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Thankfully death comes along and sorts through the wants from the willing. It has a nice way of making space for a newer generation of thinkers. Old prejudices

Thankfully death comes along and sorts through the wants from the willing. It has a nice way of making space for a newer generation of thinkers. Old prejudices die, new thinkers arrive. There's nothing wrong with your thinking. In my humble opinion it shows your personal desires without much concern for everyone else. I guess this is the rub I get from most people that extol the Silicon Valley dream of extending the lives* *of those that will inevitably be able to pay for it.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>There's nothing wrong with your thinking. In my humble opinion it shows your personal desires without much concern for everyone else. Oh shush. You know, I've got a 93-year-old grandmother with a damned sharp wit who should not fucking need assisted living and should be able to remember what we were talking about five minutes ago. I've also got a 68-or-so uncle who came down with Parkinson's Disease almost instantly upon his retirement from a lifetime of practicing medicine. That's not to mention the in-laws with fibromyalgia and the step-father with several "bad lifestyle" diseases. If your argument in favor of aging and death is, "Indiscriminately inflicting extreme suffering to randomly-selected people for every moment of their lives really helps to freshen up the world", you should reconsider. The problems I mentioned are not unique and special things that happened like a car accident happens. They're just what happens to everyone from living long enough. The bit at the end where you go to sleep and never wake up is nothing; the problem is the decades of suffering followed by that.
- notgood 10y ago
  People like to assume the natural course its somehow the best course, but its far from the true, the fact its that from a biological perspective its much easier to start from scratch than to remain alive for too long; and that's how evolution works, evolution does not care much about what happens after your reproductive years have gone by (so to speak), maybe only enough so you can take care of your offspring while is needed, but thats about it. Dragon Flys only live for 4 weeks, but its enough time to reproduce and that's all "mother nature" cares about, and hardly anyone would suggest that living 4 weeks is long enough; so we need to understand our lifespans are just as arbitrary.
  - pdonis 10y ago
    > evolution does not care much about what happens after your reproductive years have gone by So what? We humans care.
    - Taek 10y ago
      The tools that made us successful as a species capped our lifespans. Technology may have changed that equation such that it makes more sense to live longer (or forever), but if immortality had made evolutionary sense up to this point we'd see a few immortals walking around. For whatever reason, hardcoded death was the more successful route for a species to take. (with some notable exceptions. I believe there are species of lobsters that won't die if you put them in the right environment, I believe a species of jellyfish as well, and then some microorganisms as well)
      - ehnto 10y ago
        Mother nature could never have awareness for the contexts in which we live now. Purely biological success knows nothing of the societies we have built and the knowledge, ability to experience, and the complex contexts within which we all live our lives. Death really doesn't make sense for an individual, and no one is really itching for Humans V1.1 so the idea of letting evolution continue doesn't make much sense either. If I could stop aging right now, I would be content with what I am capable of. Even if I die in 30 years from bus to head syndrome, I will have been fit and active for those years and that is a much better situation than slowly deteriorating to death. That is the reality medicine has given us already, and anti-aging is only the focusing of a subset of general health issues that tend to cause problems as we age. It isn't the search for the imoral and exclusive elixr of life as some people seem to claim it is.
        Taek 10y ago
        > no one is really itching for humans v1.1 Then why are we spending so much energy trying to augment ourselves? Better exercise, better diets, better schools, less disease, etc. I would say that almost everyone can name something about themselves that they wish evolution had optimized more. (And if not evolution, then direct intervention).
enraged_camel 10y ago
>>[Death] has a nice way of making space for a newer generation of thinkers. Old prejudices die, new thinkers arrive. On the other hand, humanity loses out on a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience with each death. Imagine if Einstein were alive today, for instance. Or Richard Feynman. Or Carl Sagan.
- dkarapetyan 10y ago
  Those were lives well lived and a lot of the meaning and wisdom now derived from their lives is because they are gone. Same can not be said for the multitude that just wants more time.
  - jnicholasp 10y ago
    All of the meaning and wisdom derived from their lives was because they were alive. Now they aren't, and we don't get any more of their particular genius, and that is a damned shame. It's also a damned shame that my grandfather, who is precisely nobody on the world stage, but still somebody, and currently in the hospital and I might get a text any minute saying he's dead, is on the brink of exiting the world, joining the hundred billion or so other humans who've ceased to exist for no good reason other than that the blind god Nature doesn't care about anything we care about. What Nature has ordained, she has ordained without reference to meaning or wisdom or the interests of those who live and die within her system, and we will be doing right when we remake her.
    - dkarapetyan 10y ago
      Reflection requires pause. It would not be the same if all those people were contemporaries of current modern scientists. In fact I have no clue how much value current scientists are adding or not adding or whether Feynman and friends would still be contributing in any way as you are assuming. The geniuses will appear after some reflection in a hundred years or so. Long after they're all gone. I'm sorry for your eventual loss but immortality does not appeal to me the way I guess it appeals to others. Cycles in nature don't seem like a disease to me that need curing. Alleviating the pain and suffering of aging is fine and that's what these guys seem to be doing.
ThomPete 10y ago
This strikes me as an odd argument. Basically you are saying that it's better we die so that a new generation can come and then die for others come around just to die to make way for others. Whats the purpose of that for the individual? Why is that by any metrics desirable for humans to die for other humans to come along to just die for yet others? But what is the purpose of that?
- mirekrusin 10y ago
  It's called life, evolution, it's been like that since day 1 but you sound surprised? Questions about life's purpose are silly, just like asking "what's the purpose of Mount Blanc?" is silly. Living longer wouldn't change the notion of "purpose" or anything around it anyway.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    I think it's safe to say you are missing the point.
- solipsism 10y ago
  You're actually starting a conversation on HN about what the purpose of life is? Good luck...
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    No. I am asking why I wouldn't want to live forever.
    - idra 10y ago
      Because you miss out on death, which is arguably the most important event in our lives.
      - ThomPete 10y ago
        Not to me
ryuker16 10y ago
I'd imagine a society with 200 yr old people would be much wiser and sanely run.
- ancient_kaiser 10y ago
  Yes, that would be lovely, Kaiser Wilhem I would still sit on the throne of Prussia and Rutherford B Hayes would be seeking re-election.
  - berntb 10y ago
    This is probably the best pro-death argument -- the social consequences. The rest can be solved. But in two to seven decades, when they have this problem, I doubt they will see it as a moral choice to kill (/refuse to save) people because a lot of them will be conservative.
  - Pica_soO 10y ago
    I find the idea of a live long prison sentence with immortals funny. That would grow quickly towards infinity.
  - ryuker16 10y ago
    If kaiser Wilhelm can hold the throne in a democracy for 100+ years he likely is doing a bang up job
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  Perhaps. There might be a lot more cynicism and conservatism. Our legislators might not have adjusted to the implications of telephone and tv, let alone apps and online privacy. Oh, I see. You mean we should be able to run on to 200 don't you? ;)
  - ryuker16 10y ago
    I suspect some age related conservativism is due to health and looks.
atomical 10y ago
You sound like a nihilist, except for the part about appearing to have "concern for everyone else."
- solipsism 10y ago
  You say that like it's an insult. And nihilists don't necessarily not have concern for others.
  - Frogolocalypse 10y ago
    Yes. Nihilist != Narcissist.
  - atomical 10y ago
    I am a nihilist.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>There's nothing wrong with your thinking. In my humble opinion it shows your personal desires without much concern for everyone else. Oh shush. You know, I've got a 93-year-old grandmother with a damned sharp wit who should not fucking need assisted living and should be able to remember what we were talking about five minutes ago. I've also got a 68-or-so uncle who came down with Parkinson's Disease almost instantly upon his retirement from a lifetime of practicing medicine. That's not to mention the in-laws with fibromyalgia and the step-father with several "bad lifestyle" diseases. If your argument in favor of aging and death is, "Indiscriminately inflicting extreme suffering to randomly-selected people for every moment of their lives really helps to freshen up the world", you should reconsider. The problems I mentioned are not unique and special things that happened like a car accident happens. They're just what happens to everyone from living long enough. The bit at the end where you go to sleep and never wake up is nothing; the problem is the decades of suffering followed by that.

notgood 10y ago
People like to assume the natural course its somehow the best course, but its far from the true, the fact its that from a biological perspective its much easier to start from scratch than to remain alive for too long; and that's how evolution works, evolution does not care much about what happens after your reproductive years have gone by (so to speak), maybe only enough so you can take care of your offspring while is needed, but thats about it. Dragon Flys only live for 4 weeks, but its enough time to reproduce and that's all "mother nature" cares about, and hardly anyone would suggest that living 4 weeks is long enough; so we need to understand our lifespans are just as arbitrary.
- pdonis 10y ago
  > evolution does not care much about what happens after your reproductive years have gone by So what? We humans care.
  - Taek 10y ago
    The tools that made us successful as a species capped our lifespans. Technology may have changed that equation such that it makes more sense to live longer (or forever), but if immortality had made evolutionary sense up to this point we'd see a few immortals walking around. For whatever reason, hardcoded death was the more successful route for a species to take. (with some notable exceptions. I believe there are species of lobsters that won't die if you put them in the right environment, I believe a species of jellyfish as well, and then some microorganisms as well)
    - ehnto 10y ago
      Mother nature could never have awareness for the contexts in which we live now. Purely biological success knows nothing of the societies we have built and the knowledge, ability to experience, and the complex contexts within which we all live our lives. Death really doesn't make sense for an individual, and no one is really itching for Humans V1.1 so the idea of letting evolution continue doesn't make much sense either. If I could stop aging right now, I would be content with what I am capable of. Even if I die in 30 years from bus to head syndrome, I will have been fit and active for those years and that is a much better situation than slowly deteriorating to death. That is the reality medicine has given us already, and anti-aging is only the focusing of a subset of general health issues that tend to cause problems as we age. It isn't the search for the imoral and exclusive elixr of life as some people seem to claim it is.
      - Taek 10y ago
        > no one is really itching for humans v1.1 Then why are we spending so much energy trying to augment ourselves? Better exercise, better diets, better schools, less disease, etc. I would say that almost everyone can name something about themselves that they wish evolution had optimized more. (And if not evolution, then direct intervention).

enraged_camel 10y ago

>>[Death] has a nice way of making space for a newer generation of thinkers. Old prejudices die, new thinkers arrive. On the other hand, humanity loses out on a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience with each death. Imagine if Einstein were alive today, for instance. Or Richard Feynman. Or Carl Sagan.

dkarapetyan 10y ago
Those were lives well lived and a lot of the meaning and wisdom now derived from their lives is because they are gone. Same can not be said for the multitude that just wants more time.
- jnicholasp 10y ago
  All of the meaning and wisdom derived from their lives was because they were alive. Now they aren't, and we don't get any more of their particular genius, and that is a damned shame. It's also a damned shame that my grandfather, who is precisely nobody on the world stage, but still somebody, and currently in the hospital and I might get a text any minute saying he's dead, is on the brink of exiting the world, joining the hundred billion or so other humans who've ceased to exist for no good reason other than that the blind god Nature doesn't care about anything we care about. What Nature has ordained, she has ordained without reference to meaning or wisdom or the interests of those who live and die within her system, and we will be doing right when we remake her.
  - dkarapetyan 10y ago
    Reflection requires pause. It would not be the same if all those people were contemporaries of current modern scientists. In fact I have no clue how much value current scientists are adding or not adding or whether Feynman and friends would still be contributing in any way as you are assuming. The geniuses will appear after some reflection in a hundred years or so. Long after they're all gone. I'm sorry for your eventual loss but immortality does not appeal to me the way I guess it appeals to others. Cycles in nature don't seem like a disease to me that need curing. Alleviating the pain and suffering of aging is fine and that's what these guys seem to be doing.

ThomPete 10y ago

This strikes me as an odd argument. Basically you are saying that it's better we die so that a new generation can come and then die for others come around just to die to make way for others. Whats the purpose of that for the individual? Why is that by any metrics desirable for humans to die for other humans to come along to just die for yet others? But what is the purpose of that?

mirekrusin 10y ago
It's called life, evolution, it's been like that since day 1 but you sound surprised? Questions about life's purpose are silly, just like asking "what's the purpose of Mount Blanc?" is silly. Living longer wouldn't change the notion of "purpose" or anything around it anyway.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  I think it's safe to say you are missing the point.
solipsism 10y ago
You're actually starting a conversation on HN about what the purpose of life is? Good luck...
- ThomPete 10y ago
  No. I am asking why I wouldn't want to live forever.
  - idra 10y ago
    Because you miss out on death, which is arguably the most important event in our lives.
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      Not to me

ryuker16 10y ago

I'd imagine a society with 200 yr old people would be much wiser and sanely run.

ancient_kaiser 10y ago
Yes, that would be lovely, Kaiser Wilhem I would still sit on the throne of Prussia and Rutherford B Hayes would be seeking re-election.
- berntb 10y ago
  This is probably the best pro-death argument -- the social consequences. The rest can be solved. But in two to seven decades, when they have this problem, I doubt they will see it as a moral choice to kill (/refuse to save) people because a lot of them will be conservative.
- Pica_soO 10y ago
  I find the idea of a live long prison sentence with immortals funny. That would grow quickly towards infinity.
- ryuker16 10y ago
  If kaiser Wilhelm can hold the throne in a democracy for 100+ years he likely is doing a bang up job
anexprogrammer 10y ago
Perhaps. There might be a lot more cynicism and conservatism. Our legislators might not have adjusted to the implications of telephone and tv, let alone apps and online privacy. Oh, I see. You mean we should be able to run on to 200 don't you? ;)
- ryuker16 10y ago
  I suspect some age related conservativism is due to health and looks.

atomical 10y ago

You sound like a nihilist, except for the part about appearing to have "concern for everyone else."

solipsism 10y ago
You say that like it's an insult. And nihilists don't necessarily not have concern for others.
- Frogolocalypse 10y ago
  Yes. Nihilist != Narcissist.
- atomical 10y ago
  I am a nihilist.