8 ms·

Would you be familiar with the Roman god Saturn, who ate his children to keep them from usurping his power? Societies have long had problems with the most power

Would you be familiar with the Roman god Saturn, who ate his children to keep them from usurping his power? Societies have long had problems with the most powerful members of their hierarchies hoarding power. And now they'll be the first to get to live forever?

Omnus 8y ago
Yes it's huge problem to face, but I never understood this response to immortality/transhumanism. The alternative is, as far as we know, eternal oblivion for you and everyone you love. That, as opposed to using our rationality and creative powers to at least attempt to solve the societal problems that immortality presents. People often further respond with something like: "I don't know about you, but I'd prefer that me and my loved ones die - the universe would get boring after so long". Of course, the vast majority of these people would still yearn for life even on their death beds at age 97 - and if technology and medicine allowed us to have sound minds and bodies by that age, the yearning would be even greater. Who wants oblivion when eternal adventure could await us?
- state_less 8y ago
  Interesting, but this sounds like a human perspective on being trans-human. Consider that you will no longer need to procreate to have kids. They can and will likely be engineered. You'd probably not think the same way about families. Emotions could be something you can more readily control and so on... I'm up for the challenge of trans-humanism, but I'm also okay with death if that's what comes to pass.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Really, you don't have a choice in our current understanding of physics. It's not a matter of if, but rather of when or how long.
- nemo1618 8y ago
  There's no dignity in lingering after it's time to move on. Certainly most people wish that they could relive their childhood, do things differently, treasure how carefree it is to be a child, without the responsibilities of adulthood. But that is not what childhood is: the ignorance of what is to come is what gives childhood its essential character. Life, likewise, derives its character from its immutability: our inability to experience more than one Everett branch. That immutability is what gives our decisions meaning: they are truly final. Immortalism is, I think, an obstinate rejection of life's finitude. The immortalist would like to live ten trillion lifetimes, sampling all varieties of conscious experience. But this is not compatible with a single continuous lifespan. To properly experience all that reality has to offer, the immortal would have to "start over" countless times, erasing their memory and transferring their consciousness into every variety of body, human and non-human. What distinguishes this process from death as we know it? In other words: maybe you already are the Immortal.
  - kazinator 8y ago
    I did some thinking along exactly the same lines as you, long ago, and asked the same question: if you want to live forever, but your capacity to retain memories is necessarily limited, you have to basically forget. If you only remember the last 1000 years, then you're only living to 1000 in some sense and your experience as a whole is made up of numerous life spans that do not overlap at all, experientially. So what is the difference between that and death? The answer I came up with: quite simply, the difference is that you don't ever die. Old memories fade away and are forgotten. But we have experience with that already in our limited lifetimes and a lot of it is not too horrible, compared to dying. If it's slow and gradual, and you always retain the recent memories that are relevant to your current life, this "continuous dying" may not be such a bad alternative.
    - Zarath 8y ago
      That isn't materially different than what currently exists, which is basically that your memories last your lifetime, you "die" and essentially become conscious as something else in the same way that you found yourself in your current body.
melling 8y ago
https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/stories-that-should-be-banned-from-hacker-news-immortality/ https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/stories-that-should-...
MikkoFinell 8y ago
So you're willing to euthanize everyone currently alive, as well as the countless billions that will be alive in the future, all based on the hypothetical risk of someone you don't like being in power? Good grief. Tell me, what is it you believe that hypothetical future dictator will do that is worse than killing billions?
- falcolas 8y ago
  Enslave billions. The dead don't feel; that's reserved for those who are alive.
  - MikkoFinell 8y ago
    You never bothered to ask the slaves what they want to happen? Instead your default reaction to a hostage crisis is just to kill everyone. Lets nuke North Korea right?
  - magduf 8y ago
    Exactly how do you propose for an immortal dictator to "enslave billions"? Seriously, I want to hear your detailed answer here about how one person can do this.
- Zarath 8y ago
  I can think of a lot of fates worse than death...
logfromblammo 8y ago
This exactly why I personally believe that a cult of assassins who murder those who grow too powerful is essential in a society where clinical immortality exists. If the richest man alive can pay whatever is necessary to preserve his own life, indefinitely, it stands to reason that some portion of his wealth and power would be permanently dedicated to preserving that privilege. If the rich man withdraws from society, and dedicates some or all resources to preservation of the self, society then acquires an interest in supporting those who would murder him and take all his stuff, thus returning it to market circulation. Prior to clinical immortality, you can always count on a change in estate financial management, because everyone who owns stuff will eventually die and cede control of it to others. You don't have to murder, because time and entropy do it for you.
- magduf 8y ago
  Oh please. We don't have immortality now, and actually we probably live longer that we ever did in the past. Yet our history is full of true horrors perpetuated by horrible leaders: just look at the horrors of WWII. These days, people are living longer, and we don't have those horrors any more (we still have some horrors, but overall things are much more peaceful than they were in the 1930s-40s). A cult of assassins could have really come in handy back then, to prevent 10s of millions of dead. I'm sorry, I see no evidence to back this idea of yours that longer lifespans will lead to worse societies. If anything, the opposite seems to be the case. Back when people didn't live very long (e.g., Medieval times), wars were extremely common, and some of the larger causes of death were war, fighting, crime, etc. Now people in developed nations don't have to worry so much about these, and need to worry a lot more about Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease, and car crashes. >If the rich man withdraws from society, and dedicates some or all resources to preservation of the self, society then acquires an interest in supporting those who would murder him and take all his stuff, thus returning it to market circulation. This is why we have things like property taxes. You don't need to murder rich people, you just need to raise property taxes on people who have far more property than normal people. This can be done any time with laws. The only reason we don't pass such laws is because common people refuse to demand such laws, or to vote for people who would pass such laws. Blame the voters.
magduf 8y ago
The only reason powerful people are able to hoard power, and stay in power, is because so many other people allow this and willingly grant them this power. No one person has the ability to force thousands or millions of people to his will; they can only do this because legions of people with guns act on his behalf. The answer isn't limiting peoples' lifespans. Indeed, we've had autocratic rulers in our history who were considered excellent leaders, and people who lived under them experienced a "golden age". The problem was usually when they died, and their incompetent heir took over. The answer is to come up with better governmental systems, not rely on limited lifespans. Doing the latter certainly didn't spare us from the horrors of the wars in the first half of the 20th century.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  The only reason powerful people are able to hoard power, and stay in power, is because so many other people allow this and willingly grant them this power. Here's the real truth of that: We don't let people get away with it for long. Point-like aggregations of power aren't easily workable. Even absolute totalitarians need help from factions and need to keep their minions well paid. Such rulers can't buy loyalty, and so depend on blood relatives for that as well, which means they are very constrained in this precious resource. It's only the wide dispersion of power that is workable and stable, long term. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs The wider the dispersion, the better off the common person and society.
jejones3141 8y ago
Technology gets cheaper over time--and isn't it nice of those supposedly evil rich people to be beta testers so that by the time it gets to us it will be cheap?

Omnus 8y ago

Yes it's huge problem to face, but I never understood this response to immortality/transhumanism. The alternative is, as far as we know, eternal oblivion for you and everyone you love. That, as opposed to using our rationality and creative powers to at least attempt to solve the societal problems that immortality presents. People often further respond with something like: "I don't know about you, but I'd prefer that me and my loved ones die - the universe would get boring after so long". Of course, the vast majority of these people would still yearn for life even on their death beds at age 97 - and if technology and medicine allowed us to have sound minds and bodies by that age, the yearning would be even greater. Who wants oblivion when eternal adventure could await us?

state_less 8y ago
Interesting, but this sounds like a human perspective on being trans-human. Consider that you will no longer need to procreate to have kids. They can and will likely be engineered. You'd probably not think the same way about families. Emotions could be something you can more readily control and so on... I'm up for the challenge of trans-humanism, but I'm also okay with death if that's what comes to pass.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Really, you don't have a choice in our current understanding of physics. It's not a matter of if, but rather of when or how long.
nemo1618 8y ago
There's no dignity in lingering after it's time to move on. Certainly most people wish that they could relive their childhood, do things differently, treasure how carefree it is to be a child, without the responsibilities of adulthood. But that is not what childhood is: the ignorance of what is to come is what gives childhood its essential character. Life, likewise, derives its character from its immutability: our inability to experience more than one Everett branch. That immutability is what gives our decisions meaning: they are truly final. Immortalism is, I think, an obstinate rejection of life's finitude. The immortalist would like to live ten trillion lifetimes, sampling all varieties of conscious experience. But this is not compatible with a single continuous lifespan. To properly experience all that reality has to offer, the immortal would have to "start over" countless times, erasing their memory and transferring their consciousness into every variety of body, human and non-human. What distinguishes this process from death as we know it? In other words: maybe you already are the Immortal.
- kazinator 8y ago
  I did some thinking along exactly the same lines as you, long ago, and asked the same question: if you want to live forever, but your capacity to retain memories is necessarily limited, you have to basically forget. If you only remember the last 1000 years, then you're only living to 1000 in some sense and your experience as a whole is made up of numerous life spans that do not overlap at all, experientially. So what is the difference between that and death? The answer I came up with: quite simply, the difference is that you don't ever die. Old memories fade away and are forgotten. But we have experience with that already in our limited lifetimes and a lot of it is not too horrible, compared to dying. If it's slow and gradual, and you always retain the recent memories that are relevant to your current life, this "continuous dying" may not be such a bad alternative.
  - Zarath 8y ago
    That isn't materially different than what currently exists, which is basically that your memories last your lifetime, you "die" and essentially become conscious as something else in the same way that you found yourself in your current body.

melling 8y ago

https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/stories-that-should-be-banned-from-hacker-news-immortality/ https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/stories-that-should-...

MikkoFinell 8y ago

So you're willing to euthanize everyone currently alive, as well as the countless billions that will be alive in the future, all based on the hypothetical risk of someone you don't like being in power? Good grief. Tell me, what is it you believe that hypothetical future dictator will do that is worse than killing billions?

falcolas 8y ago
Enslave billions. The dead don't feel; that's reserved for those who are alive.
- MikkoFinell 8y ago
  You never bothered to ask the slaves what they want to happen? Instead your default reaction to a hostage crisis is just to kill everyone. Lets nuke North Korea right?
- magduf 8y ago
  Exactly how do you propose for an immortal dictator to "enslave billions"? Seriously, I want to hear your detailed answer here about how one person can do this.
Zarath 8y ago
I can think of a lot of fates worse than death...

logfromblammo 8y ago

This exactly why I personally believe that a cult of assassins who murder those who grow too powerful is essential in a society where clinical immortality exists. If the richest man alive can pay whatever is necessary to preserve his own life, indefinitely, it stands to reason that some portion of his wealth and power would be permanently dedicated to preserving that privilege. If the rich man withdraws from society, and dedicates some or all resources to preservation of the self, society then acquires an interest in supporting those who would murder him and take all his stuff, thus returning it to market circulation. Prior to clinical immortality, you can always count on a change in estate financial management, because everyone who owns stuff will eventually die and cede control of it to others. You don't have to murder, because time and entropy do it for you.

magduf 8y ago
Oh please. We don't have immortality now, and actually we probably live longer that we ever did in the past. Yet our history is full of true horrors perpetuated by horrible leaders: just look at the horrors of WWII. These days, people are living longer, and we don't have those horrors any more (we still have some horrors, but overall things are much more peaceful than they were in the 1930s-40s). A cult of assassins could have really come in handy back then, to prevent 10s of millions of dead. I'm sorry, I see no evidence to back this idea of yours that longer lifespans will lead to worse societies. If anything, the opposite seems to be the case. Back when people didn't live very long (e.g., Medieval times), wars were extremely common, and some of the larger causes of death were war, fighting, crime, etc. Now people in developed nations don't have to worry so much about these, and need to worry a lot more about Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease, and car crashes. >If the rich man withdraws from society, and dedicates some or all resources to preservation of the self, society then acquires an interest in supporting those who would murder him and take all his stuff, thus returning it to market circulation. This is why we have things like property taxes. You don't need to murder rich people, you just need to raise property taxes on people who have far more property than normal people. This can be done any time with laws. The only reason we don't pass such laws is because common people refuse to demand such laws, or to vote for people who would pass such laws. Blame the voters.

magduf 8y ago

The only reason powerful people are able to hoard power, and stay in power, is because so many other people allow this and willingly grant them this power. No one person has the ability to force thousands or millions of people to his will; they can only do this because legions of people with guns act on his behalf. The answer isn't limiting peoples' lifespans. Indeed, we've had autocratic rulers in our history who were considered excellent leaders, and people who lived under them experienced a "golden age". The problem was usually when they died, and their incompetent heir took over. The answer is to come up with better governmental systems, not rely on limited lifespans. Doing the latter certainly didn't spare us from the horrors of the wars in the first half of the 20th century.

stcredzero 8y ago
The only reason powerful people are able to hoard power, and stay in power, is because so many other people allow this and willingly grant them this power. Here's the real truth of that: We don't let people get away with it for long. Point-like aggregations of power aren't easily workable. Even absolute totalitarians need help from factions and need to keep their minions well paid. Such rulers can't buy loyalty, and so depend on blood relatives for that as well, which means they are very constrained in this precious resource. It's only the wide dispersion of power that is workable and stable, long term. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs The wider the dispersion, the better off the common person and society.

jejones3141 8y ago

Technology gets cheaper over time--and isn't it nice of those supposedly evil rich people to be beta testers so that by the time it gets to us it will be cheap?