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In this thread I've seen the overpopulation argument framed as theft. Here are all the others I've found. Summary of pro death arguments: Fairness Onl
by RichardHeart 7y ago
In this thread I've seen the overpopulation argument framed as theft. Here are all the others I've found.
Summary of pro death arguments:
Fairness
Only rich people will get it. (No tech has ever done this.)
Better to give money to the poor than science. (family, city, state, nation, has proven local investment beats foreign.)
Bad for society
Dead people make more room for new, other people. (consider going first.)
Run out of resources (live people discover/extract/renew better than dead or nonexistent)
Overpopulation (colonize the seas, solar system, or have a war.)
Stop having kids
Worse wars (nukes are more dangerous than having your first 220 year old person in 2136)
Dictators never die (they die all the time and rarely of age)
Old people are expensive (50% of your lifetime medical cost occur in your final year. Delay is profitable.)
Old people suck. (death is an inferior cure to robustness.)
Bad for individual
You'll get bored. (your memory isn't that good, or your boredom isn't age related)
You'll have to watch your loved ones die. (so you prefer they watch you?)
You'll live forever in a terrible state. (longevity requires robustness.)
Against gods will (not if he disallows suicide, then it is required.)
People will force you to live forever (they aren't able to do this now, why would they begin to be?)
Do you think less people make progress faster? What's your target level of depriving life of existence? How do you plan to keep mankind robust from extinction events on a single planet? You might just need more people. What do you think our technology would look like if we had 10x less people for the last 100 years?
More people make more progress faster. Aren’t you glad your parents didn't decide the world would be prettier or work better without you in it? If great minds like Einstein, Bell, Tesla, Da Vinci etc., were still alive and productive today, the world would be a better place. You're literally asking for others to die out of your fear. The burden should be higher. Have courage. If living longer comes with too many disadvantages, we'll know 100 years from now and decide then.
Man up, save your family, save yourself.
P.S. Curing aging isn't immortality. You die at 600 on average by accident, and if the parade of imaginary horrible things comes true, even earlier.
- Nasrudith 7y agoNot to mention the other flaw of the "theft" framework or one or the other. Even if there was a fixed limit we would run against in spite of all innovations it is more efficient resource wise to build one person for 1000 years than 20 generations that live to 50. Growth and death itself has more expenses.
- SolaceQuantum 7y agoThis is operating on equal faith that immortality as a system wouldn't have ill effects that would cause society to collapse and progress regressed. (See: Behavioral Sinks [0]). Immortality would be a massive fundamental change in the system of human civilization and should be treated with caution equivalent to a complete refactoring of the legacy codebase that human life, culture, and every facet of existence is currently based upon. I find this post to be in bad faith evaluation of those making those arguments ('asking people to die out of fear'). 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
- TeMPOraL 7y agoFavoriting and bookmarking this for future reference. Thanks for making a comprehensive list.
- wes-k 7y ago> A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. - Max Planck Your entire argument seems to be more people = more progress. And longer lives of brilliant people = more progress. What about longer lives of those stuck in their ways or those who want to keep status quo? And more people != more progress. 1. Billions of uneducated poor. 2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery where several scientists or inventors simultaneously make a break through. You’re also making an abstract “progress” as the ultimate goal. But what type of progress? Creativity? Technology? What about happiness? Or sustainability?