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Neither viewpoint is wrong, or bad Actually I think trying to eliminate death (at least if we're talking about letting people live >1000 years or choose when t

Neither viewpoint is wrong, or bad Actually I think trying to eliminate death (at least if we're talking about letting people live >1000 years or choose when they die) is extremely bad and will have awful, awful consequences. You think inequality is bad now? Can you imagine what it will be like when people can amass power and fortunes for thousands of years? How progressive do you think our views on race and sex would be if there were still people voting who were 800 years old? Or science, for that matter (science progresses one funeral at a time, as they say). House prices are astronomically bad where I live... how bad will it be when houses are held forever? Old age and death create the space for our lives to be young and free, albeit for a short glorious period. I don't doubt it will eventually happen, and the world will become a far more static, miserable place as humanity pushes endlessly forward in our quest to avoid pain and grab all we can for ourselves instead of trying to enjoy life for the ephemeral experience it is.

xvector 5y ago
1. These are problems to solve independently of death. Shitty governments and politics do not justify death. These problems absolutely aren't in the problem space of life extension to solve. 2. It is arguable that life and freedom are meaningless if we are doomed to lose everything we ever have and are in the end, after such a short amount of time. 3. "Enjoying life for the ephemeral experience it is" is something we do out of hard necessity. I'd take a bit less enjoyment as opposed to, well, not existing at all. Even then, enjoyment and long lives do not have to be mutually exclusive should we solve our problems in time. Relying on death to solve problems with our government and politics is like relying on a nuclear bomb to heat your dinner. It'll work, it'll also cause immense pain and suffering. We can and should solve these problems in a separate thread. Alternatively phrased, if power was already stagnated and concentrated, and you had a button to start killing ~100 million random people a year to "solve" this problem, it would be insane to press it. We must find alternative solutions.
- mehwoot 5y ago
  "Enjoying life for the ephemeral experience it is" is something we do out of hard necessity. But we don't do it. We sit here worrying about dying and trying to ensure we will live forever instead of enjoying the time we do have alive. Read experiences of people who suddenly find out they are going to die relatively soon- the richness of their life takes on a whole new dimension. These are problems to solve independently of death. And why do you have 100% faith they will be solved? Is that how the world generally tends to work? Or will things just get worse and people will blame it on the government instead of the thing that changed and allowed things to be bad? This happens all the time. Technology comes in, makes peoples lives shit, "It's not a problem with the technology it's how we use it". What does that matter if we're not capable of using it better? If the world is going to be shit if people can live forever, then people living forever is shit. It is arguable that life and freedom are meaningless if... If you look at how people behave, it is actually the opposite- things don't have value unless they are scarce, limited. We value our life and youth because it runs out.
  - xvector 5y ago
    > And why do you have 100% faith they will be solved? Is that how the world generally tends to work? Or will things just get worse and people will blame it on the government instead of the thing that changed and allowed things to be bad? This doesn't change the fact that using death to solve inequality is like using a nuclear bomb to heat your dinner. We ought to find a better solution and solve it independently. I do not understand your pessimism. Historically speaking, humanity tends to solve the problems it encounters. A look over the past few centuries alone reveals this. We'll solve this problem too.
    - mehwoot 5y ago
      This doesn't change the fact that using death to solve inequality I'm not saying it will solve inequality, I'm saying it is preventing it from being far, far, far worse than it already is. Do you feel like we're solving the inequalities we currently have enough to unleash something that will make things one hundred times worse? Knowing that once it is unleashed it will be almost impossible to reverse? is like using a nuclear bomb to heat your dinner. You're proposing that we remove the nuclear bomb that has been heating the food we've been eating for the last 1 billion years and assuming we'll just figure out something else. I do not understand your pessimism. Historically speaking, humanity tends to solve the problems it encounters I guess my pessimism stems from a different perspective of what it means to "solve our problems". I look around the world as it is today and I don't feel like we genuinely have solved any of the problems at the core of human existence.
- 8note 5y ago
  I don't think 2 is right. Only property becomes meaningless, since it's the only thing you're losing. Life and freedom only become more meaningful with time constraints, since you don't have time to do anything and everything. As a matter of focus, we should solve those other problems first, especially since increasing life expectancy is already having bad effects, both in wealth and power concentration. Eg. Boomers not retiring, and not dying, so gen x and millenials have bad careers and nowhere to live For another rephrasing, if I had the option to go back in time, and prolong the life of all the slave owners and the people they enslaved, I wouldn't subject the poor people to 1000 years of torture.
  - mLuby 5y ago
    Put another way, you're in favor with forcing everyone to die hundreds of years early. "Nasty, brutish, and short" indeed. I'm calling bullshit on "time constraints as meaningfulness" too. That's just the subjective time dilation we experience during stressful situations, like in sports. We have so many aphorisms to sooth the fear of death, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily true in a post-mortality culture.
lowkey_ 5y ago
> You think inequality is bad now? Can you imagine what it will be like when people can amass power and fortunes for thousands of years? Wealth isn't zero-sum, and so it's always weird to see people arguing about how bad inequality is. If the standard of living isn't improving, that's a problem we should address. If the standard of living is improving and the rich are getting richer, why is that an issue? From perspectives of history, intuition, and statistics, it's clear that inequality and overall quality of life aren't inversely correlated as many today believe they are. > House prices are astronomically bad where I live... how bad will it be when houses are held forever? I imagine someone will get bored of a house after a few decades, certainly after a century, and so they won't be held forever. Additionally, as the population increases, we'll create new housing.

xvector 5y ago

1. These are problems to solve independently of death. Shitty governments and politics do not justify death. These problems absolutely aren't in the problem space of life extension to solve. 2. It is arguable that life and freedom are meaningless if we are doomed to lose everything we ever have and are in the end, after such a short amount of time. 3. "Enjoying life for the ephemeral experience it is" is something we do out of hard necessity. I'd take a bit less enjoyment as opposed to, well, not existing at all. Even then, enjoyment and long lives do not have to be mutually exclusive should we solve our problems in time. Relying on death to solve problems with our government and politics is like relying on a nuclear bomb to heat your dinner. It'll work, it'll also cause immense pain and suffering. We can and should solve these problems in a separate thread. Alternatively phrased, if power was already stagnated and concentrated, and you had a button to start killing ~100 million random people a year to "solve" this problem, it would be insane to press it. We must find alternative solutions.

mehwoot 5y ago
"Enjoying life for the ephemeral experience it is" is something we do out of hard necessity. But we don't do it. We sit here worrying about dying and trying to ensure we will live forever instead of enjoying the time we do have alive. Read experiences of people who suddenly find out they are going to die relatively soon- the richness of their life takes on a whole new dimension. These are problems to solve independently of death. And why do you have 100% faith they will be solved? Is that how the world generally tends to work? Or will things just get worse and people will blame it on the government instead of the thing that changed and allowed things to be bad? This happens all the time. Technology comes in, makes peoples lives shit, "It's not a problem with the technology it's how we use it". What does that matter if we're not capable of using it better? If the world is going to be shit if people can live forever, then people living forever is shit. It is arguable that life and freedom are meaningless if... If you look at how people behave, it is actually the opposite- things don't have value unless they are scarce, limited. We value our life and youth because it runs out.
- xvector 5y ago
  > And why do you have 100% faith they will be solved? Is that how the world generally tends to work? Or will things just get worse and people will blame it on the government instead of the thing that changed and allowed things to be bad? This doesn't change the fact that using death to solve inequality is like using a nuclear bomb to heat your dinner. We ought to find a better solution and solve it independently. I do not understand your pessimism. Historically speaking, humanity tends to solve the problems it encounters. A look over the past few centuries alone reveals this. We'll solve this problem too.
  - mehwoot 5y ago
    This doesn't change the fact that using death to solve inequality I'm not saying it will solve inequality, I'm saying it is preventing it from being far, far, far worse than it already is. Do you feel like we're solving the inequalities we currently have enough to unleash something that will make things one hundred times worse? Knowing that once it is unleashed it will be almost impossible to reverse? is like using a nuclear bomb to heat your dinner. You're proposing that we remove the nuclear bomb that has been heating the food we've been eating for the last 1 billion years and assuming we'll just figure out something else. I do not understand your pessimism. Historically speaking, humanity tends to solve the problems it encounters I guess my pessimism stems from a different perspective of what it means to "solve our problems". I look around the world as it is today and I don't feel like we genuinely have solved any of the problems at the core of human existence.
8note 5y ago
I don't think 2 is right. Only property becomes meaningless, since it's the only thing you're losing. Life and freedom only become more meaningful with time constraints, since you don't have time to do anything and everything. As a matter of focus, we should solve those other problems first, especially since increasing life expectancy is already having bad effects, both in wealth and power concentration. Eg. Boomers not retiring, and not dying, so gen x and millenials have bad careers and nowhere to live For another rephrasing, if I had the option to go back in time, and prolong the life of all the slave owners and the people they enslaved, I wouldn't subject the poor people to 1000 years of torture.
- mLuby 5y ago
  Put another way, you're in favor with forcing everyone to die hundreds of years early. "Nasty, brutish, and short" indeed. I'm calling bullshit on "time constraints as meaningfulness" too. That's just the subjective time dilation we experience during stressful situations, like in sports. We have so many aphorisms to sooth the fear of death, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily true in a post-mortality culture.

lowkey_ 5y ago

> You think inequality is bad now? Can you imagine what it will be like when people can amass power and fortunes for thousands of years? Wealth isn't zero-sum, and so it's always weird to see people arguing about how bad inequality is. If the standard of living isn't improving, that's a problem we should address. If the standard of living is improving and the rich are getting richer, why is that an issue? From perspectives of history, intuition, and statistics, it's clear that inequality and overall quality of life aren't inversely correlated as many today believe they are. > House prices are astronomically bad where I live... how bad will it be when houses are held forever? I imagine someone will get bored of a house after a few decades, certainly after a century, and so they won't be held forever. Additionally, as the population increases, we'll create new housing.