Radical Life Extension technology is worth pursuing.

Radical life extension is worth pursuing based on how extreme the personal benefits can be. I want to start by explaining how a modern version of Pascal's wager would look. http://plato.stanford.edu... . This modern version of Pascal's wager doesn't have a lot of the shortcomings it's predecessor does either. Wylted's wager 1. Either radical life extension is possible in our lifetime or it is not. 2. If radical life extension is possible and we pursue it we may be able to add an indefinite amount of years to our lifespans. 3. If it is possible and we don't pursue it, then we will die significantly sooner then neccesary. At about 80. http://data.worldbank.org... 4. If radical life extension is not possible and we pursue it then we will at least add several healthy years to our life through diet exercise and life style changes. http://www.ctvnews.ca... 5. If radical life extension is not possible and we don't pursue it then we gain nothing. As you can see the pursuit of radical life extension has several benefits that far outweigh negatives. Why should society as a whole decide that radical life extension is a worthy pursuit. Besides the potential upside of dramatically longer lifespans., there are the side benefits of an overall improvement in the healthcare due to the increased funding of medical research. There is also another benefit of the pursuit causing advances in technology that would have happened at a slower rate then if aggressive means of bringing them about being used. Availability of life extension technologies. We aren't talking about some magic pill here that some scientist will create to give people 100 extra years to live. What we're talking about is incremental improvements in medicine that when they come together give us radical life extension. A one percent improvement in a treatment here a half a percent there. It will be similar To the improvement between now and the year 1900 when most people didn't live past 50. http://demog.berkeley.edu... . This is a 30 year improvement that went pretty much unnoticed by anyone living in those times. This isn't the type of technology that can be hoarded by the rich. These type of healthcare improvements will be driven by your average joe paying for the new improved by 1% cancer drug that just came out. Just like the life extension technologies that have been implemented since the year 1900. What if the bad guys live longer? People tend to mellow out as they age? Testosterone levels lower. As a result of the lower testosterone people become less violent.http://www.sciencedirect.com... Also what if Einsten lived longer and contributed more to science? What if all geniuses lived longer.? With the reduced testosterone and the average person being older you can bet you would run into a higher percentage of non hostile people. Let's not forget manipulating the DNA of yet to be born children would probably be at least one factor in increasing hi an life span. If parents could control a child's DNA to lower the kids chance of getting diabetes they would ofcourse be on the look out for genes associated with personality types likely to commit crimes as well. The technology to help us live longer will also be used to lower crime rate. Would life extension mean living in a horrible state longer? This is why people should have the right to die whenever they want. I'm sure that life in this state would be extended due to improved treatment, but there is also a bunch of people in their 100s that do get around just fine. It's important that people take care of their health so they can die peacefully but there's no reason life extension couldn't mean being able to add a bunch of youthful years as well. It's a mixed bag but atleast if the technology is available we can have the freedom to take advantage of it or just shun it. What about an afterlife? No amount of radical life extension technology will make you invincible. Even with an indefinite lifespan the average person still won't live past 1,000 years. If your a religous person and you want to give up life in the carnal form to go meet your maker then you should have the freedom. With people living significantly longer you can bet people will make sure their government recognizes their right to die. Technology hoarders. Lets give another example as to why technology hoarding just isn't smart. The billionaires who have the means to develop and hoard this technology would be unwise to do so. In order to hoard the technology it means they would have to use a bunch of experimental medicine. If they don't release this stuff on the public so they can have some sort of widespread experiment to work out the kinks, then they are taking a huge risk. Not only do they not have time to work out the kinks in this technology but very few people would be qualified to work on the technology if they needed to. The billionaires need us as lab rats we will have to have access to this technology if they are to survive as well. What about overpopulation and the problems that come with it? Make no mistake overpopulation is an issue that needs to be tackled with or without life extension technology. I think it's wrong to reduce overpopulation by withholding technology that reduces the chance of getting age related diseases. It's funny how the people who are worried about overpopulation would rather take away my freedom to live past 80 then they are to lower the birth rate. Why favor the non existent or the yet to be existent over the currently existing population? Here is a few things you should take into account though. 1. The more industrialized a country becomes the lower the birth rate. http://www.forbes.com... 2. The more industrialized a country is the lower the pollution is. http://www.blacksmithinstitute.org... 3. Technology has increased food production. http://www.coloradoan.com... As you can see the overpopulation problem isn't going away with or without radical life extension. What will help is pushing as hard as we can to bring about more and more emerging technologies. Without emerging technologies we will likely have to deal with the overpopulation problem sooner and in much more ruthless ways. Emerging technologies will at the very least buy us some more time and if we can keep increasing the planet's standard of living we might be able to bring down the birth rates without limiting people's freedom to reproduce. A lot of people have kids because they know they are going to die soon. If radical life extension appears to be on the horizon, a lot of people who otherwise would have kids are now going to pass up the oppurtunity.