Arguing for Immortality • Hacker News Board

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#61

Post by reasonattlm » Wed, May 04, 2011, 2:55 AM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #44

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #28

I noticed a lot of people confuse "realistic" immortality (which is presumably achievable through advances in medicine, but does not imply an infinite life span - only a very very long one and the absence of mortal disease) with forced (mandatory) immortality (which means you are sentenced to live forever, you can't die no matter what you do). I am perpetually surprised how few people realize that only the first kind…

Talking about the extremes of things - such as this - is a useful way of thinking about the subject. After all, physicists posit perfectly spherical cows in a vacuum, why can't we posit something at the end of the spectrum of possibility?

The astrophysics version of the joke is funnier, but perhaps only if you're an astrophysicist.

"A farmer is having trouble with the milk production of his cows, and winds up engaging an astrophysicist to write a report. Three weeks later, he opens the report to find it begins: 'Let us consider a spherically symmetric cow, emitting milk equally in all directions..."

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#62

Post by afterburner » Wed, May 04, 2011, 2:58 AM UTC

Immortality = an eternity of learning. If you love to learn, the benefit is obvious.

However, I think a lot of the arguments "against" immortality are perhaps expressed out of subconscious fears of what damage immortality, presumably acquired via money or privilege, would do to society. If everyone had it that's one thing (and still a problem but at least everyone has the same stakes). But what about the more likely scenario that not everyone has it? What if only minority have it?

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#63

Post by ams6110 » Wed, May 04, 2011, 2:58 AM UTC

Before I clicked the "about me" link I guessed this was written by someone in his 20s. I was right.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#64

Post by meric » Wed, May 04, 2011, 3:07 AM UTC

meric wrote: post #54

SkyMarshal wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the benefits would outweigh any perceived drawbacks: 1. Like elves in Tolkien's works, people who can only die by disease or by being slain might be much more careful about starting wars that could kill them (politicians probably wouldn't, but those who have to do the fighting might). 2. Imagine a world where the Einsteins, Hawkings, etc. don't die just as they've come to master their field, but conti…

Robert Mugabe, forever .

I guess I've been too brief in my reply, but no one has addressed the elephant in the room.

"Revolutions" in Libya and Egypt we saw recently aren't frequent occurrences.

Many dictators in history have stayed in power until the day they died. Yet, they are some of the people most able to afford "immortality".

Previously, if you had a very evil and capable dictator, the populace suffers his rule for at most half a dozen decades.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#65

Post by dougvk » Wed, May 04, 2011, 3:46 AM UTC

One of the ideas I like to explore when presented with the idea of immortality are the effects of a longer lifespan on our decisions. To me, our lives aren't long enough to really live with the effects of our actions. My optimism makes me think, "If we could extend our lifespan by, say, one hundred years, then people will grub much less for near-term pleasure and focus much longer term" (thus we would start investing more in programs which might guarantee our standard of living instead of leaving it to the next generation).

I just wanted to throw this thought at the HN community -- let us know your thoughts!

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#66

Post by nialo » Wed, May 04, 2011, 3:55 AM UTC

dougvk wrote: post #65

One of the ideas I like to explore when presented with the idea of immortality are the effects of a longer lifespan on our decisions. To me, our lives aren't long enough to really live with the effects of our actions. My optimism makes me think, "If we could extend our lifespan by, say, one hundred years, then people will grub much less for near-term pleasure and focus much longer term" (thus we would start investing…

This would eventually get to be true, but it would probably take a stupidly long time: it won't happen until people have actually seen the long term results of things multiple times.

Also, short-term thinking is fairly hardwired into humans. That won't go away until it somehow stops people from getting laid, which is amazingly unlikely and would certainly require more than indefinite lifespan.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#67

Post by evgen » Wed, May 04, 2011, 4:10 AM UTC

delinquentme wrote: post #23

nextparadigms wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we were immortal, the need to "extend" ourselves through kids would also decrease dramatically. People (especially women) feel the need to have a kid after a certain age because they are afraid they will be too old if they do it too late. If you lived 1000 years, would you still be in a hurry to have a kid at 30? It's a natural instinct for humans to want to pass their genes to someone else before they approach de…

the possibility of super long lives happens to have really interesting social repercussions ... I see no reason why after but a single generation this idea of popping kids out pre 30 wouldnt just go away

The idea would not go away, but there is a lot of strong evidence that it would diminish significantly. Two hundred years ago an average woman in the US would have had 7-8 live births by the time she was 30, a hundred years ago it was 3.5, and today it is around 2. Better birth control and better options for how women want to live their lives can explain a large part of the second drop, but the drop from 1800-1900 was almost completely because of increasing lifespans and increasing standards of living. The change would not happen in a single generation, but just observing what happens as countries transition out of third-world poverty over the last fifty years has provided a lot of justification for claiming that it would not take too many generations for birth rates to adjust quite radically.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#68

Post by colanderman » Wed, May 04, 2011, 4:20 AM UTC

delinquentme wrote: post #57

delinquentme wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" interesting pet at best " ?

nice downvote... how about an explanation?? this quote is fodder.

Someone (not I) downvoted you presumably because you didn't indicate what was your issue with the quoted material. Do you want a clarification? Do you disagree? Do you think it was a typo? Are you offended?

A sole question mark does not content make.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#69

Post by Helianthus » Wed, May 04, 2011, 4:35 AM UTC

AngryParsley wrote: post #53

Helianthus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the thing about Eliezer's rather snide take on cognitive dissonance is it doesn't really address the issue at hand. people dying does clear out old ideas. the leopard doesn't change his shorts. or at the very _least_ you could make an argument that people can be changed, that old hard-line racists can be won over, instead of claiming that any idiot who thinks immortality might have its seamy side is just displaying '…

Yes, there are benefits to aging. One of those benefits is that old ideas will go away faster. Another benefit is that it will slightly reduce population growth. People who want indefinite lifespan do not disagree with these points. We simply think that these benefits are not worth the destruction of 150,000 human beings per day. Replace "aging" with anything else that kills people (malaria, AIDS, cancer, etc) and pe…

My only point is that the labeling of "cognitive dissonance" does _not_ an argument make. The points both you and SkyMarshall make are great arguments--but they should be addressed to yesbabyyes, not to me.

And they should be made in _place_ of any reference to cognitive dissonance.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#70

Post by masterzora » Wed, May 04, 2011, 4:35 AM UTC

akanet wrote: post #30

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #28

I noticed a lot of people confuse "realistic" immortality (which is presumably achievable through advances in medicine, but does not imply an infinite life span - only a very very long one and the absence of mortal disease) with forced (mandatory) immortality (which means you are sentenced to live forever, you can't die no matter what you do). I am perpetually surprised how few people realize that only the first kind…

My reasoning is that if I can convince someone that even unrealistic immortality is desirable, the rest falls into place. Realistic immortality is also sort of more boring to argue about. Sorry, please don't hate me.

I disagree. Personally, I would say no to the unrealistic version, wherein I have no escape clause, every time. I simply value the negative what ifs too strongly negative for it to be a rational wager. However, rationally speaking, the only way you can say no to the realistic version is if you're Catholic or otherwise have a strong (in your own mind) reason to be unwilling to commit suicide. Or if you have some reason you want to be old and decrepit, I guess.