From: john grigg (starman125@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Feb 28 2000 - 16:43:51 MST
Spike wrote:
Wait, now I further realize that this point may have already been achieved
for those who are under 10 yrs now, and that life extension techniques will
likely be less effective for those already aged. This has surely already
been hashed out, I just missed it somehow.
(end)
In the issue of "Wired" with the "future gets to be fun again" theme they
had a chart on this entitled, "Immortality Reality Check", though it was
ridiculed by some list members. I do agree with the general idea of it that
those born another twenty years down the line will undoubtedly as a
generation make it to the finish line of emortality. I have my doubts about
those currently alive being so fortunate. I would like to be proven wrong
on this.
In reply Robert wrote:
Yep. I'd bet its been reached for most people under 30. Its those of us in
our 40's who are on the edge while those in their 50's and up have to look
at cryonics or accelerating the singularity onset.
(end)
Well, it looks like the old fogies on the list better donate money when Saul
Kent has Charles Platt down the road lead the effort to raise money for
research into improved techniques for brain suspension. Time's a wastin'!
Or else donate money to Eliezer's infant Singularity Institute so he can
bring on the singularity earlier. But I perceive his rush toward the
singularity as risking a T2 scenario and so I will go for cryonics! :)
Robert wrote:
It only matters to someone 120+ now, whether or not we will have
thetechnology to hit 150 in 20-30 years.>
(end)
Wow!! So, if we are still around in decent health thirty years from now we
will have crossed the emortality finish line?? Please give much more
information. I would say a genegineered ten-year old in 2030 would be
positioned to make it for more then a young teen today(sorry Neal and
Ziana!).
Spike wrote:
Now then, we can reach this point and still not be immortal, because even if
our risk of death is going down with time,it is nonzero, so we are still
accumulating risk. I know not this topic, but I am confident this has
already been thought out and thoroughly documented. But where?
(end)
There was a cryonicist (I cannot remember who) that used life insurance
statistics to show that even if you were emortal, you would eventually be
killed by some physical trauma(accident of some kind more likely then
murder) before your fifteen hundredth birthday!! That still is a long time
to live!
And of course in a society of immortals, you would most likely have
everything from transportation to food made safer to improve those odds.
This would be good as long as we don't wind up utterly obsessed about it
like the alien race in "Ringworld" known as the puppeteers.
Anyway, I hope the "Immortality Reality Check" section that was in "Wired"
ends up being wrong. Perhaps breakthroughs will come quickly enough that we
will beat the odds. Considering all the argument over cryonics, I hope so.
best wishes,
John Grigg
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