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Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

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Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#41

Post by SavantIdiot »

codetrotter wrote: post #32
xvector wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it also starts us on a path of treating death as a problem to solve, so we can die on our own terms instead of being forced to do so by a cruel reality. https://www.sens.org/ https://www.lifespan.io/ https://www.buckinstitute.org/

> so we can die on our own terms instead of being forced to do so by a cruel reality Step one would be to allow euthanasia. Until we allow that, we cannot pretend that anyone is ever going to be allowed to die on their own terms.

Portland represents! That's why I moved here. I have a genetic disease that will eventually take me out slowly and painfully, and from the day I was diagnosed I've wanted to live in Oregon so that I could be in control of my own death. Some would argue that this is denying my loved ones (and our society in general) a natural death, which is supposed to be difficult because that is part of life. However, I believe two things separate us from the animals: our ability to accessorize, and efficiency.

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#42

Post by gonehome »

GreenWatermelon wrote: post #18
xvector wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it also starts us on a path of treating death as a problem to solve, so we can die on our own terms instead of being forced to do so by a cruel reality. https://www.sens.org/ https://www.lifespan.io/ https://www.buckinstitute.org/

I would rather we change our view on death. Death has always been a constant since life became a thing. Even the mightiest stars in the skies are destined to die one day. After you die, your consciousness fades, and so do all your desires and regrets. To me, death is the ultimate respite.

"At another point in the discussion, a man spoke of some benefit X of death, I don't recall exactly what. And I said: "You know, given human nature, if people got hit on the head by a baseball bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit on the head with a baseball bat was a good thing. But if you took someone who wasn't being hit on the head with a baseball bat, and you asked them if they wanted it, they would say no. I think that if you took someone who was immortal, and asked them if they wanted to die for benefit X, they would say no."" [0]

[0]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aSQy7yHj6nPD44RNo/how-to-see...

There's no (physics based) reason we have to die, just like there was no reason for all the deaths in child birth in early human history. It's a failure of our current capabilities.

I don't know if any of the claims in Lifespan [1] hold up, but if they do stopping aging may be easier than people previously thought. Either way - I'm hoping we figure it out sooner rather than later.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nXop2lLDa4

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#43

Post by JackFr »

hallway_monitor wrote: post #29
JackFr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> treating death as a problem to solve I think that's a poor framing. Yes, cure diseases, absolutely, but mortality is intrinsic to humanity. Suffering is a problem to solve. How we should live, knowing that we will most assuredly die is a problem to solve. Treating death as a problem to solve I think is a conceit and ultimately a fools errand.

Are you sure you don't just feel that way because you consider death an inevitability? I agree completely that fixing death from old age would fundamentally change people's worldviews and would indeed change what it means to be human. But that doesn't mean it's not a cause worth devoting effort to.

> But that doesn't mean it's not a cause worth devoting effort to.

Why?

Ultimately you need to address what is the meaning of life, and what is your purpose.

I think if you offered immortality to me tomorrow I wouldn't take it.

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#45

Post by jacquesm »

xvector wrote: post #39
the__alchemist wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you on your core point, but in a way, it's orthogonal: Death will continue to be an inevitability, and can arrive at any time - even after we solve senescence. (Accidents, murder etc)

The endgame (a few hundred years from now) would be virtualizing consciousnesses and distributing them across space so only a cosmic disaster could end a being.

You've arrived at heaven and the afterlife through non-religious ways.

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#46

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

xfer wrote: post #21
SquibblesRedux wrote: post #15

Given what I would consider the eternal preciousness of a human, and the fleeting insignificance of computer software, I found it strange he opened with "I am a developer for Drupal." For example, why did he place that before his being a father? I think people too often miss the significance of their own existence, independent of their relatively brief tasks and accomplishments. I certainly do not mean to belittle or…

Why do you think being a father is anymore of an achievement?

Raising a child by being a father is a much larger achievement than writing any software. I’d say the same if you mentioned someone like Linus Torvalds.

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#47

Post by kelnos »

GreenWatermelon wrote: post #18
xvector wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it also starts us on a path of treating death as a problem to solve, so we can die on our own terms instead of being forced to do so by a cruel reality. https://www.sens.org/ https://www.lifespan.io/ https://www.buckinstitute.org/

I would rather we change our view on death. Death has always been a constant since life became a thing. Even the mightiest stars in the skies are destined to die one day. After you die, your consciousness fades, and so do all your desires and regrets. To me, death is the ultimate respite.

That's fair; you are of course welcome to your own views on life and death. But I don't think there's a "we", here. Some people are accepting of death, and aren't interested in the idea of immortality, or even a significant amount of life extension. Others... are. Neither viewpoint is wrong, or bad.

I don't think I'd want to live forever, but I think the time we get is far too short. I want to see an end to scarcity and poverty. I want to see thriving colonies on Mars. I want to see us figure out superluminal travel and visit other star systems.

Sure, we may also annihilate ourselves in the next century, but I'd rather be optimistic about these things, and it bums me out that I almost certainly won't be around to see them.

I've spent a lot of time on Alcor's website, reading about cryopreservation, and have considered signing up. But I'm worried about what could happen if it works. The culture shock of waking up even a century after your death sounds difficult to handle, let alone many centuries. Aside from being a small window to the past, what of value would I have to a future society? Would I feel without purpose, and wish I hadn't done it?

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#48

Post by strken »

JackFr wrote: post #22
xvector wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it also starts us on a path of treating death as a problem to solve, so we can die on our own terms instead of being forced to do so by a cruel reality. https://www.sens.org/ https://www.lifespan.io/ https://www.buckinstitute.org/

> treating death as a problem to solve I think that's a poor framing. Yes, cure diseases, absolutely, but mortality is intrinsic to humanity. Suffering is a problem to solve. How we should live, knowing that we will most assuredly die is a problem to solve. Treating death as a problem to solve I think is a conceit and ultimately a fools errand.

Thinking mortality is intrinsic to being human is pretty close to saying that it's right and proper people should die, and I really don't accept that framing either.

There's value in acknowledging we probably can't solve death, and coming to terms with that, but if you had a button sitting in front of you that would completely eradicate cardiovascular disease, you'd press it, right? There's no form of death that I'd even think about keeping, with the exception of suicide and maybe execution.

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#49

Post by soheil »

GreenWatermelon wrote: post #18
xvector wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it also starts us on a path of treating death as a problem to solve, so we can die on our own terms instead of being forced to do so by a cruel reality. https://www.sens.org/ https://www.lifespan.io/ https://www.buckinstitute.org/

I would rather we change our view on death. Death has always been a constant since life became a thing. Even the mightiest stars in the skies are destined to die one day. After you die, your consciousness fades, and so do all your desires and regrets. To me, death is the ultimate respite.

Let me remind you that you had been dead for 13.7 billion years before being alive for only 1/1,000,000,000 of that time and you call death a break?

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#50

Post by User23 »

busterarm wrote: post #20
seibelj wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My uncle died of ALS. I find it less scary than Alzheimer's disease but still a truly awful way to go. He wasted away. He was unable to really sleep because every time he fell asleep he would have a subconscious reaction to the breathing machine that triggered panic and woke him up. So he was pumped full of benzos in order to keep his anxiety lower, which made him quite out of it. He was in a medicare-accepting full…

> He was in a medicare-accepting full time care facility which was extremely dirty, smelly, and full of workers who honestly didn't give a fuck, and they expressed this in many overt and subtle ways. The only comfort he got was from his family who visited every day to speak and read to him. This is a very uncomfortable reality about our care system and the way our society is structured in general. Nobody deserves thi…

This is one of the more obvious reasons to have as many children as possible and to raise them as well as possible. Fact is otherwise nobody is liable to care about you when you’re old and even if one of your peer friends does they’ll be in the same boat.

It doesn’t matter how much money you have, because without someone to actively advocate for you it won’t go well.

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