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Nonsense. If people could live forever then they would have less children instinctively. How often is a new Einstein born (or Steve Jobs for that matter)? Wa

Nonsense. If people could live forever then they would have less children instinctively. How often is a new Einstein born (or Steve Jobs for that matter)? Was it great that Einstein died? Living forever, or even 10 times longer than we do now would change so many variables there is no way to know what all would be affected.

bambax 16y ago
My point was not to argue about the goodness of death either -- I would have thought it was non-controversial. It's a very good thing Einstein did die, since his most important work was done in the first third of his life, and at the end he was simply denying that quantum mechanics were real. Besides, if death did not exist and "people had less children" (meaning probably zero), Einstein would never have been born! Please (re-)read what Steve Jobs had to say about death: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. From: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Again, if death weren't a destiny we all shared we can't know what that would change in our culture, our mind sets, etc. Just as one example, how would our views of war change if people no longer died of natural causes? Btw, saying things like (paraphrasing) "It's good that Einstein died because he really had nothing useful left to contribute" is extremely judgmental. We have no way of knowing how much the realities of our current existence affected his behavior, nor what he would have done by now if he were still alive.

bambax 16y ago

My point was not to argue about the goodness of death either -- I would have thought it was non-controversial. It's a very good thing Einstein did die, since his most important work was done in the first third of his life, and at the end he was simply denying that quantum mechanics were real. Besides, if death did not exist and "people had less children" (meaning probably zero), Einstein would never have been born! Please (re-)read what Steve Jobs had to say about death: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. From: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

loewenskind 16y ago
Again, if death weren't a destiny we all shared we can't know what that would change in our culture, our mind sets, etc. Just as one example, how would our views of war change if people no longer died of natural causes? Btw, saying things like (paraphrasing) "It's good that Einstein died because he really had nothing useful left to contribute" is extremely judgmental. We have no way of knowing how much the realities of our current existence affected his behavior, nor what he would have done by now if he were still alive.