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95 points by flobosg 4y ago

throwaway95828 4y ago
I want at least a few extra decades to learn more deeply the subjects I’m interested in and to undertake more projects, technical and artistic. I think it is pure speculation to say that we would become apathetic in as little as a few centuries, which to our current lifespan seems an unfathomable amount of time, but in the grand scheme of things is still exceedingly short. We might continue to develop further beautiful and fulfilling depth that is unreachable given the measly few decades of youthful energy we have today. I spend a lot of my effort learning about and exercising my health. I’m wagering a bit of my energy now on catching the wave of advancing health and longevity research later. Some day I believe it will likely be possible for a person to ride this wave through extra healthy decades, catching scientific advances just in time to rewind their ticking clock by a few years, a few times or even indefinitely. It might be a pipe dream, but I think it’s worth a shot. If this doesn’t come true for me, I will at least likely have a longer than average healthspan. I admit that perhaps the human brain and psyche have not evolved for happiness and fulfillment beyond our disappointingly short deadline. Still, I have to wonder whether the psychological disengagement and decay that we observe in many of our elderly would be different given prolonged health of body and brain.
- paulcole 4y ago
  > I think it is pure speculation that we would become apathetic in as little as a few centuries Most people alive today need some kind of structure. Just look at the boomers who “retire” and then get antsy super fast. I took a handful of years off in my late 20s to do nothing and when I tell people about it, they’re like “Didn’t you get bored?”
  - andai 4y ago
    Could you elaborate on the "nothing" part? Yesterday I tried a meditation in which one learns to truly do nothing, but it's more likely you meant something like pursuing hobbies.
    - paulcole 4y ago
      I watched a lot of TV, went to the movies, read books, and exercised.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      Bias warning here - I am pretty pro-meditation. I do think meditating and becoming comfortable with "nothing" is important to enjoying activities. If you can enjoy not just eg hiking but also the car ride to the hiking and packing your bag, then hiking as a whole has become enjoyable.
      - andai 4y ago
        Agreed! In my experience the increased enjoyment comes both from being present and noticing things you wouldn't if you were lost in thought (eg. birdsong, butterflies), as well as learning to catch yourself yourself going through unnecessary/unpleasant thinking, and learning to just let that go and rest in the field of direct sensory experience.
- enchiridion 4y ago
  There’s a quote I heard somewhere to this effect. I’m probably messing it up. “The trick isn’t to live forever, it’s to live long enough to live forever “
  - toma_caliente 4y ago
    You're gonna have to explain this to me because I don't get this quote.
    - yurishimo 4y ago
      If you live long enough, you may eventually live past the point where science makes it possible to live forever. For most of us, this is impossible because we lost the birth date lottery.
    - _0ffh 4y ago
      You just have to live long enough for some new technology to appear to give you the extra years you need to wait for the next new technology. Even if at no point actual immortality is developed, you can go like this forever, finite life extension by finite life extension.
    - bentona 4y ago
      We don't currently have the means to live forever, but if you manage to live long enough, you might survive until we do.
    - andai 4y ago
      If technological progress continues exponentially (including increases in human or machine intelligence to make them possible) then our understanding of biology and life-extension will continue to increase, and many such life prolonging-treatments will be made available to the public. If one life extension makes you live 5 years longer, and during that time an new one comes out that lengthens your life by a few more years, you can see how one might keep "catching" these just in time and thus gradually transition from mortal to immortal.
- jotm 4y ago
  I already can't wait to die, and I've got plenty of time ahead. I mean, yeah, if you fit in/like the current systems, you might think living forever is cool. But what would you think during the next world war, for example? Or if there's some massive climate refugee crisis (more akin to a war, actually), are you on the side getting shot, doing the shooting, welcoming strangers (and being ostracized by "your own"), hating newcomers or ignoring everything? What do you think about yourself then? Death ain't all bad in dire circumstances.
  - throwaway95828 4y ago
    Perhaps with more wisdom we might be able to solve our problems more effectively. Perhaps with more to lose (more years of life ahead), people would prioritize the future more.
- rowanG077 4y ago
  This. I always find it extremely arrogant of all those people claiming to know what would happen if we had larger lifespans or infinite youths. It's find if you are a fiction author and want to create a cool world/story. But please don't conflate that with reality.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    Thanks to rent seeking any improvement in lifespan will be captured by land owners and monopolists.
    - rowanG077 4y ago
      Why? History tells us this isn't the case. Why do you say this would be different now?
- Senpitio 4y ago
  I hope Im allowed to die when im 70 or above. If you life to long I think you will loose yourself in just living in your routine. And I myself would not mind dying even younger than 70 much younger. I have the feeling that the big surprises in my lifetime are done. When I look at older people around me, non of them experience something I haven't yet and their day to day life's are boring I will be boring.
  - throwaway95828 4y ago
    I think this is a choice. Many people make safe choices that lead to a boring life. If we knew our youth (or at least middle age) could be extended, we might be more daring, knowing that we can try again if we fail.
  - sterlind 4y ago
    wow, I feel the opposite. 2008-2016 was peak boring for me, then everything got exciting and terrifying - Trump, covid, war, rapid progress in AI, reusable rockets. you can live a boring life but you don't have to. break the cycle!
    - Senpitio 4y ago
      I'm still very curious, that's not the issue. Jes Webb for example. But political drama like trump is not entertainment. New advances in science are always great but it stopped impacting my life. Would I like a robot who is doing everything for me? Yes sure, will that actually change anything nor me? Not really. I can already hire someone or go outside or use convince food. I don't envy people who can travel 365 days a year in the nicest hotels and location in the world (don't get me wrong I would love to do that for a few years) but not forever. And especially not in the constrains of our society.
paulcole 4y ago
YC salivating at the possibility of investing in a startup that gives away eternal life and then charges to kill people once they realize they hate it.
- andrewfromx 4y ago
  Omg I think you nailed it. There’s a black mirror episode about this.
- justinpowers 4y ago
  Nah, you can’t subscribe to death. But…long, deep and recurring sleeps on the other hand…only to be jolted awake for another arduous day of boring existence until you pay the meter to be put back to sleep. Now that’s a profit stream
  - paulcole 4y ago
    What a great idea. Are you looking for a nontechnical confounder?
    - dr_kiszonka 4y ago
      Your is the funniest comment I've read in a while. Cheers!
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  That's a long wait for a single payment. Ignoring everything else, that sounds like a terrible investment.
- imtringued 4y ago
  How do will the founder avoid his own product?
haskellandchill 4y ago
Science fiction in Nature? I didn't know they published any fiction at all. It's pretty good too.
- flobosg 4y ago
  The journal includes Futures, a science fiction column. See them all at https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?searchType=journalSearch&sort=PubDate&type=futures&page=1 https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?searchType=journalSea...
Rolpa 4y ago
Even gods eventually get bored. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Wish_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Wish_(episode)
j7ake 4y ago
Would Einstein, Bardeen, and Fermi have been bored by immortality? I have a feeling not. There are endless curiosities in the universe. One is less easily bored if one goes deep. Doing superficial things like international travel does get boring, by contrast.
- andai 4y ago
  Plus, imagine how annoying airport security will be in another two thousand years!
- beefield 4y ago
  > There are endless curiosities in the universe. I suspect that people who like to say that they would like to live "forever" or think that they would be interested "endlessly" in new things have not really thought through what infinity means. You might want to check Grahams number. And then spend a while thinking that even that number is not even a microscopic fraction of infinity. And if you still think you want to live forever. How on earth are you going to use your puny 100 billion neurons to experience, store and decide the order of experiencing and studying the endless Graham numbers of curiosities without at some point getting into a loop after you have had your brain in every single possible state? And when your brain has been in every possible state for say a billion times, you think it is not going to get boring?
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    ...okay, but I can ignore all those very extreme numbers if I stick with the existing context of living on earth immortally, because that's "only" a few billion years. > And when your brain has been in every possible state for say a billion times, you think it is not going to get boring? I do think that, because if I'm back in a previous state then I'm not growing more bored.
  - rowanG077 4y ago
    Living forever is not possible. And it makes little sense to think about it. You have to substitute infinite with extremely long in these kind of conversations. And even if it were infinite. A human brain most likely doesn't have a finite state space.
desro 4y ago
This was beautiful.
Borrible 4y ago
"Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.” Susan Ertz
- scollet 4y ago
  I wish I could delete this comment.
  - Borrible 4y ago
    Don't waste your precious time on a sunday afternoon.
SaintGhurka 4y ago
I liked this, all except one sentence. "I’m bored of knitting, bored of reading, bored of games, and there isn’t a country I haven’t visited less than three times." I think I know what she means, but I read it over and over and I can't get the double negative to work out right.
- mmastrac 4y ago
  It's technically not a double negative- "I haven't visited" is used as a colourful version of "I have visited"
ghastmaster 4y ago
This illustrates how immortality alone does not rid humanity of our problems(internal or external). As we see frequently in stories, immortality granted via a Faustian bargain without reading the fine print could end in literal hell. A similar fate could befall a human who has acquired immortality in the future. I for one, would not like to have immortality only to be kidnapped by a sadist, locked up and tortured for eternity. I suppose that is a risk I would take if given the opportunity to live forever. Imagine a detective getting assigned a case that is never resolved. The obsession to solve the case never subsides. The detective never gives up, endlessly pouring over the records for eons, in a similar manner to that of detectives that spend decades trying to solve cold cases to this day. The hope for immortality should always include other parameters.
jokowueu 4y ago
This time line won't happen . By the time we acheive immortallity we would have figured out how to be blissed out of our minds
antihero 4y ago
Mimosas aren’t that good, calling bullshit on this.
cannonpr 4y ago
I think I understand those that fear immortality and youth, and I finally felt that fear my self after my fathers death, the grief and the loss, the question.. what if I outlast all that matters to me and all I have is grief ? It’s terrifying. Still, I have a deep desire to live, till the stars them selves dim, till all matter collapses, or till we learn reality is something different than we expected.. Why die, there is so much to learn, being human is overrated, we can become new things in time.
627467 4y ago
The boat of a million years was a good intro (for me) to the troubles of living forever. But I won't worry about it for at least 3 or 400 years [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boat_of_a_Million_Years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boat_of_a_Million_Years

95 points by flobosg 4y ago

I want at least a few extra decades to learn more deeply the subjects I’m interested in and to undertake more projects, technical and artistic. I think it is pure speculation to say that we would become apathetic in as little as a few centuries, which to our current lifespan seems an unfathomable amount of time, but in the grand scheme of things is still exceedingly short. We might continue to develop further beautiful and fulfilling depth that is unreachable given the measly few decades of youthful energy we have today. I spend a lot of my effort learning about and exercising my health. I’m wagering a bit of my energy now on catching the wave of advancing health and longevity research later. Some day I believe it will likely be possible for a person to ride this wave through extra healthy decades, catching scientific advances just in time to rewind their ticking clock by a few years, a few times or even indefinitely. It might be a pipe dream, but I think it’s worth a shot. If this doesn’t come true for me, I will at least likely have a longer than average healthspan. I admit that perhaps the human brain and psyche have not evolved for happiness and fulfillment beyond our disappointingly short deadline. Still, I have to wonder whether the psychological disengagement and decay that we observe in many of our elderly would be different given prolonged health of body and brain.

paulcole 4y ago
> I think it is pure speculation that we would become apathetic in as little as a few centuries Most people alive today need some kind of structure. Just look at the boomers who “retire” and then get antsy super fast. I took a handful of years off in my late 20s to do nothing and when I tell people about it, they’re like “Didn’t you get bored?”
- andai 4y ago
  Could you elaborate on the "nothing" part? Yesterday I tried a meditation in which one learns to truly do nothing, but it's more likely you meant something like pursuing hobbies.
  - paulcole 4y ago
    I watched a lot of TV, went to the movies, read books, and exercised.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Bias warning here - I am pretty pro-meditation. I do think meditating and becoming comfortable with "nothing" is important to enjoying activities. If you can enjoy not just eg hiking but also the car ride to the hiking and packing your bag, then hiking as a whole has become enjoyable.
    - andai 4y ago
      Agreed! In my experience the increased enjoyment comes both from being present and noticing things you wouldn't if you were lost in thought (eg. birdsong, butterflies), as well as learning to catch yourself yourself going through unnecessary/unpleasant thinking, and learning to just let that go and rest in the field of direct sensory experience.
enchiridion 4y ago
There’s a quote I heard somewhere to this effect. I’m probably messing it up. “The trick isn’t to live forever, it’s to live long enough to live forever “
- toma_caliente 4y ago
  You're gonna have to explain this to me because I don't get this quote.
  - yurishimo 4y ago
    If you live long enough, you may eventually live past the point where science makes it possible to live forever. For most of us, this is impossible because we lost the birth date lottery.
  - _0ffh 4y ago
    You just have to live long enough for some new technology to appear to give you the extra years you need to wait for the next new technology. Even if at no point actual immortality is developed, you can go like this forever, finite life extension by finite life extension.
  - bentona 4y ago
    We don't currently have the means to live forever, but if you manage to live long enough, you might survive until we do.
  - andai 4y ago
    If technological progress continues exponentially (including increases in human or machine intelligence to make them possible) then our understanding of biology and life-extension will continue to increase, and many such life prolonging-treatments will be made available to the public. If one life extension makes you live 5 years longer, and during that time an new one comes out that lengthens your life by a few more years, you can see how one might keep "catching" these just in time and thus gradually transition from mortal to immortal.
jotm 4y ago
I already can't wait to die, and I've got plenty of time ahead. I mean, yeah, if you fit in/like the current systems, you might think living forever is cool. But what would you think during the next world war, for example? Or if there's some massive climate refugee crisis (more akin to a war, actually), are you on the side getting shot, doing the shooting, welcoming strangers (and being ostracized by "your own"), hating newcomers or ignoring everything? What do you think about yourself then? Death ain't all bad in dire circumstances.
- throwaway95828 4y ago
  Perhaps with more wisdom we might be able to solve our problems more effectively. Perhaps with more to lose (more years of life ahead), people would prioritize the future more.
rowanG077 4y ago
This. I always find it extremely arrogant of all those people claiming to know what would happen if we had larger lifespans or infinite youths. It's find if you are a fiction author and want to create a cool world/story. But please don't conflate that with reality.
- imtringued 4y ago
  Thanks to rent seeking any improvement in lifespan will be captured by land owners and monopolists.
  - rowanG077 4y ago
    Why? History tells us this isn't the case. Why do you say this would be different now?
Senpitio 4y ago
I hope Im allowed to die when im 70 or above. If you life to long I think you will loose yourself in just living in your routine. And I myself would not mind dying even younger than 70 much younger. I have the feeling that the big surprises in my lifetime are done. When I look at older people around me, non of them experience something I haven't yet and their day to day life's are boring I will be boring.
- throwaway95828 4y ago
  I think this is a choice. Many people make safe choices that lead to a boring life. If we knew our youth (or at least middle age) could be extended, we might be more daring, knowing that we can try again if we fail.
- sterlind 4y ago
  wow, I feel the opposite. 2008-2016 was peak boring for me, then everything got exciting and terrifying - Trump, covid, war, rapid progress in AI, reusable rockets. you can live a boring life but you don't have to. break the cycle!
  - Senpitio 4y ago
    I'm still very curious, that's not the issue. Jes Webb for example. But political drama like trump is not entertainment. New advances in science are always great but it stopped impacting my life. Would I like a robot who is doing everything for me? Yes sure, will that actually change anything nor me? Not really. I can already hire someone or go outside or use convince food. I don't envy people who can travel 365 days a year in the nicest hotels and location in the world (don't get me wrong I would love to do that for a few years) but not forever. And especially not in the constrains of our society.

paulcole 4y ago

YC salivating at the possibility of investing in a startup that gives away eternal life and then charges to kill people once they realize they hate it.

andrewfromx 4y ago
Omg I think you nailed it. There’s a black mirror episode about this.
justinpowers 4y ago
Nah, you can’t subscribe to death. But…long, deep and recurring sleeps on the other hand…only to be jolted awake for another arduous day of boring existence until you pay the meter to be put back to sleep. Now that’s a profit stream
- paulcole 4y ago
  What a great idea. Are you looking for a nontechnical confounder?
  - dr_kiszonka 4y ago
    Your is the funniest comment I've read in a while. Cheers!
Dylan16807 4y ago
That's a long wait for a single payment. Ignoring everything else, that sounds like a terrible investment.
imtringued 4y ago
How do will the founder avoid his own product?

haskellandchill 4y ago

Science fiction in Nature? I didn't know they published any fiction at all. It's pretty good too.

flobosg 4y ago
The journal includes Futures, a science fiction column. See them all at https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?searchType=journalSearch&sort=PubDate&type=futures&page=1 https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?searchType=journalSea...

Rolpa 4y ago

Even gods eventually get bored. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Wish_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Wish_(episode)

j7ake 4y ago

Would Einstein, Bardeen, and Fermi have been bored by immortality? I have a feeling not. There are endless curiosities in the universe. One is less easily bored if one goes deep. Doing superficial things like international travel does get boring, by contrast.

andai 4y ago
Plus, imagine how annoying airport security will be in another two thousand years!
beefield 4y ago
> There are endless curiosities in the universe. I suspect that people who like to say that they would like to live "forever" or think that they would be interested "endlessly" in new things have not really thought through what infinity means. You might want to check Grahams number. And then spend a while thinking that even that number is not even a microscopic fraction of infinity. And if you still think you want to live forever. How on earth are you going to use your puny 100 billion neurons to experience, store and decide the order of experiencing and studying the endless Graham numbers of curiosities without at some point getting into a loop after you have had your brain in every single possible state? And when your brain has been in every possible state for say a billion times, you think it is not going to get boring?
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  ...okay, but I can ignore all those very extreme numbers if I stick with the existing context of living on earth immortally, because that's "only" a few billion years. > And when your brain has been in every possible state for say a billion times, you think it is not going to get boring? I do think that, because if I'm back in a previous state then I'm not growing more bored.
- rowanG077 4y ago
  Living forever is not possible. And it makes little sense to think about it. You have to substitute infinite with extremely long in these kind of conversations. And even if it were infinite. A human brain most likely doesn't have a finite state space.

desro 4y ago

This was beautiful.

Borrible 4y ago

"Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.” Susan Ertz

scollet 4y ago
I wish I could delete this comment.
- Borrible 4y ago
  Don't waste your precious time on a sunday afternoon.

SaintGhurka 4y ago

I liked this, all except one sentence. "I’m bored of knitting, bored of reading, bored of games, and there isn’t a country I haven’t visited less than three times." I think I know what she means, but I read it over and over and I can't get the double negative to work out right.

mmastrac 4y ago
It's technically not a double negative- "I haven't visited" is used as a colourful version of "I have visited"

ghastmaster 4y ago

This illustrates how immortality alone does not rid humanity of our problems(internal or external). As we see frequently in stories, immortality granted via a Faustian bargain without reading the fine print could end in literal hell. A similar fate could befall a human who has acquired immortality in the future. I for one, would not like to have immortality only to be kidnapped by a sadist, locked up and tortured for eternity. I suppose that is a risk I would take if given the opportunity to live forever. Imagine a detective getting assigned a case that is never resolved. The obsession to solve the case never subsides. The detective never gives up, endlessly pouring over the records for eons, in a similar manner to that of detectives that spend decades trying to solve cold cases to this day. The hope for immortality should always include other parameters.

jokowueu 4y ago

This time line won't happen . By the time we acheive immortallity we would have figured out how to be blissed out of our minds

antihero 4y ago

Mimosas aren’t that good, calling bullshit on this.

cannonpr 4y ago

I think I understand those that fear immortality and youth, and I finally felt that fear my self after my fathers death, the grief and the loss, the question.. what if I outlast all that matters to me and all I have is grief ? It’s terrifying. Still, I have a deep desire to live, till the stars them selves dim, till all matter collapses, or till we learn reality is something different than we expected.. Why die, there is so much to learn, being human is overrated, we can become new things in time.

627467 4y ago

The boat of a million years was a good intro (for me) to the troubles of living forever. But I won't worry about it for at least 3 or 400 years [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boat_of_a_Million_Years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boat_of_a_Million_Years