Is living longer in an overcrowded world better than the alternative?

Via Greenie Watch: "How dare you do this research? The earth is already being raped by too many people, there is so much garbage, so much pollution." Ten years ago, an anti-aging researcher described this hostile reaction to her work in the pages of The New York Times. Not much has changed since then. The first objection one hears when one advocates radical life extension is that it will produce a Malthusian Hell of overpopulation and resource depletion. Objectors clearly believe it would be immoral to make it possible for lots of people to live to be, say, 150 years old. But is that so? Two newish papers from two controversial philosophers take on that reasoning, and tear it apart—with the help of their pocket calculators.

Posted via email from Garth's posterous