We are rapidly approaching tipping points

[Nederland]

Hosted by the Maximum Life Foundation and sponsored by the Life Extension Foundation, also a non-profit organization dedicated to longevity research, the summit opened with futurist Ray Kurzweil, who explained, “We are very close to the tipping point in human longevity. We are about 15 years away from adding more than one year of longevity per year to remaining life expectancy.”

It consists of a group of researchers and entrepreneurs that have for years been collaborating on a scientific road-map to intervene in the human aging process and are disclosing their plan “to start saving up to 100,000 lives lost to aging every day, by 2029.”

http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=2010&tag=nl.e539

[orwell]

1. Great...

...greater life expectancy with a collapsing medical system.

[tinrobot]

7. Only for those who can afford the life extending treatments.

[ixion]

2. I hope they're able to get the cybernetic uplink ready soon

so I can upload the sum total of my consciousness to the web. :bounce:

[GliderGuider]

3. Some people apparently already have...

...and they only needed a dial-up connection to do it. I realized that years ago on usenet.

[Terry in Austin]

4. No doubt, it'll be the best longevity that money can buy

"The Future (tm)" -- that shiny product of 20th century heroic industrialism -- belongs to the rich. You can bet it'll be "pay to stay."

Ray Kurzweil, "futurist." You gotta hand it to him for building the brand. Brilliant guy in his day, though.

Now, where's my jet pack!?

[customerserviceguy]

6. Your jet pack

is available for a very high number of oatmeal boxtops! :rofl:

[pscot]

5. Ca ca ca ca ca catch the wave

If your life already consists of surfing the web in your pj's, the full transition to cyberspace should be seamless; as long as the power supply holds up.

[tinrobot]

8. So, death will not be a limitation when accumulating wealth.

Rich people had finite life spans like the rest of us. When that life is over, the accumulated wealth is cut up amongst the survivors, who distribute their money to their children, and so on, diluting the wealth back into society over a few generations.

So, in fifteen years, a rich person will simply continue to accumulate wealth ad-infinitum. I could easily see most of the capital on the planet in the hands of some very old people.

Even in middle-class lives, this could have a profound effect. Usually, people retire from careers and the younger people get to move up. If people never die, there won't be much room at the top.

[joshcryer]

9. Well, if people did live longer, then they'd be more worried about the mess they're creating now...

...I mean, you live to be 300, you know then that actions you take now that may affect you in 300 years should be avoided, if you don't want to have to deal with them then.

As it stands the policymakers are generally religious fanatics who believe Heaven is waiting for them at the end of the road and that whatever actions they take now will not affect them whatsoever.