One of the many research projects I run on H+Pedia is countering objections to life extension from the mainstream. That’s right, I study why it is the vast majority of people want to die, a phenomenon somewhat pejoratively known as deathism amongst life extensionists or if you prefer psycho babble, terror management theory. Even though studies suggest that the demographic consequences of defeating aging would be surprisingly manageable, we’ve got hearts and minds to win, and that means argument countering!

I started by creating an Euler diagram of arguments I was familiar with, and whilst it might undergo some some minor revisions or additions in the future, I consider it conceptually complete, covering individualistic, technical, social and environmental issues and their intersections in a easy to browse fashion.

what do you mean my choices are ‘or death’?

Overpopulation I found to be of special interest because I found the recent glossy articles written by the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation on overpopulation and resource depletion to be considerably focused on science and techno-optimism, without engaging or ceding ground to the complexities and ambiguities of the areas.

TL;DR we’re not headed to a literal population crisis and we can feed the world with new technologies. Bring on the life extension tech!

LEAF may have glossed over the details, but former US presidential candidate, coffin bus driver and transhumanism promoter Zoltan Istvan throws evidence to the wind and suggests it’s ‘It’s time to consider restricting human breeding’ because … reasons? Sometimes I think Zoltan fancies himself the protagonist of his Transhumanist Wager book, except no Z, that’s a super villain evil plan right there.

The Facts

If you also think like the rather confused villain in the recent Inferno adaptation who thinks the global population is going to be 32 billion in 40 years time rather than the actual 11 billion people then dropping it is, please watch this excellent video from demographics expert Hans Rosling or this Bill Gates sponsored video from Kurzgesagt.

Now if you’re like most people, this won’t have actually changed your mind, because overpopulation doesn’t literally mean a crowded Solent Green dystopian conditions, but something else — but what?

I propose the following additions.

Environmental sustainability

The environment has seen better days. As more people industrialise around the world such as in places such as in China, we end with with less breathable polluted air, toxic waste in our water, fell forests for cattle, turn oil into cars and computers, the more damage we cause. And the more people that do this, the faster this happens.

I would argue, for many people see overpopulation as ‘too many people damaging the planet too much’. In fact, the more hard core environmentalists use the term ‘carrying capacity’ to suggest there is a optimum level of sustainable population much lower than we have right now. Relics of such extreme anti-human positions can be seen in the population-focused UK Green Party platform, but are fortunately in decline. A broader cultural relic of this is that reasonable people today who would recoil from the idea of culling millions to save the environment, are happy to oppose life extension because of this environment impact of human population. Also allowing millions to die. :(

As life extensionists advocates, the impact on human activity on the environment is not our specialism, yet this is a massive concern.

Dysgenics

As we say goodbye to 2016 marked by anti-establishment popularism and nationalism in the western world, it’s easy to think the world is going to shit. And you know what, in some places for some people it is. The 2006 dystopian satire ‘Idiocracy’ demonstrates this phenomenon excellently:

But let’s say you’re not worried about the stupid having too many kids — well, some worry that’ll it’ll be the wrong religious group (debunked), or simply the wrong people who do. And no, we can’t just kill the poor.

There are real problems of perverse incentives around reproducing caused by the welfare state in the west, ones that are currently unsolved in modern politics.

Penalising the childlessness

In the west, people are having fewer to no children — yet the structure of most governments is set up to value economic child benefits, schooling, higher education not to mention the social status of having successfully reproduced as if it was something god-given and magical.

The child-free movement (as they’re sometimes collectively known) sees the fetishization of reproduction as socially, economically and environmentally damaging. As advocates, we must acknowledge the real issues this demographic have with the current structure of society and help lay out a future where life extension technology is both desirable, and considerate of this particular group’s considerations.

Localised instability

Certainly in the UK post EU referendum, the issue of immigration has never been higher on the agenda in recent years. Whilst immigration has mostly been a success in places such as London, some smaller towns have struggled with rapid demographic shifts brought about by foreign immigration causing strain on educational, health and local government services.

Such circumstances breeds racism and xenophobia around ‘hoards’ of migrants coming to the UK, creating the ideas such as ‘Britain is full!’, creating strong un-addressed feelings of dis-empowerment and resentment when these policies don’t serve their local communities.

God I hate this man…

It’s not a giant logical leap to mix anxiety about immigration as a facet of overpopulation.

Aging population

A serious economic challenge awaits the west in the coming years. As the baby boomers retire, we’re going to have a unprecedented level of mostly economically inactive people who require state social support. Are our nations economic systems set up for this? No!

Life extensionists can at least advocate healthspan interventions in this area as is key to the economic principle, sometimes known as the longevity dividend. However the corresponding political transition is poorly advocated right now. Do we need universal basic income? Increase the retirement age? Restructure the economic incentives around retirement? What about healthy people already retired, do we put them to work via incentives?

Conclusion

For life extension advocates, this cannot be ‘someone else’s problem’, ultimately, a complete plan must be delivered which can withstand the scrutiny not just from the apathetic and sympathetic, but from our direct critics.

This will be ongoing discussion as we amass the definitive plans, objections, counter objections, counter-counter objections and progress advocacy from pollyannaish wish-fulfilment into a scientific and social movement that will one day become the mainstream.

Note — I am an officer with Transhumanist Party UK, a party looking to develop such a comprehensive approach. I also lead the H+Pedia project from Humanity+ which also serves as a research aggregation and policy development platform