Probably because it's quackery. http://thebaffler.com/salvos/everybody-freeze-pein
What a garbage article. It goes on and on about how weird cryonics is without discussing the science or whether or not it works. Of course cryonics is weird. That's not an argument. Cryonics works. The connectome of your brain, what makes you, you , is preserved. At −238 degrees almost anything organic can be preserved for a long, long time. And with careful procedures done to prevent the formation of ice crystals, t…
Actually, it describes several ways in which it does not work.
And then overpopulation will become a problem even more than it is now.
No it won't. All first world countries have less than sustainable population growth as it is. We produce vastly more food than we need, and will be able to produce even more in the future with genetically engineered algae. We have vast areas of the Earth left to settle including deserts, antarctica and the Oceans. Not to mention space. We have millennia worth of nuclear fuel available on Earth, not to mention other f…
The way I see it playing out, if working life extension technology is discovered, it will first be hoarded secretly for many years / possibly generations while the rich + powerful use it to stay in power. It won't be generally accessible until much later, likely after the world is in ruins, if at all. Some people believe that it had been discovered before but lost to the ages. Creepy to think about, but makes sense. If someone could live forever, I would think they'd become a huge target for assassination.
Just wanted to mention that in previous posts Pieter mentioned that donations (he was not soliciting them) for his kids and family could be sent via PayPal to ph@imatix.com . I did not know him personally so I cannot speak for his situation, but in those posts it was apparent that he was not a wealthy man (my take on the conversation). I could not imagine leaving my children to fend for themselves in this world. It struck me that our children are so similar in ages.
"not wanting to take on some fucking responsibility for others." They'll have to explain their sins themselves, but by observation I think its giving up that they oppose. Going up to OPs question of who gets to decide, decades ago when my father died of some weird fast moving liver cancer no one religious had any issue with the numerous treatment options all somewhat fatal or with the concept of being able to select…
The way I see it is pretty straightforward: my life, my decision. That suicide and euthanasia are illegal is illogical to me; it just seems like a way for life insurance companies to avoid paying.
That only works as long as you're legally competent and there are plenty of scenarios where you'd be suffering terribly but would not longer be in control of your life.
No it won't. All first world countries have less than sustainable population growth as it is. We produce vastly more food than we need, and will be able to produce even more in the future with genetically engineered algae. We have vast areas of the Earth left to settle including deserts, antarctica and the Oceans. Not to mention space. We have millennia worth of nuclear fuel available on Earth, not to mention other f…
The way I see it playing out, if working life extension technology is discovered, it will first be hoarded secretly for many years / possibly generations while the rich + powerful use it to stay in power. It won't be generally accessible until much later, likely after the world is in ruins, if at all. Some people believe that it had been discovered before but lost to the ages. Creepy to think about, but makes sense.…
That's a stupid theory. All technologies become available to the general public after a short time. Initially cell phones were expensive, but now even the poor often have iphones. Most medicines including advanced cancer treatments are available to everyone. Especially in countries with socialized healthcare. I see no reason why this would be any different.
I like your post, but before you will inspire few folks to visit some cancer fighting "non-profit" venture, it is important to look at cancer further then just those companies that are fighting it (but of course would never want to end it for good - I mean after all they have a lifetime mission (and salaries to pay), right?) You see, cancer was a tiny spot on radar just 50 years ago. Or 100 even more. So the question…
> You see, cancer was a tiny spot on radar just 50 years ago. Or 100 even more. So the question is - what happened? Have we somehow changed overnight as a spices? No we haven't. First, variety is the species of life. Second, the reason cancer wasn't "on the radar" is because we didn't know much. If you look into the history of cancer, it has existed forever. Wikipedia claims Hippocrate himself wrote about it! [1] And…
> Second, the reason cancer wasn't "on the radar" is because we didn't know much.
Plus, we often didn't live long enough for cancer to set in. It's hard to die of cancer if you drop dead of typhus or TB first. Cancer is the end stage of life; it's what kills you if nothing else does. We've finally reached the point where a very large percentage of the population is making it far enough to get there.
This keeps me up at night. I hope the collective advancement in science makes it possible to defeat cancer some day. I believe/hope that my contribution as a insignificant CS-student helps somebody develop tools that help somebody researching etc. I am really convinced that every advancement is connected somehow and the collective improvement in efficiency and livings standards makes it possible to commit more resour…
There is an immense amount of software work to be done in biotech. Molecular biology research is in need of better automation, analysis, visualization techniques, and on and on. We need folks at all levels. I entered biotech as a web developer and have been able to pick more challenging problems to approach on a monthly basis. We know next to nothing about the human body. Im optimistic that tech will help out us on a…
My background is distributed computing/grid computing. How can I contribute?
I am not great with words, please accept my apologies. When I say "big deal", I meant it more like talking about homosexuality is now less of a "big deal" then it was back in the day. I am not saying that the loss itself is not a big deal, just talking about it shouldn't be. Maybe, if we live in a society where it's easy to talk about death then maybe the grieving process would become easier too. Right now, people te…
I agree that it should be easier to talk about death. And tech really isn't the issue there -- unless the tech is keeping us in a cocoon. Back when the U.S. Civil War happened, photography was still new. Some folks thought that the new tech would finally wake people up to the horrors of war. Didn't work out like that. People already knew the horrors of war and dying. You could run a picture of ten thousand people dea…
What you described above, the "productization" of someone's death, is part of a bigger problem, where people are isolated from each other by technology and by a dehumanizing (and uncoincidentally technophilic) culture that turns people into appointments or tasks or problems to be solved or opportunities to make money or anything and everything more convenient and less difficult than, well, people. I could go on and on naming examples, but I think HN itself does a well enough job by self-selecting perfect examples to the front page every day. You're 51, I'm only 31, so you obviously have a lot more life experience than me (almost twice as much). But I think the fact that I'm already weary and wary of pretty much everyone and everything around me, including everyone and everything at HN, probably says something about modern suburban American culture.