9 ms·

And imagine how wise he would be now if still alive. Fight Aging.

staunch 12y ago
Yup. A ~2017 year old Seneca would probably laugh at the kid he was when he wrote this. People don't like to be reminded that aging is going to stop being a thing. It's too scary because all of us are going to miss the ultimate boat.
- sgt101 12y ago
  But if we win, how will we fit newness into the world? Old men should die, their children should be allowed a tilt at creating a better future for themselves.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    Newness? You mean neuroplasticity allowing for people to grow new ideas based on the world around them?
    - sgt101 12y ago
      I think that extends what I meant. Children sometimes have radically different perspectives and ideas, in my experience anyway. I find working with new graduates quite sobering; when I get to the bottom of some odd idea or input I often find that there is a great deal of sense in what they say, but the cognitive dissonance between their stance and my stance sometimes prevents me from really accepting that they are right. When I "move on" they will have their day and things will change as a result. I don't know if that is good or bad, but it is new and different and I think that my ideas have not really been that successful in terms of coping with or improving the world. I think children's ability to internalize a world system is possibly an advantage now given that the world of now is sharply different from the world of the 1970's when I grew up. When they come to formulate new ideas about how to run things they may have a much more solid grasp of reality than the view of our generation.
    - VLM 12y ago
      Speaking of "neuroplasticity" the divisions in human society between people who stop thinking new thoughts around age 14 or so, vs the people who keep thinking until they die, we'll say age 80, are already very large and would get immensely larger. Everyone has anecdotes about relatives at both ends of the scale, and the scale will probably get wider over time. From an evolutionary fitness standpoint people who stop thinking are not likely to live very long so there would be pressure toward plasticity.
  - jodrellblank 12y ago
    Quietly arguing in favour of genocide because your personal religion mandates it. Shameful.
    - sgt101 12y ago
      Surprised I am being down-voted for this one, I guess that mortality is something people struggle with. Equating the natural order of the world and universe (the old die, entropy increases, things change) with genocide is not a good thing to do. Genocide is the knowing murder of a race or group; the death of the old is the order of the universe.
      - jodrellblank 12y ago
        I see a difference between "the old die" which you said in this comment, and "the old should die" which you said in your previous comment. One observes a current state of the world; the other implies that you value your concept of "natural" and "change" more than you value every living human. Writing "people should die" and then "surprised I'm being down-voted for this one" ... is weird.
      - philh 12y ago
        Let's apply a reversal test: suppose we lived in a world where age doesn't kill people. Do you still think old men should die? Then they have to be killed. Do you not? Then why should they die in this world? Your ultimate values shouldn't change depending on the challenges that the universe throws at you. If people shouldn't die, and the universe says that they shall, well, the universe is a cold and uncaring place and it's our job to make it better. Also, "I guess that mortality is something people struggle with" is kind of a condescending thing to say. Like, "you're downvoting me because you're not mature enough to understand the things that I understand".
        orangecat 12y ago
        suppose we lived in a world where age doesn't kill people. Do you still think old men should die? Not only that, do you think they should die not by being humanely euthanized when they hit MAX_AGE, but by releasing a disease that slowly cripples everyone's body and mind over the course of several decades? Death is bad, but at least one can make the case that a person doesn't suffer after they're dead. Aging is terrible for everyone.
pavlov 12y ago
If Seneca were brought back to life today and he saw how Western technology professionals, living a life of material wealth and comfort that in many ways goes far beyond the Caesars' dreams, desperately dream of immortality just like the Emperors did... He probably would say that mankind hasn't changed at all.
reasonattlm 12y ago
Seneca: "Death: There's nothing bad about it at all except the thing that comes before it - the fear of it." Insofar as death is oblivion, the destruction of the self, it is rational to be unconcerned about being dead. You won't exist to have feelings on the matter - which is exactly the same situation as for all time prior to the point in your development at which you like to think that you became yourself. Equally, it is rational to be very concerned about being dead at some point in the future. Humans are creatures of action. We like to achieve, observe, and experience. We place value upon these things, and death will stop us from gathering that value. So the world of people might be divided at any point in time into (a) the group that is horrified by the prospect of oblivion, and (b) the group that is unbothered by personal extinction. It's a very sharp dividing line, not often explored in casual conversation, for all that one person's views might cross back and forth between camps over the years. Try a poll of the folk you know at some point in time: I think you'll find the results interesting. Whatever your opinions on oblivion, however, it seems near universally agreed that the process of becoming dead is something to be feared - so much so that we work to hide the ugly reality from daily life, we put it from our mind, and we even rise up in anger to confront those trying to do something about it by fighting aging through the development of new medicine. Terrible pain, injury, and degeneration are not on anyone's wish list. But we'll all be receiving these dubious gifts anyway - unless something is done about it. The difference between our age and the age of the Greek stoics is that we have the chance to do something about it: defeat aging by repairing its damage, improve our biochemistry, and ultimately replace our bodies with superior technology that is immune to all that plagues us now.
- tcopeland 12y ago
  > Insofar as death is oblivion But that's the rub, right? When we have shuffled off this mortal coil...
- nsxwolf 12y ago
  Ok - and how will you stop the universe from eventually dying, and carrying your ageless body away with it?

Yup. A ~2017 year old Seneca would probably laugh at the kid he was when he wrote this. People don't like to be reminded that aging is going to stop being a thing. It's too scary because all of us are going to miss the ultimate boat.

sgt101 12y ago
But if we win, how will we fit newness into the world? Old men should die, their children should be allowed a tilt at creating a better future for themselves.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  Newness? You mean neuroplasticity allowing for people to grow new ideas based on the world around them?
  - sgt101 12y ago
    I think that extends what I meant. Children sometimes have radically different perspectives and ideas, in my experience anyway. I find working with new graduates quite sobering; when I get to the bottom of some odd idea or input I often find that there is a great deal of sense in what they say, but the cognitive dissonance between their stance and my stance sometimes prevents me from really accepting that they are right. When I "move on" they will have their day and things will change as a result. I don't know if that is good or bad, but it is new and different and I think that my ideas have not really been that successful in terms of coping with or improving the world. I think children's ability to internalize a world system is possibly an advantage now given that the world of now is sharply different from the world of the 1970's when I grew up. When they come to formulate new ideas about how to run things they may have a much more solid grasp of reality than the view of our generation.
  - VLM 12y ago
    Speaking of "neuroplasticity" the divisions in human society between people who stop thinking new thoughts around age 14 or so, vs the people who keep thinking until they die, we'll say age 80, are already very large and would get immensely larger. Everyone has anecdotes about relatives at both ends of the scale, and the scale will probably get wider over time. From an evolutionary fitness standpoint people who stop thinking are not likely to live very long so there would be pressure toward plasticity.
- jodrellblank 12y ago
  Quietly arguing in favour of genocide because your personal religion mandates it. Shameful.
  - sgt101 12y ago
    Surprised I am being down-voted for this one, I guess that mortality is something people struggle with. Equating the natural order of the world and universe (the old die, entropy increases, things change) with genocide is not a good thing to do. Genocide is the knowing murder of a race or group; the death of the old is the order of the universe.
    - jodrellblank 12y ago
      I see a difference between "the old die" which you said in this comment, and "the old should die" which you said in your previous comment. One observes a current state of the world; the other implies that you value your concept of "natural" and "change" more than you value every living human. Writing "people should die" and then "surprised I'm being down-voted for this one" ... is weird.
    - philh 12y ago
      Let's apply a reversal test: suppose we lived in a world where age doesn't kill people. Do you still think old men should die? Then they have to be killed. Do you not? Then why should they die in this world? Your ultimate values shouldn't change depending on the challenges that the universe throws at you. If people shouldn't die, and the universe says that they shall, well, the universe is a cold and uncaring place and it's our job to make it better. Also, "I guess that mortality is something people struggle with" is kind of a condescending thing to say. Like, "you're downvoting me because you're not mature enough to understand the things that I understand".
      - orangecat 12y ago
        suppose we lived in a world where age doesn't kill people. Do you still think old men should die? Not only that, do you think they should die not by being humanely euthanized when they hit MAX_AGE, but by releasing a disease that slowly cripples everyone's body and mind over the course of several decades? Death is bad, but at least one can make the case that a person doesn't suffer after they're dead. Aging is terrible for everyone.

pavlov 12y ago

If Seneca were brought back to life today and he saw how Western technology professionals, living a life of material wealth and comfort that in many ways goes far beyond the Caesars' dreams, desperately dream of immortality just like the Emperors did... He probably would say that mankind hasn't changed at all.

reasonattlm 12y ago

Seneca: "Death: There's nothing bad about it at all except the thing that comes before it - the fear of it." Insofar as death is oblivion, the destruction of the self, it is rational to be unconcerned about being dead. You won't exist to have feelings on the matter - which is exactly the same situation as for all time prior to the point in your development at which you like to think that you became yourself. Equally, it is rational to be very concerned about being dead at some point in the future. Humans are creatures of action. We like to achieve, observe, and experience. We place value upon these things, and death will stop us from gathering that value. So the world of people might be divided at any point in time into (a) the group that is horrified by the prospect of oblivion, and (b) the group that is unbothered by personal extinction. It's a very sharp dividing line, not often explored in casual conversation, for all that one person's views might cross back and forth between camps over the years. Try a poll of the folk you know at some point in time: I think you'll find the results interesting. Whatever your opinions on oblivion, however, it seems near universally agreed that the process of becoming dead is something to be feared - so much so that we work to hide the ugly reality from daily life, we put it from our mind, and we even rise up in anger to confront those trying to do something about it by fighting aging through the development of new medicine. Terrible pain, injury, and degeneration are not on anyone's wish list. But we'll all be receiving these dubious gifts anyway - unless something is done about it. The difference between our age and the age of the Greek stoics is that we have the chance to do something about it: defeat aging by repairing its damage, improve our biochemistry, and ultimately replace our bodies with superior technology that is immune to all that plagues us now.

tcopeland 12y ago
> Insofar as death is oblivion But that's the rub, right? When we have shuffled off this mortal coil...
nsxwolf 12y ago
Ok - and how will you stop the universe from eventually dying, and carrying your ageless body away with it?