorteners were on the right side of history. That sounds more like The Crucible.
The point is they are not potential elite, they are already elite. The fact that they can get hold of the treatment when the majority can not shows they're already placed at the top of society.
Personally I agree with the logic that if we have the choice between 0 and 100,000 people living for ever we pick 100,000 (Even if that 100,000 include such greats as Un and Assad). Having said that If I had the choice between 100,000 living forever and 3 billion people living forever with less private jets in the world I'd pick the later. Perhaps I'm cynical but if we do indeed get this tech I'm a lot less confident about my values being satisfied in the second instance than the first.
French Revolution versus Red October, Mao's Cultural Revolution, gulags and concentration camps for every communist country. In 90% of these "elite trimmings" society is pushed back decades at least. Unruly mobs do not move the world forward.
They may not move their country forward, that doesn't mean they don't move the world forward. Say what you will about the French revolution's effect on France but it greatly influenced the spread of democracies and republics world wise. Similarly the presence of socialism(in the production owned by the people sense) hugely encouraged improvements in working conditions in countries that feared similar upheaval and loss of property.
But I wouldn't argue with you that the majority of these 'elite trimmings' set the society back. The question is after the set back does it move forward faster than it was or in a better direction (Often the answer to this would be hugely reliant on your personal values).
And lo and behold! When we fail to implement estate taxes, compounding investments ensure that the bloodlines of the well-off and long-lived become the rich elite!
Remember, this is a scenario where we're talking about 1% of the population getting life-extension while everyone else remains stuck with 80-120 years of maximum lifespan. Those indefinite folks are going to get very wealthy very quickly (as in, within one century), because they can afford to wait for long-term investments to pay off in a way nobody else can.
> When we fail to implement estate taxes, compounding investments ensure that the bloodlines of the well-off and long-lived become the rich elite!
Right, so compound interest isn't magic as long as you have taxes (and, actually, compound interest per se is rarely a problem when you have taxable interest, appreciation of capital assets that works like interest but isn't is the problem -- and it comes about specifically because of the choice to give tax-favored status to long-term capital gains.) Estate taxes are a mechanism that works to mitigate the problems caused by favoring capital income when death is a reliable periodic effect, but you could acheive much the same effect in a progressive income tax system, without sensitivity the frequency of death, by simply not giving long-term capital gains a tax-favored status, and treating income as income, especially if you add more upper-range marginal tax brackets for super-high-end incomes.
Yes, that's my point. Capitalism is bad, not increased lifespan.
However, given a capitalistic or otherwise zero-sum/proprietarian social system, I cannot support inegalitarian life extension as moral. You need a broadly egalitarian society and broadly egalitarian life-extension.
As long as we have social systems designed to maximize strife and toil, we should be working to destroy those social systems and replace them with systems for creating peace and happiness, yes.
Medicine and life extension as a public service is great. As a private luxury of the rich it's abominable.
Think about the implied statement of making radical life-extension available to the rich alone! "Whereas I will live to 160, you will only live to 80. Because I can afford these treatments, it means my life has double the moral worth of your life."
If you honestly believe that moral worth and financial net worth are two different things, you cannot support setting lifespan in accordance with money. Period.
its not about whether elite is saved or not ... its about whether you're healthy or not ....
Imagine you have two groups of people: Group A and Group B. Group A is living longer but unhealthy and Group B is living shorter but extremely healthy , which one do you pick - I rather pick Group B ... dont know whether Calico will be about living longer or living healthier - its not a easy thing to crack but I hope they succeed ...
Imagine you have two groups of people: Group A and Group B. You are voting on a technology that can prevent 90% of deaths in Group A. Do you vote yes or no?
If you vote no, congratulations, you just condemned a large group of people to continue dying for the sake of egalitarianism.
(The reason this thought experiment is powerful is that it strips the scenario of value-judgments such as "elite" and "poor.")