I think you make some good points, but I also think it's useful that this article was published. It's important to get the idea out there that human lifespan can be extended, so more funding can be directed to that.

But it's already known and is being actively researched? E.g. low-calorie, high-nutrient diet has been demonstrated to improve life span in several species including (non-human) primates, and that was all done already before 2000. Today's almost 2022.

But ideas in junk journals don’t ‘help’ that idea, and it isn’t a novel idea in the first place, there are literally senescence institutes studying this problem

A future where we are approaching 75% of Americans being obese suffering from related health ailments and where the ultra-wealthy are living for millennia. Seems more reasonable every day.

That's like saying that it's useful for alchemists to publish articles so that more funding can be directed to transmuting lead into gold. This is just pseudoscience woo.

> It's important to get the idea out there that human lifespan can be extended, so more funding can be directed to that.

The jump from "could" to "should" seems questionable at best. What's so great about the rich elite living to be 200 years old? Would you like a bunch of people from the 19th century still around, influencing politicians with their money today? It would slow down the rate of social progress. It would also increase wealth inequality, since money hoarded by one generation tends to be squandered by the subsequent. There's also an argument to be made that science advances one funeral at a time; keeping people around loong after their expiration date would likely slow down the rate of scientific progress as well.

Sounds like we should aim to reduce lifespan, then?

Or just leave it the fuck alone?

No, what you’ve listed are all reasons for shorter lifespans.

There are other reasons for longer lifespans, but you’re implicitly saying all of them combined are not enough to counter the reasons you give.

Now, I’m not certain either way about the broader social impacts — I personally very much want to live longer, and yet I am also aware that my personal interests are not always aligned with group interests, e.g. tragedy of commons, Nash equilibrium, prisoners’ dilemma — but it is extremely unlikely that any negative consequences are perfectly balanced to positives either personally or collectively, so I am absolutely certain that the one thing we should not do is leave lifespan as is.

If you want to take my arguments as extolling murder, that's on you buddy. I'm arguing for nonintervention, based on the precautionary principle. This technology has substantial potential for social harm and should not be pursued until all of those concerns are addressed.

> I'm arguing for nonintervention, based on the precautionary principle.

That’s fine, but not what you wrote before.

> This technology has substantial potential for social harm

Yup, like everything.

> and should not be pursued until all of those concerns are addressed.

Nope.

Because death itself has direct harm — indeed, it is widely regarded as the either the worst or among the worst things one person can do to another — the burden of proof is on those who say it would be bad to delay death as much as possible.

I mean, we already delay death as much as possible with all kinds of medical interventions.

> What's so great about the rich elite living to be 200 years old? Would you like a bunch of people from the 19th century still around, influencing politicians with their money today?

You just described "Vampire: The Masquerade"

Which animals? Octopus have a glitch where their digestive tract shuts upon reaching sexual maturity, so they starve to death yet keep passing that gene on, just a few years into their lifespan. F for Failure (At least we dont have to compete on this planet with older smarter octopi)

Are you sure it's a glitch?

Humans are useful to one another past childbearing age because we're social animals: caring for grandchildren helps them survive. Octopods, otoh, are notoriously solitary animals. Once they're done reproducing, surviving adults would mainly be in competition with the young.

All natural selection is a glitch and pure happenstance with no meaning, only retroactively applied to have a purpose.

Octopus may well have genes to make them more social as they get older, but at 3 years old it hasn't developed.

>Not to sound too irrationally angry but this is as foundationless as a floating city.

Laputa was a wonder of the world!

While we're on the subject, floating cloud cities are a potential method of colonizing Venus (the dense atmosphere means buoyancy is more powerful). Brings a new meaning to "on the cloud".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus

Just showed this to our kids, then they drew robots the next day on their own accord. Was beautiful to see!