61–70 of 141 posts
Biggest problem with people living longer is the costs of supporting them increase dramatically, and who's going to pay these costs?
Increasing longevity places a burden on our children, and their children
There is something dystopian, childish, naive, desperate, arrogant, sad and tragic about billionaires founding and funding longevity companies and projects. They think that they've got it all, but deep down there's still this gaping hole of meaninglessness. They can control evertything. Everything but death. If only they can find a way to live longer, maybe even a way to never die of natural causes, everything will b…
This is just deathist brainrot. If we lived for 10k years "naturally", would you support killing people off after 70-80 years? Of course living longer would make things better.
There is something dystopian, childish, naive, desperate, arrogant, sad and tragic about billionaires founding and funding longevity companies and projects. They think that they've got it all, but deep down there's still this gaping hole of meaninglessness. They can control evertything. Everything but death. If only they can find a way to live longer, maybe even a way to never die of natural causes, everything will b…
There's very little funding of longevity research apparently. Probably because of people sharing your opinion that stopping aging is selfish/immoral. But this is not right, we've severely underestimated the biological dangers of our overpopulated-overconnected world. We find ourselves needing to fight a pandemic with similar methods as in 1917, because we ve not prepared for that. Biotech should be an imperative for…
And call me cynical but IMO it’s naive to think that this technology would be accessible to the average person. If it makes it to market it’s going to cost a small fortune and every super wealthy person in the world is going to be throwing money at it. It’s going to be the luxury yacht of healthcare.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> people sharing your opinion that stopping aging is selfish/immoral. People share this opinion until they're on their deathbed. If offered a pill to be restored to youthful longevity in that moment, most people would give up everything and endure just about anything for a mere chance at it. People are remarkably shortsighted and don't take the time to comprehend what the horror at the end of the tunnel will really f…
Although I don't disagree, I think that's a very narrow way to look at it. I think it's more about the fear of dying than about actual death. If you just died tomorrow in your sleep, what would it matter? Assuming you didn't have a terminal illness or are of old age, you probably didn't fear immediate death. And you didn't suffer one bit. Sure, it would suck for your friends and family, but for you, it wouldn't matte…
I fear non-existence more than dying.
Mixed feelings. On one hand I can imagine situations where longetivity and its development might really be useful, for example when (if ever) we enter the human space travel era, where the human lifespan will eventually start to factor in. On the other, its hard to not consider the deeper meaning of such pursuits. After all, death is what gives life meaning and pushing it further raises lots of possible negatives e.g…
> death is what gives life meaning citation needed
Frankly, this is what America has always been about - A combination of science, technology and capitalism. We need a lot more of these moonshots attempted at a massive scale. So what if it may not work out? People can not stop for the fear of failure. If founders have money and resources, by all mean I for one welcome these with open arms.
Yeah I wouldn't even mind if somebody spent billions on finding an 'Upload' like solution where you can just put your consciousness in a computer and live forever like that instead. People generally have a knee jerk hate for such things but I welcome that with open arms too.
It's a philosophy problem about consciousness and continuity more than anything else. Call it the star trek teleporter problem.
Fairness
Only rich people will get it. (No tech has ever done this.)
Better to give money to the poor than science. (family, city, state, nation, has proven local investment beats foreign.)
Bad for society
Dead people make more room for new, other people. (consider going first.)
Run out of resources (live people discover/extract/renew better than dead or nonexistent)
Overpopulation (colonize the seas, solar system, or have a war.)
Stop having kids
Worse wars (nukes are more dangerous than having your first 220 year old person in 2136)
Dictators never die (they die all the time and rarely of age)
Old people are expensive (50% of your lifetime medical cost occur in your final year. Delay is profitable.)
Old people suck. (death is an inferior cure to robustness.)
Bad for individual
You'll get bored. (your memory isn't that good, or your boredom isn't age related)
You'll have to watch your loved ones die. (so you prefer they watch you?)
You'll live forever in a terrible state. (longevity requires robustness.)
Against gods will (not if he disallows suicide, then it is required.)
People will force you to live forever (they aren't able to do this now, why would they begin to be?)
More people make more progress faster. Aren’t you glad your parents didn't decide the world would be prettier or work better without you in it? If great minds like Einstein, Bell, Tesla, Da Vinci etc., were still alive and productive today, the world would be a better place. You're literally asking for others to die out of your fear. The burden should be higher. Have courage. If living longer comes with too many disadvantages, we'll know 100 years from now and decide then.
Man up, save your family, save yourself.
P.S. Curing aging isn't immortality. You die at 600 on average by accident, and if the parade of imaginary horrible things comes true, even earlier.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's very little funding of longevity research apparently. Probably because of people sharing your opinion that stopping aging is selfish/immoral. But this is not right, we've severely underestimated the biological dangers of our overpopulated-overconnected world. We find ourselves needing to fight a pandemic with similar methods as in 1917, because we ve not prepared for that. Biotech should be an imperative for…
So humanity has problems stemming from overpopulation and your take is that we should reduce the rate at which nature makes space for others? Death scares me as much the next person, but I feel like we’re not fully considering the consequences of “curing” it. And call me cynical but IMO it’s naive to think that this technology would be accessible to the average person. If it makes it to market it’s going to cost a sm…
There's necessarily no reason to think it will be horrifically expensive. Maybe it will be, maybe it will not. mRNA vaccines cost something like ~25 dollars and yet it will save lives for many years to come. It's a very effective medicine.
It's also incorrect to think that this is necessarily one treatment or one therapy. It may be a whole series of therapies that treat one aspect of aging over another.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> death is what gives life meaning citation needed
For me this statement is a logical conclusion to the thought experiment ”imagine if everyone lived forever”. But I realize maybe for some it isn’t, so lets categorize this as an opinion.
Functionally there'll still be an end-date for most "human" lives.
But there's plenty of meaning to be found in 10,000 or 100,000 years of life, without disease and death lurking around the corner every day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it not arrogant and selfish to tell people that they should die at 80-90 years old, if there could be a way to live longer?
If we flip the script and imagine a world where everyone lives healthily, forever, the person advocating that everyone die painfully at 70 seems like a murderous psychopath.
It’s not clear whether humans can live on the moon long-term. The more likely solution is that we’ll need to heavily discourage people from having kids. Is that really more humane?