5 ms·

To put it bluntly, I can think of a number of other cases where (1) people say things to children because it is more pleasant or convenient, not because it is

by Neslit 10y ago

To put it bluntly, I can think of a number of other cases where (1) people say things to children because it is more pleasant or convenient, not because it is true, and (2) these misleading statements have negative effects later. In this case, it seems potentially worthwhile to keep in view that death is actually not a good thing, and that it would better if there weren't death, and that we want to keep an eye out for opportunities to prevent death. "You do not make peace with darkness!"

TeMPOraL 10y ago
I can not understand this approach to parenting. I had the luck of my parents never lying to me to shut me up. Even the "hard topics" of sex were handled properly even before I started asking about it myself. > (2) these misleading statements have negative effects later. Yes. And I had to fix that damage in people too. You know, sharing an interesting tidbit of information with a person close to me only for her to suddenly realize it was another thing her father mislead her about. Lying to children is like placing relationship landmines - your kids will step on them many years later and it will damage your relationship with them.
emodendroket 10y ago
It seems like if every person who has ever lived were still alive today we'd had some issues.
- Neslit 10y ago
  Do you mean because of limited resources like food and space? Sure, but (1) these look like difficult but quite solvable problems (we are engineers, after all) and (2) the alternative is having every person who has ever lived also be dead, which sounds bad to me. There might be more clever options, like cryopreserve everyone who dies; this does not consume many resources (the only recurring cost is liquid nitrogen, which is pretty cheap). Then we can wait to revive everyone until we have the medicine and the resources to support everyone, avoiding overpopulation.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    Well, yes. According to a quick search something like 108 billion people have ever lived (compared to 7 billion who walk the Earth today). That seems like a population that would be pretty hard to keep going without having a few extra Earths. Besides that, it is immaterial. We are all going to die someday and there is nothing we can do about it. The people seeing cryogenics are largely snake-oil salesmen. I don't believe anybody will ever find immortality (at least not in this life).
    - Neslit 10y ago
      >That seems like a population that would be pretty hard to keep going without having a few extra Earths. Do you think this problem is merely very difficult, or literally impossible to solve (e.g. because of some physical law)? I think that if a bunch of really smart humans tried really hard to solve this problem, and you predicted very very confidently that they would fail, then I would be pretty skeptical of your confidence. Just as an example, you suggest getting some more Earths. Sounds like one solid approach; expand humanity to other planets! >We are all going to die someday and there is nothing we can do about it. [...] I don't believe anybody will ever find immortality (at least not in this life). This might literally true, in the sense that we probably can't survive the heat death of the universe in however many bazillions of years. But do you think it is implausible that advanced medical technology could e.g. keep us alive, healthy, and sane for, say, thousands of years? This sounds both plausible and quite desirable to me, and I'm confused by your statements---for instance, I can't tell whether you are making a factual claim or an aesthetic claim. >The people seeing cryogenics are largely snake-oil salesmen. Eh? They seem pretty sincere; the people who run these organizations (Cryonics Institute, Alcor) are generally themselves signed up for cryonics, and speak passionately about life extension as a desirable goal. Cryonics is not exactly a get-rich-quick scheme.
      - emodendroket 10y ago
        Yes, I think it is extremely unlikely people will figure out thousand-year lifespans. I suppose perhaps we could somehow colonize other planets but I don't see any progress or even interest in progress there right now. As for cryogenics, check this out: http://thebaffler.com/salvos/everybody-freeze-pein http://thebaffler.com/salvos/everybody-freeze-pein
- anonymous779 10y ago
  If you gave modern-age people a choice: to live a short life or live a long life while limiting their rate of childbirth (or ceasing reproduction altogether), I think many would choose the former. Having a choice is always better than having none. Also note that your current (probably?) western lifestyle puts several times more load on the environment than mine 3rd world-like one. It is the wasteful lifestyle choices made by living people that are really a problem, not the quantity of people in itself.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    Well, yes, but even if everyone lived a third-world lifestyle I don't think we could realistically support 108 billion people today.
    - anonymous779 10y ago
      We don't have to, these (108-7) billions of people will (sadly) never ever come back. We have just 7.3 bln people and a planet with more than enough resources to sustain them and then some more (I could give some practical computations regarding the limits to growth, but I won't waste our time doing that here). So your whole argument about all people that have ever lived is basically a strawman.
      - emodendroket 10y ago
        Well, how long do we expect the post-death utopia to last?
- spyder 10y ago
  If they were still healthy and capable of work, they could help to solve those issues.
rangibaby 10y ago
Death is just another part of life. It's going to get you eventually. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori
- Neslit 10y ago
  Personally, I really like living, mainly because there's a lot of awesome stuff to do and see and build, stories to tell, people to be with, etc. The logical next step is that I don't want to die, at least any time soon or involuntarily. Avoiding death may be difficult, but it seems rather sad to just give up; and anyway, say what you will about humans, but we are pretty goddamn clever occasionally. So it seems quite worth it to fight death. I don't know if avoiding involuntary death should seem so implausible---humans are machines that can be fixed when they start breaking; that's how ordinary medicine works! I think it would actually be surprising if we could extend lifespans from 30 years all the way up to 100+ years, but couldn't possibly go much further, even given massive future advances in our understanding of biology, neurology, and technology.
  - shopkins 10y ago
    Except we're not machines. "You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else," as Tyler Durden would say. Some might say the next logical step isn't to wish to live forever, but to die, and hope your genes and ideas live on. We're not the eternal ones in this universe, no matter how big our capacity to wish for that.
    - Neslit 10y ago
      >Except we're not machines. I only mean that we're machines enough so that medical techniques work. We are made of parts that break and can be fixed. This is on extremely solid empirical footing. >Some might say the next logical step isn't to wish to live forever, but to die, and hope your genes and ideas live on. We're not the eternal ones in this universe, no matter how big our capacity to wish for that. Do you say that? I wish to live a very long time, and I wish the same for my loved ones and anyone who wants. I would keep wishing this even if it were an impossible wish. Also, it happens to probably not be impossible.
cr1895 10y ago
I really don't think you can state as an absolute truth that death is bad and we would be better off if no one died. That may be your view, but this is a massively complex philosophical question for which I get the impression you have too hastily answered.
- Neslit 10y ago
  >we would be better off if no one died (Clarification: I think we'd obviously be better off if no one involuntarily died.) I don't think I've been hasty in my thinking. What is the most central concern that you have about life as a good thing? There are deep unsolved problems around long life. E.g., how do you grow as a mind that has existed for 4,000 years? A normal human mind would probably not be able to handle this, so we'd need some way to expand without losing the parts of ourselves that we value. Similarly, I don't know how to grow as a community of huge, ancient minds. But, as the saying goes, those are very difficult problems, and I intend to work on solving them for as many centuries as it takes! Of course I can't literally claim to possess an absolute truth, but I think there is a very strong argument---or rather, I think most people would simply agree if they thought longer and more sanely about the question---that life can be awesome given some work, and it is precious, and we don't want to just give up on our vast adventure because, like, medicine is hard to figure out, or cryonics seems like something weird people do, or whatever.
  - cr1895 10y ago
    I'm struggling to think of how to reply. This topic is both hard if not impossible to grapple and fascinating to think about. I keep going off into mental tangents about our place (and insignifigance) in the incomprehensibly huge cosmos and how you can so easily say that we humans, who have been dieing along with every other living thing for all of our collective existence, that somehow we should strive to eradicate death and live for thousands of years, much less eternity. I don't know if hasty was the right word; I don't mean to just dismiss what you're saying. Clearly you've considered this at length. I cannot easily accept that perpetual life is a good thing and death is something which should be avoided (obviously, in a grander sense). I don't have a concern about life as a good thing in the same way I don't have a concern about death being a bad thing. Life and death are complementary. I can't fathom anything else.

by Neslit 10y ago

TeMPOraL 10y ago

I can not understand this approach to parenting. I had the luck of my parents never lying to me to shut me up. Even the "hard topics" of sex were handled properly even before I started asking about it myself. > (2) these misleading statements have negative effects later. Yes. And I had to fix that damage in people too. You know, sharing an interesting tidbit of information with a person close to me only for her to suddenly realize it was another thing her father mislead her about. Lying to children is like placing relationship landmines - your kids will step on them many years later and it will damage your relationship with them.

emodendroket 10y ago

It seems like if every person who has ever lived were still alive today we'd had some issues.

Neslit 10y ago
Do you mean because of limited resources like food and space? Sure, but (1) these look like difficult but quite solvable problems (we are engineers, after all) and (2) the alternative is having every person who has ever lived also be dead, which sounds bad to me. There might be more clever options, like cryopreserve everyone who dies; this does not consume many resources (the only recurring cost is liquid nitrogen, which is pretty cheap). Then we can wait to revive everyone until we have the medicine and the resources to support everyone, avoiding overpopulation.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Well, yes. According to a quick search something like 108 billion people have ever lived (compared to 7 billion who walk the Earth today). That seems like a population that would be pretty hard to keep going without having a few extra Earths. Besides that, it is immaterial. We are all going to die someday and there is nothing we can do about it. The people seeing cryogenics are largely snake-oil salesmen. I don't believe anybody will ever find immortality (at least not in this life).
  - Neslit 10y ago
    >That seems like a population that would be pretty hard to keep going without having a few extra Earths. Do you think this problem is merely very difficult, or literally impossible to solve (e.g. because of some physical law)? I think that if a bunch of really smart humans tried really hard to solve this problem, and you predicted very very confidently that they would fail, then I would be pretty skeptical of your confidence. Just as an example, you suggest getting some more Earths. Sounds like one solid approach; expand humanity to other planets! >We are all going to die someday and there is nothing we can do about it. [...] I don't believe anybody will ever find immortality (at least not in this life). This might literally true, in the sense that we probably can't survive the heat death of the universe in however many bazillions of years. But do you think it is implausible that advanced medical technology could e.g. keep us alive, healthy, and sane for, say, thousands of years? This sounds both plausible and quite desirable to me, and I'm confused by your statements---for instance, I can't tell whether you are making a factual claim or an aesthetic claim. >The people seeing cryogenics are largely snake-oil salesmen. Eh? They seem pretty sincere; the people who run these organizations (Cryonics Institute, Alcor) are generally themselves signed up for cryonics, and speak passionately about life extension as a desirable goal. Cryonics is not exactly a get-rich-quick scheme.
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      Yes, I think it is extremely unlikely people will figure out thousand-year lifespans. I suppose perhaps we could somehow colonize other planets but I don't see any progress or even interest in progress there right now. As for cryogenics, check this out: http://thebaffler.com/salvos/everybody-freeze-pein http://thebaffler.com/salvos/everybody-freeze-pein
anonymous779 10y ago
If you gave modern-age people a choice: to live a short life or live a long life while limiting their rate of childbirth (or ceasing reproduction altogether), I think many would choose the former. Having a choice is always better than having none. Also note that your current (probably?) western lifestyle puts several times more load on the environment than mine 3rd world-like one. It is the wasteful lifestyle choices made by living people that are really a problem, not the quantity of people in itself.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Well, yes, but even if everyone lived a third-world lifestyle I don't think we could realistically support 108 billion people today.
  - anonymous779 10y ago
    We don't have to, these (108-7) billions of people will (sadly) never ever come back. We have just 7.3 bln people and a planet with more than enough resources to sustain them and then some more (I could give some practical computations regarding the limits to growth, but I won't waste our time doing that here). So your whole argument about all people that have ever lived is basically a strawman.
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      Well, how long do we expect the post-death utopia to last?
spyder 10y ago
If they were still healthy and capable of work, they could help to solve those issues.

rangibaby 10y ago

Death is just another part of life. It's going to get you eventually. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori

Neslit 10y ago
Personally, I really like living, mainly because there's a lot of awesome stuff to do and see and build, stories to tell, people to be with, etc. The logical next step is that I don't want to die, at least any time soon or involuntarily. Avoiding death may be difficult, but it seems rather sad to just give up; and anyway, say what you will about humans, but we are pretty goddamn clever occasionally. So it seems quite worth it to fight death. I don't know if avoiding involuntary death should seem so implausible---humans are machines that can be fixed when they start breaking; that's how ordinary medicine works! I think it would actually be surprising if we could extend lifespans from 30 years all the way up to 100+ years, but couldn't possibly go much further, even given massive future advances in our understanding of biology, neurology, and technology.
- shopkins 10y ago
  Except we're not machines. "You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else," as Tyler Durden would say. Some might say the next logical step isn't to wish to live forever, but to die, and hope your genes and ideas live on. We're not the eternal ones in this universe, no matter how big our capacity to wish for that.
  - Neslit 10y ago
    >Except we're not machines. I only mean that we're machines enough so that medical techniques work. We are made of parts that break and can be fixed. This is on extremely solid empirical footing. >Some might say the next logical step isn't to wish to live forever, but to die, and hope your genes and ideas live on. We're not the eternal ones in this universe, no matter how big our capacity to wish for that. Do you say that? I wish to live a very long time, and I wish the same for my loved ones and anyone who wants. I would keep wishing this even if it were an impossible wish. Also, it happens to probably not be impossible.

cr1895 10y ago

I really don't think you can state as an absolute truth that death is bad and we would be better off if no one died. That may be your view, but this is a massively complex philosophical question for which I get the impression you have too hastily answered.

Neslit 10y ago
>we would be better off if no one died (Clarification: I think we'd obviously be better off if no one involuntarily died.) I don't think I've been hasty in my thinking. What is the most central concern that you have about life as a good thing? There are deep unsolved problems around long life. E.g., how do you grow as a mind that has existed for 4,000 years? A normal human mind would probably not be able to handle this, so we'd need some way to expand without losing the parts of ourselves that we value. Similarly, I don't know how to grow as a community of huge, ancient minds. But, as the saying goes, those are very difficult problems, and I intend to work on solving them for as many centuries as it takes! Of course I can't literally claim to possess an absolute truth, but I think there is a very strong argument---or rather, I think most people would simply agree if they thought longer and more sanely about the question---that life can be awesome given some work, and it is precious, and we don't want to just give up on our vast adventure because, like, medicine is hard to figure out, or cryonics seems like something weird people do, or whatever.
- cr1895 10y ago
  I'm struggling to think of how to reply. This topic is both hard if not impossible to grapple and fascinating to think about. I keep going off into mental tangents about our place (and insignifigance) in the incomprehensibly huge cosmos and how you can so easily say that we humans, who have been dieing along with every other living thing for all of our collective existence, that somehow we should strive to eradicate death and live for thousands of years, much less eternity. I don't know if hasty was the right word; I don't mean to just dismiss what you're saying. Clearly you've considered this at length. I cannot easily accept that perpetual life is a good thing and death is something which should be avoided (obviously, in a grander sense). I don't have a concern about life as a good thing in the same way I don't have a concern about death being a bad thing. Life and death are complementary. I can't fathom anything else.