Argumentative Essay: The Issue Of Curing Aging
Curing aging would cause terrible overpopulation
Perhaps you're expecting me to propose a solution that society should and thus "obviously will" adopt. Actually I'm not. I have two answers that say nothing about what specific steps society will take, one concerning past precedent and one concerning human rights. Then I'll survey some of the issues concerning what solutions we might choose, and possibly allay some concerns, but don't forget that I'm not saying what I think society will actually do.
First let's look at past precedent. Put yourself in the position of someone powerful -- the prime minister of France, for example -- in, say, 1870 or so, when Pasteur was going around saying that hygiene could almost entirely prevent infant deaths from infections and death in childbirth. In your position, you have some influence over how quickly this knowledge gets out -- and, thus, how quickly lives start being saved. But you realise that the sooner people start adhering to these principles and washing their …show more content…
But who are we to make that decision for future generations? How do we even know what decision we ourselves would make? I like to remind people how brief was the population explosion that resulted from the virtual elimination of infant mortality a century ago when we all discovered hygiene. What happened? Answer: we found that it was prohibitively expensive to have ten kids each, and we cheerfully submitted to the barbaric indignity of wearing absurd rubber contraptions every time we have sex in order to avoid this. What do you think people would have said in 1850 if you'd proposed this as a strategy to avoid the impending population explosion? Obviously they would have ridiculed you. We have no clue what we will choose when a requirement emerges to lower birth rate
Perhaps you're expecting me to propose a solution that society should and thus "obviously will" adopt. Actually I'm not. I have two answers that say nothing about what specific steps society will take, one concerning past precedent and one concerning human rights. Then I'll survey some of the issues concerning what solutions we might choose, and possibly allay some concerns, but don't forget that I'm not saying what I think society will actually do.
First let's look at past precedent. Put yourself in the position of someone powerful -- the prime minister of France, for example -- in, say, 1870 or so, when Pasteur was going around saying that hygiene could almost entirely prevent infant deaths from infections and death in childbirth. In your position, you have some influence over how quickly this knowledge gets out -- and, thus, how quickly lives start being saved. But you realise that the sooner people start adhering to these principles and washing their …show more content…
But who are we to make that decision for future generations? How do we even know what decision we ourselves would make? I like to remind people how brief was the population explosion that resulted from the virtual elimination of infant mortality a century ago when we all discovered hygiene. What happened? Answer: we found that it was prohibitively expensive to have ten kids each, and we cheerfully submitted to the barbaric indignity of wearing absurd rubber contraptions every time we have sex in order to avoid this. What do you think people would have said in 1850 if you'd proposed this as a strategy to avoid the impending population explosion? Obviously they would have ridiculed you. We have no clue what we will choose when a requirement emerges to lower birth rate