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You’re kidding, right? These conversations frequently tend to devolve into a long discussion about the negative on hacker news. In fact, 3 years ago I wrote t

You’re kidding, right? These conversations frequently tend to devolve into a long discussion about the negative on hacker news. In fact, 3 years ago I wrote that this story should be banned from HN: 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-... “Death gives life meaning” “It’ll only be for rich people” “The money should be spent on something better.” If we spent as much time trying to solve the problem, rather than having philosophical discussions, we’d all probably be living to 200 by now.

saiya-jin 7y ago
So you wrote your opinion on some blog... doesn't make it any more relevant than any other opinion, here, there, anywhere. This is a public forum. Death is an interesting topic, plenty of people are scared shitless of it, regardless of their beliefs. Many wish that they would be that special spark that will live almost forever, ideally young, but god forbids that everybody else with them gets the same chance (simple math indicates that would be a bit of catastrophe for whole ecosystem and ultimately mankind too these days). Research should be definitely done, results might help in places like space travel and probably some diseases, but I don't see it as something super important currently. Maybe because I am at peace with my inevitable death, so other things are considered as higher priority (say pollution, global climate change, inequality, f@cking wars).
- melling 7y ago
  I wrote it in a blog so I don’t have to keep repeating myself. The conversation is basically the same every time. I also addressed your common complaint that there are more important things to work on. Having the same conversation over and over again with the same result probably qualifies under the “definition of insanity”
- UnFleshedOne 7y ago
  What's wrong with all those higher priority items exactly?
patcon 7y ago
Thanks. Sorry, realizing I avoid clicking into these most times, so just finally did now and saw nothing but boosting (and I unfairly generalized). If i understand, you feel that death is a curable condition, and not an evolved adaptation of a population within living networks? I guess i just find it difficult to conclude that death, an evolved trait for 99.999% of lifeforms, esp ones like us (with its uncountable trillions of iterations of validation) is something we should allow our members to cavalierly just brush aside. My "survival of species" lens says we should just "cap" lifespan -- so that no set of individuals can bend the structure of biology and society to create such an existential asymmetry in the our shared systems. But that has obvious clashes with the belief systems we've established. There's a rad allegory in city planning. A student wants to remove a fence across a narrow laneway. She says to her wise mentor "hey this fence is here and it's not doing anything. can i remove it and improve the flow". The mentor replies, "sure, but before you remove the fence, you should first uncover why it was there." I feel like our wise mentor is the process of evolution. She's been around the block. She wasn't born yesterday. I truly don't feel we're wise on this topic. And conveniently, there are essentially no death-defeating maverick species to teach us their learned wisdom. It feels like hubris to presume that we know better than this mentor...
- at_a_remove 7y ago
  If you have a way to brush aside death, do share with us. So far as I can tell, nothing about the attempts have been cavalier. Fortunes have been squandered, tears wept over the fresh graves of the beloved, lives were focused in an all-consuming passion, and so forth. The subject has already been rendered not cavalier by the agonies of our past. We haven't a "skip death" button to press. Chesterson's fence, which you referenced, is only applicable to the conscious acts of thinking beings. Evolution is not wise, evolution is not careful, evolution did not plan or reason for that fence. Evolution also gave us susceptibility to diseases, revolting parasites, defects of birth, and an often tragic fragility. Shall we preserve those as well? After all, they must be there for a reason. Under that aegis, nothing which applies to death does not equally and as thoroughly apply to quite literally every other medical intervention humanity has invented starting with the humble bandage. Evolution gave us allergies which cause people to asphixiate and clotting disorders which have children bleeding out from a casual scrape. Blindness, gangrene, arthritis: this is the wisdom of evolution.
throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
I would also be concerned about people living longer but with the mental sharpness of an (average) 80 year old. Pre emptive; yes I know there are sharp old people but it’s fair to say that on average old people have significant mental decline hence targeting for scams and what not.

saiya-jin 7y ago

So you wrote your opinion on some blog... doesn't make it any more relevant than any other opinion, here, there, anywhere. This is a public forum. Death is an interesting topic, plenty of people are scared shitless of it, regardless of their beliefs. Many wish that they would be that special spark that will live almost forever, ideally young, but god forbids that everybody else with them gets the same chance (simple math indicates that would be a bit of catastrophe for whole ecosystem and ultimately mankind too these days). Research should be definitely done, results might help in places like space travel and probably some diseases, but I don't see it as something super important currently. Maybe because I am at peace with my inevitable death, so other things are considered as higher priority (say pollution, global climate change, inequality, f@cking wars).

melling 7y ago
I wrote it in a blog so I don’t have to keep repeating myself. The conversation is basically the same every time. I also addressed your common complaint that there are more important things to work on. Having the same conversation over and over again with the same result probably qualifies under the “definition of insanity”
UnFleshedOne 7y ago
What's wrong with all those higher priority items exactly?

patcon 7y ago

Thanks. Sorry, realizing I avoid clicking into these most times, so just finally did now and saw nothing but boosting (and I unfairly generalized). If i understand, you feel that death is a curable condition, and not an evolved adaptation of a population within living networks? I guess i just find it difficult to conclude that death, an evolved trait for 99.999% of lifeforms, esp ones like us (with its uncountable trillions of iterations of validation) is something we should allow our members to cavalierly just brush aside. My "survival of species" lens says we should just "cap" lifespan -- so that no set of individuals can bend the structure of biology and society to create such an existential asymmetry in the our shared systems. But that has obvious clashes with the belief systems we've established. There's a rad allegory in city planning. A student wants to remove a fence across a narrow laneway. She says to her wise mentor "hey this fence is here and it's not doing anything. can i remove it and improve the flow". The mentor replies, "sure, but before you remove the fence, you should first uncover why it was there." I feel like our wise mentor is the process of evolution. She's been around the block. She wasn't born yesterday. I truly don't feel we're wise on this topic. And conveniently, there are essentially no death-defeating maverick species to teach us their learned wisdom. It feels like hubris to presume that we know better than this mentor...

at_a_remove 7y ago
If you have a way to brush aside death, do share with us. So far as I can tell, nothing about the attempts have been cavalier. Fortunes have been squandered, tears wept over the fresh graves of the beloved, lives were focused in an all-consuming passion, and so forth. The subject has already been rendered not cavalier by the agonies of our past. We haven't a "skip death" button to press. Chesterson's fence, which you referenced, is only applicable to the conscious acts of thinking beings. Evolution is not wise, evolution is not careful, evolution did not plan or reason for that fence. Evolution also gave us susceptibility to diseases, revolting parasites, defects of birth, and an often tragic fragility. Shall we preserve those as well? After all, they must be there for a reason. Under that aegis, nothing which applies to death does not equally and as thoroughly apply to quite literally every other medical intervention humanity has invented starting with the humble bandage. Evolution gave us allergies which cause people to asphixiate and clotting disorders which have children bleeding out from a casual scrape. Blindness, gangrene, arthritis: this is the wisdom of evolution.

throwawayhhakdl 7y ago

I would also be concerned about people living longer but with the mental sharpness of an (average) 80 year old. Pre emptive; yes I know there are sharp old people but it’s fair to say that on average old people have significant mental decline hence targeting for scams and what not.