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A Protocol for Dying

hintjens.com

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Re: A Protocol for Dying

#121

Post by tomp »

Juliate wrote: post #118
tomp wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, to simply "pick and choose" would denigrate the tradition that nikolay has decided to uphold. I guess what I'm missing here, is how does one come to such a decision. After all, the "tradition" is just an arbitrary set of rules that was made up by someone sometime in the past. I mean, even the name "Eastern Orthodox Christian" reveals that it's a refinement of Christianity, which is itself a refineme…

> what makes one consciously decide that a set of rules made up by someone else, which may or may not still be relevant, is the best way to conduct one's life? That may not be the best. But good enough given the circumstances (time, community, energy, freedom, incentives, capacity, will, goals)? Analogy: what makes you decide that using a fork is (not) the best way to eat some sorts of food? What makes you decide tha…

This is exactly the point - I use forks because I was brought up that way, but I am open to the possibility that they're not the best, and in fact, I'm actively experimenting (in many areas of my life) to find "better" ways.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#122

Post by PieterH »

clydethefrog wrote: post #73

A book about psychopaths from a software developer with no qualifications to speak with any authority on psychopathology whatsoever - that doesn't sound highly insightful.

Good thing you read the book and came back with a solid criticism instead of launching a superficial attack on my lack of credentials. Nice work.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#123

Post by PieterH »

restalis wrote: post #111
musha68k wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And do yourself a favour and buy his highly insightful and all-around great-to-read books: http://hintjens.com/books

He gives his books for free, so I can't imagine what buying would do for him (as I presume the paid sum is just the price asked by publishers for their service/channel). If you wish to support him you can do it more directly.

I get a decent chunk of the sale price in fact, as I'm my own publisher. Some people like paper books, some like ebooks, some like PDFs.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#124

Post by anonymous778 »

Neslit wrote: post #102
anonymous777 wrote: post #84

This whole thread reeks of death acceptance culture. HN readers show off how cool they are for accepting death instead of discussing how we as a tech community could help cure these diseases or at least give more people an option of being cryopreserved. The really unpleasant truth is that if we as a society began doing serious focused R&D on these life-threatening diseases earlier, the OP and many others wouldn't hav…

I agree that it is confusing and painful (and stupid) that cryopreservation does not get way more attention. But, your comment seems a little overly barbed, no? It seems like there would be more positive ways to say what you are saying.

I'm not from the 1st world, so it adds a bit of a darker attitude. To me it looks pretty insane that you earn so much money, have so high quality of life and yet you don't invest nearly as much as possible into life extension. Instead you buy big overpriced houses and other weird stuff.

Also looks like the mods banned me.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#125

Post by eric_bullington »

bcg1 wrote: post #116

The first time I came across Pieter was when he was interviewed about ZeroMQ on FLOSS weekly. I've come to find his writing to be engaging and informative, and thank him for that. His series of articles on psychopaths and the havoc they wreak is well worth reading, even if it takes a while to take it all in. My best lesson I learned on programming from Pieter was to use code generators effectively. The advantages can…

> My best lesson I learned on programming from Pieter was to use code generators effectively.

Likely among other places, Pieter discusses code generators here: http://download.imatix.com/mop/introduction.html

> Thank you Pieter, you will be missed.

Agreed. I posted my thoughts on his blog, although the hundreds of comments on this page will also stand as a testament to Pieter's work and the lives that he touched.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#126

Post by talles »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #90
Angostura wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is it inaccurate? It seems a fairly decent summary of the Carbon cycle.

The inaccuracy is that in reality, the box of Legos is huge and nowhere near running out of bricks. If suddenly all humans on Earth stopped dying, the carbon cycle wouldn't even notice it for centuries or more (the things we'd be doing to control overpopulation are another topic though).

Here we are discussing carbon cycle for a explanation of death to a five year old.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#127

Post by Neslit »

anonymous778 wrote: post #124
Neslit wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it is confusing and painful (and stupid) that cryopreservation does not get way more attention. But, your comment seems a little overly barbed, no? It seems like there would be more positive ways to say what you are saying.

I'm not from the 1st world, so it adds a bit of a darker attitude. To me it looks pretty insane that you earn so much money, have so high quality of life and yet you don't invest nearly as much as possible into life extension. Instead you buy big overpriced houses and other weird stuff. Also looks like the mods banned me.

Ok, I think I can see why that would be extra frustrating, on top of the already quite sufficient horror of death. Nevertheless, it is probably a good idea to stay civil and try to communicate meaningfully, rather than venting emotions in a forum that is about a specific person's pain and death. I think it's important to have difficult discussions about e.g. death, deathism, etc., but being combatative---even if it makes perfect emotional sense---does not seem likely to have good effects on most people, including yourself.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#128

Post by restalis »

It's strange to see such a protocol, that it was necessary in the first place. I guess people just assumed the wrong things even with their emotional compass as their guide.

Thank you Pieter, you're truly a giver till the last drop, and a model to follow!

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#129

Post by anonymous778 »

maxwelljoslyn wrote: post #93
anonymous777 wrote: post #84

This whole thread reeks of death acceptance culture. HN readers show off how cool they are for accepting death instead of discussing how we as a tech community could help cure these diseases or at least give more people an option of being cryopreserved. The really unpleasant truth is that if we as a society began doing serious focused R&D on these life-threatening diseases earlier, the OP and many others wouldn't hav…

Wouldn't that be lovely? I wish that the immediate reaction by most people to such a thing wasn't something preposterous like "death is natural." Yeah? So? We are not beaten in the heads with rubber mallets every day at noon. If aliens showed up and proposed that we adopt the rubber-mallet system for no benefit, we'd call them crazy.[1] Yet death, which is completely real, is treated as something not even worth attem…

IMHO He is a cultist without creditionals that makes a living from cult followers' donations, I avoid him and his memes. Also I probably know more about state of art ML than him, even though I'm an amateur practitioner.

I think it's a better way to help the common cause by becoming a biology or ML scientist, or helping these scientists with code, or starting some related companies, or just spreading the opinion.

We live in an age where we can download the human genome from the piratebay, clone a bioinformatics repo from github and do some analysis. If you don't know what to do or how to do it you can download any technical book from library genesis and any scientific paper from sci-hub.

If more people did that at least as a hobby we'd have more scientists and faster progress. Instead we waste our time on computer games and social apps (both making them and selling them).

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#130

Post by anexprogrammer »

aninhumer wrote: post #115
anexprogrammer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

downvotes? I'm not sure how this rates those. Accuracy isn't really helpful to a five year old who doesn't yet have all the concepts needed. The tooth fairy isn't accurate either. Accuracy will get you an endless cycle of "but why dad?"

> Accuracy will get you an endless cycle of "but why dad?" So keep answering until you can't, and then say "I don't know". Curiosity is something to be fostered, not shutdown with lies.

Have you had an inconsolable five year old who lost a close relative or even pet? I prefer to use analogies and explanations they can understand and accept to help them understand the reality. It's not the same as presuming they have no concept of death. That's a very long way from shutting them down with lies, avoiding the topic, or "protecting" them from it. It's trying to be age-appropriate. I make no claims to be a perfect parent however.

When they're a little older and have more capacity to understand a fuller, more accurate, discussion is possible.

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