Gonna go out on a limb here and say that old age and dying are actually good, and that many of the problems in Western society are due to people living too long and holding onto power longer than they should / not passing on power and resources to younger generations.
As disturbing as the film "Midsommar" was, I found the concept of a human life being divided into 4 seasons of 18 years each pretty compelling. Not necessarily that life should end after Winter, but a person's contributions to society probably should. Having politicians in office pushing 80 is a disgrace.
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely" always seemed to assume all people were the same. Psychopaths are quite different from non-psychopaths. What if increasing lifespan 24 hours required doubling the number of people killed each day?
If you've read the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), it should be clear that comments like this one—indignant, generic, and fulminant—violate the intended use of the site. Please don't do this here.
An interesting fictional book that has this idea as part of the story is Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. Imagine if Elon musk and the other ultra-wealthy could live forever and they become even more out-of-touch with reality as the centuries roll on...
In the book almost anyone that has lived could live forever but that could never happen with limited resources/space so only the ultra-wealthy are able to.
I'd skip the tv show. Also, the books (it's a series) seem to be unfinished? I could be wrong, it's been so long since I read it but it seems like some sub-story about extinct aliens wasn't finished.
Otherland by Tad Williams, where the powerful oligarchs of corporations are kept bodily alive bybmachinery, their mind have been transferred to a cirtual reality and they keep on going by making said virtual reality the next hypercapitalist venture.
Another good book exploring this idea of not dying is Pandora's Star by Peter Hamilton. Only in this book almost everyone has access to the technology by paying into a rejuvenation fund instead of a retirement one as we have today. It is a pretty realistic exploration of the consequences and benefits of such technology. Good food for thoughts.
Living forever sounds awful. For one, I am extremely curious what happens when I die. Without death, life becomes a hollow shell, or at least I imagine it would, as you would lack urgency.
On the one hand you say without death life would lack urgency, yet you seem to be open to life after death. If there was life after death... wouldn't it lack urgency?
If there isn't life after death, you simply don't exist anymore and there are no more possibilities open to you. So I'd be more than happy to postpone finding about out for as long as possible.
I would have expected better of HN. I agree that wealth and power accumulation are a problem. But the conclusion obviously isn't to have everyone forcibly DIE. If anything, this is an argument to make longevity more accessible.
The article is heavily biased against the evil tech billionaires. So much so, that it has to outright lie about Bryan Johnson? His "proprietary longevity routine" is actually fully public. The most important parts aren't some expensive surgeries but 1) regular sleep 2) healthy food 3) exercise.
Either you want everyone to live as long as possible, or you want people to die. And if the tech elites scare you that much, remember that longevity protocols protect against death by aging, _not_ assassinations.
Living systems - hell, complex systems - don't do "forever" real well. You end up adding a compounding amount of energy over time, a "negentropic tax", as the universe tries to untie that complexity into radiation.
After a while the compounding energy input of the negentropic tax overwhelms the control mechanisms that feed it into the "preserved" system, and it blows up.
It's a common feature across disciplines: content management, biology, programming, maintainability engineering, neural networks, chemical engineering . . I imagine the list is pretty close to boundless. Ha, turns out human knowledge is also a complex natural system.
So I guess what I'm saying is only dead things live forever. Which should say a lot about the internal life of the standard tech/finbro. "I want to be just like I am right this second for all time!"
Speaking personally, I'm always amused by the Eternal Life pitch whether I hear it in church or on the internet. Everyone gets eternal life. We're surrounded by it, we eat it, we poop it out every day. Our grandfathers are in our lungs, old friends in the leaves of trees, giant parts of your brain die every morning as you wake. Eternal Life is not for the selfish. Something that the Bible thumpers could read for themselves, if they bothered to read the thing.
To play devils advocate here: could it be a good thing?
That way they would be incentivized to think about the long term actions of their actions, like not dying before getting affected by global warming etc.
And once aging is understood and solved, maybe it’s possible to iterate on the approach and make it cheaper and more accessible. That would greatly help the aging populations of the west.
If you’re around forever I’d imagine you would care more about what people think of you, too. If not your number of enemies would just rise forever.
I always find is weird how most super rich don't even seem to care about the life of their own children. If they did, surely they would invest more in basic science, or at least medical science.
Let's suggest something different. Treat wealth like a game. Whoever reaches one billion has completed the game and has to die. No point in playing further, you made it. The money gets redistributed again to the other players.
Buddha would advise that as the root cause of suffering is identification of mind with a body this very desire is the essence of the ignorance leading to suffering. If you get attached to a body after 80 years, imagine after 800,000 years. Be careful what you wish for…
Living forever is a curse not blessing. They will grow older and even if their body is till young, their brain solidifies. World around them will become increasingly alien and they will yearn for good old <decade of my childhood> isolating themselves into their own small bubble, terrified of the world around them, which moved forward so much that there is no place for them anymore. Their bubble will become skanzen and they will be talking and breathing alas very bitter artifact of a past times.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 64.7 ms ] threadThen they'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Thoughtful critique is fine, of course.
In the book almost anyone that has lived could live forever but that could never happen with limited resources/space so only the ultra-wealthy are able to.
I'd skip the tv show. Also, the books (it's a series) seem to be unfinished? I could be wrong, it's been so long since I read it but it seems like some sub-story about extinct aliens wasn't finished.
It’s a beautiful short novel exploring this idea.
On the one hand you say without death life would lack urgency, yet you seem to be open to life after death. If there was life after death... wouldn't it lack urgency?
If there isn't life after death, you simply don't exist anymore and there are no more possibilities open to you. So I'd be more than happy to postpone finding about out for as long as possible.
The article is heavily biased against the evil tech billionaires. So much so, that it has to outright lie about Bryan Johnson? His "proprietary longevity routine" is actually fully public. The most important parts aren't some expensive surgeries but 1) regular sleep 2) healthy food 3) exercise.
Either you want everyone to live as long as possible, or you want people to die. And if the tech elites scare you that much, remember that longevity protocols protect against death by aging, _not_ assassinations.
After a while the compounding energy input of the negentropic tax overwhelms the control mechanisms that feed it into the "preserved" system, and it blows up.
It's a common feature across disciplines: content management, biology, programming, maintainability engineering, neural networks, chemical engineering . . I imagine the list is pretty close to boundless. Ha, turns out human knowledge is also a complex natural system.
So I guess what I'm saying is only dead things live forever. Which should say a lot about the internal life of the standard tech/finbro. "I want to be just like I am right this second for all time!"
Speaking personally, I'm always amused by the Eternal Life pitch whether I hear it in church or on the internet. Everyone gets eternal life. We're surrounded by it, we eat it, we poop it out every day. Our grandfathers are in our lungs, old friends in the leaves of trees, giant parts of your brain die every morning as you wake. Eternal Life is not for the selfish. Something that the Bible thumpers could read for themselves, if they bothered to read the thing.
That way they would be incentivized to think about the long term actions of their actions, like not dying before getting affected by global warming etc.
And once aging is understood and solved, maybe it’s possible to iterate on the approach and make it cheaper and more accessible. That would greatly help the aging populations of the west.
If you’re around forever I’d imagine you would care more about what people think of you, too. If not your number of enemies would just rise forever.
If you can have ten, your worry becomes more about how/if your children preserve your legacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipex_Alligator
Poof ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Looks like I’m going to avoid drinking tea in the foreseeable future.