Monthly Archives: January 2005

Liberal Reading

This entry was posted in Economics on by

That would be classical liberal reading!
As economics and law seem to play a large role in many blogospheric conversations I suggest that everyone commit to reading one article per day from the Inaugral Issue of The NYU Journal of Law & Libery:

The NYU Journal of Law & Liberty is dedicated to providing a forum for the critical discussion of classical liberal legal scholarship. It aims to explore issues, such as the nature of rules & order, legal philosophy, theories of rights & liberty, constitutional law, jurisprudence, legal history, and historical & contemporary legislation.
The Inaugural Issue of the Journal examines the lifework and thought of F.A. Hayek, perhaps the 20th century�s greatest proponent of classical liberalism.

Here is the Inaugural Issue table of contents.
Via Division of Labour.

A Modest Proposal to Solve the Social Security Problem

This entry was posted in Biology on by

There is a guy named Aubrey de Grey who makes some fairly strong arguments that significant human life extension is achievable between 25 and 100 years from now and that it is funding that will make the difference between the low and high end of the range.
So, on the off chance that he is right, let’s make sure he gets adequate funding to achieve the short end of the range. It will take just a fraction of the trillions of dollars involved in Social Security over the next 50-60 years, heck, even a small fraction of this years deficit would likely be enough.
If he is successful then we can convert those future retirees back into into productive participants in the economy and they can support themselves and in the process provide us the option of eliminating the social security system and other retirement plans. There should be significant reductions in age related health care costs as well.
Not everyone thinks de Grey is playing in a full deck or that his goals are admirable. In this Technology Review article popular author and former surgeon Sherwin Nuland sums up a lengthy interview with de Grey by suggesting:

If we are to be destroyed, I am now convinced that it will not be a netural or malevolent force that will do us in, but one that is benevolent in the extreme… If we are ever immolated, it will be by the efforts of well-meaning scientists …
It is a good thing that his grand design will almost certainly not succeed. Were it otherwise he would surely destroy us in attempting to preserve us.
I do recommend the article if you are not familiar with de Grey and his work.
But, beware! Nuland is successful at two things in this article: first, the less than subtle hatchet job that Nuland does on de Grey, partially exemplified in the above quote, is rather unbecoming a respected surgeon and renowned author. Nuland makes it clear early on that he wants to die and he wants it to be sooner, 80-120, rather than later and that he is very uncomfortable even contemplating the change that would be wrought by extending life spans beyond this normal length. So you have to wade through the digs, slams, and slightings to get to the meat.
It is, though, worth the effort because, second, he does introduce us to a fascinating guy with grand ideas, the kind that can both energize and change a world. I plan on spending quite a bit more time reading the material at de Grey’s site and the linked articles.