This is the third post in my chain of reflections on immortality, where I will present counterarguments to existing objections or misconceptions about life extension. I recommend reading the first and the second part.
A: A more pressing question is: how do you endure your partner over the course of hundreds of years?
In reality, people can last together for quite a long time. The current world record for the length of a marriage is an astonishing ninety (!) years. [2] Who knows — perhaps there will be people whose love and devotion are so strong that they will endure across centuries?
Of course, that would be an exception. But why must we necessarily stick to the form of family that happens to be common today? A change in the form of family does not equal the destruction of family.
Just as nature contains many different forms of cohabitation and child-rearing, humans throughout history have gone through many family structures. There have existed, and still exist, polygyny, polyandry, clan-alliance marriages, exchange marriages, extended families, and communal or clan-based families. Everyone can choose what suits them, and civilization may yet arrive at a new form of family.
Even in our own time, people usually do not choose one partner for life. We are typically serially monogamous — we are with one person, but not until the end of time, only for some period. In 2020, more divorces than marriages were recorded in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the divorce rate in 2021 was over 41%. [3]
Love is a personal matter, and I think many people will conclude that it is not necessary to live with the same person for hundreds of years. Only for as long as you consider sufficient for love.
10. “This is unnatural!”
There is an interesting cognitive distortion known as an appeal to nature. Supposedly, if something does not exist in nature, then it is automatically bad, while whatever does exist in nature is automatically good.
Suppose someone tells you that you have AIDS (for the record, it can also be transmitted non-sexually). Would you seek treatment, or would you allow the disease to kill you?
Most likely your answer would be: yes, I would seek treatment.
But how can that be? AIDS is natural! Why are you fighting for life? Why do you want those extra decades you could live if treated under medical supervision? Being sick and suffering from disease is one of the most natural things imaginable, something deeply characteristic of our species. For almost all of our history, we died en masse from infections.
Ah, so it seems you do want to live after all. And do you know what “wanting to live” means? It means not wanting to die.
So let us fight death.
Smallpox, syphilis, cancer, sudden infant death syndrome — these are all very natural things.
And yet I strongly doubt that they are good. No, they are utterly terrible. And we should resist them, just as we should resist natural death.
And do you know what is synthetic, unnatural? Vaccines, medicine, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, computers, airplanes, cars, telephones... Washing your hands with soap, using shampoo — that too is rather unnatural. The list could go on for a long time.
What truly separates treatment for AIDS from treatment for aging is simply that, in our time, we do not yet have effective treatments for aging. And do you know why we do not have them? Because people keep saying: “Death is natural!”
Oh, and by the way — in nature, even without our unnatural interventions, there already exist non-aging species and species with biological immortality. The immortal jellyfish alone makes the point — the name says it all.
It is very important to understand clearly that the fact that death exists for the overwhelming majority of species has nothing to do with death being some basic law of the world or anything like that. No! Death arose through evolution, just like everything else in living matter. Aging also arose in the course of evolution. It is not a law of the universe, and it is not magic. It is not some insurmountable invisible rule established by a supernatural force for the sake of cosmic balance. Unfortunately, most people still unconsciously perceive death in exactly that way.
They are mistaken. Aging and death are solvable engineering problems.
And evolution is a “blind watchmaker.” It has no goal, it can make mistakes, and so on. It does not strive toward any ideal; it simply preserves the factors that, in a particular place and time, were useful for reproduction. That is all. Evolution should not be viewed as some genius architect whom foolish humans must not dare oppose.
Our entire civilization is a resistance to naturalness. Because our natural state is terrible and brings immense suffering. That is exactly why we keep developing and inventing things that make life easier and, sometimes, even a little happier.
11. “Let’s deal with climate first”
Someone might say: but there are more urgent problems! Let us first solve hunger, global warming, lack of drinking water, and so on...
But here is my claim: aging is the main and central humanitarian problem of all humanity. More than ~100,000 people die every day from causes related to aging. No other problem kills so many people.
Aging is the main factor that, year after year, increases for every living person the risk of disease, disability, and death.
If human beings did not age, they could live on average for about a thousand years.
I support the fight against climate change. But think about how our arguments to businessmen and politicians sound today: for example, “In the 2100s Miami will be underwater” is often heard as “something will happen when I am already long dead, so why should I care?”
Now imagine that every person still had at least a thousand years of life ahead of them. Then they would have to care about climate change, because it would inevitably affect them personally.
And the fact that there is a major problem X does not mean we must throw all our efforts at it and forget problem Y. The existence of cancer does not stop us from funding Alzheimer’s research.
The rational solution is for the effort devoted to solving a problem to be proportional to the size of that problem.
Aging, at least in terms of the number of victims, exceeds any other problem on Earth. If you are still young, try to imagine yourself in a frail, decaying body: in one eye you have cataracts or glaucoma (whichever you prefer), in the other eye both nearsightedness and farsightedness at once; your joints hurt, your back hurts, a hernia protrudes, and swallowing becomes increasingly difficult. This is an ordinary picture for many people who make it to 80–85 years old.
Let us at the very least fund research into aging, rejuvenation, and radical life extension in proportion to the amount of suffering (and/or economic damage) that these problems cause.
***
As always, if you notice any weak points in my argument or think it could be strengthened, I’d love to hear your comments. I’ll likely write at least one more post related to this FAQ, addressing the issue of overpopulation if humanity achieves immortality; and then, after getting your feedback, I’ll launch the website. It’s almost ready!
This is the third post in my chain of reflections on immortality, where I will present counterarguments to existing objections or misconceptions about life extension. I recommend reading the first and the second part.
***
Q9: Time Enough for Love (?) [1]
A: A more pressing question is: how do you endure your partner over the course of hundreds of years?
In reality, people can last together for quite a long time. The current world record for the length of a marriage is an astonishing ninety (!) years. [2] Who knows — perhaps there will be people whose love and devotion are so strong that they will endure across centuries?
Of course, that would be an exception. But why must we necessarily stick to the form of family that happens to be common today? A change in the form of family does not equal the destruction of family.
Just as nature contains many different forms of cohabitation and child-rearing, humans throughout history have gone through many family structures. There have existed, and still exist, polygyny, polyandry, clan-alliance marriages, exchange marriages, extended families, and communal or clan-based families. Everyone can choose what suits them, and civilization may yet arrive at a new form of family.
Even in our own time, people usually do not choose one partner for life. We are typically serially monogamous — we are with one person, but not until the end of time, only for some period. In 2020, more divorces than marriages were recorded in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the divorce rate in 2021 was over 41%. [3]
Love is a personal matter, and I think many people will conclude that it is not necessary to live with the same person for hundreds of years. Only for as long as you consider sufficient for love.
10. “This is unnatural!”
There is an interesting cognitive distortion known as an appeal to nature. Supposedly, if something does not exist in nature, then it is automatically bad, while whatever does exist in nature is automatically good.
Suppose someone tells you that you have AIDS (for the record, it can also be transmitted non-sexually). Would you seek treatment, or would you allow the disease to kill you?
Most likely your answer would be: yes, I would seek treatment.
But how can that be? AIDS is natural! Why are you fighting for life? Why do you want those extra decades you could live if treated under medical supervision? Being sick and suffering from disease is one of the most natural things imaginable, something deeply characteristic of our species. For almost all of our history, we died en masse from infections.
Ah, so it seems you do want to live after all. And do you know what “wanting to live” means? It means not wanting to die.
So let us fight death.
Smallpox, syphilis, cancer, sudden infant death syndrome — these are all very natural things.
And yet I strongly doubt that they are good. No, they are utterly terrible. And we should resist them, just as we should resist natural death.
And do you know what is synthetic, unnatural? Vaccines, medicine, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, computers, airplanes, cars, telephones... Washing your hands with soap, using shampoo — that too is rather unnatural. The list could go on for a long time.
What truly separates treatment for AIDS from treatment for aging is simply that, in our time, we do not yet have effective treatments for aging. And do you know why we do not have them? Because people keep saying: “Death is natural!”
Oh, and by the way — in nature, even without our unnatural interventions, there already exist non-aging species and species with biological immortality. The immortal jellyfish alone makes the point — the name says it all.
It is very important to understand clearly that the fact that death exists for the overwhelming majority of species has nothing to do with death being some basic law of the world or anything like that. No! Death arose through evolution, just like everything else in living matter. Aging also arose in the course of evolution. It is not a law of the universe, and it is not magic. It is not some insurmountable invisible rule established by a supernatural force for the sake of cosmic balance. Unfortunately, most people still unconsciously perceive death in exactly that way.
They are mistaken. Aging and death are solvable engineering problems.
And evolution is a “blind watchmaker.” It has no goal, it can make mistakes, and so on. It does not strive toward any ideal; it simply preserves the factors that, in a particular place and time, were useful for reproduction. That is all. Evolution should not be viewed as some genius architect whom foolish humans must not dare oppose.
Our entire civilization is a resistance to naturalness. Because our natural state is terrible and brings immense suffering. That is exactly why we keep developing and inventing things that make life easier and, sometimes, even a little happier.
11. “Let’s deal with climate first”
Someone might say: but there are more urgent problems! Let us first solve hunger, global warming, lack of drinking water, and so on...
But here is my claim: aging is the main and central humanitarian problem of all humanity. More than ~100,000 people die every day from causes related to aging. No other problem kills so many people.
Aging is the main factor that, year after year, increases for every living person the risk of disease, disability, and death.
If human beings did not age, they could live on average for about a thousand years.
I support the fight against climate change. But think about how our arguments to businessmen and politicians sound today: for example, “In the 2100s Miami will be underwater” is often heard as “something will happen when I am already long dead, so why should I care?”
Now imagine that every person still had at least a thousand years of life ahead of them. Then they would have to care about climate change, because it would inevitably affect them personally.
And the fact that there is a major problem X does not mean we must throw all our efforts at it and forget problem Y. The existence of cancer does not stop us from funding Alzheimer’s research.
The rational solution is for the effort devoted to solving a problem to be proportional to the size of that problem.
Aging, at least in terms of the number of victims, exceeds any other problem on Earth. If you are still young, try to imagine yourself in a frail, decaying body: in one eye you have cataracts or glaucoma (whichever you prefer), in the other eye both nearsightedness and farsightedness at once; your joints hurt, your back hurts, a hernia protrudes, and swallowing becomes increasingly difficult. This is an ordinary picture for many people who make it to 80–85 years old.
Let us at the very least fund research into aging, rejuvenation, and radical life extension in proportion to the amount of suffering (and/or economic damage) that these problems cause.
***
As always, if you notice any weak points in my argument or think it could be strengthened, I’d love to hear your comments. I’ll likely write at least one more post related to this FAQ, addressing the issue of overpopulation if humanity achieves immortality; and then, after getting your feedback, I’ll launch the website. It’s almost ready!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long_marriages
https://ourworldindata.org/marriages-and-divorces