I think, actually, scientists should kinda look into that whole ‘death’ thing. Because, they seem to have focused on diseases… and I don’t give a #*=& about them. The guys go, “Hey, we fixed your arthritis!” “Am I still gonna die?” “Yeah.”
So that, I think, is the biggest problem. That’s why I can’t get behind politicians! They’re always like, “Our biggest problem today is unemployment!” and I’m like “What about getting old and sick and dying?”
Norm MacDonald, Me Doing Stand Up
(a few verbal tics were removed by me; the censorship was already present in the version I heard)
I’d vote this up, but I can’t shake the feeling that the author is setting up a false dichotomy. Living forever would be great, but living forever without arthritis would be even better. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t solve the easier problem first.
Sure there is. If you have two problems, one of which is substantially easier than the other, then you still might solve the harder problem first if 1) solving the easier problem won’t help you solve the harder problem and 2) the harder problem is substantially more pressing. In other words, you need to take into account the opportunity cost of diverting some of your resources to solving the easier problem.
In general this is true, but I believe that in this particular case the reasoning doesn’t apply. Solving problems like arthritis and cancer is essential for prolonging productive biological life.
Granted, such solutions would cease to be useful once mind uploading is implemented. However, IMO mind uploading is so difficult—and, therefore, so far in the future—that, if we did chose to focus exclusively on it, we’d lose too many utilons to biological ailments. For the same reason, prolonging productive biological life now is still quite useful, because it would allow researchers to live longer, thus speeding up the pace of research that will eventually lead to uploading.
Norm MacDonald, Me Doing Stand Up
(a few verbal tics were removed by me; the censorship was already present in the version I heard)
Sympathetic, but ultimately, we die OF diseases. And the years we do have are more or less valuable depending on their quality.
Physicians should maximize QALYs, and extending lifespan is only one way to do it.
The question is whether that’s a useful paradigm. Aubrey Gray argues that it isn’t.
I’d vote this up, but I can’t shake the feeling that the author is setting up a false dichotomy. Living forever would be great, but living forever without arthritis would be even better. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t solve the easier problem first.
Sure there is. If you have two problems, one of which is substantially easier than the other, then you still might solve the harder problem first if 1) solving the easier problem won’t help you solve the harder problem and 2) the harder problem is substantially more pressing. In other words, you need to take into account the opportunity cost of diverting some of your resources to solving the easier problem.
In general this is true, but I believe that in this particular case the reasoning doesn’t apply. Solving problems like arthritis and cancer is essential for prolonging productive biological life.
Granted, such solutions would cease to be useful once mind uploading is implemented. However, IMO mind uploading is so difficult—and, therefore, so far in the future—that, if we did chose to focus exclusively on it, we’d lose too many utilons to biological ailments. For the same reason, prolonging productive biological life now is still quite useful, because it would allow researchers to live longer, thus speeding up the pace of research that will eventually lead to uploading.
Using punctuation that is normally intended to match ({[]}), confused me. Use the !%#$ing other punctuation for that.
Edited.