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> our culture has come to view death as a medical failure rather than life’s natural conclusion. Death is a medical failure, just like our inability to cure he

> our culture has come to view death as a medical failure rather than life’s natural conclusion. Death is a medical failure, just like our inability to cure herpes is a medical failure. That there's no way to overcome the failure yet does not imply that it is not a failure.

icebraining 15y ago
It's not so much the death itself but the fact that we can't really fix falling organs, just put band-aids to keep it running. My grandmother has osteoporosis and surgery isn't an option. When her bones finally give in and tie her to a bed, that's the end of her life, even if she lives for a few years more.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
dasil003 15y ago
There's an ethical question that you're dodging though. Personally I don't think immortality is a good thing, and I suspect most arguments in its favor our heavily driven by fear of death.
- delinquentme 15y ago
  I'd guess your argument against immortality is one of those covered many many times: overpopulation, overlords yadda, yadda. If you believe in 1000 years humans are still living to 80 years old, and are STILL bound to ONLY this planet ... well I think you're crazier than your love of death ( the norm ) suggests. It requires a bit of human insight to realize that the slice of cake religion advertises IS escape from the vast darkness of a perception-less void.
- zanny 15y ago
  My argument is that if we could develop functional immortality we could preserve the lives of the next Newton, Einstein, or even some currently living scientific minds like Hawking. Rather than have the great generational risk of losing all the collective knowledge such people accumulate and then suddenly have them die and expect their void to be filled by bright young minds interested in the same material, who then have to commit half a century just catching back up to where their progenitors were, it would be a never ending cascade of innovation and progress.
  - cathrithbo 15y ago
    I agree with your optimistic stance however everyone has at least a small amount of valuable knowledge. I trust we will extend the lives of all those wish to remain alive. Since you're an optimist, you'll probably be one of them :-) dasil003 doesn't say what the ethical question is, but I think he's got it the wrong way around with motivation. As Aubrey de Grey has argued, it is the fear of death, coupled with the pessimistic assumption of death's inevitability, which makes talk of life extension taboo in many circles. ('If you can't avoid something unpleasant then embrace it' is a viable psychological strategy.) One ethical objection to not researching life extension is that huge amounts of healthcare budget go into extending the lives of frail, sick people in their final years. When we know how to keep people healthy indefinitely this problem will be solved, although pessimistic individuals will then have to take the responsibility of choosing when to die (if ever).
  - twentysix 15y ago
    we could preserve the lives of the next Newton, Einstein, or even some currently living scientific minds like Hawking No we couldn't, because its not up-to you or anyone else to decide how long another person should live. How do you know if Newton or Einstein would have wanted to live longer? If a choice was available to increase ones lifespan, the choice should lie with the individual. Perhaps artificial intelligence is a much saner choice than immortality.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - haliax 15y ago
      I don't think he meant to imply the choice would lie with him, just that losing them would no longer be the only option.
    - true_religion 15y ago
      I think quite the opposite. Everyone's lifespan should be increased at birth. Then once they're sentient adults, they can choose to reduce their lives to the so called 'natural' expectancy, or even below it if they wish.
- haliax 15y ago
  You haven't really justified anything you've said. What is the ethical question? Why must it be fear of death rather than simply wanting more of life -- more time to spend with people you love, to do exciting things, to learn everything there is to know?
  - maratd 15y ago
    > Why must it be fear of death rather than simply wanting more of life The only thing you are capable of is converting time into something else. Time is always the scarcity factor. So what if we had unlimited time? Would you pursue greatness and projects that take hundreds of years to complete? Unlikely. Let's take a look at something that is also scarce and that everybody is familiar with. Money. Would you say that the overwhelming majority of people who have lots of money engage in long-term projects to do interesting things ... or do they spend it on vain things like mansions, expensive cars, yachts, planes, etc? If you had an infinite amount of time, the first thing you would do is re-watch every episode of Star Trek, not embark on the discovery of warp drive. That's the truth nobody wants to face. The overwhelming majority of humanity is unbelievably vain and the part that isn't, is primarily motivated by scarcity. They understand they have a very limited amount of time to live and they want to get something amazing done within that time. Removing that scarcity factor will make them just as vain as you and me. EDIT: Fixed my inability to use the English language.
    - DilipJ 15y ago
      I hate to be "that guy", but you misspelled a certain word three times in your comment. I leave it to you to figure out which one. But I agree with you, in the sense that having a "deadline" is what motivates people to accomplish things. Like if your boss or teacher doubles the length of time to finish a project, it doesn't mean you'll work twice as hard, but rather that you have more time to put it off.
      - maratd 15y ago
        > misspelled a certain word three times in your comment. Well, vane is a legit word, so it's more of a misuse. I meant to use vain. I kept thinking vanity, ah well. It was bothering me, but I got sloppy.
- mistercow 15y ago
  Fear of death is natural and healthy. Death is a bad thing. Arguments otherwise are borne of a desire to rationalize the inevitable.
  - dasil003 15y ago
    I'll give you that both arguments are borne of a desire to rationalize. Death is serious business for us. That said, I believe we live and die for a reason, and that death gives life purpose. You don't have to agree with me, but you should at least acknowledge that the statement "death is bad" represents a certain worldview, and can by no means be taken axiomatically.
phillmv 15y ago
I don't know. We clearly won't be defeating death in our lifetimes (and frankly, I'm not sure I would want to live forever stuck in my 80 year old body). Not only is death necessary for new generations, it kind of gives meaning to the time we do have. So… I'm open to the idea that we should know how to care for the dying instead of merely prolonging their misery. Everyone reading these words will die one day. Better get used to it!
- kiba 15y ago
  Not only is death necessary for new generations, it kind of gives meaning to the time we do have. Why do you think limited time give us meanings?
  - lbotos 15y ago
    It forces us to choose. Choose what means the most to us.
    - true_religion 15y ago
      I say it hurries us into making decisions, wherein after our basic human psychology starts to rationalize the decision as 'meaningful'. If we had all the time in the world, literally, we could eventually learn to make decisions that are truly good instead of local conveniences.
    - kiba 15y ago
      It forces us to choose. Choose what means the most to us. Why don't we just choose what's the most meaningful thing to us, right now? Moreover, I think living for a really long time allows us to be more ambitious.
    - haliax 15y ago
      No it doesn't. The death of young children, or victims of accidents or violent crimes for instance, doesn't force them to chose anything. The notion that you have limited time, might make you want to prioritize. You can hardly speak for anyone else, or what makes them choose anything.
icegreentea 15y ago
Failure implies responsibility. Which is the entire point of the article. We've shifted death from something that just happens, to something that we're responsible for. We've come to believe that we are somehow above death, and that every death is due to a human failure. Which is nonsense. Similarly taking your position, we could say that computer science's inability to factor numbers in polynomial time is a failure. Clearly the fact that solving the problem may actually be impossible should play a role in assigning the label 'failure'.
- swombat 15y ago
  Failure implies responsibility. And I think that's a fair point, actually. Death is a responsibility. Ascribing it solely to medicine is unfair, but it is our responsibility. Could we extend the average lifespan of adults by 10 years by spending money? Easily. Most people live thoroughly unhealthy lives, many of them because they simply don't know better. Consider the whole "obesity epidemic". A large number of people will die comparatively young because of a complete failure of our society to teach them how to eat decent food. Beyond simply curing gross mistakes in self-care, what about positives? Could we find ways to get the average healthy person to treat their body even better, and squeeze out some more life expectancy? I'm sure we could. More thorough study of the effects of nutrients and toxins, more efforts to reduce the amount of crap in people's food and other items that they come into daily contact with, etc, those would probably net another few years of improvement. And that's only looking at western society. If you look at poorer countries, there are countless avoidable deaths there. Some organisations, like the Gates foundation, are trying to address some of the more obvious killers, like Malaria, which have been neglected for decades (if we'd really wanted to get rid of Malaria in the 50s, we would have done so). Overall, I think it's fair to state that we could raise the life expectancy of almost every human on this earth by 10 years if we really tried. But we choose not to. There are 7 billion humans on this planet, and every day, we, as a society, make a choice, to not bother to create 70 billion man-years of life-expectancy. It is a choice, or rather a lack of choice, and so yes, it is a responsibility. We all (me included) choose to give up on 70 billion years of human life, every day.
  - finnw 15y ago
wpietri 15y ago
Death is a medical failure No. A thousand times no. Death is part of life. All composite things decay. Imagine a kindergartener on an ocean beach. They spend hours building a sand castle. They wail as the tide claims it, feeling the sting of failure. Do you agree, telling them that they screwed up in their construction? I say no. The error isn't in the building, it's in expecting the castle to last through high tide. For the skeptical, I'd encourage you to watch this documentary: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307385/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307385/ It really solidified my view that the transitory nature of all things makes them more beautiful, more poignant.
- jbjohns 15y ago
  I hate this view so much. How are we better off not having people like Tesla, Newton, Einstein, etc. anymore? They had to give way so we could have Dragonball Z and reality TV? The notion that we gain something by people dying is beyond nonsensical. The only benefit death will bring is when everyone who has this ridiculous view point is gone and out of the way.
  - kls 15y ago
    Well if we want to take it to it's extreme end, death is a certainty. At some point all nature will decay and the universe and all energy will stop, it will all be used up. Nature will be used up and gone, barring the supernatural we will be too, so at that point even if we become naturally immortal we will die, because nature and more importantly energy will be no more. At this point Tesla, Newton et. al. will not matter, not a thing will matter, because the universe will be dead. So if we die in 85 years or x billion of years the final result is the same. Death is part of life and at some point even our contributions, no matter how great they are will be of no value. The old wisdom nothing last forever is true.
    - jbjohns 15y ago
      Personally I chose to ignore this point of view as it would imply that absolutely everything is completely without a point. What's the value in following such a line of thinking?
bellaire 15y ago
Both are views of death are technically correct, but focusing on the former while ignoring the latter is problematic for reasons described at length in the article.
philwelch 15y ago
Bullshit; it's not a medical failure any more than my car eventually breaking down and needing to be replaced is an engineering failure, or my house rotting away due to erosion. The second law of thermodynamics is a fundamental constraint on the universe, not a failure on our part to circumvent it.
- adrianN 15y ago
  Both your car breaking down and your house rotting away can be more or less easily prevented, if you are willing to pay. If we were unable to replace a rusted exhaust or fix a leaky roof, that would be an engineering failure.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
einhverfr 15y ago
I thought the following quote from the article made me think back to a rich history: "For many Americans, modern medical advances have made death seem more like an option than an obligation." In 1912, F. M. Cornford wrote that the Greeks had a view of fate where life was circumscribed by limits both in length and law, and and where when one stepped outside these limits, the debt of life is repaid in death. One of the interesting elements of my study of Norse myth is that the exact same pattern shows up there (although the last time I tried to fully expound that it took me 10 pages!). The overall structure seems to be that the foundation of life is a primal lot or layer which is bound by law, and incurs a debt (Old Norse 'skuld,' the name of the third Norn means 'debt') and given back at the end of life. The idea that death repays the debt that was loaned as life is a very interesting one, and it gives a sense of an obligation not only to live well but also to die well as well.
etherael 15y ago
I'm not sure that your analogy works so well, death is a natural condition of the normal life of an organism. Herpes is expressly a virus that could (theoretically) be cured. That said, I do agree with you that it is actually a failure. I just don't think it's medicine that's to blame. If you were to travel back in time to Aristotle you might be able to say that philosophy fails us when attempting to describe the laws of motion. The concept of physics was wholly contained within this discipline at that point in time and did not exist as a separate venture. In much the same way in our age the concept of engineered negligible senescence exists within the field of medicine or at a stretch, biotechnology. As physics transitioned from philosophy to science to specialist discipline, this will likely transition from medicine to biotechnology to a specialist discipline all of its own. I think the sooner we set the parameters for the quest and agree that it's worth pursuing the quicker we're likely to succeed.
yason 15y ago
Damn, my life is a big medical failure, too. The day I was born, it came packaged with death.

icebraining 15y ago

It's not so much the death itself but the fact that we can't really fix falling organs, just put band-aids to keep it running. My grandmother has osteoporosis and surgery isn't an option. When her bones finally give in and tie her to a bed, that's the end of her life, even if she lives for a few years more.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

dasil003 15y ago

There's an ethical question that you're dodging though. Personally I don't think immortality is a good thing, and I suspect most arguments in its favor our heavily driven by fear of death.

delinquentme 15y ago
I'd guess your argument against immortality is one of those covered many many times: overpopulation, overlords yadda, yadda. If you believe in 1000 years humans are still living to 80 years old, and are STILL bound to ONLY this planet ... well I think you're crazier than your love of death ( the norm ) suggests. It requires a bit of human insight to realize that the slice of cake religion advertises IS escape from the vast darkness of a perception-less void.
zanny 15y ago
My argument is that if we could develop functional immortality we could preserve the lives of the next Newton, Einstein, or even some currently living scientific minds like Hawking. Rather than have the great generational risk of losing all the collective knowledge such people accumulate and then suddenly have them die and expect their void to be filled by bright young minds interested in the same material, who then have to commit half a century just catching back up to where their progenitors were, it would be a never ending cascade of innovation and progress.
- cathrithbo 15y ago
  I agree with your optimistic stance however everyone has at least a small amount of valuable knowledge. I trust we will extend the lives of all those wish to remain alive. Since you're an optimist, you'll probably be one of them :-) dasil003 doesn't say what the ethical question is, but I think he's got it the wrong way around with motivation. As Aubrey de Grey has argued, it is the fear of death, coupled with the pessimistic assumption of death's inevitability, which makes talk of life extension taboo in many circles. ('If you can't avoid something unpleasant then embrace it' is a viable psychological strategy.) One ethical objection to not researching life extension is that huge amounts of healthcare budget go into extending the lives of frail, sick people in their final years. When we know how to keep people healthy indefinitely this problem will be solved, although pessimistic individuals will then have to take the responsibility of choosing when to die (if ever).
- twentysix 15y ago
  we could preserve the lives of the next Newton, Einstein, or even some currently living scientific minds like Hawking No we couldn't, because its not up-to you or anyone else to decide how long another person should live. How do you know if Newton or Einstein would have wanted to live longer? If a choice was available to increase ones lifespan, the choice should lie with the individual. Perhaps artificial intelligence is a much saner choice than immortality.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - haliax 15y ago
    I don't think he meant to imply the choice would lie with him, just that losing them would no longer be the only option.
  - true_religion 15y ago
    I think quite the opposite. Everyone's lifespan should be increased at birth. Then once they're sentient adults, they can choose to reduce their lives to the so called 'natural' expectancy, or even below it if they wish.
haliax 15y ago
You haven't really justified anything you've said. What is the ethical question? Why must it be fear of death rather than simply wanting more of life -- more time to spend with people you love, to do exciting things, to learn everything there is to know?
- maratd 15y ago
  > Why must it be fear of death rather than simply wanting more of life The only thing you are capable of is converting time into something else. Time is always the scarcity factor. So what if we had unlimited time? Would you pursue greatness and projects that take hundreds of years to complete? Unlikely. Let's take a look at something that is also scarce and that everybody is familiar with. Money. Would you say that the overwhelming majority of people who have lots of money engage in long-term projects to do interesting things ... or do they spend it on vain things like mansions, expensive cars, yachts, planes, etc? If you had an infinite amount of time, the first thing you would do is re-watch every episode of Star Trek, not embark on the discovery of warp drive. That's the truth nobody wants to face. The overwhelming majority of humanity is unbelievably vain and the part that isn't, is primarily motivated by scarcity. They understand they have a very limited amount of time to live and they want to get something amazing done within that time. Removing that scarcity factor will make them just as vain as you and me. EDIT: Fixed my inability to use the English language.
  - DilipJ 15y ago
    I hate to be "that guy", but you misspelled a certain word three times in your comment. I leave it to you to figure out which one. But I agree with you, in the sense that having a "deadline" is what motivates people to accomplish things. Like if your boss or teacher doubles the length of time to finish a project, it doesn't mean you'll work twice as hard, but rather that you have more time to put it off.
    - maratd 15y ago
      > misspelled a certain word three times in your comment. Well, vane is a legit word, so it's more of a misuse. I meant to use vain. I kept thinking vanity, ah well. It was bothering me, but I got sloppy.
mistercow 15y ago
Fear of death is natural and healthy. Death is a bad thing. Arguments otherwise are borne of a desire to rationalize the inevitable.
- dasil003 15y ago
  I'll give you that both arguments are borne of a desire to rationalize. Death is serious business for us. That said, I believe we live and die for a reason, and that death gives life purpose. You don't have to agree with me, but you should at least acknowledge that the statement "death is bad" represents a certain worldview, and can by no means be taken axiomatically.

phillmv 15y ago

I don't know. We clearly won't be defeating death in our lifetimes (and frankly, I'm not sure I would want to live forever stuck in my 80 year old body). Not only is death necessary for new generations, it kind of gives meaning to the time we do have. So… I'm open to the idea that we should know how to care for the dying instead of merely prolonging their misery. Everyone reading these words will die one day. Better get used to it!

kiba 15y ago
Not only is death necessary for new generations, it kind of gives meaning to the time we do have. Why do you think limited time give us meanings?
- lbotos 15y ago
  It forces us to choose. Choose what means the most to us.
  - true_religion 15y ago
    I say it hurries us into making decisions, wherein after our basic human psychology starts to rationalize the decision as 'meaningful'. If we had all the time in the world, literally, we could eventually learn to make decisions that are truly good instead of local conveniences.
  - kiba 15y ago
    It forces us to choose. Choose what means the most to us. Why don't we just choose what's the most meaningful thing to us, right now? Moreover, I think living for a really long time allows us to be more ambitious.
  - haliax 15y ago
    No it doesn't. The death of young children, or victims of accidents or violent crimes for instance, doesn't force them to chose anything. The notion that you have limited time, might make you want to prioritize. You can hardly speak for anyone else, or what makes them choose anything.

icegreentea 15y ago

Failure implies responsibility. Which is the entire point of the article. We've shifted death from something that just happens, to something that we're responsible for. We've come to believe that we are somehow above death, and that every death is due to a human failure. Which is nonsense. Similarly taking your position, we could say that computer science's inability to factor numbers in polynomial time is a failure. Clearly the fact that solving the problem may actually be impossible should play a role in assigning the label 'failure'.

swombat 15y ago
Failure implies responsibility. And I think that's a fair point, actually. Death is a responsibility. Ascribing it solely to medicine is unfair, but it is our responsibility. Could we extend the average lifespan of adults by 10 years by spending money? Easily. Most people live thoroughly unhealthy lives, many of them because they simply don't know better. Consider the whole "obesity epidemic". A large number of people will die comparatively young because of a complete failure of our society to teach them how to eat decent food. Beyond simply curing gross mistakes in self-care, what about positives? Could we find ways to get the average healthy person to treat their body even better, and squeeze out some more life expectancy? I'm sure we could. More thorough study of the effects of nutrients and toxins, more efforts to reduce the amount of crap in people's food and other items that they come into daily contact with, etc, those would probably net another few years of improvement. And that's only looking at western society. If you look at poorer countries, there are countless avoidable deaths there. Some organisations, like the Gates foundation, are trying to address some of the more obvious killers, like Malaria, which have been neglected for decades (if we'd really wanted to get rid of Malaria in the 50s, we would have done so). Overall, I think it's fair to state that we could raise the life expectancy of almost every human on this earth by 10 years if we really tried. But we choose not to. There are 7 billion humans on this planet, and every day, we, as a society, make a choice, to not bother to create 70 billion man-years of life-expectancy. It is a choice, or rather a lack of choice, and so yes, it is a responsibility. We all (me included) choose to give up on 70 billion years of human life, every day.
- finnw 15y ago

wpietri 15y ago

Death is a medical failure No. A thousand times no. Death is part of life. All composite things decay. Imagine a kindergartener on an ocean beach. They spend hours building a sand castle. They wail as the tide claims it, feeling the sting of failure. Do you agree, telling them that they screwed up in their construction? I say no. The error isn't in the building, it's in expecting the castle to last through high tide. For the skeptical, I'd encourage you to watch this documentary: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307385/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307385/ It really solidified my view that the transitory nature of all things makes them more beautiful, more poignant.

jbjohns 15y ago
I hate this view so much. How are we better off not having people like Tesla, Newton, Einstein, etc. anymore? They had to give way so we could have Dragonball Z and reality TV? The notion that we gain something by people dying is beyond nonsensical. The only benefit death will bring is when everyone who has this ridiculous view point is gone and out of the way.
- kls 15y ago
  Well if we want to take it to it's extreme end, death is a certainty. At some point all nature will decay and the universe and all energy will stop, it will all be used up. Nature will be used up and gone, barring the supernatural we will be too, so at that point even if we become naturally immortal we will die, because nature and more importantly energy will be no more. At this point Tesla, Newton et. al. will not matter, not a thing will matter, because the universe will be dead. So if we die in 85 years or x billion of years the final result is the same. Death is part of life and at some point even our contributions, no matter how great they are will be of no value. The old wisdom nothing last forever is true.
  - jbjohns 15y ago
    Personally I chose to ignore this point of view as it would imply that absolutely everything is completely without a point. What's the value in following such a line of thinking?

bellaire 15y ago

Both are views of death are technically correct, but focusing on the former while ignoring the latter is problematic for reasons described at length in the article.

philwelch 15y ago

Bullshit; it's not a medical failure any more than my car eventually breaking down and needing to be replaced is an engineering failure, or my house rotting away due to erosion. The second law of thermodynamics is a fundamental constraint on the universe, not a failure on our part to circumvent it.

adrianN 15y ago
Both your car breaking down and your house rotting away can be more or less easily prevented, if you are willing to pay. If we were unable to replace a rusted exhaust or fix a leaky roof, that would be an engineering failure.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

einhverfr 15y ago

I thought the following quote from the article made me think back to a rich history: "For many Americans, modern medical advances have made death seem more like an option than an obligation." In 1912, F. M. Cornford wrote that the Greeks had a view of fate where life was circumscribed by limits both in length and law, and and where when one stepped outside these limits, the debt of life is repaid in death. One of the interesting elements of my study of Norse myth is that the exact same pattern shows up there (although the last time I tried to fully expound that it took me 10 pages!). The overall structure seems to be that the foundation of life is a primal lot or layer which is bound by law, and incurs a debt (Old Norse 'skuld,' the name of the third Norn means 'debt') and given back at the end of life. The idea that death repays the debt that was loaned as life is a very interesting one, and it gives a sense of an obligation not only to live well but also to die well as well.

etherael 15y ago

I'm not sure that your analogy works so well, death is a natural condition of the normal life of an organism. Herpes is expressly a virus that could (theoretically) be cured. That said, I do agree with you that it is actually a failure. I just don't think it's medicine that's to blame. If you were to travel back in time to Aristotle you might be able to say that philosophy fails us when attempting to describe the laws of motion. The concept of physics was wholly contained within this discipline at that point in time and did not exist as a separate venture. In much the same way in our age the concept of engineered negligible senescence exists within the field of medicine or at a stretch, biotechnology. As physics transitioned from philosophy to science to specialist discipline, this will likely transition from medicine to biotechnology to a specialist discipline all of its own. I think the sooner we set the parameters for the quest and agree that it's worth pursuing the quicker we're likely to succeed.

yason 15y ago

Damn, my life is a big medical failure, too. The day I was born, it came packaged with death.