KrautFox (u/KrautFox)

KrautFox commented on In ‘The Book Against Death,’ Elias Canetti rants against mortality washingtonpost.com/books/... · Posted by u/Caiero

kiba · a year ago

Which is exactly my point in all of this: Are we there yet? not even close. Will people try to make living forever a reality regardless? i think so.

Nothing says that we are unable to do these projects at the same time. The people who could work on anti-aging medicine aren't interchangable with the people who are working on various aspect of moving society toward an environmentally sustainable society. Otherwise this is the same argument being made against NASA and research into rocketry and spaceflight.

Not dying due to cancer at 20 and living to be 400 years old isn't quite what i would consider in the same realm of justification, but your opinion might differs.

Really? Someone's going to cry when their loved one die. The older an individual is, the greater their network of connections, knowledge, skills, and lived experience. All of which are valuable to societies.

KrautFox · a year ago

Thank you for your answer, you have a valid point in both things not necessarily being mutually exclusive. I am just scared of what happens if no precautions are taken before we proceed with extending our life expectancy.

I don't know if I can fairly argue with your second point, I seem to lack the emotional capacity to appreciate those things as much as you do. I however appreciate that you take the time to present your viewpoint, I'll have to reconsider some of my initial thoughts regarding this

KrautFox commented on In ‘The Book Against Death,’ Elias Canetti rants against mortality washingtonpost.com/books/... · Posted by u/Caiero

kiba · a year ago

This is a human centric approach, which i don't subscribe to. I am not of the opinion that every human life needs saving as it is the most valuable thing there is, as i don't think it is, my own life included.

People die of cancer and other diseases everyday, and you considered it selfish to want to live? What about the impact on loved ones like children or parents?

What about the quality of life? Being healthy is strongly tied to living longer.

ego driven as it values human life so much that it ignores how much damage it will do, not just to us, but to everything in general. We need to figure out a whole lot more before we can even consider extending our life expectancy like that.

The damage is from pollution, not necessarily resource consumption in and itself. Yes, if the air is bad, we're going to die more of lung cancer. The solution is to build a society that value clean air, a stable climate, and a life support system(biosphere) that isn't steadily being destroyed as a byproduct of our consumption.

KrautFox · a year ago

"People die of cancer and other diseases everyday, and you considered it selfish to want to live? What about the impact on loved ones like children or parents?"

Not dying due to cancer at 20 and living to be 400 years old isn't quite what i would consider in the same realm of justification, but your opinion might differs.

And this: " The damage is from pollution, not necessarily resource consumption in and itself. Yes, if the air is bad, we're going to die more of lung cancer. The solution is to build a society that value clean air, a stable climate, and a life support system(biosphere) that isn't steadily being destroyed as a byproduct of our consumption. "

Which is exactly my point in all of this: Are we there yet? not even close. Will people try to make living forever a reality regardless? i think so.

KrautFox commented on In ‘The Book Against Death,’ Elias Canetti rants against mortality washingtonpost.com/books/... · Posted by u/Caiero

Eliezer · a year ago

Bad news - there's a 5000-year-old bristlecone pine tree in California. On your philosophy you should go burn it down, I guess? https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40224991

KrautFox · a year ago

How is that a valid comparison?

KrautFox commented on In ‘The Book Against Death,’ Elias Canetti rants against mortality washingtonpost.com/books/... · Posted by u/Caiero

afthonos · a year ago

> - The lack of control young people experience when it comes to their own lives (voting, etc) will worsen, if the median age is 80+ or older.

This is a really strong status-quo bias shared by many people who are pro-death.

Imagine a world where no one dies, but young people were indeed very sad, depressed, and generally unhappy because of the reasons you stated. Seeing this unfortunate situation, someone says "I have an idea. What if we killed everyone over 82?"

There is an almost infinite number of things you could try that aren't that. The fact that we happen to live in a world where an imperfect partial solution to young people being unhappy is "statistically everyone over 82 dies" doesn't make it a good world; it just means we have to fix unhappy young people in addition to fixing everyone dying.

This critique applies to most of your questions, with the exception of the finitude of resources. But if we can live just until the stars burn out, I'll call that a win over the current situation.

KrautFox · a year ago

Maybe i didn't communicate well enough what i am trying to say:

I don't see how it would improve life overall, except for duration. I see many areas where life would become worse because of it, so i am biased, true.

But your scenario implies that it is already a reality, which it is not, and that i would be in favor of killing people, which i am not. I am simply suggesting one thing: Maybe we shouldn't be able to live as long as we want, maybe we should not try to make this a reality.

KrautFox commented on In ‘The Book Against Death,’ Elias Canetti rants against mortality washingtonpost.com/books/... · Posted by u/Caiero

FeepingCreature · a year ago

There is a considerable distance between "all resources are ultimately limited" and "thus humans should die at 80, instead of 80 trillion when the stars burn out."

See also https://www.yudkowsky.net/singularity/simplified "Transhumanism as simplified Humanism":

> If a young child falls on the train tracks, it is good to save them, and if a 45-year-old suffers from a debilitating disease, it is good to cure them. If you have a logical turn of mind, you are bound to ask whether this is a special case of a general ethical principle which says “Life is good, death is bad; health is good, sickness is bad.” If so – and here we enter into controversial territory – we can follow this general principle to a surprising new conclusion: If a 95-year-old is threatened by death from old age, it would be good to drag them from those train tracks, if possible. And if a 120-year-old is starting to feel slightly sickly, it would be good to restore them to full vigor, if possible.

Also I don't see how it's ego driven. I want everybody (who wants) to live forever. - And while we're at it, every animal who ever lived in every ecosystem has changed things. That's kind of what it means to live in an ecosystem - no actually, that's kind of what it means to live, period.

KrautFox · a year ago

Hi,

This is a human centric approach, which i don't subscribe to. I am not of the opinion that every human life needs saving as it is the most valuable thing there is, as i don't think it is, my own life included. I will eventually (maybe even soon) die and that's cool with me. And your take on what an ecosystem is lacks the simple fact that alot of it was only possible the last couple billion of years because organisms tend to die, life on earth hasn't adapted to one organsim multiplying as much as we do, consuming as much as we do and having a really long life expectancy at the same time, it won't work.

ego driven as it values human life so much that it ignores how much damage it will do, not just to us, but to everything in general. We need to figure out a whole lot more before we can even consider extending our life expectancy like that.

That's my take on it, but it's okay to disagree, i am not married to my opinion.

KrautFox commented on In ‘The Book Against Death,’ Elias Canetti rants against mortality washingtonpost.com/books/... · Posted by u/Caiero

KrautFox · a year ago

I don't wanna be a buzzkill but:

I don't see how living (potentially) forever is anything but a horrible, horrible ego driven idea with 0 rational thought put behind it, you may enlighten me here:

- Unlimited human life expectancy vs limited resources? How would that work? - Do we really want the next dictator of XYZ to rule forever? - The lack of control young people experience when it comes to their own lives (voting, etc) will worsen, if the median age is 80+ or older. - Saying stuff like "There should be no death" is a clear example to me why humans in general are problematic. As long as we consume resources and need space we are still part of this ecosystem and cannot just simply change the rules of how it all works just because we would like to. - I suck at Bingo.

Edit:

I just want to clarify the following:

Don't feel attacked, I am curious to hear your take on this and I never said that I am right on this, I know too little to ever make that claim. I wasn't aware how emotional this topic is to many, this happens to me IRL alot too (I am also aware of why). I am just looking for exchange of ideas, i don't need to be right on this.