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On Being Not Dead
- davros 14y agoLovely essay, its great to be reminded. The more aware (dare I say mindful) you are of the joy of life, the more joy you experience.
- lalc 14y agoCompelling piece about simple, ephemeral beauty. Only one thing sticks out. Beethoven's Great Fugue is not a miracle of the universe.
- pav3l 14y ago>Beethoven's Great Fugue is not a miracle of the universe. No, but our ability to enjoy it is.
- AnthonBerg 14y agoThat it is is.
- _feda_ 14y agoDo you mean to imply that work of art generally are less 'miraculous' than that of nature, are you speaking exclusively about beethoven?
- reasonattlm 14y agoBased on my discussions over the years, a majority of people want to be dead - just not right now. Or rather, to be more precise, they either hold or find it convenient to pretend to hold the belief that they want to be dead at some point in the future that roughly corresponds with other people's similarly declared desire to be dead at some point in the future. It's pretty easy to turn up this complex of beliefs and signaling and ideas: just talk to people about greatly extending the healthy human life span. Your average fellow will disavow such an idea, even if it comes with good health all the way. Oh no, they will say, why would anyone want to live for such a time. I'll be glad to go. So, in general, people want to be dead. Just not right now this minute. As to this: some days I talk about it, some days I throw up my hands, and some days I wonder whether or not it is the most insane thing in the mad world. Possibly, possibly not. From a utilitarian perspective, sure, yes, as a widespread belief it has effects going forward (in this age of biotechnology in which we might largely remove involuntary death if we actually cared enough to do that, but the signs so far are that not so many people do) that are worse than war, worse than poverty, worse than all the disasters of a century rolled into one. From the perspective of a metric of craziness of what is believed or adhered to, possibly not as bad as religions, either civic or devotional.
- vividmind 14y ago> Based on my discussions over the years, a majority of people want to be dead - just not right now. WOW! This really struck me now... Imagine how your behaviour would change if you didn't have this expectation!
- barrkel 14y agoProbably for the negative, given the human propensity for procrastination.
- kiba 14y agoCome with me! Let the deathists buries their dead.
- graeme 14y agoYou sound very confident that immortality would be a good thing. Maybe. We've never experienced it, so how can you be sure? To be clear, I THINK my own immortality would be nice, but I can't even be sure about that. Immortality for EVERYONE would fundamentally change our societies. Every human institution is affected by death. Removing it would change everything, unpredictably. If you can find an English version (or read Spanish), the Immortal by Borges is a good partial exploration of this theme, for an individual. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immortal_(short_story) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immortal_(short_story)
- Wingman4l7 14y agoA good examination of radical life extension and its repercussions on society, life, and memory is examined in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy.
- zacharycohn 14y agoAlso, Robert Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love."
- reasonattlm 14y ago
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- _feda_ 14y agomy 16 yo sister died two weeks ago tommorow. when i saw her dead just minutes after she had died, the first corpse i'd ever seen, one the things that popped into my head was how happy i should be to be alive. she died from cystic fibrosis, a disease that will most likely be eradicated completely in coming years by gene therapy &c. We should be thankful to live into old age, nevermind immortality, although I'd be surprised of anyone to refuse it considering our standard of life in the developed world.
- pestaa 14y agoI cannot imagine how difficult it could have been for you to comment on this article. I am sorry for your loss.
- rfrey 14y agoMy heart goes out to you. Your response to your grief is an inspiration.
- _feda_ 14y agomuch appreciated. At the moment, being happy feels like the natural thing to do.
- pebb 14y agoNo it won't. Cure destroys income and profit, while ineffective "treatment" brings massive profit. It literally is sick care. Checkout lef.org
- Tloewald 14y agoThe main thing I got out of this article, aside from the distinction between being glad to be alive vs. not dead, which seems to me to be a fine one, is that I simply must check out Beethoven's Opus 133 "Große Fuge" (there's only one option in iTunes and it's album only).
- lionhearted 14y agoIt's nice -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s0Mp7LFI-k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s0Mp7LFI-k
- mbetter 14y agoListening to a Petersen Quartett performance right now, quite brilliant.
- ctdonath 14y agoHaving been dead, I'd say it's nice being not dead. Relaxing even, knowing that things can't get much worse than what I've already been thru. A CPR instructor once was adamant "your heart stops, you're dead." I pressed him on various edge cases, but he did not relent - and the notion suck with me. Twelve years later, a nurse in the waiting room told my wife "your husband is doing fine; they're stopping his heart now." An hour or so later it was restarted, and a few hours thereafter awoke. Over the next few years, if not for modern medical technology I'd be dead some four times over. Not such dramatic brushes with the other side, but more reminders that not being dead is, as life progresses, ever more unusual and precious. Like most things, there is much fear of something until you've been there - and sometimes greater appreciation of not going there. As I stand here writing this and discussing turtles with my toddler, how precious every tiny moment is being here - and how calm the knowledge that, in short order after any moment, I might not be. Nothing bothers me now - except perhaps when someone is unappreciative of the little time we have.
- jacquesm 14y agoThat's quite a story. Nothing brings out a persons ability to appreciate the moment and focus on the things that really matter in life than a close call. Suddenly what side of the wash-stand the toothbrushes are on seems to be not worth making a fuss over.
- jason_adleberg 14y agoDid anyone else expect one of the characters to immediately tragically die at some point in the story... or is it just me
- lloeki 14y agoNot until just before they enjoyed the traffic lights, where I thought his friend might just die of a heart attack any minute. I guess this tells us the message has been passed, that life is fragile and worthy of enjoyment.
- hakaaak 14y agoLife is about action. Being "not dead" to me suggests not being done with what you do. To live without action is not living, but I guess you are "not dead". However, to fully embrace being "not dead" means you still need to do something. Why in the hell philosophy is being so heavily considered here is beyond me though. If hackers really think about life too much, they stop hacking and start living. Hacking is doing but in a way that really isn't changing anything truly permanently. Having kids and providing them with a good environment that they then pass on to their kids and their kids... that is permanent. They won't remember your crappy webapp or your nifty tech startup nor will they give a shit about your talk circuit or the books you wrote on some aspect of some framework that no one will use 10 years from now. Helping others and raising a family can do real and permanent good. That is being "not dead".
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- connortomas 14y agoAgreed in general, though I'd dispute your point that hacking can't do permanent good. Sure, in fifty years, you likely won't care about the web app you built, but maybe that app helped somebody achieve their goals or inspired somebody else in some way, and that is what you'll remember. The work itself is never important in the long run... it's how that work helped others in some way.
- simonh 14y agoPeople display apparently contrarian behaviour all the time for perfectly rational reasons. Nobody 'wants' to pay taxes, yet we often vote for governments that raise taxes because we agree with what they intend to spend it on. We agree with the national speed limits becaus ethey improve road safety, then break the speed limit with embarrasing frequency. I think this is another similar case. Hardly anyone really wants to die, but most of us can appreciate that eliminating death would rapidly lead to appalling resource crises, so I can easily see a majority choosing to ban such a technology unless the fairly obvious potential negative consequences can be shown to be resolvable.
- Nursie 14y agoAnd it's that thought pattern that will mean that if we find a key to immortality, those of us that would rather try to manage the fallout rather than be consigned to the earth will be denied the opportunity. Well that and the inevitable 'OMG unnatural, stop playing god'.
- simonh 14y agoHere's the last part of my comment again: "..unless the fairly obvious potential negative consequences can be shown to be resolvable" Demonstrate that you have a credible strategy for managing the fallout and I'd back you up myself. What you don't get to do is just charge ahead on a wish and a prayer that maybe you can mitigate the consequences. Show some responsibility and actually address the issues, and who knows?
- Nursie 14y ago'What you don't get to do is just charge ahead on a wish and a prayer that maybe you can mitigate the consequences.' Why should you get to say whether I can live forever? You don't want to, go ahead and die. That came across as more confrontational than I intended. There will never be a credible strategy until the situation is faced, humanity does not seem to work the other way (with actual foresight).
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- tobydownton 14y agoThis was the line that really grabbed me: "I’ve come to believe that a good cry is like a carwash for the soul." Beautiful!