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We Need to Die

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Re: We Need to Die

#51

Post by Palomides »

Arodex wrote: post #10

Immortality is absolutely not compatible with our current capitalistic social system. Whenever you see startups and rich guys financing research in that domain, there is never any talk about giving it away to hoi polloi like you and me. Death is the last economic redistribution system still standing - and when you see they are doing everything they can to nullify any inheritance tax, you can imagine they don't intend…

it's kinda weird that you think modern capitalism/mode of wealth is a harder problem to solve than literal immortality

I'll take eternal life even if Putin gets it, thanks

Re: We Need to Die

#52

Post by zebomon »

The author's argument seems to be a practical one and two-part: 1) without death, there's nothing to motivate us to live life well and 2) unless we live life well, there's no point in living.

I just disagree with both postulates, and that's fine. The author can go on thinking that life needs to be something specific in order for it to be desirable. I myself like being productive. I also like eating fast food every once in a while. I think I'd be able to go on living (with some happiness to boot) if I never had another productive day or another McD's burger ever again.

Life can be its own end. If we manage to end death by aging, someday there will be children who have never known another world, and they'll marvel at all the death-centric thinking that permeated the societies of their past.

Re: We Need to Die

#53

Post by jmward01 »

We need to force change to encourage growth and exploration. "Science advances one funeral at a time" acknowledge this but that doesn't mean actual death is needed. We need to create strong systems that encourage forcing people, and processes, out in everything we do. Term limits, retirement, etc etc. Nothing should have a 'forever' clause to it because nothing is forever.

Re: We Need to Die

#54

Post by cindyllm »

SoftTalker wrote: post #21
dvt wrote: post #5

I've had this (often drunken) conversation many times, I think mortality is fundamentally ingrained in not just the human condition, but the fabric of our universe. Without the finality of death, life seems to lose its meaning. Not only do we need to die, we are compelled to die, we should die. This memento mori makes every day, ironically, worth living. One of my favorite verses from the Bible is Job 1:21, where he…

Yes, immortality would be imprisonment. An eternity in this existence with no escape. It's also the ultimate equalizer. Everyone is born, everyone dies. There's no amount of wealth, luck, work, or misfortune that happens in life that changes this. We all end up as dust.

[dead]

Re: We Need to Die

#55

Post by orangecat »

photonic34 wrote: post #15

Two major counterpoints, the second borrowed from de Grey. 1. I am young enough that a sense of mortality is not a true motivation to start things now. While I know about my mortality, I do not, in the visceral sense, believe it. My motivation to start things now instead of later is to experience the rewards sooner, not a foreboding panic of losing finite time. I suspect this is true for at least very many people. 2.…

Would a reasonable solution be to introduce a massive, rolling holocaust (i.e. introduce into this world the concept of death)?

And not only death, but aging. Even if that society decided (wrongly IMO) that nobody should live longer than 100 years, it would be insane to enforce that by making everyone's bodies and minds deteriorate over several decades.

Re: We Need to Die

#56

Post by GMoromisato »

This is like worrying about the sun going supernova after you've just discovered fire. Yes, eventually Earth will be reduced to a blackened cinder. And yes, if humans managed to live forever, there would be unforeseen (maybe bad) consequences.

If I get to live to 200, I still won't worry about it. If I get to live to 1,000, maybe I might start to think about it. Fortunately, by then, I will have had 1,000 years of experience to maybe come up with better answers than now.

Can you imagine the hubris of telling someone who has lived for 10,000 years that death is good because you can't think of what you'd do with that time?

Moreover no one is talking about making it impossible to die. No one is going to force you to live forever.

And that's the real problem for the nay-sayers. They know that they don't have to live forever if they don't want to. They just don't want other people to live forever. They want to live in a world where other people die.

Re: We Need to Die

#57

Post by murat124 »

Everything that has a beginning has an end. It would be really cool to live until whenever and realize that given our poor capacity to recollect past events we humans are actually the goldfish of the universe. No death means you only remember hash of events that are so distant in your past which is basically how you felt. After some time of life you start to only remember your feelings without recollecting much details about the events.

Re: We Need to Die

#58

Post by bryanlarsen »

I think this is almost completely post-hoc rationalization.

It's a lot easier to accept death if you believe it's a natural, necessary, good thing. And since we're all going to die, this post-hoc rationalization makes us feel better.

Re: We Need to Die

#59

Post by orangecat »

tmsbrg wrote: post #14

Not the argument I expected. I'm also against people living forever, but more because it's a way for society to go forward and get rid of old ways of thinking. There's a saying that science advances one death at a time. And can you imagine a world where current leaders are still in power 1000 years later? Or where the leaders of 1000 years ago were still in charge? Whenever I hear people talk about living forever I t…

I'm also against people living forever, but more because it's a way for society to go forward and get rid of old ways of thinking.

Well, I'd like to get rid of the old way of thinking that death is good :p

And can you imagine a world where current leaders are still in power 1000 years later?

Leaders generally don't rule for life in functioning countries, and the mortality of individual Kims has not helped the people of North Korea.

I think of how it'd be something tech billionaires and autocrats would use to oppress us forever.

How are these people currently oppressing you, and how would the existence of longevity treatments make that worse?

Re: We Need to Die

#60

Post by moribvndvs »

Living long enough to see everything else die while pseudo-immortals try to fight entropy-particularly with the much worse coming consequences of human civilization borrowing heavily against the ecosystem- is a hell I don’t think I would want to see. Like the author, I’m not opposed to extending a bit, but… I suppose that’s a slippery slope. Today “just a little longer” seems reasonable, and then it will be just a little bit longer, and then a little bit longer after that. I suppose at some point after that you risk becoming little more than your dwindling ego, something of a lich lord or revenant jealously draining the world of life because you’re too afraid to admit: you don’t matter (no one does in the grand scheme of things) and the universe wasn’t designed for immortality or to appease your ego. In the more practical and nearer term, I fear life extension will be more a matter of trading quality of life simply to avoid dying, a form of life support. Doesn’t sound good to me.
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