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This line of thinking comes up a lot in longevity discussion. Pretty much all medicine is "unnatural" and extending life. People evolve all the time even while
by Jemmeh 10y ago
This line of thinking comes up a lot in longevity discussion. Pretty much all medicine is "unnatural" and extending life. People evolve all the time even while being alive, we change our opinions on things, we learn things, and we make impact on our surroundings. Usually the question of social progress comes up, but there are still quite a lot of people alive today who dealt with segregation in schools, it wasn't just the deaths of people with those beliefs that moved that progress forward. I could even argue that the fact that people have to focus so hard on survival is slowing down a lot of progress.
- mistercow 10y agoI'd also argue that a lot of the reasons people think death is "necessary" are actually symptoms of senescence. Decreased neuroplasticity, for example, is likely one of the reasons that old people tend to get "stuck in their ways" and are unwilling to accept new ideas. Clearly, part of solving the aging problem involves solving that too. A lot of anti-immortality arguments reduce to this problem. Folks who advocate ending aging do not want us to just live forever as progressively more decrepit and cranky old codgers. The point is not to keep you at 90. It's to keep you at 25 (and put you back there if necessary).