We can't ban life extension to prevent overpopulation. Here's why. (Overpopulation ep. 5)
Channel: Lifespan News
Date: 2021-06-21

Throughout the past four episodes, we’ve discussed overpopulation in general, what effects life extension may have on the size of the human population, how population growth can be contained, and what science could do to allow us to support a larger population.

Still, if for the sake of argument we ended up being forced to choose between life extension or making more babies, what would be the ethical choice to make? Fewer births, or more deaths? In this final episode of X10's overpopulation series, we delve deep into that question.

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SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
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Varda Yoran’s article on the Huffington Post:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/coronavirus-age-disposable_uk_5ea98451c5b6123a17655d2e

The paper talking about the 1994 UN population conference is: 
Cohen, J. E. (1995). Population growth and earth's human carrying capacity. Science, 269(5222), 341-346.

Children mortality data is available on OWID here:
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality#child-mortality-is-an-everyday-tragedy-of-enormous-scale-that-rarely-makes-the-headlines

I also recommend reading this paper by Gregory Stock, titled The Pitfalls of Planning for Demographic Change. It's not strictly related to ethics, and I don't espouse all the views therein, but I still think the author hits the nail on the head when he says that preparing beforehand for specific consequences of life extension is harder than you might think. Unfortunately, it's paywalled, but if you have the chance to read it, I think it’s worth it.

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FOOTAGE, IMAGES, AND MUSIC CREDITS
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Stock pictures from Shutterstock
Stock footage from Videoblocks

Other pictures:

Child mortality chart from Our World in Data
(https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality#child-mortality-is-an-everyday-tragedy-of-enormous-scale-that-rarely-makes-the-headlines)

Photo of Varda Yoran: Ana de Orbegoso (from the Huffington Post)

Music: "Cold - Instrumental Version" by Anthony Lazaro. Artlist.io

"Impending Strings of the Macabre", by CadereSounds. Freesound.org

Thumbnail font: Cocogoose Pro Family by Zetafonts -http://www.zetafonts.com/collection/308
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#Ethics #Overpopulation #LifeExtension #Aging #Ageing