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Comment by nostromo95 | Hacker News Reader

I think there are a few explanations:

(1) The idea that the ultra-rich may be able to survive into the future cryogenically while 90+% of the rest of the world dies is morally abhorrent.

(2) Fearing death so much is viewed as cowardly.

(3) This is a bit more abstract, but the implicit assumption in cryogenics that death is a universal bad is troubling. Thousands of years of human thinking have determined that the prospect of death is an integral part of the human experience and may be the thing that provides life meaning. I don't know about anyone else, but the idea that the coming natural death of me and probably everyone else in this thread is on par with a genocide is upsetting (and I personally choose not to believe it). From Epictetus: "Death, for instance, is not terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates." [0]

[0] http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html

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(1) You could have said the same thing about cell phones, cars or any other technology which started out expensive before it scaled to the point where most people could afford it.

(2) If you fear death to much, you might not fight to the death in a war. Not everything in our culture makes sense in the modern world.

(3) https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html

(1) Yes, but from a utilitarian perspective cell phones, cars, and any other technology offered finite utility over their alternatives, whereas immortality offers infinite utility over the alternative of death.

(2) ? unsure about what you're saying here.

(3) Okay yeah, sure, I've read that before. I don't think he offers a (currently) practical alternative to "resignation coupled with an effort to achieve closure in practical affairs and personal relationships." The harsh reality is that we'll probably die--why would I choose to conceptualize this as a violent death from a dragon? That'd surely lead to despair in my last years.

(1) Are you saying that immortality is bad because it's infinitely good? That seems like an argument for bringing immortality to everyone as soon as possible.

(2) I'm saying that one of the reasons why death is viewed as cowardly is because that belief is promoted by generals in order to make their soldiers more willing to die in battle. If that's where the idea comes from, then we should reject it, because willingness to die in battle is no longer a good thing.

Yes, I’m saying that because immortality is infinitely good, the inequality of some people (super-rich) getting it while others (the poor) don’t is (infinitely?) more unnacceptable than any wealth inequality there has been in the past.

> Thousands of years of human thinking have determined that the prospect of death is an integral part of the human experience and may be the thing that provides life meaning. I don't know about anyone else, but the idea that the coming natural death of me and probably everyone else in this thread is on par with a genocide is upsetting

To me, this sounds like the naturalistic fallacy. Is there a better argument than this one?

How about a utilitarian one: it's most likely that everyone alive right now is going to die, so from a quality-of-life perspective most people should try to accept their death.

Epictetus was friggin insane though. Taking life advice from him is pretty awful. I doubt his death advice is any better.

>Epictetus was friggin insane though.

What do you mean?

He says don't hope for anything, because you can't control that. Just decide you're happy as-is, because all you can control is your own mind.

A) Not hoping for anything is a great way to stay in shit situations, and B) Yeah, no, you can't actually control your own mind that well.

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