When I tell people I’ve writing a book on ageing, the first question I get usually isn’t about biology: it’s ‘won’t that cause massive overpopulation?’
The moral, ethical and social consequences of treating ageing would be enormous, and I only scratch the surface in the book to leave more space for the science.
As a result, I’m going to be releasing a free bonus chapter of the book online in January 2022, to coincide with the release of the paperback editions of Ageless in the US and UK! It will address some of the common questions, from what would happen to population, to whether anti-ageing medicine would increase inequality, to risks of immortal dictators, and more.
If you’d like to be the first to hear when the chapter drops, please sign up for my mailing list on Substack:
I’m also planning to make a series of videos about this, the first of which is here:
In the meantime, here are two things I found enjoyable while writing the book that you might find useful too:
- A discussion with philosopher Anders Sandberg on the 80,000 Hours Podcast, covering a huge range of topics including the ethics of ending ageing.
- Ethical perspectives in biogerontology (PDF), a book chapter by Sebastian Sethe and João Pedro de Magalhães which covers many of the common ethical objections to treating ageing.