3 ms·

i am going to guess you are somewhat young (<60). watch how your opinion shifts as you get older

amanaplanacanal 6y ago
Exactly. I’m 63. I have an autoimmune disease, and am a cancer survivor, but I’m reasonably healthy, am enjoying life, and there is no way I would choose to die at this point. If it happens, it happens, but I’d rather stick around.
stephc_int13 6y ago
I am 44, not really juvenile, and while my view of death changed a lot over time I would still choose to live longer if I can. I fully understand the central role of death in the evolution of life. At the same time, this is incredibly wasteful for a species like us. Life is usually preserving knowledge with DNA copies over generations, but individual knowledge is lost and in our case it is not negligible. Most of it is really lost.
- rantwasp 6y ago
  DNA is overrated. I think we have already transcended out biological roots. Some information we generate as a civilization is already long lived. I am not sure if it’s wasteful. In the current context maybe.
  - stephc_int13 6y ago
    The existence of civilization is the proof that not everything is lost when we die, at least not for everyone. Nonetheless, learning is still a long and painful process, even when it is about knowledge that has been known for centuries. And when a master in a field dies, his unique mix of knowledge and views dies with him, without any ways to transfer it. Human language is a powerful tool but still weak and unreliable to transfer knowledge.
- kelnos 6y ago
  > I would still choose to live longer if I can. That's the thing. I would choose the same, and I know many others who would. For the people who would prefer to live what they consider to be a "normal" lifespan, they can simply choose to end their life when they want, or not avail themselves of whatever treatments become available to increase lifespan. So many "anti" arguments against so many things boil down to "I wouldn't want that so you shouldn't get to have it either". Those arguments are tedious and annoying.

Exactly. I’m 63. I have an autoimmune disease, and am a cancer survivor, but I’m reasonably healthy, am enjoying life, and there is no way I would choose to die at this point. If it happens, it happens, but I’d rather stick around.

stephc_int13 6y ago

I am 44, not really juvenile, and while my view of death changed a lot over time I would still choose to live longer if I can. I fully understand the central role of death in the evolution of life. At the same time, this is incredibly wasteful for a species like us. Life is usually preserving knowledge with DNA copies over generations, but individual knowledge is lost and in our case it is not negligible. Most of it is really lost.

rantwasp 6y ago
DNA is overrated. I think we have already transcended out biological roots. Some information we generate as a civilization is already long lived. I am not sure if it’s wasteful. In the current context maybe.
- stephc_int13 6y ago
  The existence of civilization is the proof that not everything is lost when we die, at least not for everyone. Nonetheless, learning is still a long and painful process, even when it is about knowledge that has been known for centuries. And when a master in a field dies, his unique mix of knowledge and views dies with him, without any ways to transfer it. Human language is a powerful tool but still weak and unreliable to transfer knowledge.
kelnos 6y ago
> I would still choose to live longer if I can. That's the thing. I would choose the same, and I know many others who would. For the people who would prefer to live what they consider to be a "normal" lifespan, they can simply choose to end their life when they want, or not avail themselves of whatever treatments become available to increase lifespan. So many "anti" arguments against so many things boil down to "I wouldn't want that so you shouldn't get to have it either". Those arguments are tedious and annoying.