3 ms·

I really want what you have said to be true, but I think there are upper limits we can reach that prevent us from really ever being the arbiters of our own deat

I really want what you have said to be true, but I think there are upper limits we can reach that prevent us from really ever being the arbiters of our own death. That which allows us to become living, must also force us to become nothing, death is the necessity for life, and life is the necessity for death. Skipping death, means skipping life. If every human that ever lived could live forever, would we have been born? And today, would there be enough space, enough resources, to live a comfortable life worth living if forever? I'm not saying that it makes sense to kill people to create more comfortable life here (as some might take it), what I'm saying is there's an upper bounds to letting people live for a long long time without impacting any future life negatively. One person living forever is not really be a big deal. But everyone? At which point we have to ask, if people have that right to death, how does it impact other's right to life, right to shelter, right to clean water, and so on. They impact each other. On a side note, there's a fantastic albeit cheaply made film called The Man From Earth that follows a conversation with someone who claims to have lived since the dawn of man. It's great concept, and I highly recommend a watch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth

xvector 7y ago
> One person living forever is not really be a big deal. But everyone? I think any society that is capable of letting humans live forever — on the scales being discussed — would probably be virtualizing sentiences instead of relying on wasteful fleshy bodies. Living via a human body would be a novelty experience, a vacation, a limiting of capabilities and senses. Essentially, I think your point would be mostly mute by the time we develop true immortality.
- Sevrene 7y ago
  For sure, you might very well be right. Atleast I would hope so, or else it would probably be immoral, which is really what I was attempting to say.
FeepingCreature 7y ago
> enough space, enough resources Have you looked at the universe lately? There are enough resources out there that every human being currently alive could easily have thousands of civilizations of their own, even making very conservative extrapolations regarding the true energy use of a human mind.
- Sevrene 7y ago
  When engaging with hypotheticals we tend to want to ascertain whether it's inherently good or bad. For instance, imagine a hypothetical about whether or not it's safe to shoot someone in the chest, we wouldn't say it's safe simply because they could wear a bullet-proof vest, we would have to ask 'what are the odds that they are going to be wearing a bullet-proof vest'. Personally I would assume that in technological terms stopping aging is somewhere below being able to harvest the large amount resources in space safely and efficiently. But I could be wrong.
wruza 7y ago
Why shouldn’t we ask that without eternal life? > Seeing how I change with years, I’d like to live to 200-500-1000 years old. Not because I want to live so bad, but because this is a frightening distance that is a completely wild territory for us to imagine. I’ll watch that movie (if not yet), thanks for the reference. Everything I watched before was pretty “same person tired and/or mindless”-centric, like interview with a vampire, highlander, etc. But it was more entertainment, what humans like to see at cinema, than a really deep analysis of thousands of years old beings. Thinking that you’ll be the same after an amount of time is naive.
- Sevrene 7y ago
  It's probably the strongest part about the movie — it deals with perspective of immortality from a mortal's perspective in a very realistic way, which is normally thrown by the wayside for more simplier tropes in entertainment. Not that it's wrong to like that, it's just hard to find something that doesn't these days. It comes across more like a well written hard sci-fi story, yet it's mostly just a group of people talking. It left me thinking about immortality from a normal human's perspective for a long time. He explains how it changed him, and where he started from. It's very compelling in my opinion.

xvector 7y ago

> One person living forever is not really be a big deal. But everyone? I think any society that is capable of letting humans live forever — on the scales being discussed — would probably be virtualizing sentiences instead of relying on wasteful fleshy bodies. Living via a human body would be a novelty experience, a vacation, a limiting of capabilities and senses. Essentially, I think your point would be mostly mute by the time we develop true immortality.

Sevrene 7y ago
For sure, you might very well be right. Atleast I would hope so, or else it would probably be immoral, which is really what I was attempting to say.

FeepingCreature 7y ago

> enough space, enough resources Have you looked at the universe lately? There are enough resources out there that every human being currently alive could easily have thousands of civilizations of their own, even making very conservative extrapolations regarding the true energy use of a human mind.

Sevrene 7y ago
When engaging with hypotheticals we tend to want to ascertain whether it's inherently good or bad. For instance, imagine a hypothetical about whether or not it's safe to shoot someone in the chest, we wouldn't say it's safe simply because they could wear a bullet-proof vest, we would have to ask 'what are the odds that they are going to be wearing a bullet-proof vest'. Personally I would assume that in technological terms stopping aging is somewhere below being able to harvest the large amount resources in space safely and efficiently. But I could be wrong.

wruza 7y ago

Why shouldn’t we ask that without eternal life? > Seeing how I change with years, I’d like to live to 200-500-1000 years old. Not because I want to live so bad, but because this is a frightening distance that is a completely wild territory for us to imagine. I’ll watch that movie (if not yet), thanks for the reference. Everything I watched before was pretty “same person tired and/or mindless”-centric, like interview with a vampire, highlander, etc. But it was more entertainment, what humans like to see at cinema, than a really deep analysis of thousands of years old beings. Thinking that you’ll be the same after an amount of time is naive.

Sevrene 7y ago
It's probably the strongest part about the movie — it deals with perspective of immortality from a mortal's perspective in a very realistic way, which is normally thrown by the wayside for more simplier tropes in entertainment. Not that it's wrong to like that, it's just hard to find something that doesn't these days. It comes across more like a well written hard sci-fi story, yet it's mostly just a group of people talking. It left me thinking about immortality from a normal human's perspective for a long time. He explains how it changed him, and where he started from. It's very compelling in my opinion.