4 ms·

> Radical life extension within our lifetimes has become secular religion substitute. It’s driven more by hope and faith than by scientific fact. Did someone p

by ben_w 1y ago

> Radical life extension within our lifetimes has become secular religion substitute. It’s driven more by hope and faith than by scientific fact. Did someone prove mice have souls that go to heaven or hell while I wasn't looking? For all the limits of research that only works in mice and doesn't generalise to humans (I'm *not* going to plan with the assumption of radical longevity) it's not quite as bad as taking everythin on faith.

lupusreal 1y ago
The secular religion spoken of by nabla has nothing to do with afterlives. It's for people who don't believe in any afterlife trying to placate their fear of death by having faith that technology will somehow grant them an indefinite life, not an afterlife. (Context: I am firmly an atheist, but I also disapprove of the people who want to live forever. I think that's selfish and childish. People should get to grips with the reality of their mortality and make peace with that.)
- cft 1y ago
  I agree. For one, most people don't change. In the sense that their ideas don't change. For the ideas to change in the society, sometimes people themselves have to be replaced, i.e. generations have to change.
- ben_w 1y ago
  > People should get to grips with the reality of their mortality and make peace with that. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw
  - lupusreal 1y ago
    That's nice, but you're still going to die. We all will, and the world is better off for it because progress happens one funeral at a time.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      That mistakes academic personal power for all power: If funerals were in general the only way progress happened, every genocide would cause scientific/technological/economic revolutions. Recessions are sufficient to clear bad leadership in the private sector; elections in democratic governments.
ecb_penguin 1y ago
> Did someone prove mice have souls that go to heaven or hell while I wasn't looking? What does this have to do with a soul? The comment was about people treating life extension as a religion based on faith more than evidence. Nothing to do with the soul, or heaven, or anything else.
- ben_w 1y ago
  Heaven and hell, souls, they're just examples sampled from the set of things called "religious". Radical life extension has been demonstrated… in mice. If you don't like my chosen examples, take any other religious statement and demonstrate it in a mouse. Have Anubis weigh their heart against a feather, pay Charon to cross the Styx, whatever. Point isn't the specific it's compared against, it's the entire set that longevity definitely isn't in, because unlike those things it has been demonstrated (in mice).
Viliam1234 1y ago
> Did someone prove mice have souls that go to heaven or hell while I wasn't looking? Yep, here is the documentary: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3804810/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3804810/

by ben_w 1y ago

lupusreal 1y ago

The secular religion spoken of by nabla has nothing to do with afterlives. It's for people who don't believe in any afterlife trying to placate their fear of death by having faith that technology will somehow grant them an indefinite life, not an afterlife. (Context: I am firmly an atheist, but I also disapprove of the people who want to live forever. I think that's selfish and childish. People should get to grips with the reality of their mortality and make peace with that.)

cft 1y ago
I agree. For one, most people don't change. In the sense that their ideas don't change. For the ideas to change in the society, sometimes people themselves have to be replaced, i.e. generations have to change.
ben_w 1y ago
> People should get to grips with the reality of their mortality and make peace with that. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw
- lupusreal 1y ago
  That's nice, but you're still going to die. We all will, and the world is better off for it because progress happens one funeral at a time.
  - ben_w 1y ago
    That mistakes academic personal power for all power: If funerals were in general the only way progress happened, every genocide would cause scientific/technological/economic revolutions. Recessions are sufficient to clear bad leadership in the private sector; elections in democratic governments.

ecb_penguin 1y ago

> Did someone prove mice have souls that go to heaven or hell while I wasn't looking? What does this have to do with a soul? The comment was about people treating life extension as a religion based on faith more than evidence. Nothing to do with the soul, or heaven, or anything else.

ben_w 1y ago
Heaven and hell, souls, they're just examples sampled from the set of things called "religious". Radical life extension has been demonstrated… in mice. If you don't like my chosen examples, take any other religious statement and demonstrate it in a mouse. Have Anubis weigh their heart against a feather, pay Charon to cross the Styx, whatever. Point isn't the specific it's compared against, it's the entire set that longevity definitely isn't in, because unlike those things it has been demonstrated (in mice).

Viliam1234 1y ago

> Did someone prove mice have souls that go to heaven or hell while I wasn't looking? Yep, here is the documentary: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3804810/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3804810/