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At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

theguardian.com

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Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#91

Post by raxxorrax »

_ink_ wrote: post #52
NateEag wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not seen a reason to think cryonics will work at all. Even if we actually do find a way to restore frozen near-death people to life, you'd better write a heck of a pitch as to why future humans should spend resources on reviving and healing you. Never mind all the resources being spent on keeping you properly frozen all that time. That's all assuming the company running your freezer doesn't just go belly-up af…

Why would they not want to revive you? How awesome would it be, if we could revive someone who lived around the year 1500, 1000 or even 0? I expect people in the year 3000 (if there are still people around and if they have it relatively good) would see it equally when looking to the year 2000.

The novelty will probably fall off quickly.

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#92

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

tenbino wrote: post #2

Lots of things matter but nothing matters without relationships.

highly relevant: M. Scott Peck "The Road less Traveled", in a nutshell the relationship to ourselves is what gives us the ability to be in a fulfilling relationship with others. I wanted to emphasize this because too many I know (including my former self) would rather be with somebody else ("to fulfill them or -worse- "make them complete") than develop a good relationship with our "self" first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Scott_Peck#The_Road_Less_Tr...

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#93

Post by ikeboy »

NateEag wrote: post #6
biolurker1 wrote: post #3

I wish more people would learn about cryonics. It's either 0 or something above zero probability.

I have not seen a reason to think cryonics will work at all. Even if we actually do find a way to restore frozen near-death people to life, you'd better write a heck of a pitch as to why future humans should spend resources on reviving and healing you. Never mind all the resources being spent on keeping you properly frozen all that time. That's all assuming the company running your freezer doesn't just go belly-up af…

Yeah, I prefer just denying the philosophical coherency of death (only experiences exist and being dead is not an experience), or alternatively relying on a quantum multiverse or other levels of the multiverse that imply one cannot die because they'll always live on somewhere.

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#94

Post by Cpoll »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #10
biolurker1 wrote: post #3

I wish more people would learn about cryonics. It's either 0 or something above zero probability.

Surely mass cryogenics is a non-starter in this day and age when we are concerned with lowering carbon emissions. All that refrigeration in perpetuity would consume so much energy, and keeping the dead frozen would erase the gains that we expect to get from the gradual decline in birthrates.

Are the carbon emissions that big of a deal? Every house in North America has at least one freezer. What scale are you envisioning when you say "mass"?

I've sometimes fancied that the discovery of immortality might be good for the environment, it changes the incentives for the biggest abusers. With that said, I'm not entirely confident of that in practice.

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#95

Post by emerged »

kyuudou wrote: post #42
tenbino wrote: post #2

Lots of things matter but nothing matters without relationships.

Some nearby introverts quietly disagree then dream of hiking in the mountains in nature. I guess that's a relationship of sorts.

I've never really liked platitudes like "family is everything" and "nothing matters without relationships" -- they don't seem to come from a good place. People who lack these things may enjoy their lives every bit as much, what's the point of denigrating their life?

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#96

Post by timwaagh »

shekharshan wrote: post #46

“All that is mine, beloved and pleasing, will become otherwise and will become separated from me”— Siddhartha Gautama. As a Buddhist we do “contemplation of death” meditation on a regular basis. It involves imagining our last few hours on our deathbed. It is a wonderful exercise to help put things in context. It makes you behave differently towards people you meet, even strangers.

Doesn't this practice and especially the choice of adjectives make light out of something very serious and infinitely sad?

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#97

Post by staticman2 »

knorker wrote: post #78
b34r wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding some 50-300 years in the future that cares might be a problem.

One would hope that the rule of law and private contracts still exists in 50-300 years.

There's an expression called ruling from the grave to reflect the difficulty of enforcing a contract after you are dead. The same principle applies as those frozen people are dead in every legal sense and practical sense and likely any biological sense.

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#98

Post by marcinzm »

biolurker1 wrote: post #3

I wish more people would learn about cryonics. It's either 0 or something above zero probability.

That depends on how cynical you are. There's also a non-zero probability that you're woken up in some sort of dystopia, made immortal and tortured until the heat death of the universe. Basically "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream." Death isn't the worst outcome imaginable.

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#99

Post by alias_neo »

podgaj wrote: post #27
codetrotter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if I never loose my money it is worthless! Ha! Maybe not but, you probably had to earn it in the first place and that is why you know its value. I think if you were born rich and never had to worry about money in an existential way, then you would not really know the value of it. Not even from observing the pain of others. I think the only way is to really experience it first hand. Even if a rich person tried to…

"But if you had to go through a lot of real pain, then you know the real value of money. " The more pain and suffering I have the more I realize money is not important at all and that money might be the cause of most of the pain and suffering in the world. (Is that not a religious soul left on the internet?)

I think you're being down voted because it appears you're missing the point that in certain societies, without money you can not feed yourself or your family, let alone be sitting having this discussion on Hacker News.

Money is important if you want a roof over your head, your children to have uniform for school and food on the table. If you want to be able to spend time with them rather than working 3 jobs to pay your rent, or put fuel in the car you drive to work, lest you have to catch the bus and spend even less time with them.

If you're fortunate enough to live where you don't need money for these things, I'm happy for you, if you're not turn you either have more money than these people do, or you're otherwise looked after.

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#100

Post by Icedcool »

timwaagh wrote: post #96
shekharshan wrote: post #46

“All that is mine, beloved and pleasing, will become otherwise and will become separated from me”— Siddhartha Gautama. As a Buddhist we do “contemplation of death” meditation on a regular basis. It involves imagining our last few hours on our deathbed. It is a wonderful exercise to help put things in context. It makes you behave differently towards people you meet, even strangers.

Doesn't this practice and especially the choice of adjectives make light out of something very serious and infinitely sad?

Not at all. It encourages you to contemplate something that we will all face, and through contemplation, use the time you have, better now.
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