X-Message-Number: 4677
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 1995 11:59: -0700
From:  (Gregory Stock)
Subject: Impacts of Life extension.

I've been following your list for a month or so and was wondering whether
any of you can suggest any news groups, books (fiction or non-fiction), or
articles that explore in a serious way some the potential social
consequences of widespread life extension.   The seductive nature of the
possibility of immortality for the individual is obvious to most of us, but
possible negative social consequences of the arrival of an end to aging are
much less clear.  And here I am refering less to matters like impacts on
population growth or social security and such, than to things like a loss of
dynamism for society as a whole, a rigidification of human values, a
potential slowing of innovation.

I suspect these latter types of consequences will depend on what kinds of
interventions are possible to render an older brain more malleable to
change, but in any case, it seems unlikely that long-lived adults will ever
routinely undergo the kinds of huge attitudinal shifts that generally occur
quite naturally every few decades as a new generation takes over the helm.
Thus the immense social and technological changes occuring today might be
greatly retarded were the wealthy and powerful not to die off routinely and
be replaced by new blood.   Certainly resistance to change would be a force
to be reckoned with.

Anyway, these are the sorts of issues I'm after, and I suspect that a number
of you have thought about them.  After all they are particularly important
topics for cryonicists, since the biological problems of aging are virtually
certain to be solved long before the technological problems of  bringing
anyone back from suspension.  

I'd add to Eugene Leitls concerns about the long-term survival of cryonics
organizations in the face of catastrophic social disruptions,  a more
insidious threat.  Any successful cryonics organization will eventually have
to deal with the immense social and psychological changes attending
significant extension of life span.  

For example, everyone has thought about the need for cryonics organizations
to  tolerate the organizational disruptions brought by personel changes from
one generation to the next.  But as long as everyone involved in a cryonics
organization is ultimately driven by the hope of having a shot at personal
immortality, at least their motivations will remain largely the same as  the
people now involved in the cryonics movement.

As Derek Ryan commented, they are:
> people with an almost religious dedication to their organization; people
>with frozen loved ones, and people who know that their own lives
>will someday depend on their organization being there to help
>them.  The power of such dedication is not to be underestimated.

But what happens when human life span is vastly extended?  How  does an
organization best insure the interest and commitment of individuals who are
already esentially immortal?  They are unlikely to feel the same driving
passions about cryonics as people with a direct personal stake, however
curious they may be about bringing back a bunch of ancients.  

Most of the time schemes for technological progress, I've seen discussed on
this list, assume progress so rapid it would avoid this concern -- even a
few centuries before nanotechnology brings the required reconstructive
miracles to thaw the frozen is pessimistic on this list.

But what if the gap is MUCH longer?  What if the whole problem of aging is
cracked (by straightforward applications of genetic engineering) within the
next century, but learning to thaw people out so that they survive takes all
sorts of advanced technologies that don't mature for a millennium? What then?  

Anyway, back to my original query:  if anyone can offer any comments or
point me towards any discussions of the social consequences of widespread
and significant life extension, I'd appreciate it.  I'm half way through a
novel dealing with the issue from a variety of angles and would like to hear
what others have thought about it.


Greg Stock

                           Gregory Stock
                         Santa Monica, CA
                      


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