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> Death does not make life precious. Yes it does. Especially if you're the one living it. Even if it's a lifeless object - the rareness of something easily ma

> Death does not make life precious. Yes it does. Especially if you're the one living it. Even if it's a lifeless object - the rareness of something easily makes it more valuable. For instance, diamonds would be worthless if DeBeers didn't artificially constrict the supply. > ...with more time, we get to do and experience more things. Thus, the value of life increases as it lengthens. You're confusing quantity with quality. As if a human with 80 years of being catatonic would be more valuable than someone who lived, loved and adventured for only 40 years.

loup-vaillant 7y ago
> > Death does not make life precious. > Yes it does. Especially if you're the one living it. So, you want to die. More precisely, you want a limit on your lifespan. Not just so you give your place to the youth or avoid over population. No, you want your life to be limited, because if it wasn't, it would be worthless. I can accept that. But then you should be able to answer this: when do you want to die? Where's the limit? > Even if it's a lifeless object - the rareness of something easily makes it more valuable. The value of one diamond decreases as we have more total diamonds. But it doesn't decreases so fast that the total value of diamonds also decreases as the total amount of diamonds increases. Value may increase sub-linearly with quantity, but there's no way it decreases. The same goes for lifespan. If you genuinely think the value of an entire life decreases with its length at some point, then there is an ideal lifespan. Life should be no shorter, and no longer than this ideal duration (on average). I ask again: do you have any idea what this duration might be? > You're confusing quantity with quality And you are assuming we couldn't have quality in quantity. Couldn't we possibly live, love and adventure for 80 years? 100 years? 1000 years? How much life has to offer, really? How much can we experience, how much can we learn, before life stops being worth living? When do we start hitting diminishing returns, for reasons other than bad health? (Just to get that out of the way: we probably agree that it's better to live 80 healthy years and die of a sudden stroke, than live 60 healthy years, then gradually decline until we hit 80 and finally die.)

loup-vaillant 7y ago

> > Death does not make life precious. > Yes it does. Especially if you're the one living it. So, you want to die. More precisely, you want a limit on your lifespan. Not just so you give your place to the youth or avoid over population. No, you want your life to be limited, because if it wasn't, it would be worthless. I can accept that. But then you should be able to answer this: when do you want to die? Where's the limit? > Even if it's a lifeless object - the rareness of something easily makes it more valuable. The value of one diamond decreases as we have more total diamonds. But it doesn't decreases so fast that the total value of diamonds also decreases as the total amount of diamonds increases. Value may increase sub-linearly with quantity, but there's no way it decreases. The same goes for lifespan. If you genuinely think the value of an entire life decreases with its length at some point, then there is an ideal lifespan. Life should be no shorter, and no longer than this ideal duration (on average). I ask again: do you have any idea what this duration might be? > You're confusing quantity with quality And you are assuming we couldn't have quality in quantity. Couldn't we possibly live, love and adventure for 80 years? 100 years? 1000 years? How much life has to offer, really? How much can we experience, how much can we learn, before life stops being worth living? When do we start hitting diminishing returns, for reasons other than bad health? (Just to get that out of the way: we probably agree that it's better to live 80 healthy years and die of a sudden stroke, than live 60 healthy years, then gradually decline until we hit 80 and finally die.)