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> It only seems that way to you because you haven't lived very long yet Neither of us have. But nonetheless, humanity continues to get better, and I'm familia

> It only seems that way to you because you haven't lived very long yet Neither of us have. But nonetheless, humanity continues to get better, and I'm familiar with a great deal of research on the nature of novelty, creativity, and fun, in the face of not only endless life but increasing intelligence. It's one of many, many problems that have solutions. (And as an aside, anyone who truly decides that life is not worth living can always decide they don't want more of it, but that would be short-sighted and pessimistic.) > Just as a purely practical matter, humans are not going to survive beyond the heat death of the universe. They are extremely unlikely to survive when the sun becomes a red giant. We have billions of years to solve both problems. People two hundred years ago could not envision the society of today. It seems the height of both pessimism and hubris to believe that you can accurately predict the limitations of humans billions of years from now. The latter problem we understand now. And more generally, there are many people working on existential risks to humanity, though more would always be welcome. > And a good thing too, because you really don't want to live forever. Do not presume to tell me what I want by projecting your own desire to die someday. > You can watch every movie, play every game, write every program And more will be created, because again, humans are a source of boundless novelty and creativity. And new forms of collaborative entertainment and edification and fulfillment will arise, many that we cannot yet envision. New forms of envisioning will arise. > as a practical matter human civilization is unlikely to last this millennium, maybe not even this century By all means, please work on solving that problem, rather than spending energy telling other people not to solve other problems in parallel. > If you really want to make a dent in the world, that is the problem you need to be looking at A massive number of people are already looking at that problem. And without going into a massive tangent, that problem hardly needs more technical solutions even if I were a climate expert; that problem needs political experts, among other things.

lisper 6y ago
> Neither of us have I've lived longer than you have. > We have billions of years to solve both problems That's true, but we don't have billions of years to solve climate change. But no matter how much time you have, you cannot get around the fact that exponential growth is unsustainable even with arbitrarily advanced technology. Unless you can find a way to exceed the speed of light (and good luck with that) resources can only ever grow quadratically. > It seems the height of both pessimism and hubris to believe that you can accurately predict the limitations of humans billions of years from now. No, it is your unbounded optimism which is unjustified, unless you can figure out how to do an end-run around relativity. > Do not presume to tell me what I want by projecting your own desire to die someday. First of all, I don't want to die. Dying sucks. But living forever would suck more. And I didn't intend "you don't want..." to be taken literally. What I meant was something more along the lines of: I know you think you want to live forever, but I claim that's because you have not fully thought through the consequences, and if you were able to live forever you would find that it's not as great as you think. But that just seemed a little too wordy. > And more will be created No, this is the thing you have not fully taken on board. Human creativity only seems unbounded because our lives are so short and so we're only able to sample a tiny fraction of what is possible. But with a truly unbounded life span that would no longer be true. You really could experience every possible sensory input an arbitrary number of times, and eventually you would get sick and tired of everything. > please work on solving that problem, rather than spending energy telling other people not to solve other problems in parallel Those are not mutually exclusive. Part of solving climate change is persuading as many people as possible to work on it. Furthermore, one of the principal drivers of climate change is complacency and boundless optimism, the blind faith that some other smart person will figure it out and everything will be OK. It won't. > that problem needs political experts That too. But it also needs you. And everyone else.
- tlb 6y ago
  > resources can only ever grow quadratically. Growth can be cubic if you're expanding outwards at a constant speed and assuming (on a large enough scale) an even distribution of matter in space.
  - lisper 6y ago
    No. The total amount is cubic over time, but the growth is the derivative of this, hence, quadratic. But this is irrelevant. The point is, resources are polynomial at best. They can never keep up with exponential growth in the long run, barring new physics.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  > I've lived longer than you have. Let's not play that game. Neither of our relative ages matter for the purposes of extrapolating to billion-year lifespans, nor do they render you particularly qualified for deciding whether such people will get "bored". Far more qualified people than either of us have done research on the topic, and I have at the very least read many research papers and articles by those who do. > No, it is your unbounded optimism which is unjustified, unless you can figure out how to do an end-run around relativity. The sun burning out is a problem we can already hypothesize ways to solve now, given technologies whose development has a scale of "centuries" or "millennia" rather than "billions of years". The most obvious solutions involve leaving the planet, and that doesn't even touch on the possibilities of stellar engineering. That's easily imaginable within the scope of today's science fiction, let alone the unforeseen technology of even thousands of years from now. I feel quite safe making the prediction that, conditional on humanity lasting the billions of years between now and then, the sun's expansion will not destroy civilization, humanity, or any non-trivial number of lives. Much more critical existential threats, likely to be a problem on much shorter timescales, include nearby celestial events, collisions, or other things we don't have billions of years' to prepare for. As for longer-term problem of continued existence in the universe, I wouldn't hazard a concrete prediction, but I'm sure we'll learn a great deal more about physics between now and then, not to mention likely existing in a form where thought and subjective perception of time (as well as the ability to solve problems) can occur far faster than "one second per second". In any case, I think it is safe to predict that people will not actually give up on that problem until actual effort is put forth attempting to solve it for a very long period of time. Besides, my optimism has come up against cynicism and fatalism far worse than yours and survived unscathed, and it continues to serve me well. I don't find that fatalism is conducive to actual solutions. (And when it comes to actual predictions, I aim for accuracy rather than either overestimation or underestimation, but I find that hope tends to help as long as it accompanies actual action.) > First of all, I don't want to die. Dying sucks. But living forever would suck more. That's a testable hypothesis. If it turns out to be possible, why not try it and find out, before deciding in advance how you'll feel countless years in the future? Not like you couldn't change your mind later if you still feel the same way. > You really could experience every possible sensory input an arbitrary number of times, and eventually you would get sick and tired of everything. There are entire branches of research dedicated to exploring and solving this problem. That research looks at concepts like what we actually find interesting and fun (for one example, problems that are difficult enough to be a challenge but not so difficult that we can't make progress or learn something), the classes of things we can find fun at different intelligence levels, and ways to ensure that the number of interesting things to experience grows faster than the amount of time available to experience them in. In short, no, you will not get bored. (And that's not even getting into very dangerous failure modes like "oh, what if I just modify myself to not get bored", which is incredibly problematic but still a more interesting hypothetical attempt at actually trying to solve the problem rather than giving up.) > That too. But it also needs you. And everyone else. I already have a problem to dedicate my life to. Many others do not, and they would be better people to target with your advocacy. I would suggest that you'd do much better focusing on "this is an important problem to work on" rather than "drop this specific cause and work on this one". Fortunately, humanity is capable of doing more than one thing at once, and in fact should do more than one thing at once. These goals do not conflict with each other, and a much smaller set of people is able to work on one than the other, which strongly suggests a benefit to specialization.

lisper 6y ago

> Neither of us have I've lived longer than you have. > We have billions of years to solve both problems That's true, but we don't have billions of years to solve climate change. But no matter how much time you have, you cannot get around the fact that exponential growth is unsustainable even with arbitrarily advanced technology. Unless you can find a way to exceed the speed of light (and good luck with that) resources can only ever grow quadratically. > It seems the height of both pessimism and hubris to believe that you can accurately predict the limitations of humans billions of years from now. No, it is your unbounded optimism which is unjustified, unless you can figure out how to do an end-run around relativity. > Do not presume to tell me what I want by projecting your own desire to die someday. First of all, I don't want to die. Dying sucks. But living forever would suck more. And I didn't intend "you don't want..." to be taken literally. What I meant was something more along the lines of: I know you think you want to live forever, but I claim that's because you have not fully thought through the consequences, and if you were able to live forever you would find that it's not as great as you think. But that just seemed a little too wordy. > And more will be created No, this is the thing you have not fully taken on board. Human creativity only seems unbounded because our lives are so short and so we're only able to sample a tiny fraction of what is possible. But with a truly unbounded life span that would no longer be true. You really could experience every possible sensory input an arbitrary number of times, and eventually you would get sick and tired of everything. > please work on solving that problem, rather than spending energy telling other people not to solve other problems in parallel Those are not mutually exclusive. Part of solving climate change is persuading as many people as possible to work on it. Furthermore, one of the principal drivers of climate change is complacency and boundless optimism, the blind faith that some other smart person will figure it out and everything will be OK. It won't. > that problem needs political experts That too. But it also needs you. And everyone else.

tlb 6y ago
> resources can only ever grow quadratically. Growth can be cubic if you're expanding outwards at a constant speed and assuming (on a large enough scale) an even distribution of matter in space.
- lisper 6y ago
  No. The total amount is cubic over time, but the growth is the derivative of this, hence, quadratic. But this is irrelevant. The point is, resources are polynomial at best. They can never keep up with exponential growth in the long run, barring new physics.
JoshTriplett 6y ago
> I've lived longer than you have. Let's not play that game. Neither of our relative ages matter for the purposes of extrapolating to billion-year lifespans, nor do they render you particularly qualified for deciding whether such people will get "bored". Far more qualified people than either of us have done research on the topic, and I have at the very least read many research papers and articles by those who do. > No, it is your unbounded optimism which is unjustified, unless you can figure out how to do an end-run around relativity. The sun burning out is a problem we can already hypothesize ways to solve now, given technologies whose development has a scale of "centuries" or "millennia" rather than "billions of years". The most obvious solutions involve leaving the planet, and that doesn't even touch on the possibilities of stellar engineering. That's easily imaginable within the scope of today's science fiction, let alone the unforeseen technology of even thousands of years from now. I feel quite safe making the prediction that, conditional on humanity lasting the billions of years between now and then, the sun's expansion will not destroy civilization, humanity, or any non-trivial number of lives. Much more critical existential threats, likely to be a problem on much shorter timescales, include nearby celestial events, collisions, or other things we don't have billions of years' to prepare for. As for longer-term problem of continued existence in the universe, I wouldn't hazard a concrete prediction, but I'm sure we'll learn a great deal more about physics between now and then, not to mention likely existing in a form where thought and subjective perception of time (as well as the ability to solve problems) can occur far faster than "one second per second". In any case, I think it is safe to predict that people will not actually give up on that problem until actual effort is put forth attempting to solve it for a very long period of time. Besides, my optimism has come up against cynicism and fatalism far worse than yours and survived unscathed, and it continues to serve me well. I don't find that fatalism is conducive to actual solutions. (And when it comes to actual predictions, I aim for accuracy rather than either overestimation or underestimation, but I find that hope tends to help as long as it accompanies actual action.) > First of all, I don't want to die. Dying sucks. But living forever would suck more. That's a testable hypothesis. If it turns out to be possible, why not try it and find out, before deciding in advance how you'll feel countless years in the future? Not like you couldn't change your mind later if you still feel the same way. > You really could experience every possible sensory input an arbitrary number of times, and eventually you would get sick and tired of everything. There are entire branches of research dedicated to exploring and solving this problem. That research looks at concepts like what we actually find interesting and fun (for one example, problems that are difficult enough to be a challenge but not so difficult that we can't make progress or learn something), the classes of things we can find fun at different intelligence levels, and ways to ensure that the number of interesting things to experience grows faster than the amount of time available to experience them in. In short, no, you will not get bored. (And that's not even getting into very dangerous failure modes like "oh, what if I just modify myself to not get bored", which is incredibly problematic but still a more interesting hypothetical attempt at actually trying to solve the problem rather than giving up.) > That too. But it also needs you. And everyone else. I already have a problem to dedicate my life to. Many others do not, and they would be better people to target with your advocacy. I would suggest that you'd do much better focusing on "this is an important problem to work on" rather than "drop this specific cause and work on this one". Fortunately, humanity is capable of doing more than one thing at once, and in fact should do more than one thing at once. These goals do not conflict with each other, and a much smaller set of people is able to work on one than the other, which strongly suggests a benefit to specialization.