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Call me a "deathist" if you like, but dying of natural causes at a ripe old age is not a travesty.

JoshTriplett 11y ago
That's entirely your choice, as long as you don't force anyone else to follow you. Consider, however, whether you'd choose to die if you had an alternative, or whether you've simply accepted something horrific because you don't think you can do anything about it.
- LaurentD2 11y ago
  Not dying is entirely your choice, as long as you do not consume the resources that younger generations need. If you do not die and plan to stay on Earth, then you will have a (probably very negative) impact on other people's lives. They can choose not to accept it.
  - dysfunction 11y ago
    > If you do not die and plan to stay on Earth, Where else could you possibly go? Sending you anywhere else (like a terraformed Mars) might cost more resources than would keeping you alive on Earth for hundreds of years.
  - M8 11y ago
    What about people who have 3+ kids instead of 2, while some people can only have 1? Can we choose not to accept it?
- qsymmachus 11y ago
  Society has a right to ban radical life extension if we judge that the social costs outweigh the benefits. Whether that is the case is what is up for debate.
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    Society has the right to try, but banning things has this way of not actually working, so it's probably best to plan for the reality that if it can happen, it will.
    - JoshTriplett 11y ago
      > Society has the right to try It really, really doesn't. Note the first item "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", or the equivalents in other fundamental statements of rights.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    I really, really hope you're being a devil's advocate and you don't actually advocate mass murder of the elderly to make room for the young. If your society attempted to commit mass murder, your society would be removed by force and replaced by one that did not. And if that sounds like hyperbole, so does the concept that all societies would intentionally withhold a cure to the single most deadly affliction humanity suffers from: aging.
    - qsymmachus 11y ago
      There is a big difference between arguing that radical life extension could have serious social and environmental costs, and arguing that we should execute the elderly. Death is not an unmitigated evil, nor is eternal youth an unmitigated good. I don't think that's a radical argument.
      - JoshTriplett 11y ago
        > There is a big difference between arguing that radical life extension could have serious social and environmental costs, and arguing that we should execute the elderly. I agree. Discussing ways to solve those problems would be an aspect of the former, which is completely reasonable. However, at the point where you suggested that society could ban life extension, you started arguing for the latter. Follow your argument to its logical conclusion. What are you proposing, and what would the effect be? You suggested intentionally withholding a cure for a degenerative disease (namely, aging). How else could that possibly be interpreted? > Death is not an unmitigated evil, nor is eternal youth an unmitigated good. I don't think that's a radical argument. It's safe to say that's our fundamental point of disagreement. Personally, I plan to address that disagreement by continuing to donate to fund the development of effective treatments for aging, as well as the development of longer-term cures for mortality. At the point where those treatments become more widely available, arguments against them will start looking a lot sillier.
kbenson 11y ago
That's a cultural perspective. If you didn't expect everyone you meet to eventually die within a hundred years, the fact that they all were would be a travesty. In some respect, it's no different than if everyone died at fifty years of age. That's a travesty, yet something close to that was the norm for millennia. We expect more now.

That's entirely your choice, as long as you don't force anyone else to follow you. Consider, however, whether you'd choose to die if you had an alternative, or whether you've simply accepted something horrific because you don't think you can do anything about it.

LaurentD2 11y ago
Not dying is entirely your choice, as long as you do not consume the resources that younger generations need. If you do not die and plan to stay on Earth, then you will have a (probably very negative) impact on other people's lives. They can choose not to accept it.
- dysfunction 11y ago
  > If you do not die and plan to stay on Earth, Where else could you possibly go? Sending you anywhere else (like a terraformed Mars) might cost more resources than would keeping you alive on Earth for hundreds of years.
- M8 11y ago
  What about people who have 3+ kids instead of 2, while some people can only have 1? Can we choose not to accept it?
qsymmachus 11y ago
Society has a right to ban radical life extension if we judge that the social costs outweigh the benefits. Whether that is the case is what is up for debate.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  Society has the right to try, but banning things has this way of not actually working, so it's probably best to plan for the reality that if it can happen, it will.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    > Society has the right to try It really, really doesn't. Note the first item "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", or the equivalents in other fundamental statements of rights.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  I really, really hope you're being a devil's advocate and you don't actually advocate mass murder of the elderly to make room for the young. If your society attempted to commit mass murder, your society would be removed by force and replaced by one that did not. And if that sounds like hyperbole, so does the concept that all societies would intentionally withhold a cure to the single most deadly affliction humanity suffers from: aging.
  - qsymmachus 11y ago
    There is a big difference between arguing that radical life extension could have serious social and environmental costs, and arguing that we should execute the elderly. Death is not an unmitigated evil, nor is eternal youth an unmitigated good. I don't think that's a radical argument.
    - JoshTriplett 11y ago
      > There is a big difference between arguing that radical life extension could have serious social and environmental costs, and arguing that we should execute the elderly. I agree. Discussing ways to solve those problems would be an aspect of the former, which is completely reasonable. However, at the point where you suggested that society could ban life extension, you started arguing for the latter. Follow your argument to its logical conclusion. What are you proposing, and what would the effect be? You suggested intentionally withholding a cure for a degenerative disease (namely, aging). How else could that possibly be interpreted? > Death is not an unmitigated evil, nor is eternal youth an unmitigated good. I don't think that's a radical argument. It's safe to say that's our fundamental point of disagreement. Personally, I plan to address that disagreement by continuing to donate to fund the development of effective treatments for aging, as well as the development of longer-term cures for mortality. At the point where those treatments become more widely available, arguments against them will start looking a lot sillier.

kbenson 11y ago

That's a cultural perspective. If you didn't expect everyone you meet to eventually die within a hundred years, the fact that they all were would be a travesty. In some respect, it's no different than if everyone died at fifty years of age. That's a travesty, yet something close to that was the norm for millennia. We expect more now.