Bryan Caplan catches Francis Fukuyama at his most monstrous:
I thought about the Horror File when Ron Bailey's Liberation Biology quoted Frank Fukuyama:
Life extension seems to me a perfect example of something that is a negative externality, meaning that it is individually rational and desirable for any given individual, but it has costs for society that can be negative.
I couldn't believe my eyes. Did Frank Fukuyama actually mean that when a person has another year of healthy life, the net effect on other people is negative? If so, why do people cry at funerals, instead of celebrating?
There is little to add to Caplan's evisceration of Fukuyama's attempt to justify this conclusion on the basis that death is necessary for progress, except to wonder why the advocates of the wisdom of disgust and horror so frequently feel free to make arguments which us worshipers of cold reason and rationality would reject out of hand as morally monstrous. The author of this blog—chosen pseudonym notwithstanding—is about as rationalist and—at least as far as economic, scientific, and technical matters are concerned—about as homo neophilus as it is possible to get. But even he would blanch at the price if it was causing (or even wishing for) the death of his parents, grandparents, and all other elders.
