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Summary of pro death arguments re: longevity progress Fairness Only rich people will get it. (no tech has ever done this.) Better to give money to th

Summary of pro death arguments re: longevity progress Fairness Only rich people will get it. (no tech has ever done this.) Better to give money to the poor than science. (family,city,state,nation, has proven local investment beats foreign.) Bad for society Dead people make more room for new, other people. (consider going first.) Run out or resources (live people discover/extract/renew better than dead or nonexistant) Overpopulation (colonize the seas, solar system, or have a war.) Stop having kids Worse wars (nukes are more dangerous than having your first 220 year old person in 2136) Dictators never die (they die all the time and rarely of age) Bad for individual You'll get bored. (your memory isn't that good, or your boredom isn't age related) You'll have to watch your loved ones die. (so you prefer they watch you?) You'll live forever in a terrible state. (longevity requires robustness.) Against gods will (not if he disallows suicide, then it is required.) More people make more progress faster. I'm glad my parents didn't decide the world would be prettier or work better without me in it. Einstein, Bell, Tesla, Da Vinci etc, still alive and productive would be nice. Many literally asking for others to die out of their fear. The burden should be higher. Have courage. If living longer sucks, we'll know 100 years from now, and decide then. First 220 year old in 2136 unless you know how to make one faster than 1 year per year? And that's if you added 120 years to a 100 year old person starting TODAY. Man up, save your family, save yourself. P.S. Curing aging isn't immortality. You die at 600 on average by accident, and if the parade of imaginary horribles comes true, even earlier.

goatlover 9y ago
You'll likely die of cancer, Alzheimer's or heart disease before 600 anyway.
- jnicholasp 9y ago
  Because a state of medical science which has solved aging will certainly not have solved cancer, Alzheimers, or heart disease.
  - goatlover 9y ago
    You would think so, but it's 2017, and despite all our impressive progress, we still heavily rely on fossil fuels and have no cure for baldness.
    - jnicholasp 9y ago
      > it's 2017, and despite all our impressive progress, we still [haven't solved x] People tend to think that [current year] is super late and advanced in the history of the world, and seem to infer from that impression that things that haven't been solved yet are unlikely to be solved. The germ theory of disease is about 150 years old; practical uses for electricity are just over 100; powered flight is just over 100; not using horses as primary transportation is the same; etc. Now is early in the possible history of discovery. There remain hundreds of thousands of important things we don't understand, or even know about, yet. Besides which, we are talking about a hypothetical future in which we have solved aging; to suppose that future would exist without comparably revolutionary advances in intimately connected biological problems like cancer and dementia is odd.
      - exergy 9y ago
        I think your line of argument is more odd than his. We've discovered antibiotics, and promptly created superbugs. We've gotten rid of horses, and promptly replaced horse poo with PM2.5. We've domesticated plants and animals, and promptly been rewarded with smaller brains, worse bodies, and mass extinction of fellow inhabitants of this planet. If you believe we're doggedly and linearly solving Problems Humanity Faces one at a time, and that techno-utopia is around the corner, I think that's mistaken. We continue to remain blind to unforeseen consequences, and it is unclear to me that we'll figure them all out before we wipe ourselves off of the face of the earth.
        Trill-I-Am 9y ago
        Smaller brains?
        9y ago
richmarr 9y ago
I interpreted the OP's comment to refer to the article's theme of consciousness transfer/ascension rather than countering the effects of aging, which as you point out is different. In that context many of these arguments seem moot. Even the idea that "More people make more progress faster" becomes speculative as "people" would no longer be constrained by genetics to specific distributions of neurons.
pmoriarty 9y ago
Why do you include Einstein, Bell, Tesla, and Da Vinci while not mentioning the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan? I am not so optimisitic about what life extension and other technologies that transhumanists get excited about would mean for humanity. I am reminded of Douglas Adams: "Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."

goatlover 9y ago

You'll likely die of cancer, Alzheimer's or heart disease before 600 anyway.

jnicholasp 9y ago
Because a state of medical science which has solved aging will certainly not have solved cancer, Alzheimers, or heart disease.
- goatlover 9y ago
  You would think so, but it's 2017, and despite all our impressive progress, we still heavily rely on fossil fuels and have no cure for baldness.
  - jnicholasp 9y ago
    > it's 2017, and despite all our impressive progress, we still [haven't solved x] People tend to think that [current year] is super late and advanced in the history of the world, and seem to infer from that impression that things that haven't been solved yet are unlikely to be solved. The germ theory of disease is about 150 years old; practical uses for electricity are just over 100; powered flight is just over 100; not using horses as primary transportation is the same; etc. Now is early in the possible history of discovery. There remain hundreds of thousands of important things we don't understand, or even know about, yet. Besides which, we are talking about a hypothetical future in which we have solved aging; to suppose that future would exist without comparably revolutionary advances in intimately connected biological problems like cancer and dementia is odd.
    - exergy 9y ago
      I think your line of argument is more odd than his. We've discovered antibiotics, and promptly created superbugs. We've gotten rid of horses, and promptly replaced horse poo with PM2.5. We've domesticated plants and animals, and promptly been rewarded with smaller brains, worse bodies, and mass extinction of fellow inhabitants of this planet. If you believe we're doggedly and linearly solving Problems Humanity Faces one at a time, and that techno-utopia is around the corner, I think that's mistaken. We continue to remain blind to unforeseen consequences, and it is unclear to me that we'll figure them all out before we wipe ourselves off of the face of the earth.
      - Trill-I-Am 9y ago
        Smaller brains?
      - 9y ago

richmarr 9y ago

I interpreted the OP's comment to refer to the article's theme of consciousness transfer/ascension rather than countering the effects of aging, which as you point out is different. In that context many of these arguments seem moot. Even the idea that "More people make more progress faster" becomes speculative as "people" would no longer be constrained by genetics to specific distributions of neurons.

pmoriarty 9y ago

Why do you include Einstein, Bell, Tesla, and Da Vinci while not mentioning the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan? I am not so optimisitic about what life extension and other technologies that transhumanists get excited about would mean for humanity. I am reminded of Douglas Adams: "Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."