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What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

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Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#301
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case it's insightful, I've correspondingly never understood the common contentment with death. The world is an incredible place, and there's so much to experience and do. If I had the time there's hundreds of careers I could spend a lifetime in each trying to develop mastery. I think I could live a thousand lives with the people I care about and not be done. I've had to choose one life, and it's a nice one, but if…

Infant mortality is quite different: we know that infants are supposed to live. Extending life is the opposite: death is the normal, even unavoidable end. The comparison is misplaced. > I could spend a lifetime in each trying to develop mastery No, you couldn't. You would still be your aged brain, not capable of learning hundreds of professions, and your frail body, not capable of replacing its cells any longer. It r…

I’m amazed that people who argue against immortality often assume it will come with a frail body and an aged brain. Why? To me, the most basic form of immortality is achieved by reversal of aging, including a brain. Your body is just a machine, it’s pretty obvious it can be repaired, even if we don’t know how yet.

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#302

Never understood the quest for immortality. We are the children of our time. When our time passes, we will live as strangers in a strange land, drowning in the sea of nostalgia. Death will simply takes us back to where we came from before our birth. Don’t fear the reaper.

In case it's insightful, I've correspondingly never understood the common contentment with death. The world is an incredible place, and there's so much to experience and do. If I had the time there's hundreds of careers I could spend a lifetime in each trying to develop mastery. I think I could live a thousand lives with the people I care about and not be done. I've had to choose one life, and it's a nice one, but if…

There's are a point in death. So if you fix death, then you also have to fix the problems that death fixes.

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#303
post #266
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if they succeeded. Instant breakdown of society. So by induction, perhaps someone makes sure they don't.

> Imagine if they succeeded. Instant breakdown of society. So by induction, perhaps someone makes sure they don't. My comment comes across as semantic nitpicking, but I don't mean it that way; I just think I'm not understanding what you mean by reasoning "by induction" here. I am a mathematician, so am most familiar with induction in its technical mathematical sense, which I assume isn't what you mean. More generally…

If you replace "induction" with "implication" then the comment is probably closer to what the poster meant.

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#304
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case it's insightful, I've correspondingly never understood the common contentment with death. The world is an incredible place, and there's so much to experience and do. If I had the time there's hundreds of careers I could spend a lifetime in each trying to develop mastery. I think I could live a thousand lives with the people I care about and not be done. I've had to choose one life, and it's a nice one, but if…

For a counter thought: while I absolutely agree with you in terms of richness of life, I don’t think pursuing endless life is a sound idea. As parent poster wrote, we like nostalgia, because we clutch to our experiences. We compare them instead of collecting it. On the other side the more we experience something the more we stall or get bored. Even with other people - with increase of lifespan we also increased numbe…

It would not only be for the rich. Healthcare cost are incredibly expensive especially later in live so governments have a strong inventive to provide it for everyone. Also people wont have to retire anymore (also great for government) The most expensive part about it would probably be research, but since every person on the planet is a potential user and there a big savings in Healthcare and Pension i don't see costs being a problem.

Humans dont progress in terms of biological evolution anymore but instead technologically. The increased lifespan would allow scientist to master multiple fields which would be great for progress.

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm absolutely shocked that more money and time is not spent researching how to cure death by aging. (Note that for those who discuss this semi-regularly, that's understood to be very different than seeking a cure for any particular age related disease, which usually we attempt to address when it's too late.). There are groups like https://www.levf.org/ doing some early work like Robust Mouse Rejuvenation (in mid-lif…

I would actively pay to fight such a movement. The world is full, yes it can be fuller but we are seriously cracking whole ecosystem and one of main reason is simply the amount of people living on this planet. If you prolong life say 2x it means Earth has 2x the population long term just due to this. Lets focus on serious issues hindering our growth as a race and not some vanity fears of few rich and powerful who thi…

You cite "Stalin bad" but Stalin only killed about 40,000/week for 30 years. You're talking of personally paying to support the deaths of everyone at the current world-wide all-cause death rate of 1,000,000/week, forever. Surely in some way that makes your plans infinitely worse than Stalin's? Imagine all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, all the veil of mourning and tears, the darkness your plans will cloud the surface of the Earth with. All the sobbing parents, grieving siblings, depressed grandparents and grandchildren.

All because you don't want to bother inventing an orbital ring or an arcology tower or society where suicide by choice is the accepted way out.

> "removes most horrible tyrants like Stalin"

"we" could still kill him; immortal or ageless doesn't necessarily mean invincible.

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#306
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Elon was asked why longetivity research didn't pick his interest as worthy of an investment, he said: >It is important for us to die because most of the time people don't change their mind, they just die. If you live forever, we might become a very ossified society where new ideas cannot succeed.

The opposite could also be true though. Longer lifespans permit more people gaining education, working more years, saving more money with a longer term vision, and rising to be a new economic upper class. Short lifespans make that a very difficult to coordinate multi generational project. There are also solutions like term limits, or generational tenure limits or something that could help reduce any negative effects…

Or alternatively, a stratum of leadership class who actually worry about problems coming 100 years down the line because they fully expect to be effected by them.

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm absolutely shocked that more money and time is not spent researching how to cure death by aging. Faced with their own mortality, a bunch of aging billionaires and multimillionaires tend to pour money into longevity research. I'd be very upset if governments increased spending on fighting senescence today, instead of lower-hanging fruit .

What lower hanging fruit are governments currently spending on? Giant militaries? Healthcare for those last few months of life?

> What lower hanging fruit are governments currently spending on?

I meant what lower hanging fruits governments ought to spend on. However, since you asked, here are some of the things governments are currently spending on, but could bear improvement: eradicating preventable diseases, ensuring kids get good nutrition, better tracking, and hopefully prevention of e. coli/salmonella outbreaks, funding basic research into improving outcomes for patients, reducing profiteering off the products of publicly-funded research, medical pricing transparency, better organ donor policies (universal opt-out)

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#308
post #188

Never understood the quest for immortality. We are the children of our time. When our time passes, we will live as strangers in a strange land, drowning in the sea of nostalgia. Death will simply takes us back to where we came from before our birth. Don’t fear the reaper.

That's just an opinion, formed over centuries of humans trying to make peace with their mortality, because they believed it was inevitable. There's no inherent truth to your words; it's just a philosophy. I'm not really afraid of dying, per se, but as a sci-fi buff, I am deeply sad that there are amazing technological advancements that I will never get to see. Even if the world 300 years from now (assuming humans sti…

Stranger in a strange land also sounds incredibly exciting to me. Funny how a con ist pro argument depending on your view point.

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#309

According to Wikipedia, more than 9 million people in the US have reported Near Death Experience (NDE) [0]. Some common traits that were reported: - A sense/awareness of being dead. - A sense of peace, well-being, and painlessness. Positive emotions. A sense of removal from the world. - An out-of-body experience. - A perception of one's body from an outside position, sometimes observing medical professionals performi…

If you ask people to describe their dreams and find similarities, it’s not reasonable to assume those dreams represent some kind of hidden reality rather than simply shared psychological responses and social influences. I don’t see why these reports should be treated any differently.

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#310

Never understood the quest for immortality. We are the children of our time. When our time passes, we will live as strangers in a strange land, drowning in the sea of nostalgia. Death will simply takes us back to where we came from before our birth. Don’t fear the reaper.

In case it's insightful, I've correspondingly never understood the common contentment with death. The world is an incredible place, and there's so much to experience and do. If I had the time there's hundreds of careers I could spend a lifetime in each trying to develop mastery. I think I could live a thousand lives with the people I care about and not be done. I've had to choose one life, and it's a nice one, but if…

HN is always good for a interesting comment or two.

But rarely do you get an excellent back and forth as these thought provoking, diametrically opposite but equally compelling comments!

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