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You are not running out of time

rahulbijlani.com

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Re: You are not running out of time

#61

Post by sans-serif »

loire280 wrote: post #58
dasil003 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope his optimism is unwarranted. While I certainly would have a hard time turning down the opportunity to live longer, I don't think greatly extending peoples lives will be good for the individuals, society or the planet. Life and death is a beautiful cycle; not something to be defeated due an overwhelming fear of death.

Death can never be defeated - besides accidents and catastrophes, there's always entropy - but life can have some interesting twists if your life extends longer and your mind extends further. However, I think even a few small changes to mental capacity or an extension of life expectancy beyond 2-3x will make the recipients something other than human. Our brains have many quirks that limit our ability to reason, under…

Would you have said this back when human lifespan averaged 40? Thanks but I think I'd sign up.

Re: You are not running out of time

#62

Post by linuxhansl »

equalarrow wrote: post #18

This essay is definitely something to keep in mind, albeit it's probably easier in theory than practice. I'm probably a little older than most of the Y crowd. I've worked at a few very successful startups - pre and post dot com. For one of them, which changed the travel industry, I was literally one of the first people to put down code and my own stab at defining their architecture - I was there before there were any…

I feel exactly the same. Incidentally just today I have to decide between a job that I know at a company I had been at for a while and new job with more responsibilities, slightly lower pay, longer commute, that might boost my carrier from a "programmer" to something more. I am old in software terms and that might be one of my last chances to do that. I have a son, and spending time with him is one of the most important things for me.

I am good and successful at what I am doing, but one always looks for the next thing.

As you I spent a lot of time the past ten developing my spiritual side. I meditate a lot, went to 10 day silent retreat... At this junction my peace fails me, though.

Re: You are not running out of time

#64

Post by reasonattlm »

tectonic wrote: post #44
reasonattlm wrote: post #2

Beg to differ. I'd say that if you're not feeling pressed, that you have too little time left, then you don't have anywhere near an adequate view of the plausible future. A golden age lies ahead, of glittering marvels to make all that has come so far pale to insignificance. But unless we step up to the plate and master biotechnology a lot faster and better than is presently managed, all of us reading this now will mi…

Hey reasonattlm, I just read through your comment history and it looks like every single comment is about life extension. While I sorely hope that your optimism turns out to be warranted, I also hope that you're living and enjoying your life today, on the off-chance that it's not.

Am I not living the HN dream? A challenge and a market so large as to be beyond most people's daily conception, a time in which the trillion dollar engineered longevity industries of the future are digging their first tenuous roots, and here I am doing my bit to help right at the start.

Re: You are not running out of time

#66

Post by sliverstorm »

Yhippa wrote: post #55
grellas wrote: post #49

In a sense, each of us lives our life in Titanic style, setting forth in the confident assumption that we are unsinkable and placing an unduly high value on our capacity to meet any challenge, panicking (or at least feeling a sense of stoic distress) at the mid-point as it first truly hits us that we are about to slam into the iceberg of inevitable aging and decline, sweating it out over a seemingly interminable peri…

I try to humble myself often that I'm not invincible and that I shouldn't take tomorrow for granted but eventually I completely forget about it and I'm back to mundane life. I wish there was an easy way to be reminded without being rudely awakened to the fact that I'm constantly distracting myself from what's important in life.

You got two or three options, as best I can tell.

1) Risk your life. Do something so close to the edge your heart is pounding in your ears and you can taste your life flashing by. (You have to mix it up though. Race cars today, skydive tomorrow, wrestle bears next month. Fear fades with time)

2) Get into shape. Like, really really good shape. The world becomes so full of life it's like it's on fire.

3) Get yourself lost, in the city or in the mountains, with nowhere to go and nothing to do for a day or two. Don't come home until said day or two have passed.

Re: You are not running out of time

#67

Post by CamperBob »

reasonattlm wrote: post #60
dasil003 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope his optimism is unwarranted. While I certainly would have a hard time turning down the opportunity to live longer, I don't think greatly extending peoples lives will be good for the individuals, society or the planet. Life and death is a beautiful cycle; not something to be defeated due an overwhelming fear of death.

You'll have to explain a little harder how the great suffering currently afflicting hundreds of millions of people due to aging is both beautiful and good for them. Or the hundred thousand people who died from aging in the past 24 hours: was it good for them as individuals? How about their families and companions? In short, I don't think you've thought your position through particularly carefully.

Put it this way, I'd like to see human mortality conquered, but I don't want to be alive when it happens. If you think class warfare is a problem now, wait until only the so-called "rich" get to live forever. The others will tear the world apart.

Re: You are not running out of time

#68

Post by say_ »

kiba wrote: post #32
Jach wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I can agree with the author's point I think it was poorly expressed (your summary is better) and the way he suggests embodying the point seems contradictory to making an effort against Death. Though I think if people did have a certain expectation to live billions of years we wouldn't have very many hurried people around, though that's just my own speculation. > Not to mention the disappointment you might feel…

They would also take great effort to find black swans and long shot. Living a really long life can make you ambitious. If you're an old 75 years old, than you might be predisposed to the short term. The young don't know they have it, and the old don't care. If you're going to live on the average lifespan of a 100,000 thousand years and improving, than 50 years is no problem to be wasting your time on big projects. Yo…

Ironically, such a world would have to be populated by people born after the epoch, not before, to fully take advantage of the conceptual freedoms it would have to offer.

Re: You are not running out of time

#69

Post by BrandonM »

reasonattlm wrote: post #2

Beg to differ. I'd say that if you're not feeling pressed, that you have too little time left, then you don't have anywhere near an adequate view of the plausible future. A golden age lies ahead, of glittering marvels to make all that has come so far pale to insignificance. But unless we step up to the plate and master biotechnology a lot faster and better than is presently managed, all of us reading this now will mi…

We already live in a golden age. Many people spend their time wishing they had lived in some romanticized past; you seem to take the opposite approach. Each new technology brings with it both novelty/convenience and a nostalgia for the past. Because of recorded music, we had a long stretch where few people knew the joy of creating and sharing music themselves.

The whole point of the article was to enjoy the journey. I hope you don't spend yours with your sights set on a distant (perhaps impossible) goal and miss out on the joys of living your life as it is today.

Re: You are not running out of time

#70

Post by matwood »

sliverstorm wrote: post #66
Yhippa wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to humble myself often that I'm not invincible and that I shouldn't take tomorrow for granted but eventually I completely forget about it and I'm back to mundane life. I wish there was an easy way to be reminded without being rudely awakened to the fact that I'm constantly distracting myself from what's important in life.

You got two or three options, as best I can tell. 1) Risk your life. Do something so close to the edge your heart is pounding in your ears and you can taste your life flashing by. (You have to mix it up though. Race cars today, skydive tomorrow, wrestle bears next month. Fear fades with time) 2) Get into shape. Like, really really good shape. The world becomes so full of life it's like it's on fire. 3) Get yourself l…

Having done all of those things it just isn't enough and always leaves you wanting more. It's similar to having a customer write you a check (not through some job, but directly to you or your business) for the first time. You want it again and again.

1) Skydived. It was awesome! 2) 4-5 years ago I decided I wanted to be really strong. I can deadlift over 500lbs now. 3) This is a great thing to do, especially by yourself.

If you pick the right activities you can actually hit all 3 at once. A solo wintertime hike of a 14er is perfect (dangerous, physically challenging, lost feeling). A lot of people didn't understand why the CEO who recently died on Everest was on Everest at all. It's because he had to get away from his mundane, which to him was being a successful CEO.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center. - Kurt Vonnegut

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