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Those are the easy things. Technology. Pleasures. Services... The hard paradigms are the ones challenging your believes, world views, and habits. Living with p

Those are the easy things. Technology. Pleasures. Services... The hard paradigms are the ones challenging your believes, world views, and habits. Living with people with very different cultures, learning the universe is not working the way you though it is, seeing you are not the person you saw in the mirror, etc.

laumars 10y ago
The world has changed a lot in recent years in that regard as well. Take the "old people are racist" stereotype for example. You see the same with younger people who are not actively exposed to people of different cultures. So it's not that surprising that older people are don't mingle with different cultures wouldn't be afforded the opportunity to have their prejudices challenged. And thus to go back to my previous point: if in an infinite life scenario where "older people" were just as mentally and physically capable as the younger generation of today, you would expect the older generation to be in the position to mingle in the same ways and thus have their prejudices challenged. This is of course all hypothetical. But so is your argument that older people cannot adapt in the same scenario.
- sametmax 10y ago
  Yeah, hard to know who's right before we get immortal. But nature can produce immortality and evolution didn't settle on it so we should wonder why.
  - laumars 10y ago
    Evolution doesn't work towards an end goal like that though. There are plenty of attributes we have which are sub-optimal. For example our eyes have a number of significant flaws many of which are not present in other, arguably inferior, species to ourselves. You'd probably have a stronger case if you argued about natural selection instead but given the history of humans, it's hard to believe that many would reached the end of their natural lives before getting killed. Certainly not enough and over a long enough period for immortality to have come about.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    As if evolution required reasons to settle on stuff.
- ethbro 10y ago
  Parent's point might be better phrased not by "old people are racist" as "old people don't know they're racist." The biggest difference between old and young people is depth of experience. The elderly aren't racist because they never met a person of another race: they're racist because that's how they were taught and trained to act towards other races. And I think it's more difficult to argue that "undoing previously held beliefs" (old) is as easy as "forming new beliefs where none exist" (young). Source: Extensive traveling in the rural American south, and I believe psychological findings back up the tendency to cling to preconceptions
  - laumars 10y ago
    You acknowledge that it is more difficult for the older generation to have their beliefs challenged than the younger generation but you fail to address why that it. This is the point I was addressing. Yes there will be an element of human conditioning to racism, however I was not discussing the direct cause of it but rather how said conditioning is often combatted. To discuss an infinite lifespan one would also have to assume good mental and physical health. That would mean that "old age" as we describe it would also be eradicated. This means there's more opportunities to have opinions challenged. It also means peoples outlook might change as well (eg an infinite lifespan might bring around boredom so people might welcome being pushed outside of their comfort zones more often). There's also the question of the maximum capacity of human memory: as we age in an infinite life we might forget some of conditioning we were taught earlier in our lives as new experiences take their place. So the issue I have with both yours and the GP's position is I feel you fail to take into account that old age wouldn't exist (or at least "shouldn't" if we don't want to breed zombies) so we cannot assume the same phycology will apply with people who are 100 but physically and mentally 20 as currently applies with those who are 100 with failing physiology and cognitive functions.
    - ethbro 10y ago
      >> "and I believe psychological findings back up the tendency to cling to preconceptions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_exposure_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_exposure_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance These are not things that humans do because they're old (and somehow less plastic / capable than the young). They do them because that's how our brains work once they've acquired information. If you're going to argue against current neuroscience and psychology findings and beliefs, then you're welcome to cite some sources. "Good mental and physical health" is necessary but not sufficient for creating as many opportunities to have opinions challenged (as younger people). In the absence of equivalent ability to be challenged and accept new ideas, parent's assertion that a society without death would look very different from our current "each generation overthrows some ideas of the last as they die" seems to stand.

laumars 10y ago

The world has changed a lot in recent years in that regard as well. Take the "old people are racist" stereotype for example. You see the same with younger people who are not actively exposed to people of different cultures. So it's not that surprising that older people are don't mingle with different cultures wouldn't be afforded the opportunity to have their prejudices challenged. And thus to go back to my previous point: if in an infinite life scenario where "older people" were just as mentally and physically capable as the younger generation of today, you would expect the older generation to be in the position to mingle in the same ways and thus have their prejudices challenged. This is of course all hypothetical. But so is your argument that older people cannot adapt in the same scenario.

sametmax 10y ago
Yeah, hard to know who's right before we get immortal. But nature can produce immortality and evolution didn't settle on it so we should wonder why.
- laumars 10y ago
  Evolution doesn't work towards an end goal like that though. There are plenty of attributes we have which are sub-optimal. For example our eyes have a number of significant flaws many of which are not present in other, arguably inferior, species to ourselves. You'd probably have a stronger case if you argued about natural selection instead but given the history of humans, it's hard to believe that many would reached the end of their natural lives before getting killed. Certainly not enough and over a long enough period for immortality to have come about.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  As if evolution required reasons to settle on stuff.
ethbro 10y ago
Parent's point might be better phrased not by "old people are racist" as "old people don't know they're racist." The biggest difference between old and young people is depth of experience. The elderly aren't racist because they never met a person of another race: they're racist because that's how they were taught and trained to act towards other races. And I think it's more difficult to argue that "undoing previously held beliefs" (old) is as easy as "forming new beliefs where none exist" (young). Source: Extensive traveling in the rural American south, and I believe psychological findings back up the tendency to cling to preconceptions
- laumars 10y ago
  You acknowledge that it is more difficult for the older generation to have their beliefs challenged than the younger generation but you fail to address why that it. This is the point I was addressing. Yes there will be an element of human conditioning to racism, however I was not discussing the direct cause of it but rather how said conditioning is often combatted. To discuss an infinite lifespan one would also have to assume good mental and physical health. That would mean that "old age" as we describe it would also be eradicated. This means there's more opportunities to have opinions challenged. It also means peoples outlook might change as well (eg an infinite lifespan might bring around boredom so people might welcome being pushed outside of their comfort zones more often). There's also the question of the maximum capacity of human memory: as we age in an infinite life we might forget some of conditioning we were taught earlier in our lives as new experiences take their place. So the issue I have with both yours and the GP's position is I feel you fail to take into account that old age wouldn't exist (or at least "shouldn't" if we don't want to breed zombies) so we cannot assume the same phycology will apply with people who are 100 but physically and mentally 20 as currently applies with those who are 100 with failing physiology and cognitive functions.
  - ethbro 10y ago
    >> "and I believe psychological findings back up the tendency to cling to preconceptions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_exposure_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_exposure_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance These are not things that humans do because they're old (and somehow less plastic / capable than the young). They do them because that's how our brains work once they've acquired information. If you're going to argue against current neuroscience and psychology findings and beliefs, then you're welcome to cite some sources. "Good mental and physical health" is necessary but not sufficient for creating as many opportunities to have opinions challenged (as younger people). In the absence of equivalent ability to be challenged and accept new ideas, parent's assertion that a society without death would look very different from our current "each generation overthrows some ideas of the last as they die" seems to stand.