7 ms·

No, I don't think so. Human behavior is influenced by the supposedly finite lifespan a lot. I'm in my late 20s now. Many of the people around me are, as I would

No, I don't think so. Human behavior is influenced by the supposedly finite lifespan a lot. I'm in my late 20s now. Many of the people around me are, as I would say, "in a hurry to live their lives". They now plan decades ahead, they set deadlines for getting married, having kids and such, they stop traveling, they willingly sacrifice themselves, and explain it all like "it'll be too late if not now". They act their age. This pressure from impending death of old age is absolutely real and it shapes the society in extremely significant ways. That said, I hope to live forever and refuse to "act my age".

tm-guimaraes 5y ago
> refuse to "act my age". If you plan on having biological kids, that is not so easy. The risk of a pregnancy complications past 30yo rises a lot. Planing the life around a timeframe where you get both financial stability and the youthful body to carry a child is extremely important, specially for woman.
- grishka 5y ago
  > If you plan on having biological kids I do not, having a child is kind of a worst nightmare for me. And I'm male. Oh and by the way. Many, many people consider kids a form of immortality. The "someone to leave in this world after I'm gone". The whole idea of "leaving something behind after yourself" is so crazy to me, and spending your best years (again, pay attention to how much aging influences everything including language) on raising a child to leave behind is just... So, yes, decisions whether to have kids at all are also not insubstantially driven by the impending death.
  - nradov 5y ago
    The idea of worrying about individual consciousness and memories is so crazy to me. What matters is preserving our genes and culture. I have children so I am effectively immortal.
    - grishka 5y ago
      So, exactly the opposite from me. Genes especially don't matter at all in an age when we have technologies like CRISPR to perform arbitrary edits on them. Different cultures come and go all the time throughout humanity's history. My own consciousness and personality though? As far as I'm concerned, to me, that's literally the most valuable thing in this universe.
      - nradov 5y ago
        CRISPR applications are very limited so far. It's not a magic technology, and it certainly isn't useful for extending average lifespans.
        grishka 5y ago
        It isn't useful for life extension for sure, but it does make any individual genome much less sacred. And then we have technologies to synthesize arbitrary sequences of DNA. They can't create anything as long as an entire chromosome worth of DNA, but there's no reason why they won't be able to sometime in the future.

tm-guimaraes 5y ago

> refuse to "act my age". If you plan on having biological kids, that is not so easy. The risk of a pregnancy complications past 30yo rises a lot. Planing the life around a timeframe where you get both financial stability and the youthful body to carry a child is extremely important, specially for woman.

grishka 5y ago
> If you plan on having biological kids I do not, having a child is kind of a worst nightmare for me. And I'm male. Oh and by the way. Many, many people consider kids a form of immortality. The "someone to leave in this world after I'm gone". The whole idea of "leaving something behind after yourself" is so crazy to me, and spending your best years (again, pay attention to how much aging influences everything including language) on raising a child to leave behind is just... So, yes, decisions whether to have kids at all are also not insubstantially driven by the impending death.
- nradov 5y ago
  The idea of worrying about individual consciousness and memories is so crazy to me. What matters is preserving our genes and culture. I have children so I am effectively immortal.
  - grishka 5y ago
    So, exactly the opposite from me. Genes especially don't matter at all in an age when we have technologies like CRISPR to perform arbitrary edits on them. Different cultures come and go all the time throughout humanity's history. My own consciousness and personality though? As far as I'm concerned, to me, that's literally the most valuable thing in this universe.
    - nradov 5y ago
      CRISPR applications are very limited so far. It's not a magic technology, and it certainly isn't useful for extending average lifespans.
      - grishka 5y ago
        It isn't useful for life extension for sure, but it does make any individual genome much less sacred. And then we have technologies to synthesize arbitrary sequences of DNA. They can't create anything as long as an entire chromosome worth of DNA, but there's no reason why they won't be able to sometime in the future.