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Of Malthus and Methuselah: does longevity treatment aggravate global catastrophic risks?
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2014 Phys. Scr. 89 128005
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Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Physica Scripta
Phys. Scr. 89 (2014) 128005 (7pp)
doi:10.1088/0031-8949/89/12/128005
Invited Comment
Of Malthus and Methuselah: does longevity
treatment aggravate global
catastrophic risks?
Karim Jebari
Institute for Future Studies, Postal address: Holländargatan 13, 101 30 Stockholm, Sweden
E-mail: karim.jebari@iffs.se and jebarikarim@gmail.com
Received 12 August 2014, revised 3 November 2014
Accepted for publication 5 November 2014
Published 27 November 2014
Abstract
Global catastrophic risk is a term that refers to the risk of the occurrence of an event that kills at
least millions of people across several continents. While it has been argued by a number of
scholars that one major potential risk comes from technology, the obscure nature of future
technologies makes it difficult to utilize traditional probabilistic risk for the meaningful study of
these risks. This article describes an alternative approach and applies it to a research program that
has attracted a considerable amount of resources recently: namely longevity research. The aim of
this research is to delay or reverse the ageing process. This article argues that this research
program is much more risky or less beneficial than its proponents argue. In particular, they tend
to underestimate the concerns associated with the potentially drastic population growth that
longevity treatment could cause. The ethical benefit often ascribed to longevity treatment is that
such treatment would add more subjective life-years that are worth living. However, in light of
contemporary environmental problems, such an increase of the human population might be
reckless. Drastically reducing fertility to reduce risks associated with environmental stress would
make the benefits of such technology much less compelling.
Keywords: emerging technology, global catastrophic risk, ethics
1. Introduction
their sheer number ought to dominate our ethical considerations. These ideas have been discussed more thoroughly by
Nick Bostrom [1]. It has been argued by a number of scholars
that a major potential risk comes from technology [2]. While
natural disasters with the power to exterminate mankind are
very unlikely, arriving at a similar assessment of future misuse of technology—either intentional or accidental—is considerably more uncertain. The assumption in this field is that
while technology has a great potential to improve the human
condition, it can also cause great harm. When studying risks
associated with novel or possible technologies, it might seem
like a good idea to use probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) tools.
However, as Sven-Ove Hansson has argued in a number of
publications, these tools are not very helpful in this context
[3]. PRA was developed to evaluate well-defined dangers
associated with well-known technologies. Yet, as discussed
Global catastrophic risk (CGR) is a term that refers to the risk
of the occurrence of an event that kills at least millions of
people across several continents. Such events could be sudden
and violent, such as wars and natural disasters, or slow and
silent, such as malaria or HIV/AIDS. A subset of global
catastrophic risks threatens the very existence of our species.
These are known as existential catastrophes. While these may
be unlikely, the opportunity cost of such a catastrophe is vast
due to the number of lives that can exist in the absence of
such a disaster. Unless we ascribe very little value to the lives
of future generations, people who might exist in the future,
1
This paper was presented at a meeting on Emerging Technologies and the
Future of Humanity held at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
0031-8949/14/128005+07$33.00
1
© 2014 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Printed in the UK
Phys. Scr. 89 (2014) 128005
K Jebari
inherent in new technologies into account. I have argued
elsewhere that the heuristics developed by engineers are very
useful for understanding and developing strategies to reduce
global catastrophic risks [6].
Whereas PRA departs from known ‘worst-case scenarios’, the set of heuristics proposed by Hansson departs from
‘mere possibility arguments’ [7]. This class of arguments
makes claims about the risk of a technology based on a mere
possibility. For example: ‘nanotechnology could result in selfreplicating nano-robots converting all matter to more nanorobots’. As such, these arguments allow us to consider possibilities that are ‘outside model’, i.e. outside of the realm of
our expectations. However, these arguments are sometimes
ridiculously speculative, yet when dealing with great uncertainty about existential risks it might be irresponsible not to
consider such arguments, as when the physicist Edward Teller
raised the speculative possibility that an atomic bomb could
ignite the atmosphere [8]. How to strike a balance? A number
of considerations and tests have been proposed by Hansson to
assess these claims systematically. While being unable to
provide the apparent rigor of PRA, this method may prove to
be an important additional tool in this crucial yet daunting
research program.
First, a number of scenarios need to be collected in as
systematic and non-partisan way as possible. Some examples
of this can be found in the recent book Global Catastrophic
Risks [2]. The scenarios should be subdivided into more
specific outcomes. Consider the claim ‘geoengineering poses
a huge risk to the biosphere’. This claim could be specified
into a number of different and more precise claims. Some
scenarios can, when specified, be discarded at this point, if
subjected to a scientific analysis. For example: whereas the
claim ‘electromagnetic radiation poses a grave danger to
human health’ is too vague to evaluate, the claim ‘nonionizing radiation from mobile telecommunication causes
cancer in humans’ is specific enough to discard.
At this point we may apply what Hansson refers to as
‘the symmetry test’. A mere possibility argument can be
deflated if the phenomena has some other possible effect that
is opposite in value and that has equal or superior moral
weight than the postulated effect. For example, it has been
claimed that crops that have been genetically modified to
produce toxins that kill insects could cause a massive loss of
ecosystem diversity. On the other hand, it also possible that
these modifications could reduce the use of pesticide, that
could have an opposite effect. Thus, the negative effect of this
hypothetical modification is countered by an opposite positive
effect. By contrast, most reckless acts, such as driving under
the influence of alcohol, have small benefits in comparison to
the risks that such behavior is associated with.
A mere possibility argument could also be countered by
an alternate effect. Such an effect occurs if the failure to
implement the intervention under consideration could lead to
equally appalling consequences. For example, it has been
argued that research in biotechnology might result in the
intentional or accidental creation of a superbug that could
pose an existential threat. However, the failure to pursue this
elsewhere at this meeting, we all agree that what we face
when evaluating emerging and future technologies is not a
‘risk’ in the technical sense, which differs from the ordinary
meaning (Seth 2014). Rather, we are dealing with great
uncertainty.
In decision theory, a decision is under certainty when the
agent knows which outcome each decision entails [4]. This is
often the case in philosophical thought experiments, where
we are asked to assume for example that pushing a man from
a bridge will kill him, while stopping a runaway trolley,
thereby saving five (innocent) persons. In this popular thought
experiment, we know with absolute certainty that pushing the
man will kill him and we also know with the same degree of
confidence that not doing so will lead to the death of five
persons.
A decision is under risk when there is more than one
possible outcome of a decision and the objective probability
of each outcome is known. This is typically the situation
when playing an (unbiased) game of roulette in a casino. By
contrast, in a decision under uncertainty, the objective probabilities of the outcomes are not known with sufficient precision, yet other features about the situation are often assumed
to be well-defined and known. These may include, for
example, potential outcomes, their respective utility and the
distribution of this utility across time and space [5]. For
example, the decision to raise or fold in a game of poker
involves uncertainty about the other player’s hand. While the
probability that the other player may have a better hand than
yours is unknown, the utility of losing or winning the game is
usually well known.
This is hardly the case when we evaluate new or possible
technologies. Rather, as Hansson and others have argued, in
these situations we are dealing with great uncertainty. This
refers to a situation where the decision maker not only lacks
precise probabilities of the different outcomes; the decision
maker must also assume that there are possible outcomes that
are not known. Furthermore, the possibility that the probability space is dominated by some of the unknown possible
outcomes cannot be excluded. For example, when declaring
war, a list of possible outcomes and their respective utilities
could be compiled. Yet no reasonable military planner would
be too confident about this list being comprehensive, or that
the utility assigned to each outcome is certain.
The astronomical opportunity costs of an existential
catastrophe and the notion that considerations of how to
reduce existential risk must account for great uncertainty may
open the door to total paralysis. Any new technology could be
the last one, and a failure to invent any technology could also
be our last. How can we approach the subject of existential
risk under great uncertainty in a constructive way?
2. Mere possibility arguments
Engineers have managed risk in complex systems for hundreds of years, knowing that new technology often fails in
unpredictable ways. Engineering safety is a set of partly
overlapping practices and heuristics that take the uncertainties
2
Phys. Scr. 89 (2014) 128005
K Jebari
pharmacological intervention is inevitable, according to a
review published in Nature last year [13]. The proponents of
this technology make a simple claim of its benefits: ageing
and morbidity related to ageing kills approximately 100 000
persons daily, or two thirds of all deaths. In rich countries, the
proportion killed by ageing is roughly 90% [14]. Surely, these
people matter no less than the people who die from HIV/
AIDS or malaria? Any risk, in comparison to ‘the ongoing
slaughter’, cannot be taken seriously, de Grey argues [12].
Would de Grey be correct in his claim that if ageing is to
be considered as an ongoing moral disaster, we should be
prepared to accept major risks when introducing this technology? However, this idea either fails to fully appreciate the
contributive value of future generations and the opportunity
cost of an existential catastrophe [15]. The mere possibility
argument presented here is that longevity treatment could
aggravate concerns about the possibility of avoiding catastrophic demographic collapse due to environmental, social
and economic constraints. Can the argument in favor of
longevity treatment be assessed according to the heuristics
proposed above?
To explore this challenge, we need to consider the following scenarios with regards to human fertility. To clarify: in
a general academic context ‘fertility’ refers to the average
number of children that women are expected to have over
their lifetime. However, for the purposes of this paper, I will
use the term ‘fertility’ to refer to the number of children per
woman that are expected to be born each year. We will further
assume that longevity treatment would become widely
available for a large fraction of mankind in a few decades
after its introduction. Now consider two possibilities.
research may expose us to some natural microbe that could
pose a similar threat.
The next step is to evaluate the mere possibility argument
according to the following heuristic tools. These should be
seen as rules of thumb to give us an idea about how much
attention we should pay to mere possibility arguments.
1. Novelty: the more well-known and well tested a
technology is, the less room there is to make a mere
possibility argument. For example, we should be more
concerned about cloning animals than about selective
breeding.
2. Spatio-temporal limitation: an intervention that is
limited to a particular time and place is less vulnerable
to mere possibility arguments. For example, manipulating a local ecosystem by removing a forest is less
dangerous than trying to manipulate the whole biosphere through geoengineering.
3. Interference with complex systems: the more complex a
system, the greater the risk for an intervention in the
system. Complex systems typically have nonlinear
responses to stress, such that an intervention may either
have negligible or drastic effects. For example, for
geoengineering to have an effect, interventions on a
massive scale are required. Yet, the uncertainty of how
such an intervention may affect other planetary systems
is still considerable. Thus, an incremental approach is
recommended when dealing with systems such as the
climate or the economy.
In summary, mere possibility arguments are an alternative tool for considering global catastrophic risks from
technological innovation when PRA is not possible. Mere
possibility arguments can be systematically evaluated by
using a number of tests. I will now turn to a potentially disruptive technology: the control of the many kinds of cellular
damage that are commonly referred to as ageing, and apply
these heuristics to consider the risks and benefits of the
implementation of a cure for senescence.
(a) Fertility is drastically reduced to keep actual population
growth in line with current projections. Since ageing
causes two thirds of all deaths, universal usage of this
treatment would require a corresponding reduction in
fertility.
(b) Fertility follows current projections and, as a result,
population grows faster, possibly much faster than
anticipated.
3. Longevity treatment
In both these scenarios, it has been assumed that longevity treatment would proliferate quickly. If such treatment
became possible, it is hard to imagine that it would not be in
high demand. Consider the almost universal demand for
‘rejuvenating’ cosmetic products. It seems plausible to
assume that the willingness to pay for treatment that could
actually delay (or reverse) ageing would be considerable. If
longevity treatment consisted of some expensive surgical
procedure, then costs would probably restrict its adoption to
the wealthy2. However, if such treatment consisted of a drug,
then research costs would be shared by a huge number of
buyers, thereby driving down prices and increasing
availability.
While longevity treatment may sound fantastic, it seems
plausible that substantial progress in this field could materialize over the next decades. Medical interventions that arrest
or reverse ageing are likely to come in small steps, where
each innovation increases lifespan a few years at a time. A
study from 2011 suggests the possibility of slowing down the
ageing process by activating an enzyme that protects the
chromosomes in cells [9]. A recent outlook in the journal
Nature surveyed the frontier in understanding the biochemical
mechanisms involved in this process [10]. Google announced
recently that they were setting up a research company, Calico,
with the explicit goal of producing a medicine or treatment for
ageing [11]. In the UK, Aubrey de Grey and his research
foundation for engineered negligible senescence (SENS)
recently received generous donations from a number of
internet entrepreneurs [12]. Many experts believe that a
2
However, it is worth pointing out that according to current projections
GDP per capita in corrected for purchasing power (PPP) in developed and
emerging economies are going to converge. For example, China’s GDP per
capita as a proportion of the US is expected to increase from 18% in 2011 to
44% in 2050 [16].
3
Phys. Scr. 89 (2014) 128005
K Jebari
These scenarios could also be conceived as a continuum,
where (a) and (b) represent the outliers in the question of
fertility. While scenario (a) could be characterized as (relatively) low risk/low value outcome, scenario (b) represents
high risk/high value.
considered to be self-evident, the positive right to life, i.e. the
right to have one’s life extended, is more complicated. In the
healthcare system, choices are made all the time on who to
prioritize, and some people’s lives are not extended for a
variety of reasons, not all related to the right of life of others.
To be sure, some philosophers argue that we have a responsibility to maximize utility, and this often means trying to
save as many lives as possible [20]. While such an outlook is
admirable, most of us believe that we have no obligation to
donate all our money to life-saving charities, and that we are
allowed to take our own welfare into consideration when
making choices that could have saved other people’s lives.
When considering the risks and benefits of life extension,
we may consider the right of existing people to extend their
lives, but this right needs to be balanced by other considerations, such as whether or not introducing such technology would constitute an existential risk.
Thus, in hypothetical scenario (a) no additional value is
added, unless we discriminate against non-existing people.
This means that if scenario (a) took place, longevity treatment
could not appeal to the symmetry test, since the value created
by this intervention would at best be negligible.
In addition, scenario (a) may result in a number of longterm risks, as the characteristics of widely available longevity
treatment correspond to a ‘high risk’ intervention according to
the heuristic model presented above. Longevity treatment
would be very difficult to contain in space and time.
It could be argued that longevity treatment is hardly new,
since life expectancy has been increasing for more than a
century and society has been able to adapt to this change to a
reasonable degree. Yet, this claim conflates the increases in
life expectancy (the average number of years that an infant
can expect to live) and life span (the average number of years
that an adult can expect to live). While modern medicine and
public health has dramatically increased the former, the latter
has hardly increased as much. A male adult member of the
English aristocracy in 1500 could expect to live to age 71
[21]. Thus, the expected radical extension of life span that
longevity treatment is likely to bring about is something
completely new.
Longevity treatment would also interfere with highly
complex social relations across many domains of life. We
can, at this point, only speculate about the social effects of
this change. Yet, it is worth pointing out that death, and the
awareness of our limited time, is a major aspect in many
individual decisions of great importance, such as when to
procreate, where and when to invest, and when to take risks or
abstain from doing so. By adding a large and uncertain
number of life-years to each existing person’s expected life
span, the utility function of a large number of individuals
would change in ways that could have profound and unpredictable consequences across many domains.
What would happen with the generation of new ideas and
new projects? It is a sad fact about us that we rarely change
our minds [22]. The greatly reduced pace of generational
change in scenario (a) is likely to adversely affect innovation
and scientific progress. For example, it has been observed that
in the history of science, new insights and scientific models
3.1. Low fertility
Start with scenario (a). In this scenario, we merely replace
future people with existing people. As Gustaf Arrhenius has
argued, this scenario is no better than allowing existing
people to die and replacing them with new people [17]. This
claim is supported by what in contemporary moral philosophy
is known as neutrality, a widely accepted condition in
population ethics. According to this condition, if two outcomes A and B have the same amount of welfare and
equality, then A and B are equally good, other things being
equal. This condition applies equally to actual populations
and populations that are merely possible.
We may have reason to believe that additional life-years
add increasing marginal utility, i.e. that a number of subjective life-years are better if concentrated in fewer people
rather than more. In other words, we may believe that the life
of a person that has lived for 60 years is more than twice as
good as the life of one person that has lived for 30 years.
However, while it is plausible that additional life-years add
increasing marginal utility for people with very short lives,
this may not be true for very long lives. We can only speculate about the merits and flaws of very long lives, but it is
quite reasonable to assume that the net benefits of extreme
longevity are quite limited. Our brains, even when rejuvenated, may not be able to fully enjoy a multicentenarian life.
These considerations make it quite plausible that two hundred
years lived by two different people is at least as good as the
same number of years lived by one person.
An outcome where existing people displace future people
would not necessarily be better all things considered, even if
it would be better for the existing people. It is worth noting
that the abovementioned condition, neutrality, is consistent
with a large number of theories about value, including most
forms of consequentialism [18]. In particular, neutrality is a
condition that is accepted by most scholars that are concerned
about existential risks. The assumption that the lives of nonexisting but possible future people may have some contributive value is crucial to the claim that existential catastrophes are much worse than catastrophes that are ‘almostexistential’. This means that we are assuming that the lives of
people in the future have a positive value, i.e. they make an
outcome better3, and that we should be concerned about the
existence and welfare of these people.
Daniela Cutas argues that the right to life also implies
that that we have a duty to prevent death and that longevity
treatment should, if available, be seen as a universal right
[19]. Yet while we may sympathize with the idea of a positive
‘right to life’, this cannot be an unconditional right. While the
negative right to life, i.e. the right to not be killed, is by many
3
Assuming that these people have lives worth living.
4
Phys. Scr. 89 (2014) 128005
K Jebari
this outcome open to a negative mere possibility argument. I
should add here that an objection from distributive justice
against longevity treatment can be made and is indeed plausible. Yet, the argument here shall focus only on the argument
from global risks. For a discussion on equity related objections, see [26].
While the concerns associated with scenario (a) are still
prevalent in scenario (b), an additional, risk is associated with
scenario (b). We can refer to this as the ‘Malthusian risk’. It
will be argued that this additional risk is of such a magnitude
that it makes longevity treatment vulnerable to a negative
mere possibility argument.
Thomas Robert Malthus predicted in An Essay on the
Principle of Population that once population growth outpaced
agricultural production, mankind would be forced to return to
subsistence level conditions. Modern Malthusians have on a
number of occasions predicted that such a Malthusian catastrophe was imminent, yet these predictions have consistently
failed [27].
However, this should not inflate our confidence that such
concerns are inherently implausible. Although large-scale
population declines have not occurred in the modern era, a
number of demographical collapses have occurred historically. One such example is the crisis of the Late Middle Ages,
where famine, plague and war dramatically reduced the
population of Western Europe [28]. While a similar demographic collapse is unlikely to pose an existential risk by
itself, it makes some such risks more likely. For example, our
advanced civilization has the means to survive a number of
large natural disasters that could pose an existential risk for
agricultural or hunter-gatherer civilizations. It is hypothesized
that our ancestors barely survived one such major disaster in
our prehistory [29]. Rebuilding civilization after a large-scale
collapse could be hampered by the relative scarcity of easily
extractable fossil fuels. A large global catastrophe that would
permanently reduce life quality and number of lives to preindustrial levels has opportunity costs that are comparable to
those of a ‘real’ existential catastrophe.
Modern Malthusians have recently argued that the current situation in terms of climate change, ocean acidification,
nitrogen cycle and species extinction is dire [30]. If global
GDP continues to grow at 3% a year, as is expected, the stress
on the planetary boundaries may already be too great to avoid
a disaster. Adding a large number of lives to this predicament
is likely to aggravate the problem severely. Note also that the
extra lives anticipated in scenario (b) would be concentrated
among the richest people, the group that also contributes most
to environmental stress. This makes longevity treatment different from other lifesaving innovations that are often compared to it, such as malaria vaccines. People who could be
saved by malaria vaccines are among the poorest in the world
and consume negligible amounts of planetary resources.
Moreover, efforts to control malaria also seem to reduce
fertility [31].
To sum up, scenario (b) would create the risks described
in scenario (a) and also seriously aggravate prevailing Malthusian risks.
have often triumphed because their opponents eventually die
[23]. Young people are typically more inclined to take risks
[24], which suggests that a society without ageing and with
very little intergenerational mobility might be much more
stagnant than ours. Such a society may be particularly vulnerable to new and unexpected threats that require a lot of
people to change their way of life. For example, older people
seem to be more skeptical about the existence of anthropogenic climate change and less inclined to favor political
reforms to address this problem [25].
In summary, scenario (a) is not obviously morally
superior to the status quo, and is associated with drastic
changes that are spatiotemporally unrestricted. Moreover,
longevity treatment introduces a novel and potentially highly
disruptive change in demography, social structure and complex social dynamics across many domains. These changes
are problematic from a risk perspective in that they may make
us more vulnerable to risks that require flexibility, adaptation
and innovation.
3.2. Moderate fertility
Scenario (b) represents an outcome where fertility follows
current projections. According to these projections, the
number of children born per woman is likely to contract
substantially, approaching the replacement level at 2.4 children per woman during 2025–20304. On these projections,
the global population is expected to reach nine billion by
2040 and ten billion by 2100. The fall in children per woman
across the world that is already accounted for makes scenario
(b), or an outcome closer to (b) on a continuum, more likely.
It would take a lot of political effort to limit population
growth further.
Furthermore, if longevity treatment is costly in the first
years after its introduction, the expected population increase
will be most notable in rich countries and among the elite in
poor countries. This is due to the fact that age-related mortality accounts for a much larger fraction of deaths in these
groups, up to 90%. Since these people contribute relatively
little to total world fertility, the reductions in fertility would
have to come from those groups who are likely to be the last
ones to benefit from longevity treatment. This makes it more
difficult to make longevity treatment conditional on strict
measures to control fertility. Such measures are likely to be
required to bring about the reductions in fertility that could
significantly offset the large number of age-related deaths that
would no longer occur.
Yet, scenario (b) adds many subjective life-years in
comparison to the status quo, or scenario (a). These life-years
add value to the world on the view espoused here. This is
because billions of subjective life-years that would otherwise
not have existed would exist in scenario (b). Therefore, only if
we have reason to believe that scenario (b) brings about
unacceptable risks for a global or existential catastrophe is
4
The global replacement level is somewhat higher than the replacement
level in OECD-countries (2.1) due to higher rates of infant and child
mortality in poor countries.
5
Phys. Scr. 89 (2014) 128005
K Jebari
4. Additional concerns
Thus, the geopolitical instability that such collapse could
produce is much more dangerous than in previous collapses.
Thomas Malthus was famously mistaken in his predictions of
recurring population collapses, as was the most notable
modern Malthusian, Paul Ehrlich. Agricultural technology
averted the mass starvation that they predicted. However,
there are some reasons to believe that the challenges posed by
contemporary concerns are different. The risks in scenario (b)
require that three challenges need to be addressed.
First, it is a considerable technological challenge to
provide food, water and electricity for a growing population.
This includes technology to increase agricultural yields,
store and generate large quantities of electricity, and so on.
Proponents of longevity research are typically very optimistic on this issue. For example, Ray Kurzweil (director of
engineering at Google) predicts that this will not be a problem [32]. Let us grant, for the sake of the discussion, this
premise.
The second challenge, to overcome social resistance to
technology, is just as daunting. Futurists like Kurzweil seem
to overlook the political and social challenges of implementing technology. For example, we already seem to have
technology to decarbonize electricity production. Why is this
technology not already in use? Huge amounts of fresh food
are discarded in the EU and the US, even though a perfectly
safe and effective technology has been available for decades
that could drastically increase shelf-life: food irradiation.
Genetically modified crops are still highly regulated in the
EU, even though most mere possibility arguments concerning
this technology have been answered adequately. Religious
resistance against vaccines, condoms and other contraceptives
shows that technology is only a necessary, and not a sufficient
condition to address our Malthusian concerns.
These suggestions illustrate the point that technologically
plausible interventions are not necessarily socially plausible.
It should be added that these technologies are not even
implemented when they could avert large-scale disasters, as is
the case with Golden Rice, a vitamin-fortified crop that, had it
been adopted a decade ago, would have prevented the deaths
of thousands of children [33].
The third challenge concerns the lack of political institutions with the legitimacy and ability to mobilize resources
to deal with prevailing global problems. As Persson and
Savulescu argue in their recent book, Western democracies
seem ill-equipped to handle the problems of environmental
stress [34]. It is true that democracies have shown a
remarkable ability to act forcefully in the face of a sudden
crisis. Yet this ability has not yet been demonstrated in
dealing with the current environmental problems. How to
build political institutions that are apt to deal with global
problems remains an unsolved problem.
Even if there were technology available to avoid a
Malthusian scenario, the social and political challenges could
prove insurmountable even in the absence of longevity
treatment. In scenario (b) these challenges would be much
worse. Such demographic collapse has never occurred on a
global scale in a world with weapons of mass destruction.
5. Conclusions
When dealing with potentially disruptive technological
innovation, we cannot afford to wait and collect data to make
a rigorous risk analysis. The risks involved require that we
engage in enquiries in the possibilities even when such
investigation requires some level of speculation. However,
such speculation can be constrained by the heuristics proposed by Hansson. I have shown how this approach can be
applied to the study of global catastrophic risks. Furthermore,
I have, with this toolkit, explored how the risks of longevity
research, largely unappreciated in the GCR and futurist
communities, can be assessed in this framework, and that
there are valid concerns about the possible adverse effects of
longevity research.
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