Longevitize! - Essays on the Science, Philosophy & Politics of Longevity

LONGEVITIZE!

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EDITED BY:FRANCO CORTESE

© 2013 Center for Transhumanity ISBN:978-0-9919824-2-4 Published by Center for Transhumanity

Cover: “Oak fractured by a lightning bolt. Allegory on wife's death.” (1842) by Maxim Vorobiev Cover Design by Wendy Stolyarov

This volume is dedicated to the 36.5 million people that will have died this year from age-correlated diseases that are in principle preventable and unnecessary.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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1. WON’T MINDCLONES ONLY BE FOR THE RICH AND FAMOUS? MARTINE ROTHBLATT,PH.D,MBA,J.D.

2. DESIGN AS BIOLOGY:MORE SUSTAINABLE CITIES FOR A GROWING POPULATION RACHEL ARMSTRONG,PH.D.

3. FUTURE OF URBAN FARMING:MORE FOOD FOR LONGER-LIVING PEOPLE FREIJA VAN DUIJNE,PH.D.

4. IF IMMORTALITY CREATES HORRIBLE OVERPOPULATION, WHAT NEW ZONES SHOULD WE COLONIZE?

IMMORTAL LIFE DEBATE FORUM

5. SUPERLONGEVITY WITHOUT OVERPOPULATION MAX MORE,PH.D

6. LONGEVITY LOGISTICS:WE CAN MANAGE THE EFFECTS OF OVERPOPULATION

FRANCO CORTESE

DAVID KEKICH

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8. IMMORTALISM:ERNEST BECKER AND ALAN HARRINGTON ON OVERCOMING BIOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS

JASON SILVA

9. REFUTING THE “INDEFINITE LONGEVITY WILL SLOW PROGRESS”CRITICISM FRANCO CORTESE

10. LAZARUS LONG JOHN ELLIS ,PH.D.

11. TECHNO-IMMORTALISM 101:WHAT ARE MINDFILES? MARTINE ROTHBLATT, PH.D.,MBA,J.D.

12. LONGEVITY AND THE INDIAN TRADITION ILIA STAMBLER,PH.D

13.WHENCE COMETH DEATH? JOSH MITTELDORF,PH.D

14.DEAD AS A DOORNAIL? PETER ROTHMAN

15.THE OBJECTIVIST-EXTROPIAN SYNTHESIS G.STOLYAROV II

GIULIO PRISCO

17. ARE THERE TRANSHUMANS AMONG US? DAVID KEKICH

18.THE IRRATIONALITY OF THE VIEW THAT LIFE IS SOMETIMES NOT WORTH LIVING G.STOLYAROV II

19. BIO-PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENTS FOR HUMAN BIOLOGICAL IMMORTALITY MARIOS KYRIAZIS,MD,MSC,MIBIOL,CBIOL.,

20. TRANSHUMANISM AND MIND UPLOADING ARE NOT SYNONYMOUS G.STOLYAROV II

21. THINK MILE

22.LONGEVITY AND JEWISH TRADITION ILIA STAMBLER,PH.D

23. I-NESS:WHAT DOES AND DOES NOT PRESERVE THE SELF? G.STOLYAROV II

24. HOW CAN A MINDCLONE BE IMMORTAL IF IT’S NOT EVEN ALIVE? MARTINE ROTHBLATT, PH.D.,MBA,J.D.

25.CLEARING UP COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT WHOLE BRAIN EMULATION &SUBSTRATE INDEPENDENCE

26. CAN CONSCIOUSNESS SURVIVE PHYSICAL DISCONTINUITY? G.STOLYAROV II

27.IS YOUR BRAIN “YOU”? DAVID KEKICH

27.PEOPLE WHO JUSTIFY AGING ARE PROFOUNDLY WRONG MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

28. COPING WITH DEATH:THE COSMIST THIRD WAY

GIULIO PRISCO

29.DEATH IS NOT MY BRAIN’S FRIEND -I BELIEVE IN NEUROLOGY, NOT IN GOD GIOVANNI SANTOSTASI,PH.D

30. THERE IS NO EXPERIENCE WORTH DYING FOR G.STOLYAROV II

31. TO KNOW OR NOT TO KNOW? ERIC SCHULKE

32. DESIRING IMMORTALITY JASON XU

33.THE SUFFERING OF WHICH YOU SPARE YOURSELF THE SIGHT MILE

34.MY FRIENDS BREAK MY HEART DAVID KEKICH

35. THE ADVANTAGES OF IMMORTALITY G.STOLYAROV II

36. IMMORTALITY IS NOT A WASTE OF TIME! B.J.MURPHY

37.HOW WILL LIFE EXTENSION CHANGE RELIGION? G.STOLYAROV II

38. ASK THE AGED IF THEY SUFFER MILE

39. AN ATHEIST’S RESPONSE TO PASCAL’S WAGER G.STOLYAROV II

40.PROGRESS,HOPE &HUMAN LONGEVITY DAVID KEKICH

41.REFUTING THE “TECHNICAL INFEASIBILITY”ARGUMENT FRANCO CORTESE

42. NATURE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND –BUT TRANSHUMANISM IS! ROEN HORN

43. LONGEVITY IN THE ANCIENT MIDDLE EAST AND ISLAMIC TRADITION ILIA STAMBLER,PH.D

44.COULD RELIGIONS COME TO ADOPT A NATURALISTIC PERSPECTIVE ON RESSURECTION AND JUDGEMENT?

45.WHAT WILL LIFE-EXTENSION DO TO RELATIONSHIPS? LINDA GAMBLE

46. WHAT WILL LIFE EXTENSION DO TO CRIMINAL PUNISHMENT? G.STOLYAROV II

47. HUMANITY’S NATURE IS TO TAKE ON PROBLEMS LIKE DEATH MILE

48. THE GLOBAL BRAIN &ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMAN BIOLOGICAL IMMORTALITY MARIOS KYRIAZIS,MD,MSC,MIBIOL,CBIOL.,

49. LIFE IS WORTH LIVING –FOREVER! G.STOLYAROV II

50. AMALGAMATION OF INDEFINITE LIFE EXTENSION AND TRANSCENDENCE AS WE MOVE TOWARD THE FUTURE

JAMESON ROHRER

51. DEATH COSTS THE WORLD A LOT OF OPPORTUNITY ERIC SCHULKE AND VIOLETTA KARKUCINSKA

52. LIFE AND LIBERTY:WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT? G.STOLYAROV II

53. OCCAM’S RAZOR & THE SOUL YANIV CHEN

G.STOLYAROV II

55.REJUVENATION RE RELIGION FRANCO CORTESE

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56. DEBATE FORUM:WHICH WILL BE THE FIRST NATION TO OFFER STATE-SUBSIDIZED IMMORTALITY TO ITS CITIZENS?

IMMORTALLIFE.INFO DEBATE FORUMS

57. THE LONGEVITY PARTY MANIFESTO MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

58. THE LONGEVITY PARTY –WHO NEEDS IT?WHO WANTS IT? ILIA STAMBLER,PH.D

59. PRIVATE OR GOVERNMENT FUNDING FOR INDEFINITE LIFE-EXTENSION? G.STOLYAROV II

60. LETTER TO SERGEY BRIN MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

61. STUDY GERONTOLOGY!THIS FRONTIER PROVIDES HOPE FOR THE FUTURE ERIC SCHULKE

62. DEATH IS TERRORISM MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

ILA

64.LIBERTY THROUGH LONG LIFE G.STOLYAROV II

65. HOW MUCH DOES AGING COST YOU? DAVID KEKICH

66.WHAT IS THE BOTTLENECK FOR PROGRESS IN BIOMEDICAL GERONTOLOGY? FRANCO CORTESE

67. HOW TO COMMUNICATE THE LIFE EXTENSION AGENDA PETER WICKS

68. SUPPORT LIFE, NOT WAR TOM MOONEY

69.HOW TO GET THE WORLD TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT DEATH MILE

70.EVERYONE MUST MAKE THEIR OWN TRANSHUMANIST WAGER ZOLTAN ISTVAN

71.STRATEGIES FOR HASTENING THE ARRIVAL OF INDEFINITE LIFE EXTENSION G.STOLYAROV II

72. TAKE ACTION! ILA

G.STOLYAROV II

74.INVERTING A TECHNOPOLITICAL TROPE:ON THE HUBRIS OF NEO-LUDDISM FRANCO CORTESE

75.TALKING TO PEOPLE ABOUT LIFE EXTENSION:IF THEY SAY NO MILE

76. DEFEATING AGING AND DEATH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT AND URGENT GOAL FOR HUMANKIND GIOVANNI SANTOSTASI,PH.D.

77.INTERNATIONAL LONGEVITY ALLIANCE INITIATIVES ILA

78. PROBLEMS WITH NIAFUNDING DISTRIBUTION MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

79. ALIBERTARIAN-TRANSHUMANIST CRITIQUE OF JEFFREY TUCKER’S “ALESSON IN MORTALITY”

G.STOLYAROV II

80. DOES THE WORDS “IMMORTALITY”&“FOREVER”DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD FOR OUR CAUSE?

JOHN RLEONARD

81. HOW TO CONVINCE SKEPTICS &FENCE-SITTERS ERIC SCHULKE

82. THE COALITION TO EXTEND LIFE TOM MOONEY

83. WHY BIOTECH IS UNLIKELY TO BE THE WAY MARIOS KYRIAZIS,MD,MSC,MIBIOL,CBIOL.,

84.IT’S ABOUT LIFE-EXTENSION, NOT ENDING PAIN AND DEBILITATION MILE

85.MAXIMUM LIFE FOUNDATION CAPITOL WHITE PAPER DAVID KEKICH

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86. DEBATE FORUM:WHAT IS THE BEST LONGEVITY EXERCISE? IMMORTAL LIFE DEBATE FORUM DEBATE

87. LONGEVITY LIFESTYLE DAVID KEKICH

88. LONGEVITY RUNNING:LIFE EXTENSION SCIENTIST BILL ANDREW’S 138-MILE HIMALAYAN ULTRAMARATHON

JASON SUSSBERG

89. LONGEVITY &EXERCISE DAVID WESTMORELAND

90. THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP YOUR WEALTH INTACT:KEEPING YOUR HEALTH INTACT DAVID KEKICH

91. ENDURANCE EXERCISE STUDY SAYS 40 IS THE NEW 80 MARC RANSFORD

92. 3 WAYS ANIMAL PROTEINS JUST MIGHT KILL YOU JONATHAN BECHTEL

93. RULES OF THUMB FOR ESTIMATING YOUR BIOLOGICAL AGE DAVID KEKICH

94. VEGETARIANISM &LONGEVITY JOERN PALLENSEN

95. THE CHINA STUDY:VEGANISM &LONGEVITY JOSH MITTELDORF,PH.D

96. 20HEALTH BENEFITS OF MEDITATION DAVID KEKICH

97.RUNNING &WEIGHTLIFTING FOR NEUROGENESIS &LIFE-EXTENSION ALEX LIGHTMAN

98. “NATURAL”ANTI-AGING IS AN OXYMORON JOSH MITTELDORF,PH.D.

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99. CHEMICAL BRAIN PRESERVATION:CRYONICS FOR MIND-UPLOADERS GIULIO PRISCO

100. MOLECULAR NANOTECHNOLOGY &LONGEVITY DICK PELLETIER

101. PREVENTATIVE TESTING FOR AGING MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

102. 3D-PRINTED CYBERNETIC APPENDAGES JAMESON ROHRER

103. ORGAN AND TISSUE REPLACEMENT COULD END AGING BY 2020 DICK PELLETIER

104.CREATION OF ARTIFICIAL CELLS DEALS FATAL BLOW TO VITALISM G.STOLYAROV II

105.MEDICINE WILL TRANSCEND THE LIMITS OF BIOLOGY DAVID KEKICH

106. SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY’S PROMISE MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

107. LONGEVITY & THE TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY

DICK PELLETIER

108. LONGEVITY,DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING &VIDEO GAMES G.STOLYAROV II

109. NANOTECH TO END DISEASE,AGING &POVERTY DICK PELLETIER

WINSLOW STRONG

111. DIYNANOTECH DOUBLES LIFESPAN IN MICE! GRINDHOUSE WETWARES

112. CRYONICS 101 JAMESON ROHRER

PHARMA___

113. TELOMERASE HISTORY &TIPS DAVID KEKICH

114.SUPPLEMENTAL SKINNINESS JOSH MITTELDORF,PH.D.

115.ASTRAGALUS:IS THIS ANCIENT CHINESE HERB THE TELOMERE-ENABLER OF THE FUTURE? JONATHAN BECHTEL

116. EXCITING DISCOVERY OF 2,000YEAR-OLD TIBETAN ROOT JOSH MITTELDORF,PH.D.

117. THE SEARCH FOR A MIRACLE LONGEVITY DRUG TO SLOW,HALT OR REVERSE CELL SENESCENCE

DAVID KEKICH

118.BRAIN CHEMISTRY AND LIFESPAN JOSH MITTELDORF,PH.D.

RESEARCH ___

119. POTENTIAL THERAPEUTIC APPLICATIONS OF TELOMERE BIOLOGY WILLIAM H.ANDREWS,PH.D

120. LONGEVITY:WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS DAVID WESTMORELAND

121. EXTREME LIFESPANS THROUGH PERPETUALLY EQUALIZING INTERVENTIONS MARIOS KYRIAZIS,MD,MSC,MIBIOL,CBIOL.,

122. DR.DAVID SINCAIR MAKES PROGRESS IN THE WAR ON BIOLOGICAL AGING G.STOLYAROV II

123. 14KNOWN MECHANISMS OF AGING AND THEIR SOLUTIONS DAVID KEKICH

124. ALZHEIMER’S IS A PROBLEM OF IMBALANCE, NOT TOXICITY MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

125. THE DEMOGRAPHIC THEORY OF AGING JOSH MITTELDORF,PH.D

126. EXTREME LIFE EXTENSION THROUGH EXPOSURE TO INFORMATION MARIOS KYRIAZIS,MD,MSC,MIBIOL,CBIOL.,

127. JOY IS 60%OUT OF OUR CONTROL DAVID WESTMORELAND

128.SQUARING THE MORTALITY CURVE OR EXTENDING LONGEVITY? DAVID KEKICH

129. PHYSICAL IMMORTALITY IS POSSIBLE:ASK TURRITOPSIS NUTRICULA! G.STOLYAROV II

130. AN EXCEPTION TO SEVERAL THEORIES OF AGING:THE NAKED MOLE RAT MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

131. THE INTEGRATION OF STEM CELL MEDICINE DAVID KEKICH

132. THE OCEAN QUAHOG:ACLAM THAT CAN LIVE FOR OVER 400YEARS G.STOLYAROV II\

133. AGING IS AN ACTIVE PROCESS OF SELF-DESTRUCTION JOSH MITTELDORF,PH.D

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134. HEY KIDS,DON’T FORGET TO TAKE MY BRAIN OUT OF THE FREEZER! HANK PELLISSIER

135. QUESTIONS TO A TRANSHUMANIST GIOVANNI SANTOSTASI,PH.D

136.RE-LIVE/RE-BOOT B.J.MURPHY

G.STOLYAROV II

138. OPEN LETTER TO THE CLOSED CASKET FRANCO CORTESE

139.I WANT MY DAUGHTER TO BE IMMORTAL HANK PELLISSIER

140. JONATHAN SWIFT'S STRULDBRUGS,IMMORTALITY, AND NEGLIGIBLE SENESCENCE G.STOLYAROV II

141. IMMORTALIST REMIX:IHAVE A DREAM ERIC SCHULKE

142. CYBERNETIC LOVE POEM GIOVANNI SANTOSTASI,PH.D. 143.MONOLOGUE OF IMMORTAL MAN G.STOLYAROV II 144. JOIN IMMORTALISM, OR DIE! HANK PELLISSIER 145. IMMORTALIST HIPHOP MAITREYA ONE

146.HOME IS WARE THE HEARTH IS

FRANCO CORTESE

ZOLTAN ISTVAN

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148. BILL GATES WANTS TO BE IMMORTAL? MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

149. SURPRISING HEALTH HABITS OF THE ULTRA-WEALTHY

DAVID KEKICH

150. LONGEVITY & THE TRANSHUMAN

CLYDE DESOUZA

151. GOOGLE WANTS TO FUND LIFE-EXTENSION START-UPS

MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

152. WILL GOOGLE’S RAY KURZWEIL LOVE FOREVER? DAVID KEKICH

153. TRANSHUMANIST MEDIA CONTENT

MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

154. IMMORTAL LIFE INTERVIEW WITH R.U.SIRIUS,BIOGRAPHER OF TIM LEARY

HANK PELLISSIER &R.U.SIRIUS

155. ANTI-IMMORTALIST CINEMA

B.J.MURPHY

MARIA KONOVALENKO,M.SC.

157.INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT ETTINGER GIULIO PRISCO &ROBERT ETTINGER

158. GF2045:MORE ACTION,LESS TALK! RANDAL A.KOENE,PH.D

159. GLOBAL FUTURE GONGRESS 2045,NEWYORK CITY

WINSLOW STRONG

160. GF2045:WHAT WILL WE LOOK LIKE IN 2045? DAVID KEKICH

161. HELP CONQUER DEATH WITH CITIZEN SCIENTIST GRANTS &RESEARCH FUNDING FROM LONGECITY!

FRANCO CORTESE

162. SILICON VALLEY TRANSHUMANIST ESTABLISHES “RESURRECTION GROUPS” JASON XU

163. THE MOVEMENT FOR INDEFINITE LIFE-EXTENSION (MILE):THE NEXT STEP FOR HUMANKIND G.STOLYAROV II

164. CYPRUS SYMPOSION –“PATHWAYS TO INDEFINITE LIFESPANS” MARIOS KYRIAZIS,MD,MSC,MIBIOL,CBIOL.,

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The eradication of involuntary death via science and technology will be the defining feat of our century. Involuntary death and suffering is nothing less than the crisis of our times, and the complete abolishment of involuntary aging as quickly as possible is a moral imperative if there ever was one. 100,000 real, living people die per day from age-correlated disease and functional decline; 3 Million people lost per month to causes that are not inevitable, but instead have specific material causes that can be remediated and even reversed through a variety of medical therapies already visible on the developmental horizon. Look at what humanity has done with and on this earth – the myriad ways in which we have whorled the very world itself to better-embody our values and desires. To say that continually increasing human lifespans is technically infeasible is to laugh in the face of history, and 3 Million in-principal preventable human deaths per month – 36.5 Million deaths per year – is an untenable situation in a civilization as capable as ours.

Indefinite longevity has been a long time coming. Death’s final defeat can arguably be seen as inherent, or at least embryonic, in the rise of modern medicine, which made it increasingly apparent that the causes of physical disease and functional decline were physical and procedural rather than moral and metaphysical. If the body and mind were material systems amenable to physical changes, then what was to stop us from keeping the body in a healthy condition through the correct series of physical manipulations, potentially indefinitely?

A body in full functional optimality has a certain set of phenotypic correlates. A body in

functional decline (i.e. having sustained accumulated damage from aging) has an alternate set of phenotypic correlates. If we can sustain and perpetuate the phenotypes correlating with

functional optimality, then what, really, is to stop us from doing so potentially indefinitely – in other words, from removing and reversing any deviation from the phenotypes correlative with functional optimality?

The 20th century witnessed the convergence of multiple alternative approaches to indefinitely-extending human lifespans. We see the formulation of increasingly precise tools for making changes to the body on the molecular scale – genetic engineering, recombinant DNA and gene therapies, regenerative medicines (e.g. bio-printing, stem-cell replacement therapies) and synthetic biology. These tools progressively developed into what can be considered the biotechnological approach to indefinite life-extension, epitomized by Aubrey de Grey’s

is, age-correlated functional decline for individuals, and an increase in the mortality rate as a function of age for populations) and posits 7 distinct biomedical approaches to either reversing the effects of those seven “deadly causes” or making their effects negligible.

We also see the conceptual formulation of nanotechnology – first by Richard Feynman in his seminal 1959 lecture “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” and later developed more formally in K. Eric Drexler’s Nanosystems, which described his notion of “mechanosynthesis” – that is, configuring molecules through mechanical manipulation at the atomic scale rather than through chemical reaction. This paved the way for Robert A. Freitas’s groundbreaking work in

Nanomedicine – although Drexler did lay a conceptual foundation for the health and medical use of nanomachines in his popular book Engines of Creation. With machines small enough to fit inside not only our bloodstreams, but our very cells, we would appear to be able to fix almost any sort of structural, connectional or procedural damage – i.e. phenotypic deviation – leading to or correlating with aging. Indeed, with the nanotechnological approach we needn’t even

necessarily understand the mechanisms underlying the formation, regulation and growth of the disease or phenotypic (e.g. structural or procedural) correlate(s) of functional decline; if we know the molecular structures and procedural-parameters correlating with functional optimality, and we have machines capable of atomically-precise molecular manipulation, then we can simply revert any such phenotypic deviations to normality (i.e. to the phenotype(s) correlating with optimal or normative functionality), recurrently, regardless of their ultimate or underlying cause(s).

The 20th century also witnessed the conception of a third broad approach to reversing the effects of aging, recurrently and potentially indefinitely: ‘Mind-Uploading’, or the notion of transferring the mind residing in or embodied by one’s brain into a computer. This concept appears to have been first introduced by J.D Bernal in The World, The Flesh and the Devil, where he wrote “…for even the replacement of a previously organic brain-cell by a synthetic apparatus would not destroy the continuity of consciousness…”, and continued forward by Arthur C. Clarke, who envisioned a transfer from brain to computer in his 1956 novel The City and the Stars. The notion was further developed by Hans Moravec in his 1988 book Mind Children, and later by Kurzweil in The Singularity is Near. The notion eventually evolved into the contemporary intellectual movement of Substrate Independent Minds and the academic discipline of Whole Brain Emulation, explored by such projects and groups as Randal A. Koene’s

CarbonCopies.org., the 2045 Avatar Project, Henry Markram’s Human Brain Project and the similarly-aimed recent US BRAIN Initiative.

But while progress has been and is being made, progress does not make itself. Some think that the best approach to take is to wait it out while living as healthily as one can until the

breakthroughs are made. But progress is not some external force or thing – progress is us. We are the prime mediators of progress. Jow long it takes to achieve continually-extended lifespans is

determined by how much attention, demand and funding it receives today and tomorrow. The bottleneck for progress in biomedical gerontology may be funding, but the bottleneck for funding is demand, desire, advocacy and lobbying. You can have an impact on the fight to end the

finality of death as a non-scientist and non-technologist. You can write a letter to your local politician. You can spread the word that death’s final death is finally on the developmental horizon. You can publicly advocate for more government research initiatives, policy reports, and feasibility studies. You can volunteer at such non-profit organizations as LongeCity or the International Longevity Alliance. And considering that the amount of time it takes to achieve continually-increasing longevity is a function of how hard we work for it, which is in turn a function of how hard we demand it, advocate it and lobby for it, then working to hasten the birth of an ageless age is one of the most ethical and noble ways that one could spend their time, in terms of the number of involuntary-deaths prevented and the amount of suffering preemptively-negated.

Longevity cannot be left solely to the scientist and technologist – because it is larger society that determines what is worthy of science’s surveyance, what problems are important and should get funding – in short, the scope and extent of science. We need longevity to enter the arena of politics, of activism, of art. We need men and women of every craft to take in hand their chosen tool and demand the right to increasingly-longer life. We need every layman to stand up and say ‘Down with the childhood lies of death’s inevitability, or dignity, or naturality; down with the obscene lie that we have no choice but to lie down at long last. We are human – we, who have stood up to raise ourselves up from the very beginning. We are the species defined by our proclivity to deny and defy definition, to say doom to duty, and finally, to say death to death.’ Accordingly, this volume considers longevity from a variety of viewpoints: scientific,

technological, philosophical, pragmatic, artistic. In it you will find not only information on the ways in which science and medicine are bringing about the potential to reverse aging and defeat death within many of our own lifetimes, as well as the ways that you can increase your own longevity today in order to be there for tomorrow’s promise, but also a glimpse at the art, philosophy and politics of longevity as well – areas that will become increasingly important as we realize that advocacy, lobbying and activism can play as large a part in the hastening of progress in indefinite lifespans as science and technology.

The contributors of this volume are taking part in this most righteous of plights, the fight to finally end the fickle final night and sickly-sanctified oblivion called involuntary death. This volume is entirely indebted to their contributions. These men and women, along with the many researchers, advocates, activists, artists and supporters of indefinite longevity who have not found their way into the present volume, are the true heroes of our time. And it is never too late to join them.

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1987 was the first year in which one billion people boarded airline flights. In that year the world’s population hit 5 billion, meaning approximately 20% of all people experienced a

fantastic luxury not available to history’s wealthiest monarchs. By 2005 two billion people were boarding airliners each year, and the world’s population had grown to 6.5 billion. In the short span of years between 1987 and 2005, airline flight grew from being a right of 20% to a right of 31% of humanity, from barely a fifth to almost a third. Even assuming more frequent flights by the wealthier, this is startling evidence of the democratization of technology.

1987 was also noteworthy as the first year mobile phone sales hit one million units. A tool for the rich? Twenty-two years later, in 2009, half the world’s population owned their own mobile phone. From one million to three billion in 22 years. Even assuming some rich people have two or more mobiles, this is undeniable evidence of the democratization of technology.

As with flying and phoning, so it will be with mindcloning. At first just a few. Almost overnight it will be almost everyone. Technology democratizes. That’s what it does. I can’t think of a technology that does not democratize. Heart transplants? The first was in 1967, and currently thousands of poor and middle class people are getting them each year, mostly in countries such as the United States (including at least one impoverished prisoner), but also countries such as Vietnam and India (where the first recipient was the wife of a handkerchief vendor). The

improvement of eyesight? Eyeglasses are almost universally available, and in wealthier countries even those in the lowest wealth deciles of the population routinely wear contact lenses or have corrective eye surgery.

Even in totalitarian countries, technology democratizes. Citizens of capitalist or non-democratic countries rarely lack TVs or radios, even if they have little interesting content

available. Aside from sub-Saharan Africa, 90% or more of all urban populations worldwide have access to electricity, and even 50% or more have access in rural areas.[1] Even in Africa,

of villagers have electricity.[2]

Not one single person, monarch or mendicant, had access to the magic of electricity for over 97% of recorded history. Yet, in that last three percent of recorded history since the technology arose, it has been made available to over half the species, including the poor in the great majority of countries. Facts such as this demonstrate that mindcloning technology will rapidly be

available to the masses.

What possible reason would there be for mindcloning technology to be a unique exception to the overwhelming tendency of technology to democratize, especially information technology? It would have to be something uniquely related to mindcloning. It could not be anything such as mindcloning involving storage of a lot of personal data – many companies have already democratized that function. The only thing really unique about mindcloning is that it creates a new form of life, vitological life.

In fact, though, there are many examples of democratized technology for creating new forms of life. From biologically-produced new kinds of medicine (ie, creating new kinds of bacteria that make pharmaceutical ingredients), to transgenically-produced new kinds of crops and animals, new forms of life have in every instance been rapidly made available to far greater populations than the rich.

Perhaps it is the fact that the mindclones will be sentient life that will be used as an argument to restrict them to the rich? Not a chance. Humans produce sentient life by the mega-ton, from pets to pregnancies, and there is no possible way for the rich to corner the market (nor would there be any reason to do so). Or maybe it is the fact that the mindclones might be so smart that the rich will want to keep all of that intelligence for their own quest to get ever richer? While I do not doubt that they would, if they could, the historical record shows that they can’t, and hence they shan’t. The supercomputers of 20 years ago are less powerful than the laptops of today. Indeed, a run-of-the-mill MacBook Pro is over 1000 x more powerful than the legendary Cray-1

supercomputer. In other words, any effort by the rich and powerful to control mindclone technology would be as fruitless as an effort to control the Cray supercomputers of the late 20th century – other companies’ technologies will swirl around the controlled technology, like a rushing river around boulders in its riverbed.

I don’t believe there is any doubt as to why technology always democratizes. It is as simple as this: (1) people want what makes life better for other people (generally this entails technology), (2) satisfying popular wants is in the self-interests of those who control technology (both

technology originators and government regulators), and (3) over time the magnitude of these two factors overwhelm any countervailing forces (such as cultural bugaboos or fears of losing

cheaper, innovation makes it more accessible [3], or officialdom finds its interests better served by channeling rather than blocking the wanted technology.

There are two further reasons why mindcloning will be rapidly democratized. The first is that the marginal costs of providing mindfile storage and mindware vitalizations to the billionth, two billionth, three billionth and so on persons are virtually nil. The second reason is that it is in the economic interests of the persons having mindclone technology to share it as broadly as possible. Each reason will be considered in more detail below.

Let’s first think about the costs of mindcloning. There are four main elements: (1) the cost of storing a person’s mindfile, estimated in Question 1 as about a gigabyte a month based on Gordon Bell’s experience, (2) the cost of running that mindfile through vitalizing mindware to set its consciousness parameters, (3) the cost of transmitting mindfile data and mindclone

consciousness, and (4) the cost of user electronics for accessing mindclones. Because the costs of these elements are amortized across tens of millions if not billions of users, the incremental costs of these for each person are negligible. For example, if it costs a billion dollars to create

mindware, the costs per person are but one dollar for a billion people and fifty cents for two billion people. Assume the cost of building out a high-speed transmission network with capacity for six billion mindclones is $6 billion. In that case, the cost is $2/mindclone for three billion mindclones, but only $1/mindclone for six billion mindclones.

There has never been an easier thing to place in the hands of the masses than information. Shortwave radio broadcasts cover every human in the world for the same cost as if there were only 1% as many humans spread throughout the world. Consequently, the cost of shortwave radio per person is less the more people who listen.

The Sirius XM Satellite Radio project I launched in the 1990s cost over a billion dollars. In a way that was the price that one very wealthy person would have had to pay for the enjoyment of satellite radio. It was possible to offer the service only to rich people, say for a million dollars a year, so that they could show off their exclusive and amazing audio toy. But nobody considered doing that for even a millisecond. Instead we priced the service around $10 a month and today over 20 million people listen. That billion dollar project, which grew to over two billion dollars, when divided by 20 million listeners, comes out to just $100 per person. It will be much the same way with mindcloning.

Mindclone technology is simply the shortwave or satellite radio of tomorrow. Instead of someone sending commoditized information down the airwaves to the masses, in the form of broadcasts, for matriculation and selection within the brains of those masses, someone will send individualized information down the cyberchannels to the masses, in the form of mindclone consciousness, for refinement and enhancement via interaction with the brains of those masses.

The second factor forcing democratization of mindfile technology is the economic interests of its creators. The more people who create mindfiles, the wealthier will be those who create mindfile technology. This is really just Google on steroids (or Facebook, or Twitter, or Tencent, or a dozen other competitors). It is in the economic interests of Google, Facebook, Twitter and so on to share their technology as broadly as possible. The more people who use a social media site, the more valuable the owner of that site becomes. This is because more people, more human attention, translates, some way or another, into more money. And so it will be with mindfiles. The sites, or sources, that we go to for our mindware, or for tune-ups of our mindware, or for storage of our mindfiles, or for organization of our mindfiles, or for housing of our mindclones, or for socializing of our mindclones – those sites and sources will be valuable to the people and companies who want to sell things to us…things like virtual real estate, and things like real-world interfaces.

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BY:RACHEL ARMSTRONG,PH.D.

Wafer thin artificial leaves separate with the rising sun, as buildings wake up. They continue to follow its path over the course of the day, sucking dew and carbon dioxide out of the air. These substances are then filtered into the fleshy fabric, within the walls of our homes, which are not dead spaces but active processors, like stomachs that are packed with thriving microbial colonies. They generate heat, recycle grey water and filter effluents to produce rich, native soil that has a commercial value and is used to grow plants in green plots, or window boxes. We are now producers, not consumers. There are no more infertile stretches of asphalt sprawled over our urban rooftops but an expanse of vegetation that processes the city’s rich chemical landscapes – and it is no longer possible to tell which of these vibrant structures are artificial, or natural. Visionary ideas about our near-future cities help develop new approaches to underpin human development without necessarily being constrained within the limits of what is already possible. Modern cities are run and populated by machines to such an extent that we no longer really notice them. And while machines are useful, they consume fossil fuels and transform them into energy, carbon dioxide and industrial pollutants – which, on an industrial scale, produces a world that Rachel Carson noted is ‘not quite fatal’. In recent years we’ve looked to renewables to avoid the need for using fossil fuels – but the percentage of our energy provided by these alternatives remains small compared with our overall consumption.

Yet, there is an alternative technology available to us, which we have barely begun to apply in its full potential. Nature provides a rich portfolio of, sometimes unlikely, living technologies that may shape our near-future lifestyles in new ways. The practice of biomimicry already taps into Nature’s ingenuity, where – for example, the Venus flower basket sponge, which has a lattice exoskeleton, inspired the famous hexagonal skin of Norman Foster’s Gherkin Tower.

While these solutions are currently realized through industrial processes we have reached a point at the start of the 21st century, where we do not have to copy Nature but can directly design and engineer with her processes with such precision and on a range of scales - that we can think of them new kind of technology. Living technologies have unique properties that may enable us to imagine and realize our urban spaces in new ways since they are adaptable, robust and have an

incredible ability to transform one thing into another. Think of how trees share common

technologies (leaves, trunk, roots) that are adapted to different kinds of environments and use of a range of resources. For example, needle-leaved Canadian evergreens make the most of scant sunlight and their leaf litter feeds the acidic soils that nurture networks of microorganisms, such as, nitrogen fixing bacteria, which in turn, enriches the food for the trees. In the near future, we will begin to tap into the technological potential of this ‘metabolic’ diversity and strategically use it within the fabric of our cities.

While trees are complex organic structures that require substantial infrastructures and resources to nurture them, biotechnology has revealed that multicellular organisms can perform the same kinds of processes but even more powerfully. Although these creatures cannot be seen with the naked eye, they are much easier to keep and much more vigorous than trees.

Indeed, architects are already suggesting that microorganisms may power our cities. For

example, Alberto Estevez’s ‘Genetic Barcelona’ proposes that using the techniques of ‘synthetic biology’ - which enables us to grow organisms that do not exist in Nature by manipulating their DNA – trees would be engineered to produce a natural light-producing protein usually found in jellyfish. So, not only would we be able to enjoy the mood-elevating wavelengths the light emitted by these plants but we would also benefit from not having to rely on fossil fuels and central power grids to provide street lighting.

In the near future our buildings may also be ‘grown’ by industrial-strength microorganisms. Some of these may form the basis of self-healing materials such as, Henk Jonker’s ‘biocrete’, where hardy bacteria are mixed into traditional cement and form plugs of solid when they are activated by water, from micro fine cracks in the material. Other projects such as, Magnus Larsson’s ‘Dune’ is more ambitious and harnesses the metabolic powers of a sand-particle-fixing species of bacteria to produce sandstone or marble in deserts, thought to be too hostile to live in. Within modern cities, the value of harnessing the transformational powers of communities of microorganisms, called bioprocessing, is being realized in wastewater gardens. These may be thought of as bacterial cities within our own, which are fed with our waste organic matter and transform it into useful substances. Rather than being noxious sumps of filth and disease, these sewage plants are popular visitor attractions - odorless greenhouses with the look and feel of a botanical garden. Bioprocessing units may be designed to house different kinds of ecologies to suit particular habitats. For example, in estuary environments ‘oystertecture’, where shellfish are farmed on sculptural metal structures, could be used in bioprocessing systems to filter impurities, improve water quality and increase biodiversity.

These developments in living technology suggest that we will evolve solutions using the transformational properties of natural systems. Living technologies build upon traditional skills

working in combination with new scientific knowledge. Importantly, since biology is everywhere, these approaches are not confined to Western societies. Increasingly DIY bio communities are learning how to ‘hack’ natural systems and diversify living technology

applications. This may streamline global human development with biospherical processes so that our lifestyles are more sustainable, less environmentally disruptive and ultimately means that our cities are better places to live.

Perhaps the future of our urban environments will not be about designing buildings, as we know them, but to produce synthetic ecosystems, which improve the quality of our lives.

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BY:FREIJA VAN DUIJNE,PH.D.

Over many centuries, attempts have been made to get food production out of the cities. Produce comes from the land and is transported into the cities. In most western cities, abattoirs have disappeared. Markets are still there, but no longer have a central role in our shopping.

This image is starting to change again. Urban farming is emerging in all sorts of shapes. A few examples from the Netherlands: offices that use their roof for rooftop farming, volunteer gardens with a restaurant, like Hutspot Hotspot in Rotterdam, urban farm companies like Uit je eigen stad, high tech indoor growing systems like Simbi City, or Plantlab. Which types of urban farming would be around in 2020?

SCENARIOS FOR URBAN FARMING

Scenarios for the future of urban farming may help us think about the directions for urban farming. Also it helps us thinks about ways to support different developments.

Here are the basic scenarios that we came up with. They are still in a preliminary stage. And we welcome all suggestions for further elaboration. What do you think that might happen in these scenarios?

THE URBAN FOOD PRODUCER

LED technology, sensor technology and all sorts of ICT applications are affordable to apply for indoors, layered crop production. This takes place in formerly empty buildings, for which no other use has been found. Various companies have demonstrated to be economically successful in producing fruits and vegetables. These are high end produce, for which a good price is being paid by restaurants and private consumers in the cities.

Businesses have started off with small production units. After the first successes, they could make further investments and grow their business. Suppliers, service providers and other businesses have settled next to each other to make use of each other (waste) streams, products

and services.

Consumers are involved through social media. They have Apps to see which types of produce are available and shop directly. There are virtual supermarkets which offer the products of several urban food producers. Products can be delivered at home through a peer to peer deliverance service. But a network of drones for deliverance is coming up soon.

THE URBAN FARMER

The dream of the urban farmer is to reconnect city people with making food. The urban farmer wants to share his knowledge and craftsmanship with the young and the old. Their business is a multifunctional farm with fruits, vegetables and animals. They have various revenues. People can subscribe to weekly food packages. There is a restaurant and catering. Crowd funding allows people to have a share in the company. In exchange for that they receive products and they are invited for events on the farm.

For their personnel, urban farmers rely on volunteers in addition to their regular employers. That makes up an interesting mix of people and cultures.

The urban farmer also has a function in maintaining the public greens near the farm. Thanks to their close connection to the people in the neighborhood, the farmer knows their demands and wishes in relation to green areas in the city.

THE CITIZEN GROWER

Lots of people who live in cities share the wish to be active in food production. Kitchen gardens are popular among young and old. The barren grounds and rooftops look tempting to these gardeners. People start to ask the city government if they could use these parcels for growing food. Some cities have pro-actively responded to this demand and made maps of available parcels and rooftops.

People use the food that they grow to sell on neighborhood markets. Near a garden complex there is often a restaurant, where meals are served made from fresh neighborhood produce. The unemployed start off as waiters and other personnel in the restaurant, making it easier for them to find a paid job later on. Schools and children are involved. They are physically active and learn about healthy food.

City councils are happy with this movement and develop additional education programs to help people learn about the nature of food. They also facilitate the growers’ movement in all sorts of ways, for instance by making it easier for businesses to donate or act as barter in a project. In this

way the city, businesses and citizens connect through the growing of food. THE URBAN FOOD DEVELOPER

With the latest technology the possibilities for urban food production systems have come closer, at least in theory. This could be a solution for food supply in the cities. This means a new use for empty building, environmental benefits through lower energy use and small food miles. These new urban food production systems, and the knowledge to build them, could be important for mega cities in emerging economies. This is recognized in vision documents of regional and national governments.

Public-private initiatives aim at system solutions for high-tech large scale urban food production. Projects aim at knowledge development and deliverables such as new applications for the design of food production systems. One aspect of these projects concerns the dialogue with society about new food production technologies and food production facilities in downtown

neighborhoods.

Governments also use these projects for demonstration purposes. These types of food production systems are very innovative. Their development is an important contribution to the branding of the region or country an innovative agri&food producer with great export potential.

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Although the essay by Max More included in this volume provides reasons why radical life extension would not lead to horrific overpopulation, many critics of Superlongevity still list this as a primary reason for they oppose significantly extending human life.

Let’s just assume that population will keep increasing… if that happens, where would humans live? Do any of the options below appeal to you?

1. Colonize the oceans, with floating islands and immense ships.

2. Colonize Antarctica and other uninhabited regions, with glass-domed temperature-controlled communities.

3. Colonize the ocean floor.

4. Dig underground, and into mountains, like moles- build immense subterranean cities. 5. Colonize the Moon.

6. Colonize Mars.

7. Build huge satellites that each provide habitation for 100,000 people, that circumnavigate the Earth.

8. None of the above, just ban breeding, or make people “cue up” for permission to

multiply.

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My own preference would be to colonize tropical oceans, as soon as desalination is efficient. Aquaculture would be easily available as both a food source and an economic option.

My second choice would be “gophering” into mountains.

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By GIOVANNI SANTOSTASI on Mar 14, 2013 at 3:21pm

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Of course the premise is wrong since population growth is inversely proportional to Kilowatt usage per capital but - if I must assume population growth then the answer would be to genetically modify ourselves to be 6 inches tall so that we could support 60 billion with no problem on Earth.

By JAEAME I.KOYIL on Mar 14, 2013 at 3:53pm

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“if I must assume population growth then the answer would be to genetically modify ourselves to be 6 inches tall so that we could support 60 billion with no problem on Earth.”

And be eaten by rats and cats?

I say Mars is the place to go—if possible. By ALAN BROOKS on Mar 14, 2013 at 8:24pm

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Any or all of the above, once those options become technically feasible and have been properly risk-assessed. But we need to think about our messaging here. One of the more credible

accusations that technosceptics tend to hurl at Transhumanists is that we are all gung-ho

technoenthuasiasts, naïvely dreaming our techno-utopian dreams and woefully underestimating the risks. I can easily handle people telling me that defeating the aging process is “not natural”, but when they worry about overpopulation I’m more inclined to sympathise, and to the extent that I still want to convince them I’d be more inclined to try to tease out what other concerns they might have and respond to them, rather than hitting them with a bunch of “we’re going to colonise other planets”-type ideas.

Well, maybe I should read that Max More article… By PETER WICKS on Mar 14, 2013 at 11:43pm

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exotic locations require considerable investments, deserts require the least. What is smartest and most affordable is to dig a broad channel in a deep groove or canyon and let people live in apartments on either side of the channel. That would filter out harsh desert sunlight and it would mean access to straight linear roadways, and flowing water - and desert on either side to cultivate plants and solar energy.

By letting such a canyon meander through the desert landscape it would be easy to house millions sustainably. Travel up and down the canyon would be easy by monorail.

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BY:MAX MORE,PH.D

Proponents of superlongevity (indefinitely extended life spans) have been making their case for the possibility and desirability of this change in the human condition for decades. For just as long, those hearing the arguments for superlongevity have deployed two or three unchanging, unrelenting responses. The question: “But what would we do with all that time?” is one of them. Another is the “But death is natural!” gambit. The final predictable response is to conjure up the specter of overpopulation. Despite strong downward trends in population growth since this issue gained visibility in the 1960’s, the third concern remains an impediment.

Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 bestseller, The Population Bomb [1], ignited a trend in which alarmists routinely ignored data and reasonable projections to scare the public. Those of us who see achieving the indefinite extension of the human life span as a central goal naturally find this behavior quite irritating. If baseless fear wins out, we will gain little from our personal programs of exercise, nutrition, or supplementation. Widespread fear leads to restrictive legislation - legislation that in this case could be deadly. Although the volume has been turned down a little on the population issue, it continues to reverberate and deserves a response. The purpose of this essay is to address the essential concerns, provide current facts, and dispel the errors behind the overpopulation worries.

VALUES FIRST

As I will show, we have little reason to fear population growth with or without extended lives. However, to bring into focus an ethical issue, I will pretend for a moment that population growth is or will become a serious problem. Would this give us a strong reason for turning against the extension of human lifespan?

No. Opposing extended life because, eventually, it might add to existing problems would be an ethically irresponsible response. Suppose you are a doctor faced with a child suffering from pneumonia. Would you refuse to cure the child because she would then be well enough to run around and step on the toes of others? On the contrary, our responsibility lies in striving to live

long and vitally while helping others do the same. Once we are at work on this primary goal, we can focus more energy on solving other challenges. Long, vital living at the individual level certainly benefits from a healthy physical and social environment. The superlongevity advocate would want to help find solutions to any population issues. But dying is not a responsible or healthy way to solve anything.

Besides, if we take seriously the idea of limiting life span so as to control population, why not be more proactive about it? Why not drastically reduce access to currently commonplace medical treatments? Why not execute anyone reaching the age of seventy? Once the collective goal of population growth is accepted as overriding individual choices, it would seem hard to resist this logic.

IT IS HOW MANY, NOT HOW LONG,THAT MATTERS

Limiting population growth by opposing life extension not only fails the ethical test, it also fails the pragmatic test. Keeping the death rate up simply is not an effective way of slowing

population growth. Population growth depends far more on how many children families have, as opposed to how long people live. In mathematical terms, longer life has no effect on the

exponential growth rate. It only affects a constant of the equation. This means that it matters little how long we live after we have reproduced. Compare two societies: In country A, people live on average only to 40 years of age, each family producing 5 children. In country B, the life span is 90 years but couples have 4 children. Despite the much longer life span in country B, their population growth rate will be much lower than that of country A. It makes little difference over the long term how many years people live after they have had children. The population growth rate is determined by how many children we have, not how long we live.

Even the short-term upward effect on population due to a falling death rate may be cancelled by a delay in child bearing. Many women in developed countries choose to bear children by their early 30’s because the obstacles to successful pregnancy grow as they age. As the last few decades have already shown, extending the fertile period of women’s lives would allow them to put off having children until later, until they have developed their careers. Not only will couples have children later, we can expect them to be better positioned financially and psychologically to care for them.

Almost certainly, the first truly effective technologies to extend the maximum human life span will come with a significant cost of human development and application. As a consequence population effects would first be felt in the developed countries. This points to another flaw in the suggestion that extended longevity will dramatically boost population growth. The fact is, superlongevity in the developed nations would have practically no global or local population impact. The lack of global impact is a consequence of the small and falling share of the global

population accounted for by the developed nations. No local population boom drama can realistically be expected because these countries are experiencing very low, zero, or negative population growth:

The share of the global population accounted for by the developed nations has fallen from 32 percent in 1950 to 20 percent currently and is projected to fall to 13 percent in 2050. [2] If we look just at Europe, we see an even more remarkable shrinkage: In 1950, Europe accounted for 22 percent of the global population. Currently it has fallen to 13 percent, and is projected to fall to 7 percent by 2050. [3] To put this in perspective, consider that the population of Africa at 749 million is now greater than that of Europe at 729 million, according to UN figures. Europe’s population growth rate of just 0.03 per cent will ensure that it will rapidly shrink relative to Africa and other developing areas.

In Eastern Europe, population is now shrinking at a rate of 0.2 percent. Between now and 2050, the population of the more developed regions is expected to change little. Projections show that by mid-century, the populations of 39 countries will be smaller than today. Some examples: Japan and Germany 14 percent smaller; Italy and Hungary 25 percent smaller; and the Russian Federation, Georgia and Ukraine between 28-40 percent smaller. [3]

For the United States (whose population grows faster than Europe), the bottom line was summed in a presentation to the President’s Council on Bioethics by S.J. Olshansky who “did some basic calculations to demonstrate what would happen if we achieved immortality today”. The bottom line is that if we achieved immortality today, the growth rate of the population would be less than what we observed during the post World War II baby boom. [4]

Low fertility means that population trends in the developed regions of the world would look even milder if not for immigra-tion. As the 2000 Revision to the UN Population Division’s projections says: “The more developed regions are expected to continue being net receivers of international migrants, with an average gain of about 2 million per year over the next 50 years. Without migration, the population of more developed regions as a whole would start declining in 2003 rather than in 2025, and by 2050 it would be 126 million less than the 1.18 billion projected under the assumption of continued migration.”

All things considered, countries fortunate enough to develop and make available radical

solutions to aging and death need not worry about becoming overpopulated. In an ideal scenario, life extension treatments would rapidly plunge in cost, making them affordable well beyond the richest nations. We should therefore look beyond the developed nations and examine global population trends in case a significantly different picture emerges.00

We have seen that we have no reason to hesitate in prolonging life even if population were to grow faster due to higher fertility rates. But does the developing world, with or without cheap, ubiquitous life extension, have much to fear from a population explosion? Are populations growing out of control in those regions? The fad for popular books foretelling doom started in the 1960’s, at the tail end of the most rapid increase in population in human history. Since then, the poorer countries, well below us in the development cycle, have also been experiencing a drastic reduction of population growth. This is true despite major relative life extension - the extra decades of life bestowed by medical intervention and nutrition.

Taking a global perspective, the numbers reveal that the average annual population growth rate peaked in 1965-1970 at 2.07 percent. Ever since then, the rate of increase has been declining, coming down to 1.2 per cent annually. That means the addition of 77 million people per year, based on an estimated world population of 6.1 billion in mid-2000. [3] A mere six countries account for fully half of this growth: India for 21 percent; China for 12 percent; Pakistan for 5 percent; Nigeria for 4 percent; Bangladesh for 4 percent, and Indonesia for 3 percent. China has markedly reduced the average number of births per woman over the last 50 years from six to 1.8. Starting from the same birth rate at that time, India has fallen much less, although still almost halving the rate to 3.23 percent. If these trends continue up to 2050, India’s population will exceed that of China. [5]

Despite the fecundity of these top people-producers, the overall picture is an encouraging one: The total fertility rate for the world as a whole dropped by nearly two-fifths between 1950/55 and 1990/95 - from about 5 children per woman down to about 3.1 children per woman. Average fertility in the more developed regions fell from 2.8 to 1.7 children per woman, well below biological replacement. Meanwhile total fertility rates in less developed nations fell by 40 percent, falling from 6.2 to 3.5 children per woman. [6]

We can expect population growth to continue slowing until it reaches a stable size. What size will that be? No one knows for sure, but the best UN numbers indicate that population may peak at as low as 8 billion people, with a medium projection of 9.3 billion and an upper limit

projection of 10.9 billion. [2;7] The medium projection also points to global population peaking around 2040 and then starting to fall.

I wrote the first version of this paper in 1996. In revising it, I found it interesting that, less than a decade ago, the higher projection allowed for 12 billion or more. Demographers had continued their long tradition of over-estimating population growth. This effect seems to have been reduced, but take all projections (especially those longer than a generation) with a healthy dose of skepticism.

FORCES OF POPULATION DECELERATION

Why, though, should we expect people in less developed countries, even given contraceptives, to continue choosing to have smaller families? This expectation is not merely speculation based on recent trends. Sound economic reasoning explains the continuing trend, and makes sense of why the poorer nations are only just beginning to make the transition to fewer births.

Decelerating population growth appears to be an inevitable result of growing wealth. Early on in a country’s developmental curve, children can be regarded as ‘producer goods’ (as economists would say). Parents put their children to work on the farm to generate food and revenue. Very little effort is put into caring for the child: no expensive health plans, special classes, trips to Disneyland, X-Men action figures, or mounting phone bills. As we become wealthier, children become ‘consumer goods’. That is, we look on them more and more as little people to be enjoyed and pampered and educated, not beasts of burden to help keep the family alive. We spend thousands of dollars on children to keep them healthy, entertain them, and educate them. We come to prefer fewer children to a vast mob of little ones. This preference seems to be reinforced by changing tastes resulting from improved education. The revenue vs. expense equation for extra children further shifts toward having fewer offspring as populations become urbanized. Children cost more to raise in cities and can produce less income than in the country. Fertility declines for another reason: As poorer countries become wealthier, child mortality falls as a result of improved nutrition, sanitation, and health care. Reduced child mortality in modern times can come about even without a rise in income. People in poorer countries are not stupid; they adjust their childbearing plans to reflect changing conditions. When child death rates are high, research has shown that families have more children to ensure achieving a given family size. They have more children to make up for deaths, and often have additional children in anticipation of later deaths. Families reduce fertility as they realize that fewer births are needed to reach a desired family size. Given the incentives to have fewer children as wealth grows and urbanization proceeds, reduced mortality leads to families choosing to reduce family size. Economic policy helps shape childbearing incentives. Many of the same people who have decried population growth have supported policies guaranteed to boost childbirths. More than that, they boost childbearing among those least able to raise and educate children well. If we want to encourage people to have more children, we should make it cheaper for them to do so. If we want to discourage fertility, or at least refrain from pushing it up, we should stop subsidizing it. Subsidies include free education (free to the parents, not to the tax-payers), free child health care, and additional welfare payments to women for each child they bear. If parents must

personally bear the costs of having children, rather than everyone else paying, people will tend to have just the number of children for whom they can assume financial responsibility.

Even if there were a population problem in a few countries, extending the human life span would worsen the problem no more than would improving automobile safety or worker safety, or reducing violent crime. Who would want to keep these deadly threats high in order to combat population growth? If we want to slow population growth, we should focus on reducing births, not on raising or maintaining deaths. If we want to reduce births, we might voluntarily fund programs to provide contraceptives and family planning to couples in poorer countries. This will aid the natural developmental process of choosing to have fewer children. Couples will be able to have children by choice, not by accident. Women should also be encouraged to join the modern world by gaining the ability to pursue vocations other than child-raising.

OVERPOPULATION DISTRACTS FROM REAL PROBLEMS

Major downward revisions in population growth - throughout the UN’s sixteen rounds of global demographic estimates and projections since 1950 - have drained the plausibility of any

overpopulation-based argument against life extension. We can better understand the real

problems that are talked about in relation to overpopulation instead as issues of poverty. Poverty, in turn, results not from having too many people, but from several major factors including

political misrule, continual warfare, and insecurity of property rights.

As Bjorn Lomborg points out, we find many of the most densely populated countries in Europe. The region with the highest population density, Southeast Asia, has about same number of people per square mile as the United Kingdom. Although India has a large, growing population, it also has a population density far lower than that of The Netherlands, Belgium, or Japan. Lomborg also notes that Ohio and Denmark are more densely populated than Indonesia. [3] We should also recognize that most population growth takes place in urban areas, which provide a better standard of living. As a result, most of this planet’s landmass will not be more densely populated than it is today. Over the next three decades, we can expect to see almost no change in the rural population of the world and, by 2025, 97% of Europe will be less densely populated than today. [8] We should celebrate the urbanization trend since even the urban poor thrive better than they would in the country. The causes of this include better water supplies, sewage systems, health services, education, and nutrition. [9] Oddly enough, serious infectious diseases like malaria are less threatening the closer buildings are together (and so the smaller the space for swampy areas beloved of mosquitoes and flies). [10]

SUSTAINABILITY AND THE GREAT RESTORATION

The future could be far brighter than the eco-doomsters have long portrayed it. As Ronald Bailey [11] reports:

Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, believes the 21st century will see the beginning of a ‘Great Restoration’ as humanity’s

productive activities increasingly withdraw from the natural world.

If world farmers come to match the typical yield of today’s US corn growers, ten billion people could eat amply while requiring only half of today’s cropland. This is one way in which

technological advance in farming will allow vast expanses of land to revert to nature. Transgenic crops could also multiply today’s production levels while solving several significant

environmental challenges. [12]

Visions that emphasize human ingenuity and opportunity have a far more impressive historical record than those that emphasize human passivity and helplessness. Paul Ehrlich is a classic case of the latter type and you have only to browse his dark, alarming books to recognize how

consistently bad he has been at making environmental predictions. In a 1969 article, Ehrlich predicted the oceans dead from DDT poisoning by 1979 and devoid of fish; 200,000 deaths from ‘smog disasters’ in New York and Los Angeles in 1973; U.S. life expectancy dropping to 42 years by 1980 because of pesticide-induced cancers, and U.S. population declining to 22.6 million by 1999. [13] Ehrlich famously lost a ten year bet against cornucopian economist Julian Simon (and refused to renew the bet). In 1974, Ehrlich recommended stockpiling cans of tuna due to the certainty of protein shortages in the USA. And so on.

As Bailey explains [13], contrary to Ehrlich:

Instead, according to the United Nations, agricultural production in the developing world has increased by 52 percent per person since 1961. The daily food intake in poor countries has increased from 1,932 calories, barely enough for survival, in 1961 to 2,650 calories in 1998, and is expected to rise to 3,020 by 2030. Likewise, the proportion of people in developing countries who are starving has dropped from 45 percent in 1949 to 18 percent today, and is expected to decline even further to 12 percent in 2010 and just 6 percent in 2030. Food, in other words, is becoming not scarcer but ever more abundant. This is reflected in its price. Since 1800 food prices have decreased by more than 90 percent, and in 2000, according to the World Bank, prices were “lower than ever before”.

A reading of economic and social history quickly makes one thing plain: throughout history people have envisaged overpopulation. Even the great nineteenth century social scientist W. Stanley Jevons in 1865 claimed that England’s industrial expansion would soon cease due to the exhaustion of the country’s coal supply. [15] However, as shortages developed, prices rose. The profit motive stimulated entrepreneurs to find new sources, to develop better technology for finding and extracting coal, and to transport it to where it was needed. The crisis never happened.