Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013) • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by kiba » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

mehwoot wrote: post #110

xvector wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. These are problems to solve independently of death. Shitty governments and politics do not justify death. These problems absolutely aren't in the problem space of life extension to solve. 2. It is arguable that life and freedom are meaningless if we are doomed to lose everything we ever have and are in the end, after such a short amount of time. 3. "Enjoying life for the ephemeral experience it is" is something we…

"Enjoying life for the ephemeral experience it is" is something we do out of hard necessity. But we don't do it. We sit here worrying about dying and trying to ensure we will live forever instead of enjoying the time we do have alive. Read experiences of people who suddenly find out they are going to die relatively soon- the richness of their life takes on a whole new dimension. These are problems to solve independen…

But we don't do it. We sit here worrying about dying and trying to ensure we will live forever instead of enjoying the time we do have alive.

This is a false dilemma. People can enjoy the time being alive while optimizing for the long term.

Exercising increases our health and make us enjoy life more.

Read experiences of people who suddenly find out they are going to die relatively soon- the richness of their life takes on a whole new dimension.

This is a rationalization or terror management. Moreover, the richness of life should come before having to face one's own mortality.

We always have a choice of living life to our fullest, or don't at any given time, immortal or mortal.

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

#132

Post by ChrisArchitect » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #108

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #106

Anything new to add to this? Previous discussion (as noted in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28150698 ): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5893505

I see a lot of cool discussion about whether death itself is worth solving, that wasn't really present in the previous thread. Likely because awareness about such efforts in culture has really skyrocketed since the previous thread. It is interesting and valuable to see new discussion threads emerge over the course of almost a decade, as culture changes and the lens through which we view our lives and problems evolves…

fairplay about the new reflections/discussion that wasn't present in previous -- so maybe write a new blog post about it, referencing this old, as an expansion/update instead of reposting an archive link etc, if it is about new thoughts/updates.

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

#133

Post by lowkey_ » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 3:47 PM UTC

mehwoot wrote: post #93

kelnos wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Neither viewpoint is wrong, or bad Actually I think trying to eliminate death (at least if we're talking about letting people live >1000 years or choose when they die) is extremely bad and will have awful, awful consequences. You think inequality is bad now? Can you imagine what it will be like when people can amass power and fortunes for thousands of years? How progressive do you think our views on race and sex woul…

> You think inequality is bad now? Can you imagine what it will be like when people can amass power and fortunes for thousands of years?

Wealth isn't zero-sum, and so it's always weird to see people arguing about how bad inequality is.

If the standard of living isn't improving, that's a problem we should address. If the standard of living is improving and the rich are getting richer, why is that an issue?

From perspectives of history, intuition, and statistics, it's clear that inequality and overall quality of life aren't inversely correlated as many today believe they are.

> House prices are astronomically bad where I live... how bad will it be when houses are held forever?

I imagine someone will get bored of a house after a few decades, certainly after a century, and so they won't be held forever. Additionally, as the population increases, we'll create new housing.

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

#134

Post by mLuby » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #120

mLuby wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entropy may win in the very end, but that's after trillions of years (unless we're in a Big Crunch or Big Rip universe), and asserts that no intelligence will ever find a way to circumvent it (see Clarke's First Law). On a more relatable scale, humans do grow in complexity, order, and capability in their early years, until eventually decay turns the tide toward the end of our natural lifespans. It would be rather odd…

If you're not living all the way till dark energy rips your atoms apart, what's the point? Seriously though, what is the point? You're gonna have the same fomo with death in the future as you do now. We've already found out how to reactivate those growth and healing mechanisms. Have children, then grand children, then great grandchildren, etc. Each generation gets its own activation

> You're gonna have the same fomo with death in the future as you do now.

I'm sure my ancestors worried constantly about their next meal because starvation was a very real possibility, but luckily I don't think about starving even though it's technically still possible. I hope that in the future the same is true of disease and non-accidental death.

The point is having as much time as you want to do the things that interest you. Nobody should be forced to live when they don't want to, and nobody should be forced to die when they don't want to. Pretty simple really.

> We've already found out how … Have children

Come on now, we both know that a legacy isn't remotely the same as not dying.

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

#135

Post by xvector » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

oleander73 wrote: post #130

xvector wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have incurable cancer and let me tell you, talking about curing death is laughably absurd at this point. We don't even have good pain killers.

What's absurd is that we aren't even really trying. Curing death and causes of ought to be the singular paramount goal of our society, but it's not, because we have been trained to accept it as inevitable ever since we were capable of thought.

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

#136

Post by xvector » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #121

xvector wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't merge into anything, you will become nothing. No rest, no respite, nothing. Your body might "merge", but that's irrelevant. Your consciousness - who you are - will end, truly, once and for all. You will never again experience hopes, dreams, memories, or love. You won't experience anything at all for the rest of eternity.

You sound a lot more confident than you should be, considering the lack of data.

As far as we understand, consciousness is an emergent phenomenon based off of your neural activity. We can state with certainty that your consciousness ends when your brain does.

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

#137

Post by xvector » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #122

xvector wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Still sounds like death to me. The computer could be a near copy, but the actual me dies

You'd use something like gradual replacement to create a true transfer as opposed to a mere copy.

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

#138

Post by xvector » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #123

xvector wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a desperate attempt to cope with death. We can find better ways to encourage change than literally dying. If people lived indefinitely but society was a bit stagnant, and you pressed a button to kill 100M random people a year to "encourage change", you'd be regarded as insane, and rightfully so. Death is not the solution to our problems, just like throwing your computer in the trash isn't a solution…

Death is the only working solution we've got. Once you've solved the other problems, you can work on death

My example

> If people lived indefinitely but society was a bit stagnant, and you pressed a button to kill 100M random people a year to "encourage change", you'd be regarded as insane, and rightfully so.

highlights that it's baseless to put off solving death or even using it as a solution.

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

#139

Post by morpheos137 » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 8:32 PM UTC

dash2 wrote: post #74

morpheos137 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death is neither good nor bad, nor permanent, in my opinion. Given eternity arbitrary close combinations of matter in space and time that composes you will arise again and again. My opinion is that when we die we pretty much begin a life extremely similar to the life we just lived except maybe some infintesimal thing is different. Thus if you want a better life then start creating it because you have been living vari…

But presumably you've also then been living very different variations of the same script, since there have been infinite combinations of matter that were close enough to give rise to you, but different enough to have very different outcomes. Also, doesn't physics and the Big Bang rule out this eternal recurrence idea? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA

For your first point I disagree. Once a life in a different aeon becomes sufficiently different from yours it is no longer fair to consider it you.

For your second point, I don't think physics rules out the big bang "recurring" because it does not deal with time before time. The big bang theory is not at all in conflict with cyclic conformal cosmology or eternal expansion.

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

#140

Post by mLuby » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 12:19 AM UTC

mehwoot wrote: post #110

xvector wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. These are problems to solve independently of death. Shitty governments and politics do not justify death. These problems absolutely aren't in the problem space of life extension to solve. 2. It is arguable that life and freedom are meaningless if we are doomed to lose everything we ever have and are in the end, after such a short amount of time. 3. "Enjoying life for the ephemeral experience it is" is something we…

"Enjoying life for the ephemeral experience it is" is something we do out of hard necessity. But we don't do it. We sit here worrying about dying and trying to ensure we will live forever instead of enjoying the time we do have alive. Read experiences of people who suddenly find out they are going to die relatively soon- the richness of their life takes on a whole new dimension. These are problems to solve independen…

> Technology comes in, makes peoples lives shit

So pessimistic. Basically all tech (except perhaps certain weapons advances) improves our lives. Yeah doomscrolling sucks but is it worse than watching the grass grow while you get drunk on the porch a hundred years ago? (Assuming you had a porch, or booze for that matter.) Yeah biased AI sucks, but is it worse than overtly racist societies from 50 years ago? We certainly can and must keep improving our collective lot in live, but "all is shit" is fundamentally lacking perspective.

> We value our life and youth because it runs out.

No, we value life because it affords us agency and positive experience. We value the memory of youth for its limited responsibility, higher fecundity, and being earlier in our life's decision tree.