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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)

#81

Post by joelbluminator »

xvector wrote: post #78
joelbluminator wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be interested in immortality all you want but you will still die eventually. Even Jeff Bezos will die, I just don't see science solving this soon, or maybe ever. In fact in the long term the whole universe dies afaik.

Please re-read his comment, or even this whole thread. The person you replied to specifically said that they don't care for immortality. People are simply advocating for death on their own terms, instead of the pathetically short lives we have today.

Is the problem that life is too short or that people are scared shitless of dying because their genes say so?

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

#82

Post by kiba »

kelnos wrote: post #47
GreenWatermelon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Don't want to live forever means what? You can't know what your desire and wants will be in 20 years, let alone 100 or 500 years. It's like asking a person when they will go to a bathroom in 20 years.

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

#83

Post by xvector »

ren_engineer wrote: post #60
gonehome wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 wa…

"science advances one funeral at a time" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle Most likely outcome of immortality as humans currently are would be stagnation and power being concentrated in a few hands

A slowdown of progress becomes as irrelevant as the passage of time. You'd experience more net progress anyways.

Regardless, it's still not a reason to die. You could argue that progress is meaningless with death.

Finally, progress being slowed down is something we can solve independently of death. I think it's a good idea to find alternative solutions to stagnation than literally dying - that's like solving an issue with your OS by throwing your whole computer in the trash.

Alternatively phrased, if power was already stagnated and concentrated, and you had a button to start killing a couple million random people like clockwork every year to "solve" this problem, it would be insane to press it.

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

#84

Post by xvector »

sooheon wrote: post #65
ren_engineer wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"science advances one funeral at a time" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle Most likely outcome of immortality as humans currently are would be stagnation and power being concentrated in a few hands

Literally the end of evolution.

Evolution is already mostly over, and on the timescales that it becomes relevant we will have engineered ourselves far beyond our flesh shells.

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

#85

Post by soheil »

It's dangerous to see acceptance of death as a kind of virtue, I see many comments here showing that sentiment. The amount of funding dedicated to anti-aging research is very small, it's a tiny subset of funding for Alzheimer's disease by the NIH, $3.2b in 2021 down from $3.5b in 2020 [0]. I think it's precisely this line of thinking that explains the lack of funding and the extremely slow progress in this field.

Seeing death in a neutral light is wrong, seeing it as a virtue is absolutely sadistic. We need to stop this medieval way of thinking.

[0] https://www.nia.nih.gov/about/budget/fiscal-year-2021-budget

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

#86

Post by kiba »

saulpw wrote: post #67
nitrogen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, death is the ultimate respite. To me, this makes a virtue of necessity. We have deep philosophies around death only because it's inescapable. But if we could change that, then we could also change those philosophies.

Everything passes. This is not something that can be conquered; it is an inevitable part of the fabric of existence. Maybe it will one day be possible for people to live indefinitely. Maybe egomaniacs would live for thousands of years if they could. But it is not possible to live forever; the universe itself won't last (at least, in form hospitable to life) forever. And so the cessation of our consciousness is inevit…

Inevitable doesn't mean good.

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

#87

Post by grecy »

SEJeff wrote: post #13

This reminds me of the Last Lecture by Professor Andy Pausch. It is a lecture that will really hit you in the feels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7zzQpvoYcQ It is also an excellent book.

I read that book on a cross-country flight to see my parents, and it impacted me deeply.

We never know what life has in store for us, and the best thing we can do is to enjoy each and every day to the fullest.

Sooner or later, it's going to be our last.

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

#88

Post by xvector »

soheil wrote: post #77
gonehome wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 wa…

It's dangerous to see acceptance of death as a kind of virtue. The amount of funding dedicated to anti-aging research is very small, it's a tiny subset of funding for Alzheimer's disease by the NIH. I think it's precisely this line of thinking that explains the lack of funding and the extremely slow progress in this field [0]. [0] https://www.nia.nih.gov/about/budget/fiscal-year-2021-budget

Exactly. It may have been "virtuous" to accept death when it was inconceivable to solve.

Today anti-aging solutions are likely within reach should we concentrate research and funding in a massive push to solve the issue.

We ought to abandon our fatalistic outlook (that existed solely due to prior necessity) and sprint towards this goal with every fiber of our beings.

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

#89

Post by xvector »

Barrin92 wrote: post #40
nitrogen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, death is the ultimate respite. To me, this makes a virtue of necessity. We have deep philosophies around death only because it's inescapable. But if we could change that, then we could also change those philosophies.

death is more complex than just being inescapable. Death is also a change agent that wipes the slate clean and makes place for the new. It's how all organic life adopts collectively. The first thing that's going to be immortal when death isn't inescapable is Kim Jong Un. No thanks, if you want to see a world without death read Altered Carbon

Stuff like that is really easy to say until you are actually on your deathbed.
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