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> Maybe we should start force-feeding lsd into people who actively vote against and stand opposed to scientific progress. Maybe we should stop assuming that ev

by titzer 6y ago

> Maybe we should start force-feeding lsd into people who actively vote against and stand opposed to scientific progress. Maybe we should stop assuming that every selfish impulse, gluttonous instinct, and absurd demand on the universe is somehow "scientific" and "good". Who wants to live longer if you can't appreciate the one, short, life you do have? Why waste it trying to get more? Life extension has at its core an unquestionable assumption that parades itself as morality--the sanctity and worth of human life!--but it is really the basest narcissism and selfishness that is utterly alien to the functioning of every single component of this vast ecosystem. Things die. > Sinking into the past and eventually erased from living memory. I once saw a picture of a guy in the 1920s who bred horses in the Greek mountains. Yeah, well, the atoms that make up the molecules in the proteins in the cells in your body were manufactured in the massive explosions of supernovae billions of years ago that no one remembers. You think your great grandfather is lost to the sands of time for all eternity, when in reality he is only lost to you. It's just a further expression of unquestioned selfishness, wanting more life for yourself by coopting his into your experience. Let your great grandfather and his entire life be as it was. There is nothing required more of him now.

Viliam1234 6y ago
> Who wants to live longer if you can't appreciate the one, short, life you do have? Why waste it trying to get more? Why is the arbitrary length of human life sacred? Less is seemingly bad (because murder is illegal), but more would also be bad... so we got exactly the correct amount now, regardless of the fact that it is a different number for different people. Sounds like Stockholm syndrome. If you like your life, you still have to prioritize. You would like to do X and Y, time is short, you choose X. With more time, you could experience Y, too. Why not? If you don't want to live, I respect your decision, just please don't force it on other people. My preferred option would be an unlimited life, with perfect health, and the ability to choose quick painless death if you decide so.
- kinghtown 6y ago
  “If you don't want to live, I respect your decision, just please don't force it on other people.“ Isn’t that the funny part? It’s fascinating to me that the people arguing against life extension here have two main points: 1. People don’t deserve it because they are inherently bad, they are poorly optimized, are selfish agents, would exhaust their value, are incapable of managing the impact of life extension, and so on. 2. Life is meaningless without death. <—- I am willing to entertain this second idea but the first has a disciplinary puritanical feeling to it which I really don’t relate to at all. This profound pessimism is alien to me. I can’t help but feel that there are ultimately some religious undertones at play here.
  - titzer 6y ago
    > has a disciplinary puritanical feeling to it which I really don’t relate to at all. This profound pessimism is alien to me. I can’t help but feel that there are ultimately some religious undertones at play here. You're reading into this what you want to. That is some kind of bizarre binary thinking that doesn't exist. As for "alien", there have been literally thousands of human cultures that have been erased and replaced with the current spur of "scientific" advancement that holds the world in exactly one way, a conveniently self-centered and tragically misguided one, IMHO.
- titzer 6y ago
  > If you don't want to live, I respect your decision, just please don't force it on other people. This is exactly the problem. In the default state of nature the entirety of erosive processes lead to a natural cycle of decay and death. Life extension is the alteration to this, to bend all of society's energy, focus, and scientific endeavor to stave off the absolutely natural erosive process that is the engine of Darwinian evolution, so that some gluttonous individuals and spend "centuries in hedonistic pleasure".
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    Isn't medicine the same, only on a smaller scale? We already allow many people to live much longer than they would have lived "naturally". Would it be better to have dozen kids and watch half of them die before their first birthday? If no, then what is so great about watching your parents die before their hundredth birthday?

by titzer 6y ago

Viliam1234 6y ago

> Who wants to live longer if you can't appreciate the one, short, life you do have? Why waste it trying to get more? Why is the arbitrary length of human life sacred? Less is seemingly bad (because murder is illegal), but more would also be bad... so we got exactly the correct amount now, regardless of the fact that it is a different number for different people. Sounds like Stockholm syndrome. If you like your life, you still have to prioritize. You would like to do X and Y, time is short, you choose X. With more time, you could experience Y, too. Why not? If you don't want to live, I respect your decision, just please don't force it on other people. My preferred option would be an unlimited life, with perfect health, and the ability to choose quick painless death if you decide so.

kinghtown 6y ago
“If you don't want to live, I respect your decision, just please don't force it on other people.“ Isn’t that the funny part? It’s fascinating to me that the people arguing against life extension here have two main points: 1. People don’t deserve it because they are inherently bad, they are poorly optimized, are selfish agents, would exhaust their value, are incapable of managing the impact of life extension, and so on. 2. Life is meaningless without death. <—- I am willing to entertain this second idea but the first has a disciplinary puritanical feeling to it which I really don’t relate to at all. This profound pessimism is alien to me. I can’t help but feel that there are ultimately some religious undertones at play here.
- titzer 6y ago
  > has a disciplinary puritanical feeling to it which I really don’t relate to at all. This profound pessimism is alien to me. I can’t help but feel that there are ultimately some religious undertones at play here. You're reading into this what you want to. That is some kind of bizarre binary thinking that doesn't exist. As for "alien", there have been literally thousands of human cultures that have been erased and replaced with the current spur of "scientific" advancement that holds the world in exactly one way, a conveniently self-centered and tragically misguided one, IMHO.
titzer 6y ago
> If you don't want to live, I respect your decision, just please don't force it on other people. This is exactly the problem. In the default state of nature the entirety of erosive processes lead to a natural cycle of decay and death. Life extension is the alteration to this, to bend all of society's energy, focus, and scientific endeavor to stave off the absolutely natural erosive process that is the engine of Darwinian evolution, so that some gluttonous individuals and spend "centuries in hedonistic pleasure".
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  Isn't medicine the same, only on a smaller scale? We already allow many people to live much longer than they would have lived "naturally". Would it be better to have dozen kids and watch half of them die before their first birthday? If no, then what is so great about watching your parents die before their hundredth birthday?