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That was incredibly inspiring, and incredibly depressing. As a Drupal fanatic who built my career on it, and a person also dealing with a terminal illness (tho

That was incredibly inspiring, and incredibly depressing. As a Drupal fanatic who built my career on it, and a person also dealing with a terminal illness (though I have a couple years left, if all goes well), it's upsetting to see that someone who gave me so much, now has to go through all that. I feel genuine pain and am quite legitimately upset now. I wish Aaron and his family all the best (considering).

SiVal 13y ago
I wish you the best, too, along with Aaron. I've occasionally asked other people what they thought the worst problem in the world was. Nobody has ever answered with my answer: that all of our loved ones are going to die. The utter inevitability of death within a few decades of birth is so thoroughly taken for granted that people are vastly more concerned about the NSA or carbon dioxide than about literally saving the lives of everyone they care about. We need a working backup and recovery plan for people as soon as possible. How soon it will happen will probably depend a great deal on how soon a critical mass of people can be made to see it as an actual engineering problem urgently requiring a solution.
- rfvtgb123 13y ago
  And from then on, are we going to keep people from having children or are we going to let massive overpopulation happen? Where to recover the stored minds to? That said, in my oppinion a big part of what makes life worthwhile IS that it is finite. [I am working with the assumption that by "backup and recovery plan for people" essentially you are talking about making people immortal by backing up their mind before the body dies and somehow keeping it working, e.g. recovering it to a different body.]
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    Fortunately the tech required to restore minds will most likely solve the overpopulation problems as well. One mistake people make when discussing cryopreservation is considering it in isolation. Reviving frozen minds will likely require some form of basic molecular nanotech, and this same technology can in principle convert dirt to habitats on Earth and in space. As for my opinion about dying: fuck that. I don't want to die. I don't see any reason for any of us to pass away. If we can fix this, then let's do it.
    - rfvtgb123 13y ago
      cryopreservation That's not what I was talking about. Reviving frozen minds Frozen. Minds. Say What? will likely require some form of basic molecular nanotech, Wild assertion. and this same technology can in principle convert dirt to habitats on Earth and in space. Wild speculation. To sum it up - you have nothing. Asserting "OH the tech we will have by then will magically fix it and we will live in space" is not a solution. It's not relevant to you and me anyway because we will likely not be able to backup and restore minds during our lifetime. Additionally, bodies frozen today will NEVER be revived because the body and brain are utterly damaged in the process (http://www.skepdic.com/cryonics.html http://www.skepdic.com/cryonics.html).
      - TeMPOraL 13y ago
        > That's not what I was talking about. I was refering to the "backup and recovery plan for people" part of your comment, following the best idea about it we nowdays have. > Frozen. Minds. Say What? Yup. >> will likely require some form of basic molecular nanotech, > Wild assertion. It's not a wild assertion, it's the basic assumption of this concept. Cryonics by definition is "let's freeze dying people 'till we crack nanotech". See also [0]. >> and this same technology can in principle convert dirt to habitats on Earth and in space. > Wild speculation. If we get nanotech (even just by reprogramming nanotech that is already around us) then this is the consequence. It's not a speculation - this comes straight from the premise. Actually, cheap construction abilities should come much earlier than revival. Notice that we already made some progress in reprogramming viruses and bacteria, as well as using protocells to construct structures (there was a TED talk about it some time ago). > To sum it up - you have nothing. Asserting "OH the tech we will have by then will magically fix it and we will live in space" is not a solution. The thing I was arguing is that if we get the tech to escape death, then the same tech will solve overpopulation problem earlier, as it's much easier. Therefore, we don't have to consider overpopulation when discussing whether or not we should freeze people. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics#Revival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics#Revival
        rfvtgb123 13y ago
- SatvikBeri 13y ago
  Completely agreed. If the average global life expectancy were to drop from 70 years today to 35 years, that would be a tragedy even larger than the holocaust. But that's what life was like for the average human 100 years ago. The vast majority of humans have had fewer than 30 years to live. That really sucks. Now imagine we're talking about a time when the average life span is one thousand years (or one million, or one billion), and the vast majority of humans got to experience less than 10% of that. Well, that's what is happening now. That's not to say life is sad. I would much rather have 30 years of life than 0 years. But life can be so much more than it is today.

SiVal 13y ago

I wish you the best, too, along with Aaron. I've occasionally asked other people what they thought the worst problem in the world was. Nobody has ever answered with my answer: that all of our loved ones are going to die. The utter inevitability of death within a few decades of birth is so thoroughly taken for granted that people are vastly more concerned about the NSA or carbon dioxide than about literally saving the lives of everyone they care about. We need a working backup and recovery plan for people as soon as possible. How soon it will happen will probably depend a great deal on how soon a critical mass of people can be made to see it as an actual engineering problem urgently requiring a solution.

rfvtgb123 13y ago
And from then on, are we going to keep people from having children or are we going to let massive overpopulation happen? Where to recover the stored minds to? That said, in my oppinion a big part of what makes life worthwhile IS that it is finite. [I am working with the assumption that by "backup and recovery plan for people" essentially you are talking about making people immortal by backing up their mind before the body dies and somehow keeping it working, e.g. recovering it to a different body.]
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  Fortunately the tech required to restore minds will most likely solve the overpopulation problems as well. One mistake people make when discussing cryopreservation is considering it in isolation. Reviving frozen minds will likely require some form of basic molecular nanotech, and this same technology can in principle convert dirt to habitats on Earth and in space. As for my opinion about dying: fuck that. I don't want to die. I don't see any reason for any of us to pass away. If we can fix this, then let's do it.
  - rfvtgb123 13y ago
    cryopreservation That's not what I was talking about. Reviving frozen minds Frozen. Minds. Say What? will likely require some form of basic molecular nanotech, Wild assertion. and this same technology can in principle convert dirt to habitats on Earth and in space. Wild speculation. To sum it up - you have nothing. Asserting "OH the tech we will have by then will magically fix it and we will live in space" is not a solution. It's not relevant to you and me anyway because we will likely not be able to backup and restore minds during our lifetime. Additionally, bodies frozen today will NEVER be revived because the body and brain are utterly damaged in the process (http://www.skepdic.com/cryonics.html http://www.skepdic.com/cryonics.html).
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      > That's not what I was talking about. I was refering to the "backup and recovery plan for people" part of your comment, following the best idea about it we nowdays have. > Frozen. Minds. Say What? Yup. >> will likely require some form of basic molecular nanotech, > Wild assertion. It's not a wild assertion, it's the basic assumption of this concept. Cryonics by definition is "let's freeze dying people 'till we crack nanotech". See also [0]. >> and this same technology can in principle convert dirt to habitats on Earth and in space. > Wild speculation. If we get nanotech (even just by reprogramming nanotech that is already around us) then this is the consequence. It's not a speculation - this comes straight from the premise. Actually, cheap construction abilities should come much earlier than revival. Notice that we already made some progress in reprogramming viruses and bacteria, as well as using protocells to construct structures (there was a TED talk about it some time ago). > To sum it up - you have nothing. Asserting "OH the tech we will have by then will magically fix it and we will live in space" is not a solution. The thing I was arguing is that if we get the tech to escape death, then the same tech will solve overpopulation problem earlier, as it's much easier. Therefore, we don't have to consider overpopulation when discussing whether or not we should freeze people. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics#Revival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics#Revival
      - rfvtgb123 13y ago
SatvikBeri 13y ago
Completely agreed. If the average global life expectancy were to drop from 70 years today to 35 years, that would be a tragedy even larger than the holocaust. But that's what life was like for the average human 100 years ago. The vast majority of humans have had fewer than 30 years to live. That really sucks. Now imagine we're talking about a time when the average life span is one thousand years (or one million, or one billion), and the vast majority of humans got to experience less than 10% of that. Well, that's what is happening now. That's not to say life is sad. I would much rather have 30 years of life than 0 years. But life can be so much more than it is today.