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I've got a better plan for my future: I'm going to grow old and die. (Unless, of course, fate intervenes and I don't grow old. But I intend to keep planning to

I've got a better plan for my future: I'm going to grow old and die. (Unless, of course, fate intervenes and I don't grow old. But I intend to keep planning to grow old right up until the last minute!) It's a classic plan, and well tested. Lots of prior art. Lots of examples to learn from, and a lot of infrastructure and literature. You folks can find fault with my plan if you want. But here's the thing: You're going to follow the same plan, whether you're willing to admit it or not. [1] Further reading: http://kk.org/ct2/2007/09/my-life-countdown-1.php http://kk.org/ct2/2007/09/my-life-countdown-1.php [1] I'd offer to bet, because my odds are really, really good... but tontines are illegal for a good reason. ;)

edw519 19y ago
OK, fish, I'll bite. I read your reference, but he never came out and said what he ACTUALLY DID during those 6 months. Is there a "rest of the story" or is it inferred? Nice link. Really got me thinking. Maybe the subject of a future thread...
- mechanical_fish 19y ago
  He mentioned that you can find it by finding the online archive of This American Life and playing an early episode... perhaps even Episode 1. Don't let me make you feel guilty for being too lazy to do this... because I haven't bothered to do it myself yet. :) I doubt that it matters too much what he did. What one chooses to do is intensely personal. I think that "getting you thinking" really is the whole point.
byrneseyeview 19y ago
Really? So if you lived in a post-Singularity world, in which clinical immortality was an unquestioned human right, you would periodically get your face wrinkled, inject yourself with bone-brittling nanobots, induce dementia, and then wither away? If you tried to inflict that fate on anyone else, it would be a terrible crime. If you wanted that for yourself, it would be evidence of mental illness. If you consider it anything but the status quo or an inevitability, it's indefensible to desire it.
- xlnt 19y ago
  it's no more a mental illness than being a luddite
  - byrneseyeview 19y ago
    It's possible to wish that things were different, or to want to have a closer connection to the results of one's labor by avoiding automation and seceding from impersonal organizations. But I don't think Luddites advocate smallpox or other debilitating, disfiguring, fatal diseases. Aging is a disfiguring, debilitating, fatal disease, and so as far as the scope of this discussion is concerned, the difference between it and smallpox is that it's not contagious and it's taken longer to cure.
    - xlnt 19y ago
      i agree about what aging is, but people aren't trying to advocate diseases like that, they are usually just skeptical or ignorant about technology and what is possible, and bad at changing their minds to keep up with progress.
      - byrneseyeview 19y ago
        It would be fine for them to argue that it's implausible, just as it would almost make sense to say "I don't see how smallpox could be cured. So I intend to rot to death." But the argument I was responding to was, basically, "I accept that it could be possible to cure smallpox, but the idea of not dying that way is repulsive to me."
- mechanical_fish 19y ago
  So if you lived in a world... in which clinical immortality was an unquestioned human right... ROTFL. I live in a world where my wife and I had to fight our old insurance company for basic preventive health care. (She tried to have a mammogram in the same year that I had a simple 20-minute physical. Turns out that violated the fine print in our policy, and we had to pay out of pocket.) I'm glad to say that our uninsured, thirtysomething friend just managed to save enough money for his cancer surgery, but others of our friends aren't so lucky. And I live in Massachusetts, where the state has forced insurance companies to sell relatively affordable policies to individual contractors like me. If I lived in a different state, I'd probably be paying over $1000 a month for the privilege of having my claims denied. So, sure, I'd love for clinical immortality to be possible, and love it even more if it were an "unquestioned human right". But here in the USA I don't even have the "unquestioned right" to effective, existing medical technologies, and that's a more pressing concern. Meanwhile, would I want to age in a post-Singularity world? Who the hell knows? I don't think you can be immortal and still be recognizably human -- the entire design of humans is predicated on mortality, just as it's predicated on gravity and an oxygen atmosphere and the presence of edible plants and animals. And who knows what the post-human aliens will think? To the extent that post-singular beings remain human, I think they'll exhibit many of the same self-destructive tendencies that humans do now. I used to be a cancer researcher, and the sight of people lighting cigarettes still makes me angry inside. It feels like they're setting fire to my hard work. But what can you do? To discount the future is part of human nature. Recommended reading: On the alienness of the immortal human: William Gibson's Count Zero. On the psychology of the immortal human: Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is good. The much shorter, ha-ha-only-serious version is the tale of Wowbagger, the Infinitely Prolonged in Douglas Adams' Life, the Universe, and Everything. (Douglas Adams is one of those guys whose every throwaway joke encapsulates an entire series of philosophical novels.) On the "unquestioned human right" to immortality: Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. You may have to read most of it before it becomes clear what I'm talking about, but keep reading. It's an awesome work.

edw519 19y ago

OK, fish, I'll bite. I read your reference, but he never came out and said what he ACTUALLY DID during those 6 months. Is there a "rest of the story" or is it inferred? Nice link. Really got me thinking. Maybe the subject of a future thread...

mechanical_fish 19y ago
He mentioned that you can find it by finding the online archive of This American Life and playing an early episode... perhaps even Episode 1. Don't let me make you feel guilty for being too lazy to do this... because I haven't bothered to do it myself yet. :) I doubt that it matters too much what he did. What one chooses to do is intensely personal. I think that "getting you thinking" really is the whole point.

byrneseyeview 19y ago

Really? So if you lived in a post-Singularity world, in which clinical immortality was an unquestioned human right, you would periodically get your face wrinkled, inject yourself with bone-brittling nanobots, induce dementia, and then wither away? If you tried to inflict that fate on anyone else, it would be a terrible crime. If you wanted that for yourself, it would be evidence of mental illness. If you consider it anything but the status quo or an inevitability, it's indefensible to desire it.

xlnt 19y ago
it's no more a mental illness than being a luddite
- byrneseyeview 19y ago
  It's possible to wish that things were different, or to want to have a closer connection to the results of one's labor by avoiding automation and seceding from impersonal organizations. But I don't think Luddites advocate smallpox or other debilitating, disfiguring, fatal diseases. Aging is a disfiguring, debilitating, fatal disease, and so as far as the scope of this discussion is concerned, the difference between it and smallpox is that it's not contagious and it's taken longer to cure.
  - xlnt 19y ago
    i agree about what aging is, but people aren't trying to advocate diseases like that, they are usually just skeptical or ignorant about technology and what is possible, and bad at changing their minds to keep up with progress.
    - byrneseyeview 19y ago
      It would be fine for them to argue that it's implausible, just as it would almost make sense to say "I don't see how smallpox could be cured. So I intend to rot to death." But the argument I was responding to was, basically, "I accept that it could be possible to cure smallpox, but the idea of not dying that way is repulsive to me."
mechanical_fish 19y ago
So if you lived in a world... in which clinical immortality was an unquestioned human right... ROTFL. I live in a world where my wife and I had to fight our old insurance company for basic preventive health care. (She tried to have a mammogram in the same year that I had a simple 20-minute physical. Turns out that violated the fine print in our policy, and we had to pay out of pocket.) I'm glad to say that our uninsured, thirtysomething friend just managed to save enough money for his cancer surgery, but others of our friends aren't so lucky. And I live in Massachusetts, where the state has forced insurance companies to sell relatively affordable policies to individual contractors like me. If I lived in a different state, I'd probably be paying over $1000 a month for the privilege of having my claims denied. So, sure, I'd love for clinical immortality to be possible, and love it even more if it were an "unquestioned human right". But here in the USA I don't even have the "unquestioned right" to effective, existing medical technologies, and that's a more pressing concern. Meanwhile, would I want to age in a post-Singularity world? Who the hell knows? I don't think you can be immortal and still be recognizably human -- the entire design of humans is predicated on mortality, just as it's predicated on gravity and an oxygen atmosphere and the presence of edible plants and animals. And who knows what the post-human aliens will think? To the extent that post-singular beings remain human, I think they'll exhibit many of the same self-destructive tendencies that humans do now. I used to be a cancer researcher, and the sight of people lighting cigarettes still makes me angry inside. It feels like they're setting fire to my hard work. But what can you do? To discount the future is part of human nature. Recommended reading: On the alienness of the immortal human: William Gibson's Count Zero. On the psychology of the immortal human: Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is good. The much shorter, ha-ha-only-serious version is the tale of Wowbagger, the Infinitely Prolonged in Douglas Adams' Life, the Universe, and Everything. (Douglas Adams is one of those guys whose every throwaway joke encapsulates an entire series of philosophical novels.) On the "unquestioned human right" to immortality: Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. You may have to read most of it before it becomes clear what I'm talking about, but keep reading. It's an awesome work.