And at any rate, as noted above, we’ve basically done the experiment. Life, and health, has been extended by about 20 years, and people seem happy with it. And judging by the ads for life-enhancing pharmaceuticals like Viagra and Cialis, they’re eager to stay, um, active in their later years. It’s possible that there’s a point of diminishing returns for longer lifespans somewhere out there, but there’s not much reason to think that we’re anywhere near that part of the curve yet.
If we’re left to doing what people want, I expect technology for lengthening people’s life- and health spans (and especially the latter) to sell, and be sold, quite vigorously. But of course, the experience of the last few years suggests that politically motivated “public health” and social engineering regulations might squash it. What the people want is, with increasing frequency, precisely the thing that our governing class wishes to deny them.
Live long, and prosper. If they will let you.
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