On changing demographics

I had bookmarked this at Instapundit for later review:

It’s more likely that conservatives will inherit the Earth. Like it or not, a growing proportion of the next generation will be born into families who believe that father knows best.

I had heard this argument many years ago in a "third beer" type of discussion. And like Glenn, I don't place much stock in these types of arguments - the acceptance (or rejection) of ideology depends on much more than upbringing alone.

But if the theory is true, this would seem to me relevant as well:

Richard Miller of the Michigan University Medical School said tests on mice and rats - genetically very similar to humans - showed lifespan could be extended by 40 percent, simply by limiting calorie consumption.

Translated into humans, that would mean average life expectancy in rich countries rising from near 80 to 112 years, with many individuals living a lot longer.

Aubrey de Grey, a biomedical gerontologist from Cambridge University, goes much further. He believes the first person to live to 1,000 has already been born and told the meeting that periodic repairs to the body using stem cells, gene therapy and other techniques could eventually stop the aging process entirely. (do you think he might be a Heinlein fan? - ed)

De Grey argues that if each repair lasts 30 or 40 years, science will advance enough by the next "service" date that death can be put off indefinitely - a process he calls strategies for engineered negligible senescence.

So my counterbalancing theory goes like this - liberals are, in general, less ethically inhibited about the technologies mentioned above, and therefore will be the group to benefit most. So reproduction will be much less important as their lifespans increase, providing a counterbalance to the right-favoring delta in birthrates.

The theory is depressing, though. I find no comfort in the prospect that my great-great-great-grandchildren could be blogging about some of the same loonies that I do.