Death (By Degenerative Aging) and Taxes
Death and taxes, the age-old twosome. There are certain similarities between attitudes and possible approaches to the two; death by degenerative aging on the one hand and government theft backed by threat of force on the other.
The first similarity of note lies in behaviors of learned helplessness and rationalization of the unpleasant when faced with aging and taxation. Sure, people worm around and try to make their position as least uncomfortable as possible - but the majority are doing so within the rules laid down, within the firm belief that death by aging (and the resulting suffering) and taxation (and the resultant waste) are both set in stone.
The second item of note is that by banding together we can dramatically change or remove both death by aging (through the advance of biotechnology) and taxation (through changing our society). The only way the world changes is through human action, whether that action is the discovery of science or the changing of minds. Neither death by aging nor taxation is set in stone, but changing their solid present existence for everyone will first require sufficient ongoing education to change the expectations and level of understanding for most people - to change them from supporters of the status quo, no matter how bad, to supporters of a better future, and willing participants in bringing about that future.
On the one hand, we have the understanding of economics and expectations of government, and on the other hand we have the understanding of progress in biotechnology and the expectations of medical science. For most people, at this time, dearly-held beliefs and instinctive responses are widely divergent from reality:
These great tasks are very hard, but not impossible; distributed, co-operating groups of humans have attained equally challenging goals in the past. Societies and science can be made to change dramatically in half a lifetime. The development of a toolkit for the repair of age-related damage, and elimination of parasitic government and taxation, would lead to a society far less burdened by waste, both of lives and resources - a society in which growth, progress and individual lives are far greater than in the present time. That is well worth the tremendous, distributed, ongoing effort it will take to change minds and set people to working on a better tomorrow.
Technorati tags: activism, advocacy, libertarian, life extension