Re: Technical and Spiritual Development

From: Terrell Miller (millerto_at_bellsouth.net)
Date: 01/25/05 

Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 21:32:09 -0500

William Mook wrote:

> Well, back in 1800 I suppose one could make an argument that a society
> equipped with cheap universally available anesthetics would endure more
> self-inflicted pain. Others might argue that only the wealthy would be
> free from pain. Still others would argue in ways that have been argued
> here.
>
> Such arguments would be wrong. The evidence of history argues that
> anesthetics once discovered were developed in ways that made them cheap
> and universally available. This created a society that had an
> increased sensitivity to pain in any form leading to the ending of
> slavery and the rise of anti-cruelty movements.

ah, you're contradicting yourself.

You are saying that a medical advance (anaesthetics) caused people to
feel no pain and thus led to a greatly reduced tolerance for pain and
the things that cause it (such as slavery).

So if you apply that to antiaging sera, then people would feel no death
and thus develop a greatly reduced tolerance to death or the things that
cause it, such as risk-taking.

Which is it, Bill?

> I think that once an anti-aging process is discovered it will be
> developed in ways that make it cheap and universally available. This
> will create a society that values life more than ever before and spell
> the end of death and dying, and the end of killing and dying for one's
> beliefs and one's country.

along with the end of anything else that tendds to produce killing and
dying.

>>More reason to fervently resist anything that
>>might get you killed accidentally.
>
>
> Nonsense. People don't act this way. People who are healthy and vital
> feel compelled to take more risks in order to live their lives fully.
> People who have had their youth restored will likely be the greatest
> risk takers of all, having the deep seated notion they have cheated
> death once, they'll be like gamblers who have just come off a string of
> wins. They'll believe they can cheat death always.

Let's do a thought experiment here, Bill:

Let's say that you and a friend of yours are some of the first to have
taken the serum and will live forever, or a nontrivial subset thereof.
Your buddy goes off on a K2 expedition. And is killed when an ice shelf
collapses under him.

Now: do you tell yourself "well, he died doing what he always wanted to
do", or do you say "that fucking idiot! He pissed away immortality for a
stunt!"

>
>>>>Person's Puppeteers are are fictional extraterrestrial species
>
> created
>
>>>>by Larry Niven in his Ringworld novels. They do not exist except
>
> as a
>
>>>>fiction.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>But as with much fiction, there is some valuable truth in them.
>
>
> They are useful as metaphors in an argument illustrating a point, they
> cannot be expected to carry an argument.

except that they do not illustrate the point you were trying to make,
Bill. Puppeteers are not immortal. That has no bearing on why they are
so risk-averse. Your analogy totally fails.

>>In Niven's "Known Space" stories it was the *hominids* that had
>>Boosterspice/Tree-of-life to extend their lives. IIRC Ringworld
>
> happened
>
>>as Louis Wu turned 200.
>
>
> Boosterspice/Tree-of-life extended your age, but at the cost of making
> you something other than humans.

sort of. Tree Of Life was the yamlike root that converted a breeder Pak
into a Protector.

Boosterspice was a UN invention derived from the Tree Of Life in
Ptsshspok's ship. It doesn't make you immortal, and it doesn't change
you from a human breeder to a Protector. It just keep syou artificially
young.

> Humans as they are in the real world
> are in Niven's book, called breeders.
>
> And this suggests a useful property for any anti-aging serum to
> incorporate, infertility. A law requiring an anti-aging serum to
> render the person taking it infertile would automatically place limits
> on the population making the dire predictions outlined by many here
> impossible.

"A law" for something that you think will be administered universally,
across all countries and cultures?

Who exactly is going to pass and enforce *a* law, Bill?

> In fact, making everyone infertile who takes anti-aging drugs would
> lead to a decline in human numbers if eveyrone took it. So, an
> anti-aging drug that only supressed fertility would be ideal.

another thought experiment:

Suppose you are a Colombian drug cartel jefe. You can easily afford the
serum. You have long since bought the entire government of your country,
so you control the elected officials who pass and enforce the laws.

Now: do you voluntarily give yourself an effective vasectomy, or do you
realize that if you *and your entire clan* is immortal and breeds like
crazy and gives your offspring the serum so they are immortal and...,
then in a very short period of time you can be the Emperor of the entire
planet?

> There will be those who elect not to take the drug - and there will be
> those who will take the drug for a while, and then stop. Those who
> continue to take the drug, even though its cheap, will do so because
> they want life and will value that life more highly as a consequence.
> People who value life tend to achieve more.

"The worst robber baron scumbag of the 19th century did more to achieve
world peace (by enabling people to make a living) than all the Ben &
Jerry's ice cream ever made".
- P.J. O'Rourke

> People who feel
> invulnerable tend to achieve more as well.

remember the world's greatest Russian roulette player? Lifetime record
of 77-1.

> So, I believe this drug
> will have many beneficial effects on personal human psyche.
> Sociologically, such a drug will transform society. One of the ways
> society will be transformed is the rise of a great sensitivity to death
> and dying. As a consequence, killing and dying for a cause will seem
> an appalling concept.

and rushing into a burning building to save the civilians inside will
seem an appalling concept as well. So much for the fire department...

> Creativity and innovation are associated with risk taking. Someone who
> feels invulnerable, someone who thinks they'll live forever, someone
> who has cheated death once - will be a person who is willing to take
> risks.

then why is it that artists (painters, writers, musicians, athletes too)
have a nasty habit of getting boring, predictable, and risk-averse after
they achieve massive success?

Why do Microsoft products *really* suck now that Bill Gates has his own
estate and a Foundation named after him? 

-- 
Terrell Miller
millerto@bellsouth.net
"Every gardener knows nature's random cruelty"
-Paul Simon RE: George Harrison