Death makes space for new life, and new strategies. It's a key part of the evolutionary process, and thus of life itself. Yet another sign of the desperate egocentrism of a generation alienated from what it means to live.
Evolution is amazing, sure. It's also evil, bad, and wrong, even without getting into ethical issues. Don't do it.
(speaking of ethical issues: http://ttapress.com/553/crystal-nights-by-greg-egan/)
EDIT > great story thx
Trying to cheat death entirely isn't some perversion of evolution, its the pinnacle of it. It's the purest expression of the desire for self-preservation, which was hardwired into us by evolution, that there is.
If you don't like human beings trying not to die, then don't blame them for being "egocentric", blame evolution for making them that way.
How exactly is death directly responsible for new strategies? And how is it a "key part of the evolutionary process"?
If there are no known answers to these questions, it is absurd to think they are true.
I disagree. Fear of death is a cultural constant that almost every religious/spiritual movement in history has tried to assuage, either through the promise of an eternal afterlife or a belief in some pan-consciousness that we are all part of (i.e. eternal life).
My current model for comments like this would suggest it would be made by one of two categories of individuals: 1) An innocent. A person who has not yet personally been touched by death, and who has not already put some thought into it. The full weight of death isn't real yet. 2) Someone who has at the very least brushed by the darker side side of things- maybe their parents, maybe friends, maybe their own disease, maybe depression... and they came out the other side with an attempt at a coping mechanism. Some form of spirituality, philosophy, or maybe just hardened nihilism, that let them look away, or 'accept' it.
But the above is too general to really provide any insight. And to be clear, I am not upset at people like the above- I can understand how it happens, even if I strongly disagree with the results.
I just have a very hard time squaring the above... approaches... with the special, horrible kind of sound someone makes when they are weakly screaming for their life and they are terrified that no one will be able to help them. I can't unhear that. And I can't help but try to listen for all those other people in the same position, thousands of times a day.
My own perspective is simple: death doesn't have any special meaning, and it causes absurd levels of suffering. Any uses it has are so inefficient and unethical that any attempt by a human to emulate them would (rightfully) be considered comically evil. We can do better- unlike raw evolution, we have brains.
In either way, pursuing such goals is EXACTLY what it means to live. It's the process of the evolution itself. We are not alienated from it, on the contrary we are in the very heart of it and we get to experience it first-hand.
Alienation from life is more like non-accepting a certain aspect of it which is obviously happening. An aspect like people researching into biology to cheat death. So isn't that what your comment is?