3 ms·

Reading this made me think of Sartre's The Republic of Silence [1]. In this article, Sartre claims, "never were we more free than under the German occupation."

by jbrot 6y ago

Reading this made me think of Sartre's The Republic of Silence [1]. In this article, Sartre claims, "never were we more free than under the German occupation." He explains that, roughly, in the face of death, each choice becomes more meaningful, more "authentic." This goes along with the article's discussion of how doctors, in general, choose to receive far less care than the typical patient when faced with terminal illness. This choice grants an opportunity to live authentically, in Sartre's parlance, for their last months as opposed to going out via the indignity of excessive treatment (e.g., life support machines). [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/paris-alive-jean-paul-sartre-on-world-war-ii/379555/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/pa...

sammalloy 6y ago
This is exactly correct. The briefest quality time left at the end of life is preferred to a longer quantity of life in pain and suffering. To choose otherwise, is to live in bad faith, according to Sartre. Many people recoil in horror at this realization, because they have bought into the idea sold by our culture that we should continue to extend our lives by any means necessary, no matter the social and human costs.
- bspammer 6y ago
  It's funny, because I would argue that popular culture is the exact opposite. Any research into slowing down or reversing the effect of aging is seen as folly and vain. Ask someone if they'd like to live to 100 and the majority of middle-aged people will tell you no because they've seen the effects it had on their parents and grandparents. Then you have all the thought-terminating cliches that float around such as "life has no meaning without death", "aging is beautiful", "aging is natural". Society is generally very pro-aging and consequently pro-death. Of course, it's not a crazy attitude at all in our current world where aging is guaranteed. It's much easier to come to terms with something you know will happen for certain. People fear cancer far more than they do aging. The diseases of age are as brutal as they are numerous, and I can absolutely believe that dying is preferable to suffering in many cases. For thousands of years this has been the case, for thousands of years people have had to find ways to come to terms with it. Consequently this idea that aging is actually a good thing is embedded so deeply into our culture that it may as well be part of our DNA. Why aren't we doing more about it? Why aren't billions being invested into research aiming to prevent/reverse aging? We outspend by a factor of at least 100x on treating the diseases caused by aging. We all know why: social pressures make it very difficult to advocate for without being seen as a naive fool scared of death reaching for immortality. The collective, pointless, preventable damage to humanity will continue to rage on.
  - staticman2 6y ago
    Just like there are many diseases that can't be effectively treated, there are many things that can't be effectively researched. I would guess that if there was an effective way to research the reversing of aging billionaires would be on it out of self interest. But if we have no clue how to approach a problem it isn't clear that spending money on it will help. To put it another way, even if we could invent a cure for aging one day, if we posit science is 500 years away from such a cure, and billions of dollars would only advance things so a cure would be 450 years away, no living billionaire would be incentivized towards that research. I tend to see those platitudes like "life has no meaning without death" are a form of self comfort, since we are stuck with death. Still, humans wouldn't exist without death, since the evolutionary process of natural selection that created us cannot or could not exist without death, so it isn't entirely wrong to consider life and death fundamentally linked.
    - bspammer 6y ago
      There are active efforts [0][1], they're just relatively small (though, like you predicted, receive some funding from billionaires). If it was massively scaled up, who knows what could be accomplished even within the next 50 years. Personally I'm not hoping to live forever, but I would like to live a larger proportion of my life healthily. The current method of treating the symptoms of age rather than the cause do nothing but extend suffering. > it isn't entirely wrong to consider life and death fundamentally linked Not at all, they certainly are linked, I don't think anyone can deny that. What I disagree with is the idea that death gives meaning to life. [0] https://www.sens.org/ https://www.sens.org/ [1] https://www.lifespan.io/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/ https://www.lifespan.io/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/
      - staticman2 6y ago
        That first link has a guy saying there's a 50% chance most people alive today will live a thousand years. So... it's a coin flip chance that no more money is needed, if that link is to be believed?

by jbrot 6y ago

sammalloy 6y ago

This is exactly correct. The briefest quality time left at the end of life is preferred to a longer quantity of life in pain and suffering. To choose otherwise, is to live in bad faith, according to Sartre. Many people recoil in horror at this realization, because they have bought into the idea sold by our culture that we should continue to extend our lives by any means necessary, no matter the social and human costs.

bspammer 6y ago
It's funny, because I would argue that popular culture is the exact opposite. Any research into slowing down or reversing the effect of aging is seen as folly and vain. Ask someone if they'd like to live to 100 and the majority of middle-aged people will tell you no because they've seen the effects it had on their parents and grandparents. Then you have all the thought-terminating cliches that float around such as "life has no meaning without death", "aging is beautiful", "aging is natural". Society is generally very pro-aging and consequently pro-death. Of course, it's not a crazy attitude at all in our current world where aging is guaranteed. It's much easier to come to terms with something you know will happen for certain. People fear cancer far more than they do aging. The diseases of age are as brutal as they are numerous, and I can absolutely believe that dying is preferable to suffering in many cases. For thousands of years this has been the case, for thousands of years people have had to find ways to come to terms with it. Consequently this idea that aging is actually a good thing is embedded so deeply into our culture that it may as well be part of our DNA. Why aren't we doing more about it? Why aren't billions being invested into research aiming to prevent/reverse aging? We outspend by a factor of at least 100x on treating the diseases caused by aging. We all know why: social pressures make it very difficult to advocate for without being seen as a naive fool scared of death reaching for immortality. The collective, pointless, preventable damage to humanity will continue to rage on.
- staticman2 6y ago
  Just like there are many diseases that can't be effectively treated, there are many things that can't be effectively researched. I would guess that if there was an effective way to research the reversing of aging billionaires would be on it out of self interest. But if we have no clue how to approach a problem it isn't clear that spending money on it will help. To put it another way, even if we could invent a cure for aging one day, if we posit science is 500 years away from such a cure, and billions of dollars would only advance things so a cure would be 450 years away, no living billionaire would be incentivized towards that research. I tend to see those platitudes like "life has no meaning without death" are a form of self comfort, since we are stuck with death. Still, humans wouldn't exist without death, since the evolutionary process of natural selection that created us cannot or could not exist without death, so it isn't entirely wrong to consider life and death fundamentally linked.
  - bspammer 6y ago
    There are active efforts [0][1], they're just relatively small (though, like you predicted, receive some funding from billionaires). If it was massively scaled up, who knows what could be accomplished even within the next 50 years. Personally I'm not hoping to live forever, but I would like to live a larger proportion of my life healthily. The current method of treating the symptoms of age rather than the cause do nothing but extend suffering. > it isn't entirely wrong to consider life and death fundamentally linked Not at all, they certainly are linked, I don't think anyone can deny that. What I disagree with is the idea that death gives meaning to life. [0] https://www.sens.org/ https://www.sens.org/ [1] https://www.lifespan.io/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/ https://www.lifespan.io/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/
    - staticman2 6y ago
      That first link has a guy saying there's a 50% chance most people alive today will live a thousand years. So... it's a coin flip chance that no more money is needed, if that link is to be believed?