7 ms·

I'd hate to die, for so many different reasons. Why can't we all just keep on living? Any change of immortality in the coming 60-odd years? Or is that just not

by neals 13y ago

I'd hate to die, for so many different reasons. Why can't we all just keep on living? Any change of immortality in the coming 60-odd years? Or is that just not far enough into the future? Are we doomed to die?

fit2rule 13y ago
Yes, we are doomed to die. Don't think of it as doom, though. If you look around you, pretty much any Life, itself, involves the cycle: start -> do something -> finish. Do your absolute best to do the best for yourself, and others, while you are Alive. Life is the most precious substance in the Known Universe, and believe it or not: you are in control. So, think about it not at all, or often, but know this: you will reach the end, no matter what. You're in the 'do something' stage right now.
- neals 13y ago
  I get what you are saying and totally agree. However, now I am stuck between choosing between what is good for ME and what is good for OTHERS. What is more important? My life being good or leaving others in a better place when I'm gone? Should I just live for myself until I'm 45, than start giving back?
  - lprubin 13y ago
    There is a school of thought called Vedanta that I learned about from reading Alan Watts. It holds that all is "oneness" or "connectedness" and that the lines that appear to separate ourselves from each other are merely illusions and that helping yourself is helping others and helping others is helping yourself. At first read, this sounded like hippy dippy nonsense to me. But then I started seeing "practical" manifestations of this in my life over and over again. For example, I did a bunch of Pro Bono web development for a non-profit because I liked the non-profit. Besides the good feeling I got from helping a worthy charity and the thanks and friendships I gained from the people who worked there, I also ended up getting three web consulting gigs. I gave a friend some money to start a creative project and their level of happiness has increased. And that happiness level is contagious and I find myself feeling some of that happiness spill over onto me whenever I hang out with them. And when I started eating right, exercising, and following my goals and dreams, I was happier and that happiness spilled over to all around me. And as I became more successful, it opened up economic opportunities for those around me to take part in my business and to partner with. And it inspired those around me to follow their dreams. And that's spilling over to the people around those who were helped by me in an outward circle. In a very grounded way, I'm really starting to believe there is something to this connectedness idea.
  - fit2rule 13y ago
    Alas, you have to decide for yourself, but I can tell you my personal decision is to be as good a person to myself as I am to others, roughly in that order, with some compensation for personal privilege, perhaps, in the late-night fridge visits. That has improved things immensely in my life.
  - mikestew 13y ago
    > However, now I am stuck between choosing between what is good for ME and what is good for OTHERS. What is more important? Question of the ages, that is. I tend toward contributing toward the general good as best I know how. But I came to that conclusion through a fair bit of contemplation, some selfish living (which still continues in degrees), and philosophical and religious thought. (And I'm still no Ghandi, I can play the part of "self-centered asshole" pretty well, and regularly.) In short, it's a journey you get to take all on your own, no one else will figure it out for you. Keep in mind, too, that the two choices you laid out are not at odds with each other. As a personal example, I volunteer at an animal shelter. My wife and I walk homeless dogs, pick up their poop, and take some to training classes if it would make them more adoptable. For dogs that have been there a while, we'll take them on field trips to the park, maybe stop by Wendy's for a burger and fries. We'll each put in at least 100, sometimes over 200 hours/year there. We give the shelter arse loads of money (yea, high tech salaries!) We do it because we believe if we (society) have domesticated the animals, we have a responsibility to see that they are taken care of and treated humanely. Damned noble of us, eh? Except I find it to be a hell of a lot of fun to hang out with the mutts, teach them commands so that they're civilized members of society, go run around in the mud at the park, and ultimately see them get adopted. It ain't all selfless. Dishing up food at a homeless shelter? Makes you feel good, right? That you're doing the "right" thing? It's still about you, because of how it makes you feel, or that you think that you are doing what's "right". Ultimately you should be removed entirely, and it's done because it's what the world needs right now. I'm still a long way from that ideal, but I keep trying. In the mean time at least some effort is expended toward making the world a little better, whatever the motivation may be.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    False dichotomy. We're social creatures: we can live together or not live at all.
mindcruzer 13y ago
Once you're dead I don't think you'll mind.
rfnslyr 13y ago
Definitely going to die if you're not a multi millionaire or billionaire. Why would common folk ever receive immortality therapy? I firmly believe we're just a hologram, an experiment, with only one defined condition in our environment, death. Our overlords have watched us evolve and under the condition of death, and once we solve it, we will have won.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Definitely going to die if you're not a multi millionaire or billionaire. Why would common folk ever receive immortality therapy? For the same reasons they often get life-saving treatments? Why would the people who own the therapy refuse to be handsomely paid by common folk and/or the State for providing it? Of course, it won't come cheap. Maybe a 500 year loan per treatment?
  - rfnslyr 13y ago
    Haha actually that makes sense with the loan. Didn't think of that. "If you take this therapy, you will be paying me a grand a week for the next 80,000 years. Sign here"
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
No. Immortality would be even more horrific. I would definitely like to see the average life span significantly extended, but there should still be a foreseeable death.
- will_work4tears 13y ago
  I don't think it's such a black and white issue. Apart from some nerd rapture/uploading the brain scenario (which I find preposterous, just IMO) true immortality is just not possible. Even discounting the extreme view of the heat death of the universe, I don't think even the most careful people would live to be more than a couple thousand years. Most would probably die of something in 2-3 hundred years - war, famine, disease, natural disasters, or just even dangerous activities (driving, skiing, hiking, skydiving, etc) would at least on average, keep a steady rate of deaths. But I agree with trying everything we can to extend the life as much as possible. I just feel in the end, a 500 year long life would represent a pretty lucky person. edit: just FYI though, I'm not a hater; I'm even a futurist and a tiny bit of a transhumanist.
  - VLM 13y ago
    I suspect that when a car accident means a loss of 450 years of life instead of 45 years we'll probably end up requiring cars to be ten times safer, or roads to be inherently safer, or since we have all the time in the world, maybe no need to ever drive above 10 MPH other than recreational use. This is a problem often not discussed about the utopia of a world filled with self driving cars... its very hard to make an AI that can handle 85 MPH on a crowded interstate, but once "everyone" has a self driving car, we'll probably just lean back and watch TV/movies/podcasts or do desk work or whatever so going 10 MPH is fine, at which point its not so hard of an AI problem anymore. So there's a hump to break thru after which the tech gets a lot simpler and lower risk. Also the nature hike at the park is a wee bit less risky than hiking Mt Everest. Given an infinite amount of life, I think you'd see a lot more patience, and nothing kills people like impatience.
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
Here is why you're being downvoted: human longevity is an extremely difficult, multifaceted problem. Research doctors are not even trying to slay a dragon but a hydra: combat one way to die of old age and another one pops up. Lastly, attempting to forecast "chance of immortality in the coming 60-odd years" is asking a question that relies for its answer on extremely controversial ideas. Particularly, attempting to answer requires us to forecast whether the rate of advancement in ageing research is speeding up or slowing down. This is hard, and can be affected by a bunch of different factors: funding breakdown in non-corporate research, Great Stagnation Hypothesis, breakdown in public acceptance of science, economic decline in some places, economic growth in some places, public uptake of anti-aging ideologies, attitudes towards the retirement crisis we're already facing even before anti-aging research comes in. Oh, and then we face the issue of whether we can or are improving our quality of scientific findings through better research training or data science/machine learning techniques. And then we get to the really out-there stuff "immortalists" are often secretly thinking of and can't stop yacking about: the chance that we manage to create Friendly Artificial Intelligence and trigger a Singularity, thus rendering us all immortal utopian transhumans before many of us on this board even hit retirement age. TL;DR: I have no bloody idea, but I still regard contributing to my Roth IRA as a pretty sensible move. EDIT: The one trend I'm willing to say I observe is that average life expectancy is a fairly good tracker of social and economic development, even once you've gotten over the infant-mortality hump. If you want to be immortal, you should encourage society to act in ways that result in longer average lifespans and also to fund anti-ageing research in hopes of achieving the fabled "ageing escape horizon" where medical science advances faster than you die.
- neals 13y ago
  Wow, thanks. I feel better now, not sure why though:)
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    Any time ^_^. The first step is to come out and say that longevity research is a scientific project, not a mystical one (there's no Truth of This Universe saying we can only live 80-something years no matter the scientific might we throw at the problem). That also carries some acknowledgements we need to make: biological immortality being discovered in 2060 will do you no good if you died of a heart attack in 2030, so eat healthy, exercise, and de-stress if you're really so devoted to long life!
melling 13y ago
We haven't made any progress in lengthening the maximum human life. We can simply help more people so that they live closer to the maximum, so it's highly doubtful that we're anywhere near extending life beyond the 100-120 limits of our bodies. Consider, for example, that work on artificial intelligence started in the 1950's. We've made lots of progress in 60 years, but it's definitely not a solved progress, despite the incredible progress.
jowiar 13y ago
I don't particularly want to die, but knowing it's going to happen makes life a whole lot more interesting. For me, the looming finitude of life keeps my inclination to procrastinate in check - Why do today what can be done tomorrow? Because otherwise the things to do add up faster than the tomorrows on which to do them.
- icebraining 13y ago
  On the other hand, there's what you could call the Homer Simpson reaction[1]. If you know you're going to die, and you don't even know if it won't happen soon, you might be discouraged from doing things with a longer time frame. [1] http://global3.memecdn.com/live-each-day-like-it-was-your-last_o_62104.jpg http://global3.memecdn.com/live-each-day-like-it-was-your-la...
Hermel 13y ago
The question really is: what aspect of you do you want to preserve? You will most certainly change over the years. You now will be very different from you in 100 years. Your immortal you in 500 years might be as different from your current you as your grandchildren. Do you really care more about your own existence in 500 years than about the existence of your grandchildren in 100 years? The solution to immortality is to embrace the idea that you won't stay the same anyway and that instead of caring so much about your host body, it might be more efficient to preserve what you value in other forms: e.g. your genome and values in your children or your ideas in books. If you write down your thoughts into a book today, these thoughts are more likely to be preserved for 500 years than if you were immortal and relied on your memory.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  Nah, that's way scarier. Looking at the sweep of history, I can take comfort that my mortal shell won't last long enough to witness much more of the damn stuff, but I'm terrified that my thoughts and values are simply going to be swept away in a tide of blood and a return to a more miserable human condition.
- Ensorceled 13y ago
  > Your immortal you in 500 years might be as different from your current you as your grandchildren. Do you really care more about your own existence in 500 years than about the existence of your grandchildren in 100 years? As somebody with no kids ... yes. This is a strange argument since at no time between now and 500 years from now will there be a point where I want to grow old and die. So asking me if I care about 500 year old me is irrelevant, I don't want to die.
  - BlackDeath3 13y ago
    Related, why should one care more about their own children/grandchildren/etc. than themselves? Perpetuation of the species? Why?
    - will_work4tears 13y ago
swalsh 13y ago
If I had to choose a society with all young people, all old people, or a healthy mix of each... i'd choose the later. Young people provide new thinking, they're essential to society. Old people provide foundation, and wisdom, they're essential too. We live on a planet with finite resources, to support the right mix, we should accept that its just not RIGHT to live forever, even if it were possible. I'd like to live until i'm 100, and I hope science makes it so i'm just as productive at 100, as I am today.
- icebraining 13y ago
  That's only assuming we could be immortal, but still stuck on a single planet. I find that an unlikely event.
  - swalsh 13y ago
    I assume there are only 3 sustainable paths for the human race. The first, is the norm. We continue as we are, we don't adjust to climate change etc in time. Society eventually collapses under the magnitude that it has swelled up to. We enter a second "dark age". The second, is we find a way to to sustain with the resources we have on this planet alone. Population finds a balance, and we go on living another 5000 years, just like we did for the first... except now technology plays a bigger role. The third, is we expand to space and limits become boundless. The only scenario where we can think about super long life spans is the later. My point is, this is like deciding how to spend your millions of dollars before you've made them. My personal opinion is that the singularity is as close to inevitable for as long as we as a society choose to pursue technology. To me the likely scenarios are either A or C, and it really depends on which happens first... an environmental collapse or the singularity.
- DougWebb 13y ago
  If society included lots of immortals, they'd be pretty driven to make sure that we're not stuck living on a planet with finite resources. There are plenty of untapped resources laying on the ocean floors and deeper into the Earth's crust than we typically mine today, and lots more off-world. Those are all technologically within our grasp today, they're just not cost-effective. But if we had to support an immortal society, the ROI terms change: it becomes reasonable to invest in an infrastructure that will take a few centuries to pan out, because people will live to see it completed and get the benefits from it.
31reasons 13y ago
Life expectancy only a few hundred years ago was about 40 years. Its about 78 years in the US currently. Human longevity is extremely difficult problem but there is no physical law stating that you can't live up to 200 or 500 years. Biological science is advancing at an extremely rapid rate and its possible that we may see doubling of life expectancy in next 50 years.
- Dewie 13y ago
  How much of that life expectancy 100 years ago were affected by child mortality? We haven't really doubled our longevity, we just took care of some things that lead to a lot more children reaching adulthood. The bulk of that might have been pretty simple, like better hygiene.
  - dorfsmay 13y ago
    Exactly, Socrates was 71 when he was put to death.
  - mcguire 13y ago
    Given the stochastic nature of a lifespan, I believe the statement, "We haven't really doubled our longevity, we just took care of some things that lead to a lot more [younger people] reaching [an older age]." is, and will remain, true.
  - 31reasons 13y ago
    Are you suggesting modern medical science not helping people live longer by treating Cancer, Organ Transplants, Bypass surgeries etc ? I am seeing so much pessimism on HN , it seems unlikely that majority of people here are hackers.
    - Dewie 13y ago
      I'm saying that the bulk of that increase in average lifespan was due to relatively simple advances in medicine/medical understanding.
nova 13y ago
If only it were merely technically and scientifically super-difficult. The biggest hurdle is cultural and social, as many comments show. The first step towards ending death is to consider the fight possible and positive. But we are still deep in deathism, "Death is inevitable (with current science), ergo death is good". The biggest case of sour grapes or Stockholm syndrome ever, the most awful meme.
- logfromblammo 13y ago
  The sociological problems of immortality are more difficult than the technical problems. The entire sweep of human history has rested upon the same solid foundation: death takes everyone eventually. Kings fall down as dead as peasants, and the dirt nap of a saint lasts as long as a sinner. Imagine what would happen if the people who held certain beliefs never died off. Imagine the result if large estates never passed to any heirs, or debts never cancelled. Imagine copyrights that never expire, since the authors never die. The young, vital, and innovative do not prosper, since they are forever dominated by their elders who become increasingly conservative and risk-averse. Money and power do not pass from one generation to the next. The problem is only made worse if biological immortality is itself an expensive product that is only accessible to the wealthy. Down that path I can imagine dozens of dystopias.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    I used to raise that objection when debating immortalists. What got me to stop raising it was the realization that in the form of business corporations or multigenerational trusts, we already have those problems. It's almost comforting, knowing you already live in Dystopia.
    - nova 13y ago
      Maybe if we didn't have the absurd excuse of "the tyrant is evil, but at least he'll die someday" we would be more inclined to do something, instead of sheepishly obeying and letting time pass.

by neals 13y ago

fit2rule 13y ago

Yes, we are doomed to die. Don't think of it as doom, though. If you look around you, pretty much any Life, itself, involves the cycle: start -> do something -> finish. Do your absolute best to do the best for yourself, and others, while you are Alive. Life is the most precious substance in the Known Universe, and believe it or not: you are in control. So, think about it not at all, or often, but know this: you will reach the end, no matter what. You're in the 'do something' stage right now.

neals 13y ago
I get what you are saying and totally agree. However, now I am stuck between choosing between what is good for ME and what is good for OTHERS. What is more important? My life being good or leaving others in a better place when I'm gone? Should I just live for myself until I'm 45, than start giving back?
- lprubin 13y ago
  There is a school of thought called Vedanta that I learned about from reading Alan Watts. It holds that all is "oneness" or "connectedness" and that the lines that appear to separate ourselves from each other are merely illusions and that helping yourself is helping others and helping others is helping yourself. At first read, this sounded like hippy dippy nonsense to me. But then I started seeing "practical" manifestations of this in my life over and over again. For example, I did a bunch of Pro Bono web development for a non-profit because I liked the non-profit. Besides the good feeling I got from helping a worthy charity and the thanks and friendships I gained from the people who worked there, I also ended up getting three web consulting gigs. I gave a friend some money to start a creative project and their level of happiness has increased. And that happiness level is contagious and I find myself feeling some of that happiness spill over onto me whenever I hang out with them. And when I started eating right, exercising, and following my goals and dreams, I was happier and that happiness spilled over to all around me. And as I became more successful, it opened up economic opportunities for those around me to take part in my business and to partner with. And it inspired those around me to follow their dreams. And that's spilling over to the people around those who were helped by me in an outward circle. In a very grounded way, I'm really starting to believe there is something to this connectedness idea.
- fit2rule 13y ago
  Alas, you have to decide for yourself, but I can tell you my personal decision is to be as good a person to myself as I am to others, roughly in that order, with some compensation for personal privilege, perhaps, in the late-night fridge visits. That has improved things immensely in my life.
- mikestew 13y ago
  > However, now I am stuck between choosing between what is good for ME and what is good for OTHERS. What is more important? Question of the ages, that is. I tend toward contributing toward the general good as best I know how. But I came to that conclusion through a fair bit of contemplation, some selfish living (which still continues in degrees), and philosophical and religious thought. (And I'm still no Ghandi, I can play the part of "self-centered asshole" pretty well, and regularly.) In short, it's a journey you get to take all on your own, no one else will figure it out for you. Keep in mind, too, that the two choices you laid out are not at odds with each other. As a personal example, I volunteer at an animal shelter. My wife and I walk homeless dogs, pick up their poop, and take some to training classes if it would make them more adoptable. For dogs that have been there a while, we'll take them on field trips to the park, maybe stop by Wendy's for a burger and fries. We'll each put in at least 100, sometimes over 200 hours/year there. We give the shelter arse loads of money (yea, high tech salaries!) We do it because we believe if we (society) have domesticated the animals, we have a responsibility to see that they are taken care of and treated humanely. Damned noble of us, eh? Except I find it to be a hell of a lot of fun to hang out with the mutts, teach them commands so that they're civilized members of society, go run around in the mud at the park, and ultimately see them get adopted. It ain't all selfless. Dishing up food at a homeless shelter? Makes you feel good, right? That you're doing the "right" thing? It's still about you, because of how it makes you feel, or that you think that you are doing what's "right". Ultimately you should be removed entirely, and it's done because it's what the world needs right now. I'm still a long way from that ideal, but I keep trying. In the mean time at least some effort is expended toward making the world a little better, whatever the motivation may be.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  False dichotomy. We're social creatures: we can live together or not live at all.

mindcruzer 13y ago

Once you're dead I don't think you'll mind.

rfnslyr 13y ago

Definitely going to die if you're not a multi millionaire or billionaire. Why would common folk ever receive immortality therapy? I firmly believe we're just a hologram, an experiment, with only one defined condition in our environment, death. Our overlords have watched us evolve and under the condition of death, and once we solve it, we will have won.

icebraining 13y ago
Definitely going to die if you're not a multi millionaire or billionaire. Why would common folk ever receive immortality therapy? For the same reasons they often get life-saving treatments? Why would the people who own the therapy refuse to be handsomely paid by common folk and/or the State for providing it? Of course, it won't come cheap. Maybe a 500 year loan per treatment?
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  Haha actually that makes sense with the loan. Didn't think of that. "If you take this therapy, you will be paying me a grand a week for the next 80,000 years. Sign here"

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

No. Immortality would be even more horrific. I would definitely like to see the average life span significantly extended, but there should still be a foreseeable death.

will_work4tears 13y ago
I don't think it's such a black and white issue. Apart from some nerd rapture/uploading the brain scenario (which I find preposterous, just IMO) true immortality is just not possible. Even discounting the extreme view of the heat death of the universe, I don't think even the most careful people would live to be more than a couple thousand years. Most would probably die of something in 2-3 hundred years - war, famine, disease, natural disasters, or just even dangerous activities (driving, skiing, hiking, skydiving, etc) would at least on average, keep a steady rate of deaths. But I agree with trying everything we can to extend the life as much as possible. I just feel in the end, a 500 year long life would represent a pretty lucky person. edit: just FYI though, I'm not a hater; I'm even a futurist and a tiny bit of a transhumanist.
- VLM 13y ago
  I suspect that when a car accident means a loss of 450 years of life instead of 45 years we'll probably end up requiring cars to be ten times safer, or roads to be inherently safer, or since we have all the time in the world, maybe no need to ever drive above 10 MPH other than recreational use. This is a problem often not discussed about the utopia of a world filled with self driving cars... its very hard to make an AI that can handle 85 MPH on a crowded interstate, but once "everyone" has a self driving car, we'll probably just lean back and watch TV/movies/podcasts or do desk work or whatever so going 10 MPH is fine, at which point its not so hard of an AI problem anymore. So there's a hump to break thru after which the tech gets a lot simpler and lower risk. Also the nature hike at the park is a wee bit less risky than hiking Mt Everest. Given an infinite amount of life, I think you'd see a lot more patience, and nothing kills people like impatience.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

Here is why you're being downvoted: human longevity is an extremely difficult, multifaceted problem. Research doctors are not even trying to slay a dragon but a hydra: combat one way to die of old age and another one pops up. Lastly, attempting to forecast "chance of immortality in the coming 60-odd years" is asking a question that relies for its answer on extremely controversial ideas. Particularly, attempting to answer requires us to forecast whether the rate of advancement in ageing research is speeding up or slowing down. This is hard, and can be affected by a bunch of different factors: funding breakdown in non-corporate research, Great Stagnation Hypothesis, breakdown in public acceptance of science, economic decline in some places, economic growth in some places, public uptake of anti-aging ideologies, attitudes towards the retirement crisis we're already facing even before anti-aging research comes in. Oh, and then we face the issue of whether we can or are improving our quality of scientific findings through better research training or data science/machine learning techniques. And then we get to the really out-there stuff "immortalists" are often secretly thinking of and can't stop yacking about: the chance that we manage to create Friendly Artificial Intelligence and trigger a Singularity, thus rendering us all immortal utopian transhumans before many of us on this board even hit retirement age. TL;DR: I have no bloody idea, but I still regard contributing to my Roth IRA as a pretty sensible move. EDIT: The one trend I'm willing to say I observe is that average life expectancy is a fairly good tracker of social and economic development, even once you've gotten over the infant-mortality hump. If you want to be immortal, you should encourage society to act in ways that result in longer average lifespans and also to fund anti-ageing research in hopes of achieving the fabled "ageing escape horizon" where medical science advances faster than you die.

neals 13y ago
Wow, thanks. I feel better now, not sure why though:)
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  Any time ^_^. The first step is to come out and say that longevity research is a scientific project, not a mystical one (there's no Truth of This Universe saying we can only live 80-something years no matter the scientific might we throw at the problem). That also carries some acknowledgements we need to make: biological immortality being discovered in 2060 will do you no good if you died of a heart attack in 2030, so eat healthy, exercise, and de-stress if you're really so devoted to long life!

melling 13y ago

We haven't made any progress in lengthening the maximum human life. We can simply help more people so that they live closer to the maximum, so it's highly doubtful that we're anywhere near extending life beyond the 100-120 limits of our bodies. Consider, for example, that work on artificial intelligence started in the 1950's. We've made lots of progress in 60 years, but it's definitely not a solved progress, despite the incredible progress.

jowiar 13y ago

I don't particularly want to die, but knowing it's going to happen makes life a whole lot more interesting. For me, the looming finitude of life keeps my inclination to procrastinate in check - Why do today what can be done tomorrow? Because otherwise the things to do add up faster than the tomorrows on which to do them.

icebraining 13y ago
On the other hand, there's what you could call the Homer Simpson reaction[1]. If you know you're going to die, and you don't even know if it won't happen soon, you might be discouraged from doing things with a longer time frame. [1] http://global3.memecdn.com/live-each-day-like-it-was-your-last_o_62104.jpg http://global3.memecdn.com/live-each-day-like-it-was-your-la...

Hermel 13y ago

The question really is: what aspect of you do you want to preserve? You will most certainly change over the years. You now will be very different from you in 100 years. Your immortal you in 500 years might be as different from your current you as your grandchildren. Do you really care more about your own existence in 500 years than about the existence of your grandchildren in 100 years? The solution to immortality is to embrace the idea that you won't stay the same anyway and that instead of caring so much about your host body, it might be more efficient to preserve what you value in other forms: e.g. your genome and values in your children or your ideas in books. If you write down your thoughts into a book today, these thoughts are more likely to be preserved for 500 years than if you were immortal and relied on your memory.

eli_gottlieb 13y ago
Nah, that's way scarier. Looking at the sweep of history, I can take comfort that my mortal shell won't last long enough to witness much more of the damn stuff, but I'm terrified that my thoughts and values are simply going to be swept away in a tide of blood and a return to a more miserable human condition.
Ensorceled 13y ago
> Your immortal you in 500 years might be as different from your current you as your grandchildren. Do you really care more about your own existence in 500 years than about the existence of your grandchildren in 100 years? As somebody with no kids ... yes. This is a strange argument since at no time between now and 500 years from now will there be a point where I want to grow old and die. So asking me if I care about 500 year old me is irrelevant, I don't want to die.
- BlackDeath3 13y ago
  Related, why should one care more about their own children/grandchildren/etc. than themselves? Perpetuation of the species? Why?
  - will_work4tears 13y ago

swalsh 13y ago

If I had to choose a society with all young people, all old people, or a healthy mix of each... i'd choose the later. Young people provide new thinking, they're essential to society. Old people provide foundation, and wisdom, they're essential too. We live on a planet with finite resources, to support the right mix, we should accept that its just not RIGHT to live forever, even if it were possible. I'd like to live until i'm 100, and I hope science makes it so i'm just as productive at 100, as I am today.

icebraining 13y ago
That's only assuming we could be immortal, but still stuck on a single planet. I find that an unlikely event.
- swalsh 13y ago
  I assume there are only 3 sustainable paths for the human race. The first, is the norm. We continue as we are, we don't adjust to climate change etc in time. Society eventually collapses under the magnitude that it has swelled up to. We enter a second "dark age". The second, is we find a way to to sustain with the resources we have on this planet alone. Population finds a balance, and we go on living another 5000 years, just like we did for the first... except now technology plays a bigger role. The third, is we expand to space and limits become boundless. The only scenario where we can think about super long life spans is the later. My point is, this is like deciding how to spend your millions of dollars before you've made them. My personal opinion is that the singularity is as close to inevitable for as long as we as a society choose to pursue technology. To me the likely scenarios are either A or C, and it really depends on which happens first... an environmental collapse or the singularity.
DougWebb 13y ago
If society included lots of immortals, they'd be pretty driven to make sure that we're not stuck living on a planet with finite resources. There are plenty of untapped resources laying on the ocean floors and deeper into the Earth's crust than we typically mine today, and lots more off-world. Those are all technologically within our grasp today, they're just not cost-effective. But if we had to support an immortal society, the ROI terms change: it becomes reasonable to invest in an infrastructure that will take a few centuries to pan out, because people will live to see it completed and get the benefits from it.

31reasons 13y ago

Life expectancy only a few hundred years ago was about 40 years. Its about 78 years in the US currently. Human longevity is extremely difficult problem but there is no physical law stating that you can't live up to 200 or 500 years. Biological science is advancing at an extremely rapid rate and its possible that we may see doubling of life expectancy in next 50 years.

Dewie 13y ago
How much of that life expectancy 100 years ago were affected by child mortality? We haven't really doubled our longevity, we just took care of some things that lead to a lot more children reaching adulthood. The bulk of that might have been pretty simple, like better hygiene.
- dorfsmay 13y ago
  Exactly, Socrates was 71 when he was put to death.
- mcguire 13y ago
  Given the stochastic nature of a lifespan, I believe the statement, "We haven't really doubled our longevity, we just took care of some things that lead to a lot more [younger people] reaching [an older age]." is, and will remain, true.
- 31reasons 13y ago
  Are you suggesting modern medical science not helping people live longer by treating Cancer, Organ Transplants, Bypass surgeries etc ? I am seeing so much pessimism on HN , it seems unlikely that majority of people here are hackers.
  - Dewie 13y ago
    I'm saying that the bulk of that increase in average lifespan was due to relatively simple advances in medicine/medical understanding.

nova 13y ago

If only it were merely technically and scientifically super-difficult. The biggest hurdle is cultural and social, as many comments show. The first step towards ending death is to consider the fight possible and positive. But we are still deep in deathism, "Death is inevitable (with current science), ergo death is good". The biggest case of sour grapes or Stockholm syndrome ever, the most awful meme.

logfromblammo 13y ago
The sociological problems of immortality are more difficult than the technical problems. The entire sweep of human history has rested upon the same solid foundation: death takes everyone eventually. Kings fall down as dead as peasants, and the dirt nap of a saint lasts as long as a sinner. Imagine what would happen if the people who held certain beliefs never died off. Imagine the result if large estates never passed to any heirs, or debts never cancelled. Imagine copyrights that never expire, since the authors never die. The young, vital, and innovative do not prosper, since they are forever dominated by their elders who become increasingly conservative and risk-averse. Money and power do not pass from one generation to the next. The problem is only made worse if biological immortality is itself an expensive product that is only accessible to the wealthy. Down that path I can imagine dozens of dystopias.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  I used to raise that objection when debating immortalists. What got me to stop raising it was the realization that in the form of business corporations or multigenerational trusts, we already have those problems. It's almost comforting, knowing you already live in Dystopia.
  - nova 13y ago
    Maybe if we didn't have the absurd excuse of "the tyrant is evil, but at least he'll die someday" we would be more inclined to do something, instead of sheepishly obeying and letting time pass.