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[BST][TH][SF] I'm working on a fiction book about defeating aging. What issues do you think are important to address in such a book?
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Author: u/TheWaler *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3wjegw/bstthsf_im_working_on_a_fiction_book_about/
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Score: 14
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Created: 2015-12-12T17:56:25
Post:
There's a website for it, if you want to get updated on the progress. :)
Comments:
u/Nepene [+12] (28 minutes later)
It's good to see it confront some of the big problems people cite- older individuals taking positions of power in the economy, lack of innovation, people who are too old for easy treatment with anti aging serums, and seeing those challenges being overcome.
It'll be good to see the before and after. People mourning after losing parents to degenerative diseases and aging related sicknesses, and how they feel after it's ended.
Deal with how people handle those who died of aging before the treatments.
It'll be good to see some of the hypocrisy of people- the super rich who are morally against it seeking secret anti aging treatments.
It'll be good to see the old be restored to good health, enjoying physically and mentally intense adventures again.
u/TheWaler [+2] (2 hours later)
Deal with how people handle those who died of aging before the treatments.
That's actually the story I'm writing right now! About a man deal with his father being the last person on earth to die of old age.
u/PeridexisErrant [+2] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (13 hours later)
I assume this is in a third-world country with no access to current medications? The story of the last smallpox death provides an excellent example.
u/Transfuturist [+14] Carthago delenda est. (an hour later)
Overpopulation, food, rejuvenation disparity via wealth, possibly even as a means to curtail the first two.
An implantation of Methuselah-level economic and political leaders, not only due to dividends, interest, and accumulation greater than dispersal, but due to an appalling dearth of redistribution that began with the death of inheritance and inheritance taxes.
EDIT: I'm going to assume I've been downvoted for implying redistribution is a good thing, as I have yet to receive a reply.
u/TheWaler [+5] (2 hours later)
Not sure why you're being downvoted, it's a good topic to cover. Thanks. :)
u/None [+1] (a day later)
You're not being downvoted anymore.
u/Transfuturist [+2] Carthago delenda est. (a day later)
And now I can go on with my week, free of the crushing social anxiety that is someone disagreeing with me on the internet.
u/Rhamni [+1] Aspiring author (a day later)
But then, a zit!
u/Kishoto [+12] (2 hours later)
You would need to address overpopulation immediately. I'd almost say you should address it before you release such a cure. I think somewhere around 15-ish people die every 10 seconds, and like 20 are born (super rough numbers, obviously) Not all of that is due to aging, but I'm sure a good portion of it is due to aging and diseases that would be cured by an aging cure. We'd run into scarcity problems after a few decades. Addressing it, in and of itself though, is tricky, as having babies is one of those things that people feel they should be in total control of, so any obvious attempts to curb that will be protested heavily.
How easy is this to produce? How expensive is it? Who's controlling such a cure? Something like this in the hands of someone who isn't very altruistic could have terrible consequences. I'm vaguely reminded of the rich people in In Time, that Justin Timberlake movie where time is currency, and everyone just stops physically aging at 25. They just live for centuries and keep a forced monopoly on stored time, enforcing the aristocracy.
u/RMcD94 [+5] (3 hours later)
Overpopulation solves itself.
Plus as long as human output over a lifetime is more than their input then overpopulation is a non-existence problem at large enough scale, until you reach the energy cap of the universe being consumed obviously.
If you do have a cure for aging, do not wait to "solve" overpopulation so millions and billions can die while you wait for a solution.
u/Kishoto [+4] (3 hours later)
Please explain to me how overpopulation solves itself. I heavily disagree, but am capable of being convinced if your argument is valid.
The earth is finite. We're heavily reliant on fossil fuels, despite all of the research that proves this may not be the best idea. We don't currently have the technology to create sustainable habitats for humans on other astrological bodies, and we're decades away from such technology (unless something sparks a technological revolution of some sort)
u/RMcD94 [+4] (4 hours later)
Please explain to me how overpopulation solves itself
If the population is unsustainable people die until it is sustainable.
The earth is finite.
We're not locked on the Earth, none the less we are not a Type I civilization, plus even if we stay on Earth you've got that classic quote that the sun delivers more energy to Earth in an hour than we use in a year.
We're heavily reliant on fossil fuels, despite all of the research that proves this may not be the best idea. We don't currently have the technology to create sustainable habitats for humans on other astrological bodies, and we're decades away from such technology (unless something sparks a technological revolution of some sort)
There is almost zero economical or personal incentive to do those things. The immediate immortality of all people changes that.
We can create inefficient sustainable habitats, enough solar panels can fuel anything. We already know all the theory behind mining such that there's even a few companies already out there. Just because we haven't built such a thing yet doesn't mean we couldn't.
Immortality would spark a technological revolution, there's not a larger incentive to develop sustainability or a quicker method of leaving than the surety that you have to suffer the downsides (rather than great great grandchildren). Plus however much output is invested in afterlife based religions which would I presume fall apart in immortality (people are unwilling to kill/delibrately endanger themselves with lifespan to get into afterlife) and other things like the death and health industry which are fueled by aging and aging related problems.
u/holomanga [+8] (4 hours later)
If the population is unsustainable people die until it is sustainable.
Doesn't that kind of defy the point of stopping aging in the first place?
u/RMcD94 [+3] (4 hours later)
Doesn't that kind of defy the point of stopping aging in the first place?
Presuming it isn't immune to death in which case overpopulation isn't an issue since people don't need food or water or anything to live.
Creatures don't die from aging in overpopulation they die from starvation.
u/None [+4] (5 hours later)
No, okay. Let me try. The point of curing aging is stopping people from dying. The long-term goal is for no one to die anymore, because death is bad. Ergo, any 'solution' to overpopulation that involves people dying, while technically valid, is still counterproductive and not the kind of solution we want to settle with or work towards.
Again, the real, long-term goal is total immortality for everyone who wants it. Not just young people who still die.
u/RMcD94 [+0] (5 hours later)
Ok, but that's not what he said.
He said don't release it until you solved overpopulation, ie, the people alive now are worth less than people who are from people who kept breeding.
But fine, ok,
solution: sterilization.
u/Kishoto [+2] (7 hours later)
I think your suggestions here are way too naive. When i said "solve overpopulation" I meant devise solutions for the imminent problem of overpopulation you will most assuredly have once you have a cure for aging (assuming you distribute it en masse) My apologies for not making that clear.
Next. Sterilization? No sane human society is going to agree to any form of forced sterilization, barring some hard, factual reasoning. You COULD try telling people "Hey, you can be immortal, but you need to sterilize yourself." But then they just have a few kids and sterilize themselves afterwards. That's definitely preferable to those people who will keep popping out babies as long as their immortal genitalia are functioning, but it's still not a solution.
Next. It's bad logic to presume that immortality would spark a technological revolution. What does immortality change in the world of science as it is today? You CAN posit that, with immortal scientists, the odds of sparking a revolution go up (since none of our scientists are dying off) but the odds don't go up nearly enough for you to say immortality will cause a revolution in and of itself.
Next.
We can create inefficient sustainable habitats, enough solar panels can fuel anything
This made me laugh a bit. It's simply incorrect. We have more to consider than just fueling issues.
The components of our space station/ship/mars city aren't going to last forever. We need access to the materials that we use to build these things, for when things inevitably start to wear away and break down.
We need a way to create water, air and food while floating through space.
We need to ensure that our space settlement is positioned such we're getting enough sunlight to facilitate our needs
EDIT: We still haven't developed a way to escape Earth's orbit that doesn't require a massive dump of fossil fuels
And those are just what I thought of in maybe 5 minutes of typing. Look at how much constant upkeep goes into the cities we live in now. Settling elsewhere would mean we'd need to "science the shit" out of a few particular aspects of how we live, else our stations won't last very long. And before you say "Oh, we can get what we need from Earth", keep in mind the whole point of this resettling is leaving because the Earth's resources are becoming insufficient.
Anyway, finally: You stated that over population solves itself. I remain unconvinced. Just because people won't starve to death (and that's a leap in and of itself, as OP simply talked about curing aging, which in NO way implies we won't continue to need food and water) doesn't mean overpopulation won't have consequences.
u/RMcD94 [+0] (11 hours later)
I think your suggestions here are way too naive. When i said "solve overpopulation" I meant devise solutions for the imminent problem of overpopulation you will most assuredly have once you have a cure for aging (assuming you distribute it en masse) My apologies for not making that clear.
The important thing is that you said solve it first.
Next. Sterilization? No sane human society is going to agree to any form of forced sterilization, barring some hard, factual reasoning. You COULD try telling people "Hey, you can be immortal, but you need to sterilize yourself." But then they just have a few kids and sterilize themselves afterwards.
"Be immortal and sterlized if you have fewer than one kid since a year after the announcement of this medicine"
Not really hard is it... at the end of the day you're the one suggesting that such an enormous number of deaths from overpopulation would demand that the inventor not release the immortality solution and so left billions die or be injured while he waits...
Never mind the fact that we can easily store genetic material or in the future recreate fertile material from someone's DNA. Sperm and egg banks?
Next. It's bad logic to presume that immortality would spark a technological revolution. What does immortality change in the world of science as it is today?
I already told you. It has nothing to do with people "surviving", it's entirely to do with people's utility function now predicting a near infinite time horizon. It completely changes how people optimize behaviour. People might care about their kids to act well, but they certainly don't act in the interests of great great great great children. But if you're alive, and you predict you'll be alive in 100 years your incentive model is completely changed.
The components of our space station/ship/mars city aren't going to last forever. We need access to the materials that we use to build these things, for when things inevitably start to wear away and break down.
Nothing will last forever. If you take sustainable to mean that then I admit that you are right and nothing in the universe is sustainable. The goal I intended is to last until new technology is invented.
You said that we couldn't do it, that it's literally impossible (which obviously is true if you're using last indefinitely but I'll ignore that and assume you mean like 100 years). That if in 5 years time the Earth would explode there (and everyone knew this and there were no more tech developments) there would be no life long space container with humans inside. Well you weren't so precise since you said cannot really I can do any scenario without tech development.
We need a way to create water, air and food while floating through space.
NASA already electrolyse their oxygen. As space stations are almost entirely self contained (no mass loss), with constant energy from the sun you can break and form bonds as much as you want.
We know how to do all those things, as I said it's just greatly inefficient. It's just turning waste back into usable products.
We need to ensure that our space settlement is positioned such we're getting enough sunlight to facilitate our needs
That's not hard when you're not locked to an planetary orbit lol. Just orbit the sun, or not, anywhere in space you're statistically likely not to be in shadow.
You confused me by saying "in space" when we were talking about on a body too. Where it's even easier to do all the above since you can just mine from the moon or Mars more resources. Though as I said we can do it mass neutrally anyway.
We still haven't developed a way to escape Earth's orbit that doesn't require a massive dump of fossil fuels
So what? That's not what you said. You just said we can't do that. I just said it was wrong, we could do it.
And before you say "Oh, we can get what we need from Earth", keep in mind the whole point of this resettling is leaving because the Earth's resources are becoming insufficient.
If we need to leave Earth because the resources are dwindling, then there will be motivations to make it more efficient. A space elevator is almost technically possible, if not already so (not kept up with carbon nanotubes of late) and that has the barest of funds.
Just because people won't starve to death (and that's a leap in and of itself, as OP simply talked about curing aging, which in NO way implies we won't continue to need food and water) doesn't mean overpopulation won't have consequences.
Yes, I sure said that overpopulation won't have consequences. I said people would starve to death, not wouldn't. If you breed so much you can't feed yourself you die.
You said let people die until you figure out how to solve a problem that you believe has no solution for, so that's an indefinite problem. I don't want to die because someone listened to your advice and is sitting on immortality for the next three hundred years.
u/Kishoto [+1] (12 hours later)
Be immortal and sterlized if you have fewer than one kid since a year after the announcement of this medicine
You're creating a division in the world's people. On one side, you have the sterilized immortals. On the other, the fertile mortals. Entire swaths of the planet will resist this sort of thing. Having kids is a fundamental aspect of human society. And offering it to only people who are willing to give up that chance for the rest of their immortal lives won't sit well with people. Although if it's reversible sterilization, (not even sure how that would work, but hey, we cured aging) it may be ok.
with constant energy from the sun you can break and form bonds as much as you want.
For some things, sure, but not most. We can electrolyse water and such, but we can't spontaneously create whatever matter we need. We can't just pick and choose our bond formation.
You said let people die until you figure out how to solve a problem that you believe has no solution for, so that's an indefinite problem. I don't want to die because someone listened to your advice and is sitting on immortality for the next three hundred years.
I didn't say it had no solution. I said you need to find one. And, if some immortality cure is found before we have certain things in place, I believe it will ultimately be worse for humanity on the whole. It'll probably be great in the short term, but the long term will need to be accounted for. And I'm not really a fan of just hoping for the best and figuring it out later. By that logic, I suppose I'm sentencing myself to death as well. Oh well.
u/None [+1] (16 hours later)
Woah. You actually replied to him twice. A better man than me.
u/RMcD94 [+0] (a day later)
Such a useful and helpful comment, a shining example of a member of /r/rational's community.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
I'm making a shitty, useless sarcastic reply to your shitty, useless sarcastic reply to my shitty, useless sarcastic reply.
We're both such great posters!
But no seriously if you're just going to make this problem worse don't say anything in the first place.
u/RMcD94 [+0] (a day later)
You're creating a division in the world's people. On one side, you have the sterilized immortals. On the other, the fertile mortals. Entire swaths of the planet will resist this sort of thing. Having kids is a fundamental aspect of human society. And offering it to only people who are willing to give up that chance for the rest of their immortal lives won't sit well with people. Although if it's reversible sterilization, (not even sure how that would work, but hey, we cured aging) it may be ok.
Ok, again I genuinely don't see what the issue is here. If people would prefer kids over immortality that's their choice. The only reason I'm suggesting a limit is because of you. As far as I'm concerned immortality should be available for everyone.
Eggs + sperm is equivalent to reversible sterlization.
For some things, sure, but not most. We can electrolyse water and such, but we can't spontaneously create whatever matter we need. We can't just pick and choose our bond formation.
For everything important we know how to. Big ones are carbon dioxide to oxygen, water, and recycling human waste into plant digestible (which we can do). Once you've got those down everything else you can do old fashionedly.
I said you need to find one.
The bane of you as an indefinite pronoun. You said the creator must find a solution to overpopulation prior to releasing immortality.
Needing to find one means that immortality could, under your logic, never be found, out of the fear that the population cannot contain itself and some other nebulous bad thing will happen involving overpopulation. You could never be certain of a "solution" working without releasing the immortality so that basically means it'll never be released, alternatively the "solution" takes millennia to discover and the counterfactual was say 90% of the current population die if immortality was released. Congratulations you've traded 30000 billion human lives for 6.3 billion.
I believe it will ultimately be worse for humanity on the whole.
I have no idea on what basis you're making this value judgement so I cannot comment on it.
And I'm not really a fan of just hoping for the best and figuring it out later. By that logic, I suppose I'm sentencing myself to death as well. Oh well.
This is a very unexpected view from /r/rationality home of death defeatists.
Any logic which values an indeterminate amount of potential possible deaths over billions of guaranteed is not something that seems reasonable to me.
u/Kishoto [+1] (a day later)
Big ones are carbon dioxide to oxygen, water, and recycling human waste into plant digestible (which we can do)
In regards to recyling human waste, that's simply incorrect. We can't do this in anything even remotely resembling a sufficient manner. You use most of the parts of your food that you can process once you eat it.
Eggs + sperm is equivalent to reversible sterilization.
It isn't. It really isn't. Your body (barring some disease or trauma) will continue to produce gametes for however long you're young enough to do so. Especially in males. By saving your sperm/eggs and being sterilized, you're putting your future progeny's existence in a cooler. You're trusting that, for your immortal future, the company handling your frozen gametes will never fuck up. As opposed to relying on your body, which is much more reliable. Especially if you don't age.
You could never be certain of a "solution" working without releasing the immortality so that basically means it'll never be released
Better to have SOME idea of what you're doing than to rush ahead with no plan. Of course you'll never be 100% certain. Doesn't mean you don't try and plan. That's the whole point of being rational.
u/Transfuturist [+4] Carthago delenda est. (2 hours later)
the rich people in In Time, that Justin Timberlake movie where time is currency
Same thought. But someone seems to be downvoting people who point the potential disparity out, without actually saying anything.
another downvote
u/TheWaler [+1] (2 hours later)
Over population seems to be one of the most burning topic almost everywhere, so I guess it's a pretty much must-have.
Second point is VERY interesting. Thanks.
u/boomfarmer [+5] Trying to be helpful (10 hours later)
If you haven't yet, immediately read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. The aging problems start in Red Mars and only get worse in Green Mars and Blue Mars. This is a world where people there's an effective anti-aging treatment, but it's not perfect, and can't solve all problems.
Some issues addressed in the book:
- Mourning people who die young, though accidents or disease
- Children who watch adults die 'early', when they had been told that people could live forever.
- People whose bodies longer than their brains can continue functioning, and people who are living through this process, realizing that it is happening to them.
- People who refuse to get the anti-aging treatment.
- Socioeconomic and political effects of having an ever-increasing population, many of whom might not be able to find jobs because the experienced workers aren't retiring.
- People coming out of retirement to work.
- People deciding not to have kids.
- Resource production and distribution, especially as regards food and shelter.
- Class warfare, if the thing that defeats aging is not widely available.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (22 hours later)
I very much enjoyed Red Mars, kinda enjoyed Green Mars and got bored by Blue Mars.
u/xamueljones [+3] My arch-enemy is entropy (9 hours later)
Don't forget to include how the major religions would try to adapt to mortals gaining immortality as well as people handling the revelation of a cure for ageing on a personal level especially among the poor who have very low QALYs and wouldn't necessarily have a life they want to keep living.
This would be a great place to finally talk about Eliezer's Fun Theory sequence.
u/nicholaslaux [+2] (10 hours later)
One thing you may or may not want to consider - your url, viewed out of context, may read as "defeat ingger as" which is not necessarily the best first impression. (I verified with another friend who initially had the same reaction)
Possibly hyphenated if you didn't want to change the name.
u/Izeinwinter [+1] (a day later)
Social -political implications, in particular inequality and social stasis - if the result is that the rich get richer forever, and that the relatively young form a permanent underclass, that would, to put it mildly, be socially destabilizing.
There have been various more- or-less hilarious proposed solutions to this. Periodic jubilees where all debt and all wealth are reset to zero. Every 50th birthday is an individual version of the same thing.
Less drastically, there are ideas like just having asset taxes that on the margin work out to absolute wealth caps - a world with multi-millionaires, but no billionaires, in effect. ¨
Forcible career changes on a 40 year rota - This might actually turn out to be pretty important just to keep people from ossifying.
overpopulation is actually a mild problem compared to this, because, well frankly, we are pretty good at building food production capacity. But if you get into a situation where most of the population thinks they're going to be servants to the plutocracy for all eternity, the world is going to burn.
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (a day later)
we are pretty good at building food production capacity
Not at distributing it to where it's needed. And immortality doesn't imply post-scarcity.
u/Izeinwinter [+1] (2 days later)
Point the first: Most cases of hunger after the green revolution have been caused by wars disrupting the production and supply chains, either intentionally or just because of everyone involved running away from the fighting.
More generally : Population changes very slowly - the economic effects, both the direct and the anticipatory ones happen immediately. Thus they are more important.
The first, and most important one is that the dependency ratio will fall through the floor. That alone necessitates reorganizing the entire economy right darn now. No pensioners!
u/notmy2ndopinion [+1] Concent of Saunt Edhar (3 days later)
My initial reaction was a smirk and a shake of the head. "We'lol never get there!"
Next, I realized that THIS REACTION could easily be said about a number of things we now take for granted.
We send invisible messages to each other through the air.
We fly in airplanes around the world.
We sent a man to the moon. It was in the context of a Cold War space race to demonstrate technological superiority.
These feats required an immense infrastructure, the right combination of economic and cultural values and I'm sure there are other common themes.
Pick a historical context for disease and death and research the reactions of the conservatives and progressives of the time to see what issues came up. (A big task -- one that I'm working on for my own Rational story on "Medics and Magics")