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Hey reasonattlm, I just read through your comment history and it looks like every single comment is about life extension. While I sorely hope that your optimis

Hey reasonattlm, I just read through your comment history and it looks like every single comment is about life extension. While I sorely hope that your optimism turns out to be warranted, I also hope that you're living and enjoying your life today, on the off-chance that it's not.

dasil003 15y ago
I hope his optimism is unwarranted. While I certainly would have a hard time turning down the opportunity to live longer, I don't think greatly extending peoples lives will be good for the individuals, society or the planet. Life and death is a beautiful cycle; not something to be defeated due an overwhelming fear of death.
- loire280 15y ago
  Death can never be defeated - besides accidents and catastrophes, there's always entropy - but life can have some interesting twists if your life extends longer and your mind extends further. However, I think even a few small changes to mental capacity or an extension of life expectancy beyond 2-3x will make the recipients something other than human. Our brains have many quirks that limit our ability to reason, understand, or act rationally, but those quirks are essential to our humanity and our ability to love. I think for this reason alone, few will elect to have very drastic changes made to their minds or their lives.
  - sans-serif 15y ago
    Would you have said this back when human lifespan averaged 40? Thanks but I think I'd sign up.
- reasonattlm 15y ago
  You'll have to explain a little harder how the great suffering currently afflicting hundreds of millions of people due to aging is both beautiful and good for them. Or the hundred thousand people who died from aging in the past 24 hours: was it good for them as individuals? How about their families and companions? In short, I don't think you've thought your position through particularly carefully.
  - CamperBob 15y ago
    Put it this way, I'd like to see human mortality conquered, but I don't want to be alive when it happens. If you think class warfare is a problem now, wait until only the so-called "rich" get to live forever. The others will tear the world apart.
    - pjscott 15y ago
      Why would only rich people get to live longer? Advanced technology has tended to get cheaper over time, often dramatically. I'm not saying that things wouldn't be scary and tumultuous for a while, but the alternative is to slowly sicken and decay into oblivion before you've had even a single century of life. This should not be a tough decision!
      - CamperBob 15y ago
        Yeah, it gets cheaper over time, but there will probably be at least a few years during which the technology will be more like private space travel. Imagine if the few people who've been able to book passage to the ISS were instead the only ones who could afford immortality. Those are not going to be fun years.
      - bad_user 15y ago
        Advanced technology has tended to get cheaper over time, often dramatically That's because as far as technology in the software industry goes, the bottleneck has been our own knowledge. That's why space travel to inhabitable planets is nothing more than an utopia right now, because for achieving the speed of light we need efficient fuel that can power a space-ship for several years. As far as this problem goes, our knowledge of the universe is not the only bottleneck -- building such a ship will also be freaking expensive in terms of material resources consumed. You really shouldn't confuse technological advancements in silicon chips manufacturing with anything else. Moore's law is severely limited to a niche ;-) the alternative is to slowly sicken and decay into oblivion before you've had even a single century of life. This should not be a tough decision! Advocates of immortality are completely oblivious to the social challenges this will bring. First of all -- nobody will be able to have children anymore, since that will over-populate the planet. It's already happening since humans don't have natural enemies and we live in times of peace. Yet as a species we feel the need to have children. Personally I would give my life just so my 1 year-old boy could live a happy life. And while it saddens me that one day he too will be dead, I don't want to rob him of one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling purposes in life -- that of raising children of his own. Of course, this is a problem of humanity in general -- we tend to be selfish mother-fuckers.
- orangecat 15y ago
  Life and death is a beautiful cycle Octogenarians wasting away in nursing homes unable to feed themselves or remember their children is the polar opposite of "beautiful".
  - dasil003 15y ago
    Forest for the trees. Let me put it this way: Octocentarians clinging to life and hoarding resources to themselves would be a tremendously ugly thing in my eyes.
    - orangecat 15y ago
      clinging to life Curse those doctors and cancer researchers. hoarding resources to themselves The economy is not zero-sum. If we cure aging, 80 year olds will be producing goods and services of value rather than living off welfare.
      - dasil003 15y ago
        I was talking about 800 year olds.
reasonattlm 15y ago
Am I not living the HN dream? A challenge and a market so large as to be beyond most people's daily conception, a time in which the trillion dollar engineered longevity industries of the future are digging their first tenuous roots, and here I am doing my bit to help right at the start.

dasil003 15y ago

I hope his optimism is unwarranted. While I certainly would have a hard time turning down the opportunity to live longer, I don't think greatly extending peoples lives will be good for the individuals, society or the planet. Life and death is a beautiful cycle; not something to be defeated due an overwhelming fear of death.

loire280 15y ago
Death can never be defeated - besides accidents and catastrophes, there's always entropy - but life can have some interesting twists if your life extends longer and your mind extends further. However, I think even a few small changes to mental capacity or an extension of life expectancy beyond 2-3x will make the recipients something other than human. Our brains have many quirks that limit our ability to reason, understand, or act rationally, but those quirks are essential to our humanity and our ability to love. I think for this reason alone, few will elect to have very drastic changes made to their minds or their lives.
- sans-serif 15y ago
  Would you have said this back when human lifespan averaged 40? Thanks but I think I'd sign up.
reasonattlm 15y ago
You'll have to explain a little harder how the great suffering currently afflicting hundreds of millions of people due to aging is both beautiful and good for them. Or the hundred thousand people who died from aging in the past 24 hours: was it good for them as individuals? How about their families and companions? In short, I don't think you've thought your position through particularly carefully.
- CamperBob 15y ago
  Put it this way, I'd like to see human mortality conquered, but I don't want to be alive when it happens. If you think class warfare is a problem now, wait until only the so-called "rich" get to live forever. The others will tear the world apart.
  - pjscott 15y ago
    Why would only rich people get to live longer? Advanced technology has tended to get cheaper over time, often dramatically. I'm not saying that things wouldn't be scary and tumultuous for a while, but the alternative is to slowly sicken and decay into oblivion before you've had even a single century of life. This should not be a tough decision!
    - CamperBob 15y ago
      Yeah, it gets cheaper over time, but there will probably be at least a few years during which the technology will be more like private space travel. Imagine if the few people who've been able to book passage to the ISS were instead the only ones who could afford immortality. Those are not going to be fun years.
    - bad_user 15y ago
      Advanced technology has tended to get cheaper over time, often dramatically That's because as far as technology in the software industry goes, the bottleneck has been our own knowledge. That's why space travel to inhabitable planets is nothing more than an utopia right now, because for achieving the speed of light we need efficient fuel that can power a space-ship for several years. As far as this problem goes, our knowledge of the universe is not the only bottleneck -- building such a ship will also be freaking expensive in terms of material resources consumed. You really shouldn't confuse technological advancements in silicon chips manufacturing with anything else. Moore's law is severely limited to a niche ;-) the alternative is to slowly sicken and decay into oblivion before you've had even a single century of life. This should not be a tough decision! Advocates of immortality are completely oblivious to the social challenges this will bring. First of all -- nobody will be able to have children anymore, since that will over-populate the planet. It's already happening since humans don't have natural enemies and we live in times of peace. Yet as a species we feel the need to have children. Personally I would give my life just so my 1 year-old boy could live a happy life. And while it saddens me that one day he too will be dead, I don't want to rob him of one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling purposes in life -- that of raising children of his own. Of course, this is a problem of humanity in general -- we tend to be selfish mother-fuckers.
orangecat 15y ago
Life and death is a beautiful cycle Octogenarians wasting away in nursing homes unable to feed themselves or remember their children is the polar opposite of "beautiful".
- dasil003 15y ago
  Forest for the trees. Let me put it this way: Octocentarians clinging to life and hoarding resources to themselves would be a tremendously ugly thing in my eyes.
  - orangecat 15y ago
    clinging to life Curse those doctors and cancer researchers. hoarding resources to themselves The economy is not zero-sum. If we cure aging, 80 year olds will be producing goods and services of value rather than living off welfare.
    - dasil003 15y ago
      I was talking about 800 year olds.

reasonattlm 15y ago

Am I not living the HN dream? A challenge and a market so large as to be beyond most people's daily conception, a time in which the trillion dollar engineered longevity industries of the future are digging their first tenuous roots, and here I am doing my bit to help right at the start.