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We should do everything in our power to eliminate death. There is nothing meaningful about it. It is totally meaningless and tragic, and one day we'll look back

We should do everything in our power to eliminate death. There is nothing meaningful about it. It is totally meaningless and tragic, and one day we'll look back on the days when millions died every year the same way we look back on the day when three fourths of children died before the age of five. And this criticism of the rich embracing it first totally misses how technology develops. The rich are always the early adopters, and the high prices paid by them enable the industry to scale up which gradually brings the price down. If you look at any technology over the last 50 years, you see this pattern at work: PCs, tablets, smart phones, etc. The first generation was always expensive and only affordable for the rich.

alonmower 9y ago
I'm torn about this, I agree that in a world without death we'd view it as meaningless and tragic. I worry about what our path there would look like. Let's say we find a way to eliminate death or aging. It's expensive at first so only the very wealthy can afford it. Now you have a set of rich people in positions of control that won't age out of them. They'll live forever so they'll continue amassing wealth, if they don't give up control then a new generation with new ways of thinking about the world won't be able to take the helm. I mean, lots of people aren't able to really internalize new ideas in their own current lifetimes, let alone these hypothetically endless ones. The people in control get wealthier, inequality increases, new ideas have a harder time taking hold. Even if this life extension eventually trickles down to the rest of humanity would they ever be able to catch up? Would they want to live an eternal life subjugated by the elite? Also, assuming this life extension is biological and not digital all of a sudden we have lots of people. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that so hopefully we figure out a way to move excess people to other planets/space colonies, but what if that takes too much time? What if we increase the number of people faster than we can solve the scaling problems? Food, energy, waste, ways of transporting these excess people elsewhere. If we don't solve all of them we're talking about periods of extreme pain and tumult. What happens if we need to put a cap on the number of people while we figure some of them out? Are some people now not allowed to have children? Are some people not allowed to live forever? Who decides the answer to these questions? Hopefully not the ultra rich & powerful class that's formed - that might not be good for the average folks. Anyways, maybe I'm being pessimistic and on the time scales we're talking about we'd figure out reasonable solutions but it still feels like this whole area feels pretty hand-wavy today when I hear people talk about eliminating death. Death, for better or worse is a sort of equalizer, remove it and a lot of the problems that exist today could get worse. This is even putting aside questions about what happens to a hypothetical brain that lives forever. Do we run out of space for new memories? Do we start forgetting things after enough time? If so, is the person we are 500 years from now that can no longer remember it's first 100 years the same person as us today?
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  >>They'll live forever so they'll continue amassing wealth, From a wealth inequality perspective, there's no difference between living forever and accumulating wealth or having a finite life and your dynasty living forever and accumulating wealth. Even if it were true that immortality means some individuals accumulating far larger amounts of wealth, I think a pretty good case could be made that it's beneficial for humanity for them to do this rather than spend it on increasing the number of descendants they have. High net-worth individuals do things like create space flight companies.
kolpa 9y ago
There's no reason to believe that a human life form is capable of being immortal without going insane.
stordoff 9y ago
Dying may not be meaningful, but it may be useful. Let's say hypothetically we eliminate death, for everyone. Let's further say it developed in such a way that it didn't lead to a more stratified society (e.g. it rapidly became available to all, so the early mover advantage when it was expensive is minimal). In the short term, that's great, incredible even: everyone lives! In the long term though, do we stagnate on the same set of brains, who are set in their ways from potentially hundreds of years of life and only capable of offering a certain amount of insight on any given topic? There's less incentive to have children (you can always do it later), and there may be physical constraints that limit the number of people the world can support. Without that infusion of new ideas, does human development grind to a halt (or at least slow considerably)? There's no fresh eyes coming to scientific endeavours, maybe restricting the sparks of innovation or new ways of thinking that lead to breakthroughs, and culturally there's no one unburdened by the past pushing the boundaries of the arts etc. Now you may say (and I might even agree with you) that you'd rather be alive in a stagnant world than dead in one that keeps moving, but I feel there has to be limits to that. There's probably enough going on to keep you engaged for hundreds of years, but beyond that, a stagnant, unchanging world, with the same people, the same cultural, the same knowledge etc. in perpetuity seems incredibly daunting. Would people need to choose to die when they've had their fill to keep the ball rolling? Would enough people choose that, rather than clinging to a merger existence, to matter? Would that first generation of post-death humans last long enough that recovering the pace of development would even be (reasonably) possible? Let's just say that on a personal level, I don't want to die (and a life _extension_ would be incredibly welcomed as there's plenty to do beyond the 80-or-so years people generally live), but the societal consequences of such a thing could be deeply negative.
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  People become increasingly competent as they gain experience, until the deleterious effects of aging outweigh the value of their experience gains. Without aging deteriorating minds and bodies and cutting lives short, individuals will become extremely productive over time, and able to pursue and carry out very long-term projects and drive humanity forward. This will open up countless spaces for human expansion, where new humans can settle.

alonmower 9y ago

I'm torn about this, I agree that in a world without death we'd view it as meaningless and tragic. I worry about what our path there would look like. Let's say we find a way to eliminate death or aging. It's expensive at first so only the very wealthy can afford it. Now you have a set of rich people in positions of control that won't age out of them. They'll live forever so they'll continue amassing wealth, if they don't give up control then a new generation with new ways of thinking about the world won't be able to take the helm. I mean, lots of people aren't able to really internalize new ideas in their own current lifetimes, let alone these hypothetically endless ones. The people in control get wealthier, inequality increases, new ideas have a harder time taking hold. Even if this life extension eventually trickles down to the rest of humanity would they ever be able to catch up? Would they want to live an eternal life subjugated by the elite? Also, assuming this life extension is biological and not digital all of a sudden we have lots of people. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that so hopefully we figure out a way to move excess people to other planets/space colonies, but what if that takes too much time? What if we increase the number of people faster than we can solve the scaling problems? Food, energy, waste, ways of transporting these excess people elsewhere. If we don't solve all of them we're talking about periods of extreme pain and tumult. What happens if we need to put a cap on the number of people while we figure some of them out? Are some people now not allowed to have children? Are some people not allowed to live forever? Who decides the answer to these questions? Hopefully not the ultra rich & powerful class that's formed - that might not be good for the average folks. Anyways, maybe I'm being pessimistic and on the time scales we're talking about we'd figure out reasonable solutions but it still feels like this whole area feels pretty hand-wavy today when I hear people talk about eliminating death. Death, for better or worse is a sort of equalizer, remove it and a lot of the problems that exist today could get worse. This is even putting aside questions about what happens to a hypothetical brain that lives forever. Do we run out of space for new memories? Do we start forgetting things after enough time? If so, is the person we are 500 years from now that can no longer remember it's first 100 years the same person as us today?

CryptoPunk 9y ago
>>They'll live forever so they'll continue amassing wealth, From a wealth inequality perspective, there's no difference between living forever and accumulating wealth or having a finite life and your dynasty living forever and accumulating wealth. Even if it were true that immortality means some individuals accumulating far larger amounts of wealth, I think a pretty good case could be made that it's beneficial for humanity for them to do this rather than spend it on increasing the number of descendants they have. High net-worth individuals do things like create space flight companies.

kolpa 9y ago

There's no reason to believe that a human life form is capable of being immortal without going insane.

stordoff 9y ago

Dying may not be meaningful, but it may be useful. Let's say hypothetically we eliminate death, for everyone. Let's further say it developed in such a way that it didn't lead to a more stratified society (e.g. it rapidly became available to all, so the early mover advantage when it was expensive is minimal). In the short term, that's great, incredible even: everyone lives! In the long term though, do we stagnate on the same set of brains, who are set in their ways from potentially hundreds of years of life and only capable of offering a certain amount of insight on any given topic? There's less incentive to have children (you can always do it later), and there may be physical constraints that limit the number of people the world can support. Without that infusion of new ideas, does human development grind to a halt (or at least slow considerably)? There's no fresh eyes coming to scientific endeavours, maybe restricting the sparks of innovation or new ways of thinking that lead to breakthroughs, and culturally there's no one unburdened by the past pushing the boundaries of the arts etc. Now you may say (and I might even agree with you) that you'd rather be alive in a stagnant world than dead in one that keeps moving, but I feel there has to be limits to that. There's probably enough going on to keep you engaged for hundreds of years, but beyond that, a stagnant, unchanging world, with the same people, the same cultural, the same knowledge etc. in perpetuity seems incredibly daunting. Would people need to choose to die when they've had their fill to keep the ball rolling? Would enough people choose that, rather than clinging to a merger existence, to matter? Would that first generation of post-death humans last long enough that recovering the pace of development would even be (reasonably) possible? Let's just say that on a personal level, I don't want to die (and a life _extension_ would be incredibly welcomed as there's plenty to do beyond the 80-or-so years people generally live), but the societal consequences of such a thing could be deeply negative.

CryptoPunk 9y ago
People become increasingly competent as they gain experience, until the deleterious effects of aging outweigh the value of their experience gains. Without aging deteriorating minds and bodies and cutting lives short, individuals will become extremely productive over time, and able to pursue and carry out very long-term projects and drive humanity forward. This will open up countless spaces for human expansion, where new humans can settle.