Ep. 45: The Case Against Death - Philosopher Patrick Linden Is Arguing for Radical Life Extension

Ingemar Patrick Linden is a professor for philosophy and bioethics who taught for 10 years at NYU.

In his book "The Case Against Death", Patrick points out that evolutionary biology explains why we age and die, but not that we must age and die, or that we ought to.

“My experiences tell me that unless there is a good afterlife, death is a horrific evil and nothing is more important than preventing good people from dying. I am a death abolitionist and a life prolongevist.”

As we've learned in past episodes such as Ep. 15 with Sebastian Brunemeier, scientists have achieved breakthroughs that could radically extend human lifespan.

However, not only is longevity biotechnology ("LongBio") held back by numerous political and regulatory obstacles - it is up against what could be an intellectual fad or an age-old taboo of humanity: the vilification of the search for immortality.

Since the Ancient Greeks, Plato, Epicurus and the Stoics, a prevalent idea is "the wise view", that it's mature and enlightened to accept death and vain to fight against it.

Popular culture vilifies the search for immortality, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Marvel's Doctor Strange, depict immortality-seeking as a bad thing.

Patrick's view is simple: "Life is Good. Death is Bad."

In this conversation, we address some of the common arguments against the view and talk about the massive potential of life-extending technologies.

We concur that society would have to change.

Our current political and economic choices are not made for a world with an indefinite lifespan.

However, this is not a reason not to do it. This is a reason to do more experiments in human governance, such as Prospera, the modern charter city in Honduras, or Zuzalu - Vitalik Buterin's pop-up city in Montenegro.

With improved governance, we can be ready for a world with a prolonged or indefinite human lifespan.

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