3 ms·

Aging and cancer are also Lindy. Two things you'll always find someone to defend with vigor are sleep and death. A lot of humans seem to despise living in gene

by glerk 2mo ago

Aging and cancer are also Lindy. Two things you'll always find someone to defend with vigor are sleep and death. A lot of humans seem to despise living in general. It's fascinating to see.

ben_w 2mo ago
Sleep is less surprising for me to see people defend than death, to the extent that I'm not sure if I myself have or not done so. I mean, I can directly feel the benefit of a good sleep that refreshes me in the morning, whereas there's those who have passed on whom I miss. If I didn't need sleep, really didn't, I wouldn't seek to re-invent it; but of the two it is old age that I'd actively pay money to hold back, if treatments for both existed at the same cost per extra hour of consciousness in my lifetime.
- glerk 2mo ago
  Obviously, every single one of us needs sleep to survive. But it's a biological chore, not some sacred ritual to be celebrated. Reducing the amount of sleep that we need is worth researching. What is surprising to me is the knee-jerk reaction I see whenever the idea of looking into this is brought up.
  - Qem 2mo ago
    > What is surprising to me is the knee-jerk reaction I see whenever the idea of looking into this is brought up. It's because if it were achieved, likely result would be employers forcing people to take the drug and increasing daily work hours back to 16+.
    - glerk 2mo ago
      > likely result would be employers forcing people to take the drug How so? You can just... refuse? And do you prefer sleeping to working? Doing a job that you hate for 8h and sleeping for 8h is much worse than doing a job that you love for 16h. Something to think about.
      - Qem 2mo ago
        > How so? You can just... refuse? It would be like doping in some elite sports, say road race cycling in Lance Armstrong era. Nobody would be coerced by force, but some people would start taking it, making less sleep time the new normal. With time business would adjust to expect and require it, and other people would be forced to take the drug just to not become unemployable in a market with a upshifted baseline. I think this is already happening in education, with ADHD medications. Children are likely being overdiagnosed, because in a environment with many medicated children, just displaying normal child behaviour starts looking odd, pathology-like. > Doing a job that you hate for 8h and sleeping for 8h is much worse than doing a job that you love for 16h. Some jobs just suck but somebody still has to do them.
      - ben_w 2mo ago
        In addition to what Qem said, some people don't have much control over their job opportunities, take whatever they can get, and in those roles do whatever they're ordered to do. Amazon piss bottles come to mind. Even without malice or orders, sometimes every actor in the economy can be locally motivated in a way that ends up the same. Boss gives you 40 hours, but rent is too high for a 40-hour week? Guess you're taking two jobs now.
- FeteCommuniste 2mo ago
  Even if I never needed to sleep again I would kind of miss dreaming. Maybe we could take another drug to make us dream.
adamtaylor_13 2mo ago
Well... Sleep and death are natural. I'm not convinced you see people "defend" death so much as (rightly) acknowledging the inevitability of it. The latter half of your comment is rather smug, but I wouldn't look down on people who have peacefully accepted reality. Time is fleeting and we are but flowers in a field—briefly brightly bloomed and then withered.
- cindyllm 2mo ago
  [dead]
- glerk 2mo ago
  > I wouldn't look down on people who have peacefully accepted reality Throughout human history, all progress was achieved by people who refused to "peacefully accept reality". But I hope you also get to reap the benefits and correct your depressing mindset some day.
  - adamtaylor_13 2mo ago
    I'm filled with joy and it has nothing to do with my "mindset", I appreciate your concern though! While it is tempting view all of human progress as some heroic feat of raging against the machine, it seems much more likely to me that progress came from accepting reality, and then working within the bounds of physics.
axus 2mo ago
Society would adapt without sleep, but ending death would mark the beginning of a nightmare humanity never wakes up from.
- glerk 2mo ago
  Like clockwork :)

by glerk 2mo ago

Aging and cancer are also Lindy. Two things you'll always find someone to defend with vigor are sleep and death. A lot of humans seem to despise living in general. It's fascinating to see.

ben_w 2mo ago

Sleep is less surprising for me to see people defend than death, to the extent that I'm not sure if I myself have or not done so. I mean, I can directly feel the benefit of a good sleep that refreshes me in the morning, whereas there's those who have passed on whom I miss. If I didn't need sleep, really didn't, I wouldn't seek to re-invent it; but of the two it is old age that I'd actively pay money to hold back, if treatments for both existed at the same cost per extra hour of consciousness in my lifetime.

glerk 2mo ago
Obviously, every single one of us needs sleep to survive. But it's a biological chore, not some sacred ritual to be celebrated. Reducing the amount of sleep that we need is worth researching. What is surprising to me is the knee-jerk reaction I see whenever the idea of looking into this is brought up.
- Qem 2mo ago
  > What is surprising to me is the knee-jerk reaction I see whenever the idea of looking into this is brought up. It's because if it were achieved, likely result would be employers forcing people to take the drug and increasing daily work hours back to 16+.
  - glerk 2mo ago
    > likely result would be employers forcing people to take the drug How so? You can just... refuse? And do you prefer sleeping to working? Doing a job that you hate for 8h and sleeping for 8h is much worse than doing a job that you love for 16h. Something to think about.
    - Qem 2mo ago
      > How so? You can just... refuse? It would be like doping in some elite sports, say road race cycling in Lance Armstrong era. Nobody would be coerced by force, but some people would start taking it, making less sleep time the new normal. With time business would adjust to expect and require it, and other people would be forced to take the drug just to not become unemployable in a market with a upshifted baseline. I think this is already happening in education, with ADHD medications. Children are likely being overdiagnosed, because in a environment with many medicated children, just displaying normal child behaviour starts looking odd, pathology-like. > Doing a job that you hate for 8h and sleeping for 8h is much worse than doing a job that you love for 16h. Some jobs just suck but somebody still has to do them.
    - ben_w 2mo ago
      In addition to what Qem said, some people don't have much control over their job opportunities, take whatever they can get, and in those roles do whatever they're ordered to do. Amazon piss bottles come to mind. Even without malice or orders, sometimes every actor in the economy can be locally motivated in a way that ends up the same. Boss gives you 40 hours, but rent is too high for a 40-hour week? Guess you're taking two jobs now.
FeteCommuniste 2mo ago
Even if I never needed to sleep again I would kind of miss dreaming. Maybe we could take another drug to make us dream.

adamtaylor_13 2mo ago

Well... Sleep and death are natural. I'm not convinced you see people "defend" death so much as (rightly) acknowledging the inevitability of it. The latter half of your comment is rather smug, but I wouldn't look down on people who have peacefully accepted reality. Time is fleeting and we are but flowers in a field—briefly brightly bloomed and then withered.

cindyllm 2mo ago
[dead]
glerk 2mo ago
> I wouldn't look down on people who have peacefully accepted reality Throughout human history, all progress was achieved by people who refused to "peacefully accept reality". But I hope you also get to reap the benefits and correct your depressing mindset some day.
- adamtaylor_13 2mo ago
  I'm filled with joy and it has nothing to do with my "mindset", I appreciate your concern though! While it is tempting view all of human progress as some heroic feat of raging against the machine, it seems much more likely to me that progress came from accepting reality, and then working within the bounds of physics.

axus 2mo ago

Society would adapt without sleep, but ending death would mark the beginning of a nightmare humanity never wakes up from.

glerk 2mo ago
Like clockwork :)