Lol, the person claiming that life extension tech will be made
cheaply available to everyone because clearly there’s a financial
incentive. tfw non-US healthcare.
LOL at the pearl-clutching. I wouldn’t want to ban life-extension
technology either–more like tax the billionaires into non-existence, so
either no one can use it or everyone can–but Krugman’s logic is pretty
basic and unsurprising. Yet it gets this kind of shocked response. I’m
sure there’s a rationalist defense of the Abrasax clan’s harvesting of
planets to make their RegeneX in Jupiter Ascending somewhere.
>You can't say its bad to let business leaders grow very old BOTH because they'll entrench predatory oligopolies, AND because older folks have less dynamism & innovation. Less dynamic leaders should do WORSE at preserving & entrenching oligopolies, relative to younger leaders.
Ah, "should."
I don't understand Robin Hanson. I read his attempt at future forecasting in the "Age of Em" and he's definitely describing a horrible dystopia. But, he doesn't say much about how it would be a bad scenario or maybe make some recommendation for avoiding it. It's a nihilistic read, is what I'm saying.
The top responses to Krugman’s tweet itself are golden too
This is the most short-sighted, unethical, & inhumane thing
Krugman had ever written. If the rich don’t subsidize regenerative
medicine first, none of us will get regenerative medicine. Ever. You’re
advocating for a death sentence on every living person.
>Imagine hating a group of people (tech billionaires) so much, you’re
willing to sentence billions to an avoidable death just to spite
them.
They sound really invested in something that doesn’t exist. If I said that the government should ban the Philosopher’s Stone, would that also make me guilty of murdering the billions of people who won’t become immortal using its power??
> Imagine hating a group of people (tech billionaires) so much, you’re willing to sentence billions to an avoidable death just to spite them.
I don't have to imagine it at all!
When you put it like that, you do sound monstrous. Even if there was a 5% chance of investment in life-extension leading to practical immortality, in my moral opinion, it would be worth investing in that at that opportunity cost. And I'm speaking as someone who hates billionares as well and believes in the abolishment of wealth. If we are to implement the leftist vision of our future as a species as I think we both want, with an elimination of unfair power structures, I also happen to believe in some of the rationalist positions on death. Death is the biggest capitalist structure in a way. So at least, I understand what you mean when you make such a comment, but I feel very uneasy about it.
I feel like it's kind of obvious. Saying capitalism is the biggest capitalist structure literally makes no sense. It's like what I said in my example above.
No, not obvious. I realised what you were getting at with your example about 10 minutes later while I was in the car and you're wrong. "Illness" is satisfied by the totality of illnesses: plague, the common cold, hayfever, headaches, and HIV etc.
"Capitalism" is satisfied by the structuration of an economic system capitalismwise.
"Death" on the other hand - though this is somewhat incidental - is conceptually and historically prior to both: death can occur in the absence of illness, death can occur in the absence of capitalism.
"Illness", being satisfied by its requisite taxonomical components, is distinct in form from "capitalism" which is a particular economic structure.
It's enough to say that death is obviously not a capitalist structure (I'm sure that sounded clever in your head, but it wasn't), but even death as a capitalist structure can't be bigger than capitalism:
Death under capitalism is the totality of deaths which take place under or due to capitalism;
Capitalism is the structure of the economy which organises events under capitalism;
Deaths are only one subset of events which happen under capitalism.
Blah blah blah: come on, and besides your opinions about death as if it were just "an avoidable evil" or whatever are wrongheaded and silly, especially if you think arbitrarily large life extensions are somehow going to solve things like inequality.
I was being sort of cheeky when I said my comment, but I stand by it. Let's say institutionalized racism is a form of capitalist structure, or croynism or the existence of landlords. That's what I mean by "structure". Capitalism is a structure, but you would call it's subcomponents structures of that (I.e. what I mean by capitalist structure). Therefore, I'm simply putting forward a synthesis of certain LessWrongian beliefs I hold and socialism, I share their value in the inherent need to end death, which is commodified in a disgusting way via capitalism. I hope I made my point more clear.
this policy recommendation is hard to imagine in the absence of a
remarkably deep and single-minded HATE. In this case of tech
billionaires. What other publicly-voiced hates even come close to this
severity? And in the NYT no less!
No, not the NYT too! Is this a parody account or just trickledown
economics in action?
You can’t say its bad to let business leaders grow very old BOTH
because they’ll entrench predatory oligopolies, AND because older folks
have less dynamism & innovation. Less dynamic leaders should do
WORSE at preserving & entrenching oligopolies, relative to younger
leaders.
Yes, this policy recommendation is hard to imagine in the absence of
a remarkably deep and single-minded HATE. In this case of tech
billionaires. What other publicly-voiced hates even come close to this
severity? And in the NYT no less!
Lol, the person claiming that life extension tech will be made cheaply available to everyone because clearly there’s a financial incentive. tfw non-US healthcare.
LOL at the pearl-clutching. I wouldn’t want to ban life-extension technology either–more like tax the billionaires into non-existence, so either no one can use it or everyone can–but Krugman’s logic is pretty basic and unsurprising. Yet it gets this kind of shocked response. I’m sure there’s a rationalist defense of the Abrasax clan’s harvesting of planets to make their RegeneX in Jupiter Ascending somewhere.
Yeah this is pretty shortsighted, after all tech billionares are pretty famous for giving away technology to the public with no strings attached.
There goes Robin Hanson, forever straddling the line between sexual predator and toddler.
The top responses to Krugman’s tweet itself are golden too
hot take about life extension technology: compare life expectancies for the bottom and top quintile of wealth. It’s grim.
No, not the NYT too! Is this a parody account or just trickledown economics in action?
This guy is fucking dumb.
When you take Marx’s metaphor of Capitalists as Vampires too literally.
So, facts care about my feelings?
Yes, this policy recommendation is hard to imagine in the absence of a remarkably deep and single-minded HATE. In this case of tech billionaires. What other publicly-voiced hates even come close to this severity? And in the NYT no less!