Attitudes to life extension via genetic engineering

[Joseph Norton]

On Thu, 2 Mar 1995, Peter Merel wrote:
> okx at extro (Philip Rhoades) writes:
> >pete at extro (Peter Merel) writes:
> 
> I think that it is unfair to suggest that greed and fear dominate all human
> activities, but I grant that they are very popular motivations and won't go
> away soon. However they are not incommensurable with peace and riches.
how about 99%?  and perhaps he didn't mean you (individually) but  
 'them' (culture/society)

> When houses can be built from the equivalent of Jack's magic beans, when
> food can be constructed out of thin air, when living space, clean water,
> medicine and plentiful energy are available in abundance, the only real 
> poor will be the politically disenfranchised.
sort of like now, huh?  i personally think it rather naive to think that 
the myth of scarcity is anything but a myth.
i think that there is certainly enough for everyone (at least everyone 
extant now) if we could wrest most of it away from the 'richest' 1 percent 
or so.


> >The third path is: reduction of world population (in the developed world 
...
> ethical way to do it, I think, is to modify human fertility. Not to
...
> one would be fertile until the age of 30, and so that no one would be
> fertile after the age of 40. 
back on topic  ..aging   remember?
i like this idea of inhibiting fertility until, say , 30 (but not the top 
limit)  for a couple of generations, and then raising the age to 40 for  
a few more, then 50, then 60  and on    to select for long and virile 
lives   wouldn't we eventually be a race of humans who live to be in 
their multiple-hundreds?

>Of course the real problem with this is 
> not how to engineer it, but how to introduce it without getting lynched
> by religious fundamentalists ...
simple: we stop electing them to congress/office.
> 
> >...pessimistic about our ability to survive on the planet for to 
> >much longer). 
> Why?
c'mon   don't be obtuse   we can only foul our nest for so long.


> Look at the information economy that exists now, and imagine what the world
> will be like when the material economy takes the same form.
what do you mean, exactly?

>...but it can solve any problem that is based on
> resource scarcity - which is one hell of a lot of problems, imho.
ahhh that myth again    are you sure YOU'RE not a fundamentalist?
> Internet:pete at extro.su.oz.au           |         Accept Everything.   |
> http://www.usyd.edu.au/~pete           |         Reject Nothing.      |
ohh   that helps     btw  i have some land in florida.....