Let’s be realistic, probably nothing. But I could be proven wrong by a new film he stars in that has the potential, at least, to raise some interesting ethical questions. Here is the summary from Wikipedia:
In a retro-future when the aging gene has been switched off, people stop aging at 25 years old. However, stamped on their arm is a clock of how long they will live. To avoid overpopulation, time has become the currency and the way people pay for luxuries and necessities. The rich can live forever, while the rest try to negotiate for their immortality.
And here is the trailer:
A frequent argument made in favor of organ markets is that donating a kidney does not lower life expectancy. But is the morality of kidney markets contingent on this fact, and how certain are we of this? I’ve written about this issue before.
The question is, do you object to markets in life years? If so, then it would seem that the argument that kidney donations do not decrease the life expectancy of the donor isn’t just an argument in favor allowing it, but a necessary condition for it.
This raises the importance of this question significantly. Has there ever been a randomized study done on kidney donation? Clearly there is a selection bias here in that unhealthy people are unlikely to donate. If it turns out that kidney donations do decrease life expectancy, will supporters of these markets (like myself) change their minds? Or does the morality really hinge on whether there is a net increase in lifespan?
Another question about markets in life years is that it is just an explicit version of trade that is already occurring. Miners, commercial fisherman, and others in dangerous occupations already trade expected life expectancy for money. Does the narrowing of the variance around that expectation increase the immorality of the transaction? Or is there some certainty threshold you cross where it becomes immoral? Surely it isn’t 100% certainty, right?
Anyway, these are the amateur philosophical thoughts of an economist tossing these ideas around. I’m sure more philosophically sophisticated people than I can explain clearly and persuasively the right, wrong, and unsettled of this issue.
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Friday ~ October 7th, 2011 at 10:25 am
Eli
I think a market in life-years per se is not objectionable. In part, my intuition is driven by a “narrowing of the variance” argument such as the one you point out. But let me try a different tack as well.
People can have preferences over the intensity of utility they experience in their lives. For instance, one person may prefer a short life that is very exciting, and another may prefer a long “Muzak and potatoes” existence. These are both valid preferences; there is nothing immoral about either of them. There is nothing immoral about trying to realize these preferences or in helping others realize their preferences. When people with differing preferences trade in life-years, both parties move closer to their ideal life intensity-length combination. If you accept that preferences over intensity of utility are like other preferences, then it’s hard to see why trade in life-years is different from other trade.
Friday ~ October 7th, 2011 at 10:58 am
Blake
Robin Hanson has blogged about a related issue: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/04/one-pill-to-break-us-all.html.
This film’s producers might have had something like Robin’s immortality pill in mind when they premised the film but I can’t quite tell.
If people have to die because they can’t afford a new immortality pill (“more time”) then that sounds like a market. But if people are dying because some government actor is murdering them to control overpopulation then that too could technically be a market (to the extent you could pay/produce to prevent your murder) but a rather controlled market, certainly not a free one. In a free market highly valuable assets like human beings (even poor ones) would rarely be destroyed. I confess I have a hard time buying into overpopulation premises in these hypotheticals.
The scenario also (unimaginatively) plays out the current health care crisis, wherein we spend most of our wealth gains on healthcare. The future is just like the present only more so.
Friday ~ October 7th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Brett
Honestly, I can’t see a situation like the one in that movie arising. If we do come up with an Immortality Treatment, the public pressure in the Developed World to ensure that everyone in those countries gets the treatment would be enormous.
Friday ~ October 7th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
PrometheeFeu (@PrometheeFeu)
I think that’s a very accurate depiction of reality. When the social order is more of a cost than a benefit to enough people, it becomes better to have a revolution, turn off the killing machine and rebuild society than to keep working within the system.
Friday ~ October 7th, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Benny Lava
Is this a remake of Logan’s Run?
Friday ~ October 7th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
PrometheeFeu (@PrometheeFeu)
I would not object to a market in life years if it actually was a scarce resource. However, the movie seems to show life years as being an infinite resource on which the government is imposing an artificial limit. I would find that to be highly objectionable. But let’s set that aside.
I think the standard intuitions on trade work whether kidney donations decreases your life expectancy or not. Assuming a voluntary transaction (including sufficient information) the only situation in which one might give a kidney would be if they believed they would become better off by selling their kidney. Removing that option does not help them.
Friday ~ October 7th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Edwin Perello
Kind of missing the point. Sort of. You’re taking the life-minutes too literally. It’s an allusion to ‘time is money.’
The wealthy by the virtue of being wealthy are able to continuously extract the life from those who aren’t. Through status and the incredible accumulation of time, the wealthy can extract more and more with little effort whereas those who aren’t wealthy, and don’t have much time, have to work and live hand to mouth (literally working hard just to live).
I believe in the story everything seems to be in equilibrium until someone starts sabotaging people like Timberlake for one reason or another. Part of the irony is that society considered the arrangement some kind of equilibrium.
It’s basically a critique of the great accumulation of wealth to the upper echelons, and an argument that nothing trickles.