The Speculist

I've been procrastinating myself about writing an analysis of that debate - there is just far too much there to do it justice in the time I've had to spare.

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme

What about: individuals with longer living parents and grandparents have a competitive edge due to the amounts of cultural data available and time for that to be transferred?

John:

Good point. Wisdom transfer time.

I can just see some poor family dying of thirst and hunger during a drought when Grandpa speaks up and says, "This same thing happened when I was a kid. My Dad led us on a five day march to the east where we camped out on a lake at the base of a mountain."

-Stephen.

The question seems to be "why do we want to live?" instead of "why do we eventually die?" since our ability to live longer is directly related to our ability and desire to keep ourselves alive. This may be due to natural selection, but what of the massive cultural influences on people's desire to live that have nothing to do with their natural inclinations. How else do you explain people willingly strapping bombs to their chests and walking into crowded bars. I think different cultures value life (and longevity of life)in so many different ways, that to say our lifespan is controlled by natural evolutionary levers is to stop short of the infinitely complex capacity of the human mind.

Hey, Blacknail

You wrote:

...our ability to live longer is directly related to our ability and desire to keep ourselves alive.

Good point. That desire has always been there for some. Think of the Chinese Emperors eating bugs and all kinds of other weird things trying to find the secret of longevity. Those guys knew that death sucks and were at least trying to find an alternative. Others have taken the Leon Kass approach of believing that there's something beautiful and poetic about the fact that life eventually comes to an end. Still others embrace their death gladly, believing that they're on their way to some higher level of existence.

Most people probably start out thinking like the Chinese emperors, but they adopt the Kass approach out of frustration and resignation. The people willing to strap bombs to their chest are a tiny freakazoid minority.

I think you hit the nail on the head: when you couple the desire to live longer with the ability to do so, we can expect to see major changes in attitude towards death. That is, a lot of people who currently embrace the "beauty" and "grandeur" of death will start to have second thoughts.

However, I doubt that any developments in life extension will slow down the suicidal fanatics.

Kamikaze is, I suppose, part of a grand selection process, removing from the gene pool those that think it's a good idea or are suceptible to its wiles. I guess I bring it up only as an example of cultural influences. However, I actually think these things are all around us, driving us to conclusions that don't make sense.

For example, if you take a look at corporate culture, there is the old guard vs new turks thing, a tension that companies either thrive on or whither from. Here is a culture that basically has no use for it's participants after a certain age (either physical or mental). The result is a population of workers realizing that their value to pass on their sage wisdom has even expired, since it's that very wisdom that is driving the company into the ground.

It can all be boiled down to natural selection again: corporate culture doesn't care what happens to you after you've stopped being useful. At times, it feels that there is very little to hold on to. Really, why go on? But we do.

And perhaps the reason to go on is because we hate being controlled or told what to do. And maybe my own cultural influences are burning through now, but I think we as humans just hate losing, we love freedom, and we will do anything to keep ourselves alive for it. It's only when we resign ourselves as victims and lack the control to do anything about it, that we welcome life's end.

Blacknail:

You've reminded me of an old joke:

A preacher asks his congregation for a show of hands from those who want to go to heaven. The preacher sees that everyone has a hand raised except Mr. Johnson.

"Mr. Johnson, don't you want to go to heaven?" he asks.

"Well yes, of course... I thought you were getting up a group to go today."

Those who argue against life extension from the Dr. Kass perspective sometimes ask something like "who really want to live to be 130?"

Answer: You will when you're 129 but feel 20.

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