4 ms·

Being old is not limited to how you look. It’s also how your world views change, how your personality evolves, etc. Also you didn’t address my almost-no-childr

Being old is not limited to how you look. It’s also how your world views change, how your personality evolves, etc. Also you didn’t address my almost-no-children point. That one I think is the stronger point. Looking at my children grow older day after day is the thing that bring me the most joy and sens of meaning in my life.

lisper 2y ago
> Being old is not limited to how you look. This is really important. Being young is cool not just because your body works better but because you still have a lot to discover. Discovery is fun. Experiencing something for the first time is fun. But the problem is that you can only experience something for the first time once. The second time it might still be fun, or the third time, but by the time you do something 100 times or 1000 times or 10,000 times it becomes less fun. This is one of the major differences between doing something as a hobby and doing it as a job. When it's a hobby, when it stops being fun, you can just quit. And sooner or later, everything stops being fun if you do it often enough. The problem is not that we don't live long enough, the problem is that most people don't have the freedom to do the things they want to do in the time they have. That is a much more tractable problem, and it is the one we should be working on, not extending life spans. If you have the wherewithall, ~100 years is more than enough time to get sick and tired of everything.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > The problem is not that we don't live long enough, the problem is that most people don't have the freedom to do the things they want to do in the time they have. That is a much more tractable problem, and it is the one we should be working on, not extending life spans. We as a species can do both without either slowing down the other — biotech researchers aren't the same skillset as politicians. > If you have the wherewithall, ~100 years is more than enough time to get sick and tired of everything. Disagree, that requires a personality which gets bored quickly. Expertise comes from having the passion stay for long enough to get really good — despite the meme this isn't exactly 10k hours, but it's still long enough that you can fail to grow sick of living after properly mastering just fifteen things in a century. But even if you did, being ageless doesn't take away the opportunity to cease to be. If it's really all that dull, people will just take up extreme sports such as juggling honey badgers or naked skydiving over active volcanoes.
  - lisper 2y ago
    Those poor honey badgers. That may sound like a punch line, but it is actually a serious point: our existence has externalities that need to be taken into account. If you're going to argue for the value of potential experiences that will never be had by old people because they die, then I think you also need to consider the value of potential experiences that will never be had by young people because they are never born since all available resources are being used in perpetuity by the lucky generation that came along just as the longevity technology matured.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Arguing for the potential future of young people who won't be born, is a thing that some do. Not me, I think there's a hyperbolic discount to unwritten futures¹, and that we should live in the present with a view to the foreseeable future — a future which is, IMO, currently "about 5 years"², because there's too many things changing to see further than that anyway. Perhaps one day things will calm down, and we can be confident of what our experiences will be a millennium into the future; or perhaps that future, being filled by other humans just like ourselves who are themselves all making predictions of what will come, will be inherently chaotic beyond our own ability to forecast. And a millennium is what you want for starters if you are to explore the stars, as space dust becomes dangerous well before relativity makes a huge difference. ¹ https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2020/01/08-21.46.38.html https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2020/01/08-21.46.38.html ² https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2024/03/23-17.24.34.html https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2024/03/23-17.24.34.html
      - lisper 2y ago
        > I think there's a hyperbolic discount to unwritten futures. And yet you value the unwritten futures of existing people. BTW, it's not just about the actual unborn, it's all the existing people who want the experience of having and raising children who won't be able to. Personally, I am happily childless by choice, but I am given to understand that some people find it a very fulfilling experience.
ben_w 2y ago
> Being old is not limited to how you look. It’s also how your world views change, how your personality evolves, etc. It's also your muscles, which won't be old, and the on-going feeling of a ticking biological clock driving people to say "kids, now, before it is too late". It's also how much sleep you need, how much energy you have. It's also your metabolism, your ability to recover from light injuries, to exercise, to excel at sport. It's also neuro-plasticity. We don't have good examples to even guess if world-views (or fashion choices) lock in place because of brain age, or because we've seen too much and become bored. But personality, that we can already change with chemistry; it's not a reason by itself for anything. > Looking at my children grow older day after day is the thing that bring me the most joy and sens of meaning in my life. Good for you :) But for me, I wish I'd had kids already, but I have many other joys until I find someone who can help me with that (most of my friends are deliberately child-free). If I became ageless, it wouldn't be a worry to wait.
- qsdf38100 2y ago
  What is it you suggest we can change with chemistry? Is it boredom? Are you suggesting we can keep enjoying the things we are bored with thanks to LSD or something? So, a childless world with centuries-old people drowning there boredom in drugs? Please tell me that's not it.

lisper 2y ago

> Being old is not limited to how you look. This is really important. Being young is cool not just because your body works better but because you still have a lot to discover. Discovery is fun. Experiencing something for the first time is fun. But the problem is that you can only experience something for the first time once. The second time it might still be fun, or the third time, but by the time you do something 100 times or 1000 times or 10,000 times it becomes less fun. This is one of the major differences between doing something as a hobby and doing it as a job. When it's a hobby, when it stops being fun, you can just quit. And sooner or later, everything stops being fun if you do it often enough. The problem is not that we don't live long enough, the problem is that most people don't have the freedom to do the things they want to do in the time they have. That is a much more tractable problem, and it is the one we should be working on, not extending life spans. If you have the wherewithall, ~100 years is more than enough time to get sick and tired of everything.

ben_w 2y ago
> The problem is not that we don't live long enough, the problem is that most people don't have the freedom to do the things they want to do in the time they have. That is a much more tractable problem, and it is the one we should be working on, not extending life spans. We as a species can do both without either slowing down the other — biotech researchers aren't the same skillset as politicians. > If you have the wherewithall, ~100 years is more than enough time to get sick and tired of everything. Disagree, that requires a personality which gets bored quickly. Expertise comes from having the passion stay for long enough to get really good — despite the meme this isn't exactly 10k hours, but it's still long enough that you can fail to grow sick of living after properly mastering just fifteen things in a century. But even if you did, being ageless doesn't take away the opportunity to cease to be. If it's really all that dull, people will just take up extreme sports such as juggling honey badgers or naked skydiving over active volcanoes.
- lisper 2y ago
  Those poor honey badgers. That may sound like a punch line, but it is actually a serious point: our existence has externalities that need to be taken into account. If you're going to argue for the value of potential experiences that will never be had by old people because they die, then I think you also need to consider the value of potential experiences that will never be had by young people because they are never born since all available resources are being used in perpetuity by the lucky generation that came along just as the longevity technology matured.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Arguing for the potential future of young people who won't be born, is a thing that some do. Not me, I think there's a hyperbolic discount to unwritten futures¹, and that we should live in the present with a view to the foreseeable future — a future which is, IMO, currently "about 5 years"², because there's too many things changing to see further than that anyway. Perhaps one day things will calm down, and we can be confident of what our experiences will be a millennium into the future; or perhaps that future, being filled by other humans just like ourselves who are themselves all making predictions of what will come, will be inherently chaotic beyond our own ability to forecast. And a millennium is what you want for starters if you are to explore the stars, as space dust becomes dangerous well before relativity makes a huge difference. ¹ https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2020/01/08-21.46.38.html https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2020/01/08-21.46.38.html ² https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2024/03/23-17.24.34.html https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2024/03/23-17.24.34.html
    - lisper 2y ago
      > I think there's a hyperbolic discount to unwritten futures. And yet you value the unwritten futures of existing people. BTW, it's not just about the actual unborn, it's all the existing people who want the experience of having and raising children who won't be able to. Personally, I am happily childless by choice, but I am given to understand that some people find it a very fulfilling experience.

ben_w 2y ago

> Being old is not limited to how you look. It’s also how your world views change, how your personality evolves, etc. It's also your muscles, which won't be old, and the on-going feeling of a ticking biological clock driving people to say "kids, now, before it is too late". It's also how much sleep you need, how much energy you have. It's also your metabolism, your ability to recover from light injuries, to exercise, to excel at sport. It's also neuro-plasticity. We don't have good examples to even guess if world-views (or fashion choices) lock in place because of brain age, or because we've seen too much and become bored. But personality, that we can already change with chemistry; it's not a reason by itself for anything. > Looking at my children grow older day after day is the thing that bring me the most joy and sens of meaning in my life. Good for you :) But for me, I wish I'd had kids already, but I have many other joys until I find someone who can help me with that (most of my friends are deliberately child-free). If I became ageless, it wouldn't be a worry to wait.

qsdf38100 2y ago
What is it you suggest we can change with chemistry? Is it boredom? Are you suggesting we can keep enjoying the things we are bored with thanks to LSD or something? So, a childless world with centuries-old people drowning there boredom in drugs? Please tell me that's not it.