Delighted to see that despite the whole point of the piece being to NOT discuss the arguments for/against longevity, basically all the comments are about that. ;)
You opened your post by baiting it. What did you expect?
How should we pursue human longevity?
21–30 of 33 posts
Re: How should we pursue human longevity?
#22Even on hacker news people try to convince themselves that death is somehow a blessing in disguise?
Re: How should we pursue human longevity?
#23Delighted to see that despite the whole point of the piece being to NOT discuss the arguments for/against longevity, basically all the comments are about that. ;)
You opened your post by baiting it. What did you expect?
Haha I dunno some kind of HN Vienna Circle to just assemble and make a bunch of great points
Re: How should we pursue human longevity?
#24Also shoutout to some great critiques in the comments here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KdXvXszWEHPMzfFNK/how-should...
Re: How should we pursue human longevity?
#25Here is another bad argument missing from appendix: Organisms are evolved to utilise short life-spans to quickly adapt changing environmental conditions. Let’s assume humanity finds a cure to death and also without dwelling into dystopia that this finding is cheaply available to everyone. What will most likely happen is that bad ideas will haunt the humanity forever as older generations won’t die and remove their bad…
I don't understand this fundamental anti-human worldview. People are able to change their mind. Just think about how much more accepted homosexuality is today compared to 25 years ago. I changed during the last 10 years, everyone else I know did as well. Did you? Think about how much people will change, how many lives they will live over 300 years. Also keep in mind a society that is able to develop and sustain anti-…
> Just think about how much more accepted homosexuality is today compared to 25 years ago.
Is that because older people willingly changed their views, or older people died and younger people replaced them? I suspect 90% of that change is from generational shifts, not people learning with time. In other words, the old died out and the young replaced them.
In my anecdotal experience, most older people I know aren't any less racist/prejudiced than they used to be - they're just afraid to talk about it more.
Re: How should we pursue human longevity?
#26Biological immortality seems to be a reality for some not-so-simple organisms, the immortal medusa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii) and even lobsters.
Biological organisms already have an impressive capacity to repair themselves. They don't avoid death at the cellular level, they simply replace dying cells with new cells.
And this is the case for many if not most of our cells.
As long as they don't die all at the same time, a biological organism should be able to maintain this cycle of replacement forever.
It might even be something simple, like the telomere repair mechanism.
Re: How should we pursue human longevity?
#27I think that the consideration of arguments against extending human longevity is very flippant, and deserves some serious pushback. As Max Planck pointed out, ”A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Regardless of that, given the veneer of rationality in discu…
First of all, I'm thrilled someone looked at the footnotes - thanks :) I was flippant about the arguments against longevity only because other authors (linked in the appendix) have done such a thorough job of making the case already. The goal of this piece was to help push the longevity discussion past that a bit. Completely agree that the arguments against longevity should be taken seriously. I just happen to think…
Thanks, I skimmed those references and didn’t find anything convincing, but I’ll give it a more careful read later. I think a rigorous (doesn’t necessarily mean quantitative or in terms of utility) argument for longevity research would be very interesting to read — especially something that digs into each of those assumptions seriously.
Sometimes your post focuses on one thing and the HN discussion finds another aspect more pressing :-)
Re: How should we pursue human longevity?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
i am going to guess you are somewhat young (<60). watch how your opinion shifts as you get older
I am 44, not really juvenile, and while my view of death changed a lot over time I would still choose to live longer if I can. I fully understand the central role of death in the evolution of life. At the same time, this is incredibly wasteful for a species like us. Life is usually preserving knowledge with DNA copies over generations, but individual knowledge is lost and in our case it is not negligible. Most of it…
> I would still choose to live longer if I can.
That's the thing. I would choose the same, and I know many others who would. For the people who would prefer to live what they consider to be a "normal" lifespan, they can simply choose to end their life when they want, or not avail themselves of whatever treatments become available to increase lifespan.
So many "anti" arguments against so many things boil down to "I wouldn't want that so you shouldn't get to have it either". Those arguments are tedious and annoying.
Re: How should we pursue human longevity?
#29Here is another bad argument missing from appendix: Organisms are evolved to utilise short life-spans to quickly adapt changing environmental conditions. Let’s assume humanity finds a cure to death and also without dwelling into dystopia that this finding is cheaply available to everyone. What will most likely happen is that bad ideas will haunt the humanity forever as older generations won’t die and remove their bad…
I don't understand this fundamental anti-human worldview. People are able to change their mind. Just think about how much more accepted homosexuality is today compared to 25 years ago. I changed during the last 10 years, everyone else I know did as well. Did you? Think about how much people will change, how many lives they will live over 300 years. Also keep in mind a society that is able to develop and sustain anti-…
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Re: How should we pursue human longevity?
#30Delighted to see that despite the whole point of the piece being to NOT discuss the arguments for/against longevity, basically all the comments are about that. ;)
> How should we pursue human longevity?
>> whole point of the piece being to NOT discuss the arguments for/against longevity, basically all the comments are about that.
Step one: Learn to Weaponized Autism better?
I'd still be working on a technology that allows longevity to be explored more at different levels. Why do we not have a clearer way forward? Why are Instagramers not pushing what we have more? Why is there not more money in this? Why was it so hard for me to buy metformin illicitly on the internet?