Politics as Usual and Engineered Longevity
Thoughts on engineered longevity are boxed into the standard, simplistic media viewpoint at Washington Examiner - everything is politics, and politics supposedly looks like this: "The right's reaction, I predict, will be to call for a moratorium on such innovations until we can determine whether life-extension therapies are 'playing God.' The playing God argument is, well, played out. If keeping people alive longer through conventional means isn't playing God, there is nothing categorically different about introducing breakthroughs that prevent age related illnesses to begin with. I dare say, people who believe in the sanctity of life will do well to consider the benefits of life-extending technologies for humanity. After all, as I suggest above, driving people into black markets is no way to enforce morality. And driving people into the grave because of some errant idea about God's plan doesn't do justice to what God's plan might actually be (i.e. that it may include life extension therapy). The left's reaction will be no less predictable. The left will say we should have a moratorium on the technology until we can figure out how to give everyone 'access' and quell Malthusian concerns about resource depletion and overpopulation (which will be unfounded). They will lament the gap between the poor short-livers and the rich long-livers. Then they'll try to cast life extension as a 'public health' good in order to socialize it, regulate it and ration it. This would be a grave mistake - one as serious as if we'd said people have a basic right to mobile devices. Socializing mobile technology would not only have retarded its development, but it would have limited its uptake. Almost everyone has a cellphone today, even though they didn't in 1990. Markets have meant better, faster and cheaper tech for the masses over time. It will be no different for life-extension therapies if they are left primarily to market forces."
Link: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/opinion-zone/2010/12/get-ready-fountain-youth-near