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After my mother died in early 2013, this "technology will solve death" fantasy lost all appeal to me. I finally accepted that there are losses in this world tha

After my mother died in early 2013, this "technology will solve death" fantasy lost all appeal to me. I finally accepted that there are losses in this world that can never be reversed. If there's something on the other side, then I look forward to seeing it. Joining the 120 billion people who have already died can't be the worst thing. If there's nothing on the other side, and death is the end of existence, then there's nothing to fear in it. I know this is an unpopular opinion here, but a total end seems unlikely. I don't believe in religion or gods in the anthropomorphic sense of "god" but whatever causes brought me to exist in a world can occur again. As with religion, this idea of a perfect future (heaven?) in the Singularity can become a dangerous distraction from the real problem. It's not death that is a hard problem. It's life. Economic scarcity is the real enemy. That is what we should be fighting with all our force. We should fight first to make life better, and second to prolong it. If we "solve death" and still have to live with scarcity and inequality, then we've just failed in a way that lasts much longer. (On practical grounds, of course, I'm all for life-saving medical advances and research that reduces or eliminates costly illnesses. In fact, if rejuvenation were an option, I'd probably take it. I'm OK with death, but I hate getting sick. My point is that the real purpose of technology should be to kill scarcity first, and then aim for immortality second.) Ok, done ranting.

eli_gottlieb 13y ago
Now now, this is a Ray Kurzweil thread. Real wisdom and understanding of life is not supposed to make an appearance here.
incision 13y ago
>"It's not death that is a hard problem. It's life. Economic scarcity is the real enemy. That is what we should be fighting with all our force. We should fight first to make life better, and second to prolong it." That's very well put. Perhaps not coincidentally, I completely relate to the perspective change brought by such a loss.
Houshalter 13y ago
These are not mutually exclusive goals. A singularity would fix scarcity as well.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  These are not mutually exclusive goals. A singularity would fix scarcity as well. Could, not would. My point is that if it doesn't, it's not worth having. There are dystopian but plausible future scenarios in which (some or all) people live forever but scarcity still exists. My point is that those are extremely undesirable. Life under scarcity is only tolerable because it ends, and because the embittering, emotional irritation of economic scarcity is minuscule in comparison to the much greater natural scarcity of time imposed by nature (memento mori). If we had eternal life, or (more relevantly) the billion-year lifespans possible were we to solve aging and accidents, would the sorts of people who hold power and (left unchecked) enslave the world, do so? Or would they, recognizing their (near-)infinitude of time, lighten up and hold back a bit? The big unknown is human nature, and that I could fill pages on that, only to conclude: I don't know.
  - kamaal 13y ago
    According to Singularity guys, some point of time in the future one could download his whole brain as-is as a file. Then if you are old enough, they could just kill your body. Upload your file to a super computer hosting many such files. Or a VM running on a super computer. Each file gets it own VM. Inside that VM they can possibly simulate a paradise. Since its happening inside a computer. Resources are hardly a problem. They can retain the best parts about us. They kill all negative traits inside humans(disease, boredom, violence etc etc) and just let the VM run as long as it possibly can. The point is Ray Kurzweil thinks, we would no longer need a biological body to stay alive.
    - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
      Now I feel as if there ought to be some scifi novel about a war among emulated people over whether their server should use fairness-focused scheduling algorithms or a capitalistic lottery scheduler. This would be amusing for all the other nine OS nerds in the world who get the joke.

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

Now now, this is a Ray Kurzweil thread. Real wisdom and understanding of life is not supposed to make an appearance here.

incision 13y ago

>"It's not death that is a hard problem. It's life. Economic scarcity is the real enemy. That is what we should be fighting with all our force. We should fight first to make life better, and second to prolong it." That's very well put. Perhaps not coincidentally, I completely relate to the perspective change brought by such a loss.

Houshalter 13y ago

These are not mutually exclusive goals. A singularity would fix scarcity as well.

michaelochurch 13y ago
These are not mutually exclusive goals. A singularity would fix scarcity as well. Could, not would. My point is that if it doesn't, it's not worth having. There are dystopian but plausible future scenarios in which (some or all) people live forever but scarcity still exists. My point is that those are extremely undesirable. Life under scarcity is only tolerable because it ends, and because the embittering, emotional irritation of economic scarcity is minuscule in comparison to the much greater natural scarcity of time imposed by nature (memento mori). If we had eternal life, or (more relevantly) the billion-year lifespans possible were we to solve aging and accidents, would the sorts of people who hold power and (left unchecked) enslave the world, do so? Or would they, recognizing their (near-)infinitude of time, lighten up and hold back a bit? The big unknown is human nature, and that I could fill pages on that, only to conclude: I don't know.
- kamaal 13y ago
  According to Singularity guys, some point of time in the future one could download his whole brain as-is as a file. Then if you are old enough, they could just kill your body. Upload your file to a super computer hosting many such files. Or a VM running on a super computer. Each file gets it own VM. Inside that VM they can possibly simulate a paradise. Since its happening inside a computer. Resources are hardly a problem. They can retain the best parts about us. They kill all negative traits inside humans(disease, boredom, violence etc etc) and just let the VM run as long as it possibly can. The point is Ray Kurzweil thinks, we would no longer need a biological body to stay alive.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    Now I feel as if there ought to be some scifi novel about a war among emulated people over whether their server should use fairness-focused scheduling algorithms or a capitalistic lottery scheduler. This would be amusing for all the other nine OS nerds in the world who get the joke.