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Username comments on Effects of Castration on the Life Expectancy of Contemporary Men - Less Wrong
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Comments (48)
Stupid question: if you think that huge improvements in medicine and radical life extension are just around the corner, should you castrate yourself or your children to increase your chances to survive up to that point in order to uncastrate yourself later with the help of new improved medicine? Potentially high rewards strategy, even if it's very risky.
I don't think now is the window when that's relevant, because you would have to put the takeoff decade at ~2080. If it's later, then castration isn't enough to get you there, and if it's earlier, castration slightly increases your chances of getting there but doesn't shift the median outcome much.
If you put the takeoff decade at, say, 2050 (which seems closer to 'right around the corner' to me), then the time to have been castrated would have been ~1980-1990.
(I'm assuming we're talking about castrating 10 year olds; I doubt it's worth it for anyone older.)
And LessWrong jumps the shark.
I am pretty sure this will land you in jail which will reduce your life expectancy quite dramatically.
So, there's growing acceptance of using drugs to prevent puberty in prepubescents who are transgender, because it makes it easier to transition later. It seems likely one could piggyback on that and get a son up to 18 without going through puberty, at which point they should be able to legally approve of their castration.
If the son is not transgender, I would be willing to stick an "abuse" label onto that. This is taking a (presumably) normal human being and fucking him up in a pretty major way.
I'm assuming that this is done with their understanding and consent, to the extent that is possible. (I don't think it's advisable, for a handful of reasons, but I think legal difficulties are a minor impediment at best.)
I don't think the possible extent is sufficient.
The original case to which I replied involved a straightforward castration, not delaying puberty. The "legal difficulties" might be a minor impediment, but are likely to have major consequences.
I agree, even though I'm effectively punishing my past self in doing so.
I would like there to be a mechanism for making this possible, but it just seems too dangerous; even the idea of delaying puberty until the age of consent doesn't work, because apparently this path can have permanent side-effects as well.
Possibly TMI:
I don't consider myself transgender, but I have been wishing this had been done to me pretty much since I was 12.
The main thing I learned from this article is that everything I thought I knew about castration holds up under Lesswrongian analysis, including the part where I completely missed the opportunity and would probably be more likely to die early were I castrated now. There would still be some advantages, but it seems too late to be worth it.
You did specify "presumably normal", though. Presumably, I am far from normal.