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That's a problem. It's a better problem than being locked in the dungeons of the dragon tyrant for lonely years while you wait for it to consume you. Please let

That's a problem. It's a better problem than being locked in the dungeons of the dragon tyrant for lonely years while you wait for it to consume you. Please let's address these things in order of priority.

pavlov 9y ago
How do you know that "potential end of all human creativity" is a smaller and better problem than "individuals eventually cease to exist"?
- IntronExon 9y ago
  These are lovely existential questions, but how about a more practical end of it? A lot of comments here seem to assume that this post-dragon society would ever make it past them initial shock. There also seems to be an assumption that everyone would have access. How much do you think it would cost to halt aging? Unless it’s essentially magic like “Booster Spice” from Larry Niven, this tech would almost certainly be an ongoing series of treatments and modifications, probably not cheap either. What do you think would be the reaction of the world at large when faced with the prospect of some fraction of the “1%” becoming functionally immortal while they’re still dirt poor and mortal? I don’t think humans would accept that particular inequality. We live in a world full of nuclear weapons and other horrors, and I can’t think of anything more calculated to lead to them being used than the ultra-rich cheating death and aging. Aside from the sense of unfairness, you’d be faced with the practical horrors of immortal oligarchs and plutocrats. Control over who gets to be ageless would also be an obvious way to create a permanent ruling class. An end to aging only starts to seem like something other than them prelude to our own destruction if we’ve solved a number of other problems first. If you just throw functional immortality into the world as it is, and has been to date, the outcome would be apocalyptic. Freedom from aging only sounds paradisical if everyone has equal access to it, otherwise it’s just how the world ends.
- pjscott 9y ago
  I know which I'd prefer, from my standpoint as a regular human now. If I'm wrong, nonexistence sounds like a much more solvable problem than universal permadeath. This is not a difficult comparison.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    This isn’t a solution to death... we will all still die. It’s just that you won’t age or die from old age. Accidents, murder, suicide, natural disasters etc are all still on the table. Framing this as freedom from death in general is delusional.

pavlov 9y ago

How do you know that "potential end of all human creativity" is a smaller and better problem than "individuals eventually cease to exist"?

IntronExon 9y ago
These are lovely existential questions, but how about a more practical end of it? A lot of comments here seem to assume that this post-dragon society would ever make it past them initial shock. There also seems to be an assumption that everyone would have access. How much do you think it would cost to halt aging? Unless it’s essentially magic like “Booster Spice” from Larry Niven, this tech would almost certainly be an ongoing series of treatments and modifications, probably not cheap either. What do you think would be the reaction of the world at large when faced with the prospect of some fraction of the “1%” becoming functionally immortal while they’re still dirt poor and mortal? I don’t think humans would accept that particular inequality. We live in a world full of nuclear weapons and other horrors, and I can’t think of anything more calculated to lead to them being used than the ultra-rich cheating death and aging. Aside from the sense of unfairness, you’d be faced with the practical horrors of immortal oligarchs and plutocrats. Control over who gets to be ageless would also be an obvious way to create a permanent ruling class. An end to aging only starts to seem like something other than them prelude to our own destruction if we’ve solved a number of other problems first. If you just throw functional immortality into the world as it is, and has been to date, the outcome would be apocalyptic. Freedom from aging only sounds paradisical if everyone has equal access to it, otherwise it’s just how the world ends.
pjscott 9y ago
I know which I'd prefer, from my standpoint as a regular human now. If I'm wrong, nonexistence sounds like a much more solvable problem than universal permadeath. This is not a difficult comparison.
- IntronExon 9y ago
  This isn’t a solution to death... we will all still die. It’s just that you won’t age or die from old age. Accidents, murder, suicide, natural disasters etc are all still on the table. Framing this as freedom from death in general is delusional.