This comment on reddit (and all the subchildren) shines a different light on that study: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/78f3wg/antiaging_s...
It would be nice to have a browser extension that would show me all reddit/HN posts pointing to the current website.
We only want to keep living because of sentience.
If you really cared about humanity, you wouldn't impede death.
It would lead to serious fragmentation of the human population with people from generations ago still alive.
Not to mention the collapse of economic structures many of which are based on young v old generation.
Apart from that hundreds of generations competing for resources.
Not to mention everything around us evolving except humans.
That's an ideology masquerading as wisdom.
And clearly death doesn't end the dictatorship.
Just because only a few people could afford a CT scan when it first came out doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep developing it for the wife benefits we will see in the future.
Would you think "whew, I really dodged a bullet there", or would you think "fuck that clone, I don't want to die!" ?
That whole mindset is utterly alien to me. I guess it all comes down to how you feel about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity
I often read stories about innocent younger people dying from something tragic; However, why do I almost never wake up to, "<evil tyrannical dictator> has unexpectedly and peacefully passed away in their sleep?"
Brave new world I guess?
In the last half century give or take some years, half of Europe and Latin America nations have successfully and peacefully made this transition. And only Venezuela has returned to dictatorship.
Do you think Putin will ever be overthrown?
No idea. Formal democracy is still in place, so there's hope.
At any rate, very few people are actually working on “immortality”. Most of us squander our time bullshitting on the Internet. There’s little danger of solving immortality for several generations.
How many wars do you think anyone would want to fight if we didn't have an endless streams of the young who are willing to die on the battlefield?
How many murders are committed by people over 30 vs under? How many people die in car accidents after 30?
There's something to be said for having a world dominated by people who are mature and understand the value of their own lives.
We've got killer robots for that now.
>How many murders are committed by people over 30 vs under?
I'd guess the majority of murders have been caused by people over 30 declaring war.
>How many people die in car accidents after 30?
Self-driving cars sounds like a good solution
>There's something to be said for having a world dominated by people who are mature and understand the value of their own lives.
Yes, of course the elderly possess great wisdom, but they are also highly inflexible when it comes to thinking of new solutions to new problems. The imaginative power of the child is something highly undervalued and suppressed in our society.
Well, since US elected national office is pretty much 30 and over, that's the only way wars can be declared.
But there's a reason why there's the movie cliche of the old cautious king being toppled by the young warmonger. On average, young people are a lot more prone to violence. Put them in charge of a nation, and I have no doubt that wars would increase rather than decrease.
Yes, of course the elderly possess great wisdom, but they are also highly inflexible when it comes to thinking of new solutions to new problems.
But a lot of that is because your gray matter doesn't work as well as you become elderly. If that weren't the case, we could have young energetic minds that also are wise dominate in society.
Would a hard wired prejudice include being fundamentally biased against old people?
Within the context of the pie-in-the-sky subject we're discussing, calling for citations seems kind of pointless. We're all just speculating and talking about what-ifs.
I suppose my main concern is that if learned prejudices (against race, religion, ideology, age, economic status, etc.) cannot be eliminated by regenerating brain matter, then a potentially fatal error could arise for society since some prejudices can be virtually insurmountable for many humans. Such an error is often solved naturally when the leaders of the previous age die out.
Just like when a computer system has become corrupted or broken, turning it off and on again can be the most simple and effective solution, so can death and rebirth be an effective solution for when our collective mental processes become corrupted.
Would it? In modern, low reproduction societies the dominant interpretation of the universal "honour thy father and thy mother" focuses on care. Even the slightest resemblance to a chain of command that might be present earlier stops at adulthood. But with people forever overshadowed by their undying ancestors, we might see a massive resurgence of the competing interpretation which sees it as a natural power structure. If that happens, well, welcome to pyramid scheme hell.
Also, it's difficult to predict how immortality would affect human psychology, let alone how the technology would work. Perhaps we will be able to 'freeze' someone in their mid to late twenties, at some optimal point of physical health, maturity and risk taking behaviour.
I personally don't think we can take the very old and keep them alive forever. This will almost certainly result in a permanently sick state requiring constant therapy to maintain. The chance of getting cancer will approach unity at some point. Not exactly the ideal of immortal youth.
experience gives, sometimes false, impression of knowing with some degree of certainty that a certain direction is wrong or won't yield results. young people don't have that bias.
conservatism is instead aversion to even agree with the results themselves if they don't conform with one's worldview.
this is pure speculation on my part though.
What you say is true for species that don't have language or civilization. But since humans have technology, evolution happens in our minds, not in our DNA.
And new ideas don't necessarily require new people.
> radical decisions
Like what?
> People living longer will stay in power longer and keep the status quo alive.
What kind of prediction is that?
> What kind of prediction is that? A prediction like any other. I think we tend to become risk averse as we age, risk averse people don't like changes, without change you don't have a chance to fail, or succeed. If people to live longer I would think that every other stage of life would start to stretch. Take presidency as an example, its a four year cycle. If life expectancy was 200 years, would it not make sense to have presidents for 8 years? Would you retire after 30 years or 60 years?
I don't think so. You're generalizing. Actually I would think that the opposite can happen.
If there is a mechanism in our bodies that creates an artificial maximum of life, like a telomere - then you would be right.
It also could be possible that avoiding the frailty of age means the avoidance of death. Stay healthy and you stay alive.
On the pro death side I think the book Risen Empire has quite interesting take on that as well.
Edit: Put in the wrong link to a 24hour long video, fixed now
(I leave this as food for thought and an explanation of why I downvoted you. We're off-topic though and shouldn't continue this thread.)
Pity I'm not a writer, I think it is a good idea for anti-utopia about the world where people work to get a permission to die.