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My, pondering that scenario has made me optimistic: one likely outcome of said social upheaval would be liberalizing the FDA, which would have very positive knock-on effects for human welfare.

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@RobinHanson:disqus : That seems essentially impossible, if you use a standard such as a pill marketed with an explicit FDA endorsement of the longevity claim. (Such an endorsement would cause massive social upheaval, and I suspect that with the government in its current form, regardless of the pace of scientific advancement, no such endorsement will be made for at least 60 years. Just think of the lawsuits... they would have to use an extraordinary standard of clinical evidence.) But perhaps @disqus_7K1HQbDsf2:disqus was suggesting weaker FDA certification along the lines of, "the general health and well-being of an average person aged 50 taking the pill is comparable to that of an average person aged 45 not taking the pill." That seems far more plausible, but I'd still bet against it at 10:1 odds by 2023. (Again, mostly because this would be such an important drug that probably decades of clinical trials and longitudinal studies would be required before the FDA would sign off on such a claim.) Which raises the specter that if medical researchers *do* make such an advance, we will be denied what must be hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of welfare returns from it, by our own government. But more likely, the drug would be copied and marketed abroad, and rich Americans would quickly procure it overseas. Still likely to cause massive social upheaval, but of the more familiar class warfare kind.

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