When society includes widespread use of life extension technology, a few unhealthy trends could develop.
the idea of being “forced to live” will take on new meaning and different meaning for folks in a variety of circumstances, testing institutional standards and norms that align with commonly employed ethical heuristics. Testing of the applicability of those heuristics will result in numerous changes to informed and capable decision-making in ethical domains.
life-extension technology will become associated with longevity control, and that will include time and condition in which one passes away. At the moment, that is not a choice. In future, I expect society will legalize choice of life length (maybe through genetic manipulation of time of death), or some proxy for a genetically programmed death (for example, longevity termination technologies). I suspect that those technologies will be abused in a variety of contexts (for example, with unwilling users).
longevity technology will substitute for health treatment, that is, behaviors that encourage healthy longevity and preventive medical care will be replaced by health-reducing behaviors whose consequences are treated with frequent anti-aging treatments.
Frustration with inadequate resilience of physique against typical personal health-reducing behaviors will encourage additional technology explorations to allow health-reducing behaviors without physical consequences. The consequence of this relevant to me is the lack of development and exploration of ability to choose alternatives to health-reducing behaviors.
NOTE: Human experience, is typically defined by experience of ourselves at various biological stages of life. While we can shorten or extend various stages of life, and people typically want the biological health, maturity and looks of a 20-something for as long as possible, we actually do experience ourselves and our relationship with others in terms of our true ages.
Life extension and Longevity Control
When society includes widespread use of life extension technology, a few unhealthy trends could develop.
the idea of being “forced to live” will take on new meaning and different meaning for folks in a variety of circumstances, testing institutional standards and norms that align with commonly employed ethical heuristics. Testing of the applicability of those heuristics will result in numerous changes to informed and capable decision-making in ethical domains.
life-extension technology will become associated with longevity control, and that will include time and condition in which one passes away. At the moment, that is not a choice. In future, I expect society will legalize choice of life length (maybe through genetic manipulation of time of death), or some proxy for a genetically programmed death (for example, longevity termination technologies). I suspect that those technologies will be abused in a variety of contexts (for example, with unwilling users).
longevity technology will substitute for health treatment, that is, behaviors that encourage healthy longevity and preventive medical care will be replaced by health-reducing behaviors whose consequences are treated with frequent anti-aging treatments.
Frustration with inadequate resilience of physique against typical personal health-reducing behaviors will encourage additional technology explorations to allow health-reducing behaviors without physical consequences. The consequence of this relevant to me is the lack of development and exploration of ability to choose alternatives to health-reducing behaviors.
NOTE: Human experience, is typically defined by experience of ourselves at various biological stages of life. While we can shorten or extend various stages of life, and people typically want the biological health, maturity and looks of a 20-something for as long as possible, we actually do experience ourselves and our relationship with others in terms of our true ages.