Popular Arguments For and Against Longevity
Future Current posts another presentation transcript from last year's Securing the Longevity Dividend symposium: "I am speaking today about the most popular arguments for and against longevity. This is not going to be a discussion of the scientific arguments that are put forth - I will leave that to the biogerontologists and the specialists. These are the kind of arguments that do come out of academia and some of the political lobbies, but these are also the kind of arguments you hear from the person on the street that you bump into. If you mention this in casual conversation, you can almost assuredly expect these kinds of retorts and objections to these sorts of issue of life extension. ... One of the most common arguments that is put forth in opposition to life extension is the appeal to nature. I'm sure we are all familiar with this - the suggestion that what is natural is inherently good or right, and that what is unnatural is somehow bad or wrong. A number of critics make the claim that life extension is a violation of the natural order - that humanity is tampering with nature, which is inherently good." Critics are always willing to overlook any number of accepted unnatural portions of the modern human condition to strike at the one they don't like.