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I think that immortality would be a disaster, personally. That we die is a critically important aspect of life. I'd prefer that we work on ways to make the deat
by JohnFen 2y ago
I think that immortality would be a disaster, personally. That we die is a critically important aspect of life. I'd prefer that we work on ways to make the death process less traumatic.
- black_13 2y ago[dead]
- nancybelowzero 2y ago>critically important aspect of life Nothing says "life" like being dead.
- BenFranklin100 2y agoNothing stopping you from dying. You make your personal decisions and let others make theirs.
- vanviegen 2y agoThere are some externalities at play here though... - We currently only have one world that all living humans must share. - Imagine the sickening amount of power some people would be able to gather given a few centuries. That can't be good for everyone else.
- rob74 2y agoWell, people already gather that sickening amount of power - not for themselves, for their heirs, but still - take the soon-to-be-again US president: he probably wouldn't be where he is right now if his father hadn't amassed a considerable fortune which he inherited.
- portaouflop 2y agoSo it’s bad already let’s make it an absolutely alhellish nightmare?
- boogr 2y ago[dead]
- bookofjoe 2y agoYes. I have long believed that all those who applaud death as a good thing — Steve Jobs most memorably in his address at Stanford — will be first in line for life extension once it becomes an option.
- lm28469 2y agoDon't worry you'll die just as they will It doesn't matter how much you like sci fi, even if it was technically possible it would be reserved to the 0.001% and you'd still be grinding your whole life just as you are doing now
- JoshTriplett 2y agoThe future never arrives in an evenly distributed fashion, but it reaches everyone eventually.
- huttyoop 2y agoYou are welcome to die from any number of preventable deaths. I choose life.
- ericmcer 2y agoWhy? We have already decimated any semblance of natural selection so death is no longer a necessity from an evolutionary standpoint. Maybe immortal humans would be more beneficent because they wouldn't be scrambling to get ahead in their short time here. If I didn't only have 30-40ish productive years to achieve whatever I will in this life it would be much easier to donate money or time to charitable pursuits.
- lm28469 2y agoEverything would scale with it, 30 or 300 years, as long as you're running the same system it wouldn't matter Not even talking about the fact that we live in a very finite system
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoI like knowing that the worlds biggest assholes sometimes lie awake at night fearfully pondering their own death. I don't want to deprive them of that.
- portaouflop 2y agoThe Great Equalizer
- 9dev 2y agoWell. How would you like a 290 years old Putin keeping a tight grip on Russia in the 23rd century?
- all2 2y agoI see, so this is where the God-Emporer of Man comes from. purge the xenos
- prometheus76 2y agoWouldn't any change we make to who dies when also be natural? How is that not natural selection? Did earlier generations not attempt to stay alive?
- deleted 2y ago
- wing-_-nuts 2y agoTo be frank, the extent to which the very old now dominate science, business and politics is already unhealthy. I shudder to think what our world would look like if our most important positions of power were dominated by men born 110 years ago. They say science advances one death at a time. Looking at congress, I think you can say the same for politics as well.
- hindsightbias 2y agoWe could just have mandatory brain preservation at 50. Have to be a biologic to be in a position of authority.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jknoepfler 2y agoI don't know why you're getting so much pushback... Planetary resources are finite. If you give up dying, you have to give up reproducing beyond the replacement rate. People like to imagine they'll be part of some small tribe of a lucky few immortals, but the reality is we'd be in exactly the same situation as today, but with a population rapidly screeching beyond all known sustainable limits far faster than it is today. To name just one obvious problem. Success of something like this entails a way to regulate reproduction at a far more draconian level than even China's one-child policy. I don't think any civilized nation could impose a "no child" policy and remain intact.
- portaouflop 2y ago> but the reality is we'd be in exactly the same situation as today, but with a population rapidly screeching beyond all known sustainable limits far faster than it is today I don’t think this is a given. Most developed nations have bad birth rates for example
- marcodiego 2y agoWhat if death is just a 'feature' of how life evolved in this planet? What if we discover life in other planets that are just endless? It just seems too anthropocentric to think that all forms of life must die. Ok, that maybe part of how 'WE' define life, but, for me, that looks a lot like an arbitrary definition.
- lm28469 2y agoIt's a bit like fighting against the ocean imho, it doesn't matter how much you put into it you'll always lose eventually. It's much simpler to accept and live within your constraints than to waste your life and mental energy wishing you could be/do something you will never be/do. If you think about it most of the things we "fix" are extremely wonky, even something such as a bone fracture isn't guaranteed to heal 100%, most medicine have massive side effects, organ transplants have something like 50% survival at 15 years on average, &c. We think we're getting more and more control on things but most of it is a hack job temporarily delaying the inevitable Also, anyone thinking being uploaded to a computer forever is heaven on earth must live a pretty fucking terrible life to begin with
- portaouflop 2y agoIt would be hell on earth literally
- jajko 2y agoImagine people like putin pouring billions in, easily sacrificing millions to achieve such thing for themselves, and ideally nobody else. A truly terrible scenario worth fighting against. Some folks are scared of rogue AI, when biggest threat to mankind always was, is and will be other, properly messed up humans with certain capabilities.
- kajumix 2y agoWhen I look back on my 45 years life, there are spans which feel like a different life altogether. I thought differently, and made choices that I won't make today. I'd say "in my former life" as if that life ended and a new one began. I suspect youthful immortality would be a sequence of many deaths and rebirths. If you had the neuroplasticity of a 25 year old and the experience and wisdom of a 50 year old, I imagine it won't get boring, and perhaps new ideas and modes of living won't require a generation to die, and a new one to be born.