Posting Date: July 20, 2003

Why No One Lives Forever -- "We should not pursue life extension in and of itself. That, in my opinion, is a potential disaster. If all you're doing is extending life without improving the quality of life, the price we may pay is an increase in frailty and disability. We'd essentially be making ourselves older, longer. I can't think of anything worse."

Reader Comments...

Laughter probably helps some where along the line ...

Posted by: Daniel Szuc on July 20, 2003 10:33 AM

Quality not Quantity

Posted by: Mac on July 21, 2003 03:20 AM

Yeah, sure, let's ask you all again when you're on your death bed.

Posted by: Uncle Sodium on July 21, 2003 09:37 AM

Poppycock! You only say no one lives forever because you've lived less than 100 years and forever hasn't happened yet! How do you know how long our oldest people live? You don't!

Posted by: Methuselah on July 22, 2003 10:06 AM

There also seem to be lots of other potential negatives, including:

A larger aging base, which may require many younger workers to subsidize medical treatment and social security benefits
Less turnover, which may make it harder for younger people to find jobs (or perhaps the exact opposite, lots of older workers that nobody wants to hire)
Stagnation of ideas, with academics staying longer in posts and maintaining the old guard (wasn't it Thomas Kuhn that said that something to the effect that sometimes you have to wait for the older scientists to die off before some scientific revolutions happen?)

Posted by: AnObserver on July 22, 2003 01:01 PM

Yes, let's kill everyone at age 30. That's much simpler.

You people make me sick.

Posted by: Logan on July 23, 2003 10:19 AM

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