I find it somewhat difficult to accept the idea that you would believe this text is an argument against the notion that anti-agapics is a field that is getting mainstream attention and has possible successful routes to that effect... especially since you yourself mentioned the most promising example from it. One that is in current research and has never been applied to people
Not my point. I'm not arguing that there isn't mainstream attention. My point is that there has been mainstream attention before now and that that hasn't gotten very far. So the outside view is something to the effect that every few decades scientists become much more interested in life-extension, it doesn't go very far, and then they go do other things.
Could you expand on what these premises are? I'd be interested in seeing this chain of logic stated explicitly.
1) That humans are material organisms.
2) That organisms follow the laws of biology.
3) That there is no supernatural force dictating human events.
Etc., etc.. That's really the only way I could see human lifespan extension becoming viable within fifty years, to the point that at least another fifty years' worth of lifespan extension would be available to persons in my then-state.
If all your premises are essentially timeless then one needs to ask if one would have expected this to happen in the past. If for example in 1950, 1900 or 1850, scientists decided to put in a maximal amount of effort into extending human lifespan, do you think they would be as likely to be successful as you think scientists now would be? Maybe you can make that argument for 1950, but I'd be surprised if you'd make that claim about 1900 or 1850. This means that your statement has to include at least one premise involving the level of current medical and scientific knowledge that didn't apply then.
Edited to add:
Caloric restriction and variations thereof seems in most species to increase the average lifespan but not increase the maximal lifespan.
Umm... I'm not familiar with that claim, and it contradicts evidence I have seen that indicates exactly the opposite.
Yeah, I seem to be wrong here. According to this survey for rodents there's more increase on the average than the maximal but there's a large increase in the maximal age as well.
My point is that there has been mainstream attention before now and that that hasn't gotten very far. So the outside view is something to the effect that every few decades scientists become much more interested in life-extension, it doesn't go very far, and then they go do other things.
That's not even remotely valid. The interest in actual, honest anti-agapic research ongoing now (and for the last five or six years which in terms of medical research is "now") has never before occurred. It is exactly a new thing.
It certainly has never had wid...
In a comment on his skeptical post about Ray Kurzweil, he writes,
I wonder how people on Less Wrong would respond to that poll?
Edit: (Tried to) fix formatting and typo in title.