Kawoomba comments on Open Thread, May 11 - May 17, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I have a feeling a lot of discussions of life extension suffer from being conditioned on the implicit set point of what's normal now.
Let's imagine that humans are actually replicants and their lifespan runs out in their 40s. That lifespan has a "control dial" and you can turn it to extend the human average life expectancy into the 80s. Would all your arguments apply and construct a case against meddling with that control dial?
That's a good argument if you were to construct the world from first principles. You wouldn't get the current world order, certainly. But just as arguments against, say, nation-states, or multi-national corporations, or what have you, do little do dissuade believers, the same applies to let-the-natural-order-of-things-proceed advocates. Inertia is what it's all about. The normative power of the present state, if you will. Never mind that "natural" includes antibiotics, but not gene modification.
This may seem self-evident, but what I'm pointing out is that by saying "consider this world: would you still think the same way in that world?" you'd be skipping the actual step of difficulty: overcoming said inertia, leaving the cozy home of our local minimum.
That's fine as long as you understand it and are not deluding yourself with a collection of reasons why this cozy local minimum is actually the best ever.
The considerable power wielded by inertia should be explicit.