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Life Is Short (2016)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#51

Post by brutusborn »

thinkingemote wrote: post #45
brutusborn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why he said “religious constructs” and not “religions”. I believe religious systems are useful, but I agree with the parent that concepts like the afterlife are absurd concepts used to alleviate existential dread. Maybe this utility means it isn’t absurd, but I would say that many religions don’t have the concept of an afterlife, so other less-absurd concepts may provide the same functionality without the same…

Some might view something as a mystery that another views as an absurdity. I think a mystery is more interesting and less ... (Edits: hmm I don't know what the word is.)

In this case I think that the mystery of life requires something to avoid existential angst, and some people use the afterlife as that something. Other religions (like Buddhism) might view the entire question of “what is this?” as absurd, and so use methods like meditation to help alleviate the angst, thus avoiding absurd beliefs.

TLDR: the mystery isn’t the absurdity but our reaction to it might be absurd.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#52

Post by nullcaution »

kubb wrote: post #38

This makes you think that Paul would be interested in fighting for a world where people don't waste most of their short lives in bullshit corporate jobs because the market demands it, and instead can focus on important things like their families.

I feel that is kind of what we are seeing on mass in other sectors... quiet quitting, and the the like.

People realized they don't have time for bullshit.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#53

Post by epicureanideal »

brutusborn wrote: post #50
epicureanideal wrote: post #39

...but it doesn't need to be. There are people working on real, scientific, anti-aging technology, like the Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) Foundation, SENS Foundation (I prefer LEVF though), and the many individuals involved, but especially Aubrey de Grey. One of the reasons I got into software development was to try to make enough money to contribute to these causes, or to work on the problems directly in bioinform…

What got you interested in life extension? And how long would you want to live for? I’ve never understood the philosophy behind life extension research, because to me it seems like a case of spending a lot of resources in the hope of improving something that isn’t really broken. However I love people with passion and I value freedom, so I’m glad that people get to work on it even if I feel like it’s probably a bit of…

> What got you interested in life extension?

Immediately when I first heard about it I thought, wow, this is fantastic, because death is a really bad thing. I believe it was mostly reading the book Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey, although I may have heard about some related ideas on various websites before that.

> And how long would you want to live for?

Certainly at least a couple hundred years, and by that point I'd have time to think about how much longer I'd want. I don't really see a reason why I'd want less than infinite time if it were possible.

> I’ve never understood the philosophy behind life extension research, because to me it seems like a case of spending a lot of resources in the hope of improving something that isn’t really broken.

I've spent several decades working really hard, or studying. Although I hope I'll have a great time in the next several decades, I sure do want more.

Also, I have many things I want to do that I know I won't have time to do in one currently normal lifetime. There are several projects like books I'd write that I will probably not get a chance to do, because there are so many other things I want to do also.

Basically the rough outline of my schedule for the next 40-50 years is pretty packed. Obviously I'm going to prioritize and so a bunch of things will be pushed off the list, but I'd really like to do all the things on the list, plus have plenty of time for general entertainment, social life, and so on.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#54

Post by jaakl »

okaram wrote: post #34
jaakl wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing what has changed is childhood mortality. If you take statistical lifetime of most animals (say frogs) and count in all offspring with hope to describe their average life duration then it would be low number of seconds. Human as such seems to have always same lifespan programmed in, just natural early mortality has been taken away. Basic statistical bias. Does almost removed early mortality really make…

Definitely not the only thing. Maternal mortality is another big thing. War, famine, malnutrition.... Although the max age hasn't increased, the proportion of people who reach it has.

There are other factors too, sure. But I’d like to remind here that wars killing people too soon are still a thing, now even in the Global North. If you have any means to help to bring end closer to these current issues, please do so.

We have tech community (some of them YC alumni) delivering essential equipment (trucks, generators) to the chrisis zone for example. Today west seems to be already tired of the news and this is exactly what the conflict starter counts on.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#55

Post by imtringued »

jmathai wrote: post #7
robg wrote: post #2

Another stat I read recently: Parents spend ~75% of their child’s life with them before the age of 12. Puts into perspective the good and bad influences long before they fly from the nest.

I was explaining to my 12yo son when he wanted to play video games instead of hanging with the family that I only had 6 more Christmas eves while he lives at home.

Children live with their parents until their thirties nowadays. You mean he still has another 18 Christmas eves left.

That is why life is short. The barriers to young people are growing bigger and bigger. Their adult lives keep getting shorter faster than their lifespan increases.

80 years is not a short period of time by any stretch of the imagination.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#56

Post by raydiatian »

poisonborz wrote: post #42
raydiatian wrote: post #24

Here’s my perspective on life: dying is probably the whole point of your life, or perhaps coming to terms with it, and conquering your fear of it. All other forms of “importance” derive from this root. - It is is unlikely anything you do will “matter”. Out of ~117 billion people to have ever lived over countless millennia, the lives of note throughout history are what? 10k? 100k? Even if it’s 1b meaningful lives that…

Your view of what matters is really narrow. Not everything has to have an impact in the style or singular magnitude how Aristotle, Charlemange or Muhammad did. You could edit a wiki article that inspires someone to contribute to a software that has a button that someone will push and change things. Human life has billions of nuances like this every minute. And even if most of that is ericadated by a catastrophe, some…

> You could edit a wiki article...

Yeah, "doing for others" is the point of life. I would argue it is an avenue in life, a very good avenue, and I don't discredit its morality, or correctness. But it is not the point of life, per se.

You do for others for your own peace of mind, so that you can live, day to day, as you approach your death bed. Your doing for others is your avenue to a clear conscience. Play the "why" game on that one for long enough and it ends in "because bad is bad, and I don't want to feel bad infinitely". This is why I argue that your death is the point of life. It's your destination, it's why people freak out about leaving a legacy. Death is the great motivator.

You wouldn't "do for others" if it was established wisdom that "doing for others" meant some experiential equivalent of eternal damnation. It's not that doing for others is wrong or something, it's just that it has an ontological derivative.

If we did for others despite our deaths, I think that Adam Smith would have been lambasted as a heretic, and I think communism would actually work.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#57

Post by tome »

kubb wrote: post #38

This makes you think that Paul would be interested in fighting for a world where people don't waste most of their short lives in bullshit corporate jobs because the market demands it, and instead can focus on important things like their families.

Can you say more about how that world would work?

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#58

Post by dmitriid »

irl_chad wrote: post #33
college_physics wrote: post #9

If anything, human life got remarkably longer in the last century. Any feeling that it is "too short" is not an objective reality (compared to what?) but indicates the failure of collective societal mechanisms to put the individual at emotional ease with reality and their existence and role in it. Eliminating all existential angst of the human animal is likely impossible as various absurd religious constructs (after…

I don’t understand how anyone can call “various religious constructs” absurd. It’s a very “Reddit moment” thing to do. Religion has existed since the dawn of man. The internal feeling that there is something more out there - something that created us, is something almost all of us have. As for the feeling that life is too short; I’ll offer a comparison to the early biblical figures: Adam and his sons lived almost a t…

Ah yes. Adam. Noah. Isaac. And yet, literally no historical record shows that anyone ever lived that long. And if you believe that the Bible is the only historical record we have of those times, boy do I have a bridge to sell you.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#59

Post by AussieWog93 »

selfawareMammal wrote: post #48
irl_chad wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand how anyone can call “various religious constructs” absurd. It’s a very “Reddit moment” thing to do. Religion has existed since the dawn of man. The internal feeling that there is something more out there - something that created us, is something almost all of us have. As for the feeling that life is too short; I’ll offer a comparison to the early biblical figures: Adam and his sons lived almost a t…

It's still a social construct. As knowledge and science advance, the need for religion decreases and it's really on us to accept there are some questions we cannot answer.

>As knowledge and science advance, the need for religion decreases

Citation needed, massively!

If anything, the powerful technology and knowledge we now wield (weapons of mass destruction, mass surveillance, modern logistics and coordination, global communications) only makes it more important that we don't forget the hard-earned scoial and moral lessons of our pre-scientific ancestors - lessons that were often encoded in evolving cultural systems like religion.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#60

Post by tobylane »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #59
selfawareMammal wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still a social construct. As knowledge and science advance, the need for religion decreases and it's really on us to accept there are some questions we cannot answer.

>As knowledge and science advance, the need for religion decreases Citation needed, massively! If anything, the powerful technology and knowledge we now wield (weapons of mass destruction, mass surveillance, modern logistics and coordination, global communications) only makes it more important that we don't forget the hard-earned scoial and moral lessons of our pre-scientific ancestors - lessons that were often encod…

Humanism fills that need. It doesn’t matter that it’s new, Islam and Christianity were new once, and corrupted since.
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