(This response is a little inflammatory, but what the heck. I'll deliver the points in the spirit of debate. It's a conversation, right?)

Like most health care advances, life extension technologies would not be available to poor populations, leaving most of the people in those populations with life expectancy rates similar to those of today.

Life extension would be another point of divisiveness: some people expect to live to 150 years, others expect to die at somewhere between 35 and 70.

From the Longevity entry at Wikipedia:

Health care and hygiene seem to influence life expectancy more than any other factor (from the CIA World Fact Book):

• First World: 77-81 years
• Second World: 65-77 years
• Third World: 35-60 years

Frankly, it is outrageous to argue for tools to allow us first-worlders to live to 150 when we know that many people alive today expect to die before their 50th birthday. We should focus our energies on that injustice, which is much more disturbing than the "epidemic" of death by natural causes that ends many lives in the first world.

It may be technically possible to modify the human body to sustain itself for 150 years, but that technology will not be available to poor people.

Since the technologies and life style that we currently enjoy allows for an average life expectancy of around 77, should we forsake all of it so that we won’t be any different than our third-world cousins? Should we start to deny the lastest treatments for cancer, diabetes, and heart disease and have all of our money forced to helping the third world? Should we also give up our food, housing and shelter and relatively free democracy to continue to force our life expectancies downward? And lets not forget infant mortality. Should we stop trying to help infants that can’t make it without the care of a doctor?

All of these factors are reasons why we live to average age of 77-80 in the first world. Those life expectancies you’re quoting from Wikipedia, are largely based on infant mortality, lack of hygiene and health care, lack of healthy food and stable governance.

If we were to not advocate longevity now, it would be morally equivalent to denying all these trends over the last 100 years that brought us life expectancies from 45 in 1900 to 80 today. Looking back, should we have sacrificed all the advances in health care, hygiene, food, drugs and other factors that have allowed us to live twice as long as those in the third world?

Answer me that Tom.

Neil, great points. It's why I commented, to get a better understanding of your assertion. Thanks.

The lowest common denominator argument - the fairness and equality argument - can be applied to anything. Does you object to all first world health care? After all, it isn't available to the poorest person.

The problem with not moving ahead until everyone has what we have now is that we will never move ahead. If you stop working on the future, then the poor will definitely never have that future. The poor always get technology last, but they do get it. Should we not have invested in developing heart surgery because it would initially only be available to the very wealthy? That's the same argument.

Lastly, this is a false choice. We can both move ahead and help the poor to find opportunities to advance. Additionally, the the only help the poor and third world need is for politicians to stand aside and stop engineering society - poverty is created through politics, rather than being a natural state.

http://www.reason.com/rb/rb091802.shtml

You don't make the poor rich by giving them resources. If this worked, then international aid organizations - that have poured untold wealth into the third world to no good end - would have succeeded in their goals. The poor get rich themselves by being permitted to make use of what they already have. Give opportunity, not money.

OB Topical Blog Promotion: http://www.fightaging.org

By the way, a much expanded article on this theme by myself and Devon can be found at the Longevity Meme:

http://www.longevitymeme.org/articles/viewarticle.cfm?article_id=16&page=1

I stopped reading this thread at "expect to die". I do not ever expect to die and furthermore, whoever does expect to die, regardless of age, is stupid. Period. And there is all this talk about donations, when I have a BS in Chemistry from UF (references available) and have been trying to find the cure to aging my whole life but have not yet been put in contact with anyone to work with! I'm broke and looking for a job (aging all the while) already 27 gonna be 28 and have years of experience in the lab. I've worked for Pfizer, the Univerisity of Arizona, and the University of Michigan. Now does anyone out there know anyone(preferably in North Carolina) where I can finally do science??? To ensure to readers that I'm serious, my current address is 305 west lee street at the weaver house in greensboro nc. the phone number is 336 271 5959. Surely someone reading this knows someone who knows someone who can put a guy with a chemsitry degree into a spot to do anti-aging research, right?

Dear Paul,

Your Blog prompted some preliminary thoughts on the Singluarity and Uploading in relation to Africa. You're welcome to have a look at: http://newciv.org/nl/newslog.php?did=147&vid=147&xmode=show_article&amode=standard&aoffset=0&artid=000147-000066&time=1078739183

Kim regards, Ashanti

Ich schreibe aus Deutschland und in deutescher Sprache. Aber der Aufruf: "be angry.."der macht mich an und hat wirklich was Aufforderndes. Und das gefällt mir sehr gut. Diesen Aufforderungen, etwas zu tun, kann ICH mich kaum entziehen. Deshalb gebe ich hier einen Kommentar ab (Man kann das ja schließlich übersetzen lassen - warum soll ich mich quälen?)

Ich weiß aber auch, dass es (leider) zu wenige AKTIVE Menschen gibt, die etwas tun, selbst wenn sie so etwas lesen. Schade, schade, schade!!! Aber wie Ihr sagt, wenig ist besser als nichts.

Ich habe die Seite"imminst.org" gelesen und sehe aktuell nach, was so diskutiert wird. Ich bin mit der Idee schon seit mehr als 10 Jahren vertraut, weil ich einen Freund habe, der damit so lange und länger lebt... (immortalitysystems.com).

Aktiv beteilige ich mich wenig - aber ich sehe, dass die Idee mehrUnterstützung braucht als gedankliche, positive Einstellung...

Ich arbeíte daran......

Hi Cornelia,

I agree with you that we need more positive attitudes all around. I think getting angry is a good starting point, but we should strive to integrate that anger into creative action that brings positive benefits to the world, rather than complaining about the problem. :-)

So should I stop brushing my teeth because the third world lacks toothbrushes? That may sound inane, but tooth infections, because they easily violate the interior exterior barrier of the humans body, often were and remain a cause of death.

The problem with fighting for "justice" is that it is infinitely regressive. Something is always going to be going wrong for someone somewhere. Longevity is an achievable goal, and I actually think one of the best ways to allieviate some of these chronic societal programs is for more people to start living longer, better lives. It quite simply takes some time to get you mind around these things. People don't respond to issues like global warming because the effect don't seem near term to them. If you expect to live centuries, you're going to take on problems that take centuries to fix. The selfish meme has its flaws, but it is one heck of a motivator.