7 ms·

I'd say it has more to do with our overall poor long-term planning capabilities.

by ivm 9y ago

JoshTriplett 9y ago
I'd argue it has more to do with widespread cultural taboos about what it's "acceptable" to challenge and what deviates too far from the norm.
- drb91 9y ago
  Well, it's certainly acceptable to challenge it, but fear of death is rather dogmatic and polarizing. Many people, from diverse backgrounds of philosophy, have submitted world views where the quality of life and your impact matters more than your length of time. Others, like many on this forum, I suspect, have argued we should be investing in fighting death and aging, using war and financial metaphors, without establishing why this is such a worthwhile fight and/or investment. Why length of life and not quality of life? For sure, they're related, but how you frame these questions will dictate the response and interest in the conversation. I doubt humans as a whole will ever feel strongly that death is a negative force. However, improving quality of life is one of the easiest pitches to make, and doesn't necessarily disproportionally value the rich. In fact, the least worthwhile place to spend improving the quality of life would be people with enough money to dictate it already. But hey—the idea of living for centuries is cool, I always wanted to be an elf.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > without establishing why this is such a worthwhile fight and/or investment I'd say it's fundamental, and on the short-term, we all understand that as a civilization. That's why every society protects its member from threats, including crime, fire, natural disasters, famine, war. It's not just about quality - you may live the happiest of lives, up until the point a bullet enters your brain[0]. I think there are three main moral reasons for fighting death: - suffering in the process of death itself - existential suffering of knowing your time is limited, and that of knowing you're about to die - suffering of those who you leave behind Efforts against #1 connect to quality of life, and with progress on that field, it could be resolved. #2 and #3 won't go away until we achieve (effective) immortality, and for many (myself included) they are the reason to support life extension. But maybe you're right, that a stronger pitch along #1 would help gather extra support. Then there are economic debates about whether our societies could survive sudden doubling of expected lifespans, or whether we'll be able to offload people fast enough to off-world colonies. I say, we'll figure it out as we go along - it's a nice problem to have, as opposed to death. -- [0] - probably one of the most humane ways to die; one can hardly leave this world without suffering during the process of departure.
    - drb91 9y ago
      > existential suffering of knowing your time is limited, and that of knowing you're about to die In my experience, this is largely limited to the young and sheltered. Mature people can proces death in healthy ways.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        That's not healthy. That's a coping mechanism. It's society legitimizing what's essentially a case of Stockholm syndrome.
        drb91 9y ago
        What would a world without death LOOK like to you? How would people vie for this immortality treatement? For food? Seems like something only an absurdly rich person would want for the world.
        JoshTriplett 9y ago
        > What would a world without death LOOK like to you? People stop dying. We stop losing a hundred and fifty thousand people forever every single day. The vast majority of resources that would go to health-related (and death-related) industries briefly get redirected to getting the cure to everyone, then get freed up for numerous other things. The state of science and human knowledge improves because we no longer lose experienced minds to age and infirmity. People start checking things off their "bucket lists", and adding many more to their life goals, realizing that they have all the time in the universe now. People stop having to mourn the losses of those they love. (There'd likely be more than a few points where people have to stop and re-mourn past deaths, once it truly hits them that death could have been eliminated much sooner.) I would also recommend reading https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html . > How would people vie for this immortality treatement? Hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of people would dedicate everything they have to getting the treatment to everyone as quickly as possible, asking only for what resources that people can afford, and using all of those resources to accelerate reaching more people before it's too late. > For food? We have more than enough food for everyone. If you're attempting to imply overpopulation, that's been studied, and it's not an issue.
  - jjoonathan 9y ago
    "Death is good" philosophical arguments are nothing more than hilariously overwrought cases of sour grapes. > I doubt humans as a whole will ever feel strongly that death is a negative force. We (correctly) consider death a strongly negative force in every single situation that we don't consider it inevitable. The only thing special about "inevitable" death at the end of a typical modern day lifespan is that we can't do anything about it. This is suggestive, to put it mildly.
    - drb91 9y ago
      Well, a) death is not good, it just is, and b) it’s no less laughable than death being bad. Is it inevitable? No. Is it worth “fighting”? Definitely not! What a waste of money. Get back to me when there is any path forward on this that doesn’t lead to increased social and economic stratification so rich people can live longer. Death is useful to fear in that we make better decisions. It’s not useful to fear in that conquering it will not improve your life. Btw the “death is good” philosophy you mock is just epicureanism.
      - JoshTriplett 9y ago
        > death is not good, it just is, And one day it will not be, and we'll be sad that it once was and so many people were lost forever as a result. > Get back to me when there is any path forward on this that doesn’t lead to increased social and economic stratification so rich people can live longer. You are assuming a great deal that is not in evidence. It's ridiculously hard to raise funds to cure aging and age-related degeneration. Demonstrate that a cure exists, and it'll be easy to raise funds to get that cure to everyone and make it more efficient to administer and distribute. The gap from "exists" to "universally available" will not last long. > It’s not useful to fear in that conquering it will not improve your life. On a scale from zero to non-zero, where death is zero, conquering it necessarily improves your life, by preserving it rather than allowing its senseless cessation.

I'd say it has more to do with our overall poor long-term planning capabilities.

by ivm 9y ago

I'd say it has more to do with our overall poor long-term planning capabilities.

I'd argue it has more to do with widespread cultural taboos about what it's "acceptable" to challenge and what deviates too far from the norm.

drb91 9y ago
Well, it's certainly acceptable to challenge it, but fear of death is rather dogmatic and polarizing. Many people, from diverse backgrounds of philosophy, have submitted world views where the quality of life and your impact matters more than your length of time. Others, like many on this forum, I suspect, have argued we should be investing in fighting death and aging, using war and financial metaphors, without establishing why this is such a worthwhile fight and/or investment. Why length of life and not quality of life? For sure, they're related, but how you frame these questions will dictate the response and interest in the conversation. I doubt humans as a whole will ever feel strongly that death is a negative force. However, improving quality of life is one of the easiest pitches to make, and doesn't necessarily disproportionally value the rich. In fact, the least worthwhile place to spend improving the quality of life would be people with enough money to dictate it already. But hey—the idea of living for centuries is cool, I always wanted to be an elf.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > without establishing why this is such a worthwhile fight and/or investment I'd say it's fundamental, and on the short-term, we all understand that as a civilization. That's why every society protects its member from threats, including crime, fire, natural disasters, famine, war. It's not just about quality - you may live the happiest of lives, up until the point a bullet enters your brain[0]. I think there are three main moral reasons for fighting death: - suffering in the process of death itself - existential suffering of knowing your time is limited, and that of knowing you're about to die - suffering of those who you leave behind Efforts against #1 connect to quality of life, and with progress on that field, it could be resolved. #2 and #3 won't go away until we achieve (effective) immortality, and for many (myself included) they are the reason to support life extension. But maybe you're right, that a stronger pitch along #1 would help gather extra support. Then there are economic debates about whether our societies could survive sudden doubling of expected lifespans, or whether we'll be able to offload people fast enough to off-world colonies. I say, we'll figure it out as we go along - it's a nice problem to have, as opposed to death. -- [0] - probably one of the most humane ways to die; one can hardly leave this world without suffering during the process of departure.
  - drb91 9y ago
    > existential suffering of knowing your time is limited, and that of knowing you're about to die In my experience, this is largely limited to the young and sheltered. Mature people can proces death in healthy ways.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      That's not healthy. That's a coping mechanism. It's society legitimizing what's essentially a case of Stockholm syndrome.
      - drb91 9y ago
        What would a world without death LOOK like to you? How would people vie for this immortality treatement? For food? Seems like something only an absurdly rich person would want for the world.
        JoshTriplett 9y ago
        > What would a world without death LOOK like to you? People stop dying. We stop losing a hundred and fifty thousand people forever every single day. The vast majority of resources that would go to health-related (and death-related) industries briefly get redirected to getting the cure to everyone, then get freed up for numerous other things. The state of science and human knowledge improves because we no longer lose experienced minds to age and infirmity. People start checking things off their "bucket lists", and adding many more to their life goals, realizing that they have all the time in the universe now. People stop having to mourn the losses of those they love. (There'd likely be more than a few points where people have to stop and re-mourn past deaths, once it truly hits them that death could have been eliminated much sooner.) I would also recommend reading https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html . > How would people vie for this immortality treatement? Hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of people would dedicate everything they have to getting the treatment to everyone as quickly as possible, asking only for what resources that people can afford, and using all of those resources to accelerate reaching more people before it's too late. > For food? We have more than enough food for everyone. If you're attempting to imply overpopulation, that's been studied, and it's not an issue.
- jjoonathan 9y ago
  "Death is good" philosophical arguments are nothing more than hilariously overwrought cases of sour grapes. > I doubt humans as a whole will ever feel strongly that death is a negative force. We (correctly) consider death a strongly negative force in every single situation that we don't consider it inevitable. The only thing special about "inevitable" death at the end of a typical modern day lifespan is that we can't do anything about it. This is suggestive, to put it mildly.
  - drb91 9y ago
    Well, a) death is not good, it just is, and b) it’s no less laughable than death being bad. Is it inevitable? No. Is it worth “fighting”? Definitely not! What a waste of money. Get back to me when there is any path forward on this that doesn’t lead to increased social and economic stratification so rich people can live longer. Death is useful to fear in that we make better decisions. It’s not useful to fear in that conquering it will not improve your life. Btw the “death is good” philosophy you mock is just epicureanism.
    - JoshTriplett 9y ago
      > death is not good, it just is, And one day it will not be, and we'll be sad that it once was and so many people were lost forever as a result. > Get back to me when there is any path forward on this that doesn’t lead to increased social and economic stratification so rich people can live longer. You are assuming a great deal that is not in evidence. It's ridiculously hard to raise funds to cure aging and age-related degeneration. Demonstrate that a cure exists, and it'll be easy to raise funds to get that cure to everyone and make it more efficient to administer and distribute. The gap from "exists" to "universally available" will not last long. > It’s not useful to fear in that conquering it will not improve your life. On a scale from zero to non-zero, where death is zero, conquering it necessarily improves your life, by preserving it rather than allowing its senseless cessation.