June 16th, 2004
Demolishing The Stagnation Argument
Glenn Reynolds' latest column at Tech Central Station takes on the stagnation argument - that greatly extended life spans will lead to a stagnant society, and that death of the old guard in any field is what really leads to progress. This argument, like most other pro-death rhetoric, is clearly nonsense. As Glenn Reynolds points out, "we've pretty much done that experiment already, and it hasn't worked out that way. Lifespans, after all, have been getting steadily longer since the turn of the twentieth century ... at the same time that lives have been lengthening, the past hundred years have also been the most creative and dynamic period in human history."