Immortality vs. Society (2016)
grishka.me
grishka.me
The Epic of Gilgamesh(you should listen to it once) is one of our first written story which basically state this opinion about immortality.
People imagine that life extension would mean that people would have time to see the world, to read every book, etc. But that’s not what makes most people happy. Most people won’t read Shakespeare no matter how long they live. Immortality would condemn your average person to a pretty awful existence.
Moreover, it's a reflection of current society, not a society of immortals. People for the most part considered immortality a foolish dream or actively hostile to the idea, driven by cultural inertia and active cultural reinforcement.
As of 2016, the average income in Bangladesh was around $2/day: https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/bangladesh/annual-hous....
The same year, 66% of people reported they were “very happy” with their life. https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/bangladesh-tops-list-.... Sure, Bangladeshis aren’t as happy as Americans. But the average Bangladeshi lives an existence that would drive your typical child-free American to suicidal despair. What do they have?
I'm not contesting that children can bring joy. I am contesting that they are the only source.
That in our society wanting immortality is somehow the "fringe" view (not to mention often depicted as evil) is pretty crazy IMO.
This kind of scenario seems to contradict your post. Here are options that I see, which do you think is correct (or am I missing something):
1. This kind of scenario, while fun to imagine, is actually impossible. They can't actually be happy without children or with such long lives.
2. This kind of scenario is certainly possible for aliens, but impossible for humans specifically.
3. You would actually recommend to the aliens to die after 100 years instead, as that would make their lives more meaningful.
4. Something else...?
Also, to answer one specific point you raise:
> People imagine that life extension would mean that people would have time to see the world, to read every book, etc. But that’s not what makes most people happy.
I mean, sure, I imagine what would make me happy if I lived forever. But I'm perfectly happy if most people did more of what made them happy, and I'm perfectly aware that doesn't mean most people would read Shakespeare. Who cares? Let them read / watch / do whatever they want, just like they do in life right now. Most of what I enjoy wouldn't make most people happy, and it's not reading Shakespeare either.
Death is a tragedy for relatives of the deceased but for society it is the most rejuvenating thing one could imagine. Change is so much easier when old ideas just die out.
Immortality/longevity might be great on an individual level but it is stagnation and death on a societal one.
Perhaps old people would be far less resistant to change if their mortality wasn't breathing down their necks and they knew they had all the time in the universe to change to new careers, enjoy those societal change benefits, etc.
I think they are undervaluing procreation though. You should do it because it makes you happy - I have never met a parent who regretted having children.
I've also never met I've who would admit to regretting it openly. Now ask them if they would recommend it for you, and they'll spill the beans for you...
You may live in an environment where you have a limited set differing world experiences, keep that in mind when making any important decisions.
Yes, all personal experiences are anecdotes. That's by definition.
> your experience is an anecdote and not data
As if there is something wrong with sharing anecdotes in a forum like this. This is not a scientific journal.
> I've met parents that were regretful of having children, but I have meet people who's only regret is they did not have more children than they did.
"Your experience is an anecdote, and you shouldn't share anecdotes here, but here's an anecdote from me to counter your anecdote"
> You may live in an environment where you have a limited set differing world experiences,
All they did was to acknowledge the existence of a fact they experienced personally. They don't have to see the whole world to do that. This sounds patronising. Maybe it's you who live in an environment where you have a limited set of differing world experiences? Have you never met anybody who regretted having children? How can you even believe that everyone who had children are happy with that decision, and have no regrets? I won't start with my own anecdotes, but there are many.
People do but a small proportion: https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.asp.... About 90% of people 45+, if they had to do it again, would have kids. The 7% who had kids but would choose not to have done so is basically cancelled out by the more than half of people who had no kids but wish they had.
Which seems intuitive. But I frequently wonder to myself: why is life preferable to death?
Obviously we're all been programmed through evolution to fear and avoid death, since if we didn't we wouldn't be here reading this thread. Our entire society, all human society, revolves around avoiding death in nearly all circumstances. And with the invention of religion even death isn't really 'death.'
But the preference of being alive over being dead still seems arbitrary to me. In the same way it seems odd to believe that water is preferable to ice. People may argue that giving the people the choice of immortality lessens the suffering associated with dying. But what about the suffering associated with living? To be alive is to suffer, you can't suffer if you're dead. Perhaps if we really want to reduce suffering human extinction is our best bet.
I also feel like when most people imagine technological immortality they imagine it is 'them' that remains alive for hundreds of years, which involves a continuous static self that I'm skeptical of. I already change so much from year to year, it's hard to imagine that this body in a decade will be 'me'. And a hundred years? Maybe that future person would have some of my memories, but they'd be so different that I might as well be dead anyway.
What if tomorrow somebody offered you a lifetime supply of one of two pills.
One pill will prevent you from aging, you will be functionally immortal until you are killed by some other circumstance (like murder or an accident).
The other pill will completely remove your fear of death, or the death of your loved ones. You won't become suicidal or take irrational risks, you'll just be as zen as this guy: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Th%C3%AD...
Which pill would reduce suffering more in your life?
So sure, a person ought to be free to step off of the biological treadmill and come up with their own goal and purpose. But what alternate purpose do you propose? I've come up with quite a few that appeal to me, and for all of the ones I like, living longer is still beneficial.
I'd rather live than not live.
On the same topic, this is a great read: https://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html
In Biology there is this principle that all living organisms push to remain either by longevity or reproduction. We humans have gotten very good at longevity and if you think about it as a society we are focusing on that path.
Now with the COVID19 event, I have thought that, if the same serious focused research effort, time and money was put by humanity on aging/degeneration/death related issues, we could have amazing progress in very little time. But for some reason showing relevant ads and paying faster is more important.
Unfortunately we are focusing on "living faster" instead of "living more".
Having a child is type of experience and commitment that has no parallel in any domain of life. It shapes you in certain ways if you are devoted to it. I want to be that type of person because I recognize some qualities that I admire (like being way less self-centric).
My body is designed so that it can do this. Hence, not having children is against the design. Its like using oven as newspaper holder - nothing wrong with that, but using oven by design is something else which you can't really describe to non-oven people who never tasted cooked dishes. However, it takes time and there are number of responsibilities involved and there are huge number of people who think its just waste of time when they can simply go burger king or avoid eating at all until they must.
That is not nothing.
Yes, it can go bad, like anything else in life. You can die in fire using oven too.
I think this is rational explanation.
So called "Socratic procreation" (in short, where your procreate via recognized work/ideas instead of sexual act) on the other hand, is IMO meaningless (and maybe even compensation) for the very reasons mentioned in the blog post.
That said, I do want to have a health span (not life span) as long as possible and that has nothing to do with all of this. I can freeze my head in a jar but that doesn't really count as health (while it could be counted as life).
Not because they don't have value, but because they don't 'work'.
The fact that you find having children fulfilling is about you, not about anybody else.
Yes it is. Without procreation species can't exist, so it must be designed to procreate. The process takes quite a lot of energy which is precious to all forms of life and there are all sorts of mechanisms in place to make you wanna do that. Design.
> The fact that you find having children fulfilling is about you, not about anybody else.
Everything is first about you. Its illusion that some things look like they aren't on frontend.
Too little weight is given to the fact that no consciousness exists because it has willed itself into existence. Put another way, nothing consents to being given life.
A feeling mind will come into being, suffer throughout life, likely watch you die, and eventually die itself because you wanted to feel fulfilled. I want a child, therefore I will bring one into this world. Often, it's said having a child is an act of selflessness. I see it the opposite way.
On the flip side, adopting a child is the most selfless thing you can do, in my opinion. Why do only 4% of American households w/ children have an adopted child*? The OP's blog post is surmising it's because we procreate to achieve some tangible sense of immortality, as we consider the passing of our genetic material to be the next best thing to actual in-the-flesh eternal life.
The anthropologist Earnest Becker wrote a book in the '70s called The Denial of Death which reaches much the same conclusion, only broader: that all of civilization is an effort to achieve symbolic if not literal immortality.
* https://adoptionnetwork.com/knowledge-hub/adoption-myths-fac...
I enjoy being alive and experiencing things. I think this is true for most people. Therefore having children is moral.
Personally, after often experiencing such existential dread and finding that it impacts my life in a pretty negative way, i've largely switched over to the nihilism school of thought. Then, it can be argued that bringing children into this world just to doom them to a similar fate would be pretty immoral.
I want no such thing, merely offering my differing point of view here. It probably doesn't have relevance or any sort of impact in the lives of most people, but claiming that having children is universally moral could be challenged at the very least.
If nothing else, each child is another mouth to feed and will contribute to the carbon footprint of our species. While the planet could sustain more people on it, in our current climate of consumerism, i personally don't believe that the world needs to strive towards overpopulation and accelerated exhaustion of the resources that we have (amongst other things).
It's clear that most people are happy to be alive. So even if you personally don't like being alive, having children is moral.
I can imagine a world where having children wouldn't be moral. It would be a world in which most people hated being alive. We don't appear to live in that world.
Rather, I made the point that I'd love to ask just one parent why they chose to have a child and have the answer not start w/ "Because I wanted..."
It is the part that comes after that matters. "Because I wanted someone else to experience the joy I experience every day" is a very different answer than "Because I needed someone to make me feel like I'm important."
Just mentioned one example really...
> I'm curious if you're able to think of one non-selfish reason to have children?
I am curious if you are able to think on non-selfish anything?
> Often, it's said having a child is an act of selflessness
Nonsence. It is what it is. Anything you say that is not gonig to explain animal and other forms or life is invalid.
> Adopting a child is the most selfless thing you can do
Compensation, so no.
> The OP's blog post is surmising it's because we procreate to achieve some tangible sense of immortality
He said people usually say that, not that it is a sole reason. He also said there isn't any rational explanation. I just given one - I am designed to do so.
Your body is also designed to age and die, by the way. What is the reason to follow that design, anyway? Why not change it to serve your own interests better?
> I do want to have a health span (not life span)
So why exactly would you like to die?
No reason. I must. I am sure tech is here already to rise babies externally. That still doesn't change my design to want them because of feromones, reproductive system etc. When we are able to change that design (via viral patches for example) then we can talk about alternatives.
> So why exactly would you like to die?
I wouldn't like to die. I must die by design. There are many good reasons for it nowdays. When we have access to unlimited resources by becoming type 3 civilization, then we can talk about non dying.
Even then, its unknown what infinite life brings to table. What if it backfires someway like in altered carbon ? Would you like that kind of society ?
Like I said, health span. That is achievable nowdays. Lets be realistic or we can talk about pink elephants on the Mars too.
You're a conscious being that has free will. Technically, the only thing you "must" obey is physics. Our ability to override these animalistic instincts is one of the things that makes us distinct from animals.
Besides, making life-changing decisions with "no reason" is... I don't know... irresponsible with regard to yourself?
> That still doesn't change my design to want them because of feromones, reproductive system etc.
This doesn't make you want to have kids. This makes you want to have sex.
> Like I said, health span. That is achievable nowdays.
I don't think lifespan and healthspan are separable like you suggest. How do you even imagine that? A 30-year-old-looking person in perfect health just suddenly dying (of what?) at the chronological age of 90? That's not how this works. People die "of old age" because, well, they age, and their health declines as they age. If you don't age, your risk of death doesn't increase. That simple.
That's what I do. The branch is biochemistry. Existence o free will is debatable - people are easily controlled via various chemicals: when to eat, sleep, love, hate, believe or to be conscious. As many of those are endogenous, it turns out that humans are spectrum. What you call belief might be nothing more then your body producing higher level of DHT compared to somebody else.
If/when we override all of that, we will no longer be homosapiens.
> Our ability to override these animalistic instincts is one of the things that makes us distinct from animals.
It exists in Dune world and is called Gom Jabar, but every next day in this world it looks more and more to be just another typical anthropomorphic illusion.
> Besides, making life-changing decisions with "no reason" is... I don't know... irresponsible with regard to yourself?
Living in virtual worlds might be irresponsible too with regard to yourself and others.
And besides, I clearly stated reason does exist, part of it biochemical, part of it because I admire certain parent-only-human-attributes.
> This doesn't make you want to have kids. This makes you want to have sex.
Semantncs. Sex is prereq for kids at this moment. I guess you didn't hear for oxy also ?
> I don't think lifespan and healthspan are separable like you suggest.
Of course they are. You can live 90 years like a champ and drop dead next day. Or you can treat your body like garbage can and live 70 years but half of it wished you were never born. Would you switch places with Hawking ?
I am sure Kurzweil would not agree with you. :-)
> Technically, the only thing you "must" obey is physics
Technically, if we are being pedantic, this is also questionable and thing of faith. Simulation theory ?
The act of planning is not about the future, it’s about the present. I haven’t experienced the future yet, so it has no value to me. But a chained sequence of events that have a certain likelihood of occurring does have value to me now in the form of the expectation (which I experience today) of the outcome.
The author also presumes no one can value states of the world except insofar as they are directly, materially experiencing that state of the world, but this is wrong.
For example, I’ve never visited Australia, but I would value a state of the world where Australian cryptography laws and email surveillance laws are reformed. I get value just from the concept of that state of the world. I suppose it’s similar to getting value from consuming a fictional work of art - I experience the concept of it, but it doesn’t materially exist in my presence. I don’t benefit from it (say, like an Australian citizen would), but I benefit from the concept of it and associated probabilities of the world changing to a certain state.
So if I am on my death bed with a special button laid out in front of me, which if pressed will automatically cause all Australian politicians’ pants to fall down until they vote to reform cryptography laws, and I believe there’s high probability the button would work and the embarrassment would work, then my impending death should not make me indifferent to pressing the button. With those precious few moments of life, I am experiencing something materially of value (a chained sequence of cause & effect with high probability to lead to a state of the world I value). The world I am in contains aspects of value I can experience that are functions of sequences of events leading to worlds I am not in. There’s nothing irrational, non-utilitarian or inconsistent about this.
Well, they will die too so they won't do any better..or even worse they will die before you.
Also I gotta find a better CMS for that blog. And ditch Disqus because it was bought by an ad company.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Death-Open-Courses-Shelly-Kagan/dp/03...
so, is this what you believe here on HN? genuinely curious.
Myself? This blog entry reads kinda like the Wiccan self-help books I was into in a big way as a teenager and no longer care for.
I hope to live long enough to benefit from SENS. I’m planning as if I don’t, because I have no control over which reality I will face and doing what I’m doing has the best expected utility given that uncertainty.
Then there’s the limits of any plausible form of immortality: While the idea of being part of a starlifting project to extend the lifespan of Sol by a factor of a thousand (and of being able to enjoy the benefits of that project ten trillion years from now) appeals greatly, curing ageing and all disease — leaving only injuries both accidental and malicious as causes of death — still leaves humans with a half-life of something like 800 to 1200 years. Give us mind-backups (which also appeal to me, but less so when I consider the likelihood of misuse) and you still have to consider the radical change in what it means to be over such timescales.
I don’t know what the future will bring, and I will plan for all too short a season, even though I will embrace life extension and do what I can to stay around for as long as I can.
Second thing is that immortality creates conservatism. Old age does too, but it seems to me immortality over-indexes self-preservation over progress of civilization, where the former is just slightly less of a concern for the individual when lifetimes are as short as they are now.
You got to keep nature in check as long as possible.
I want to refute this, but I have to back up a bit first.
The late Frank Schirrmacher (a German journalist and essayist who died in 2014) argued that German politics is getting more conservative over time because of demographics. Large-scale reforms or revolutions typically cause less prosperity in the short term (as societal institutions get rebuilt and investments in future institutions are required) and higher prosperity in the long term. That's a bargain that works well for young people: They get to reap the benefits for a long time and thus can tolerate austerity in the short term, but from the POV of an old person (e.g. age 60+), they get all the troubles and none of the benefits. Hence an older society is a more conservative society.
In other words, a significant part of conservatism [1] is caused by people knowing that they will die soonish (say, within the next 10-20 years) and therefore deciding that the best way to ensure prosperity within these remaining years is to defend the status quo as fiercely as possible. Immortality would fix this behavior, bringing personal incentives more in line with the incentives of society as a whole.
[1] The other part of conservatism can be attributed to people genuinely being unable to imagine a better society than the one they live in or genuinely not believing a better society to be attainable (whether justified or not). As far as I can see, that part of conservatism would be largely unaffected by the availability of immortality.
I'm very happy to live in country where slavery doesn't exist and women have rights, I wouldn't want to live with the people that supported the opposite of those things. For example, what would've happen if the Nazis won, and Hitler would still be alive?
I also recognize my descendants will look at my decision to eat natural meat (that wasn't grown in a lab) with contempt. I just want to live my hundred years happily, and then make a room for better ideas and morals (I know I won't feel this way near the end of my life, but this is the right way).
Desire for immortality reads as a cope. You have picked a goal in life that is truly pointless. You recognize that. You therefore want to compensate by trying to get as much of it as you can. Unfortunately, you can't compensate for pointlessness with volume. (Just as you can't compensate for losing money on each sale with volume). If you pursue something worthwhile, then you need precisely however much time it takes to do that thing, then you're done. You won't reach the end and still feel anguish at having no time left.
I see pursuit of immortality as deeply immoral. There are other human beings waiting to be born into the world. We have limited space and resources, capable of supporting a certain maximum number of people at a time. You want to take as much of that time and space for yourself, even at the cost of preventing others from being born. This frequently coming from supposed altruists. Cryonics is similarly deplorable. You, like everyone who came before you, are going to die. But right before you die, you are going to have your body frozen in time, at the moment before your death. Then you are going to demand that the people of the future, who themselves face the inevitability of death, unfreeze you and extend your life, rather than bringing their own children into the world.
Of course, if we look at it from the other perspective, immortality is not only currently achievable but trivial. And, furthermore, it costs your ancestors nothing. The trick is to perceive the universe as being made up of little cells of spacetime. You're goal is to put something into one of those cells. Once you've done so, it will stay there for the rest of all eternity. In fact, you do this every day (every instant), so there is no trouble in putting things in these spacetime cells. Rather, the trouble is deciding what to put in them. Naturally, if they are going to last for the rest of all eternity, you ought to pick something pretty special to go in them.
https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/philos.pdf (section 10) "In complexity theory, the difference between space and time manifests itself in the straightforward fact that you can reuse the same memory cells over and over, but you can’t reuse the same moments of time." (so make the most of them)
http://thecodelesscode.com/case/234 "TEMPORARY, I HOPE HOPE HOPE/The code beside persisting to the last—/as permanent as aught upon this sphere—"
> If I’m going to cease to exist, it doesn’t matter what would be in a world without me.
Oh yeah, egoism at its best lol. If I die, why shouldn't everyone else?
> children make a human a slave of circumstances for at least 15 years. For what? For nothing, just because.
Okay... He is also realizing that children are not his "helper bots". I am assuming he is a he, because a women would never say these things... I don't know in what world you live in to think of children this way. Have you ever played with a child or seen it grow up? This is atrocious. Seriously man, get help or something, this almost borders on psychopath level of apathy.
> (Children, again) It’s like a new branch in a version control system, if you know what I mean.
Okay I am out. You really should get help. Definitely.
> So no, children are not our immortality. They are the best way to kill time (and eventually yourself).
Yep... Totally get it. Obviously children are not our immortality. Are they the best way to kill time? I mean if you are a robot, that's probably true.
> We’ve already superseded the evolution, so we don’t actually need it any more.
We are far away from that. Right now our gene pool is actively deteriorating because we managed to eliminate natural selection. And yet, we still can't live forever and we can't fix the common cold. Good luck to our species.
> The nature isn’t our friend. It’s our enemy.
Okay :D. Just dig yourself a concrete hole and live in there from bottles of Soylent and see what happens. There are tons of studies who show you how important a connection to nature is for the human body and mind, but well...
> The meaning of life is to keep on living.
Yeah, that's maybe the only thing I can agree with in this "text" or whatever it is. But it definitely doesn't follow from the brainfarts that came before.
I am now actually pitying the coworkers of this person and actually anybody he interacts with, if any.
Look, there is only one thing that differentiates humans from robots. It is that humans are nothing like you want to make them in your article. If humans were like you, I would wish this race would get replaced by actual robots asap, because at least then, there is an excuse for behaving the way you do.
https://futurism.com/google-artificial-intelligence-built-ai
> Right now our gene pool is actively deteriorating because we managed to eliminate natural selection
Is it? I’ve not heard any serious claim of deterioration before.
Evolution is alive and well. Drunk driving for example kills young people. Disease similarly kills plenty of people to kick evolution into action. Suicide is tragic enough people don’t think of it as evolutionary pressure, but dead is dead.
Etc. Etc. It’s not as obvious as dealing with actual lions, but the developed world is well below the replacement rate. That’s some serious evolutionary pressure.
Anyway, the average age of fathers in the US is 31. Men over the age of 40 make up 9% of all fathers. So, dying at 30 or even 40 is directly meaningful from an evolutionary standpoint. Further, losing parents is a significant issue.
Why not consider it from an alternative, less demonizing perspective? The author might simply be pointing out the fact that no matter how nice the things that you'd leave behind you would be, you won't be around to experience them. Therefore, it would be in your interest to actually... you know, not die.
> Okay I am out. You really should get help. Definitely.
Perhaps the author doesn't convey his thoughts in the most reasonable manner, but having children is indeed a huge responsibility and one that will take both energy from the parents as well as a lot of resources over many years. Noone should be having children just because they feel like it, especially NOT just because they'd like to leave a legacy of some sort. As the author points out, those children will grow up to be their own people and you'll need to support them to the best of your abilities, regardless of how different their views and values could be from yours.
> Right now our gene pool is actively deteriorating because we managed to eliminate natural selection.
I'm not sure whether natural selection really has been made less significant, however this appears to be at least partially supported by the information that i could find: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr051.pdf
Based on the graphs in page 7, it appears that approx 85% of women reproduce and 76% of men do (at least up to 40 years of age), though there is more detail in the following pages. Would anyone care to comment with other sources that either support or disprove the claim that natural selection isn't a (big) factor nowadays? What about the deterioration of the gene pool?
> Okay :D. Just dig yourself a concrete hole and live in there from bottles of Soylent and see what happens. There are tons of studies who show you how important a connection to nature is for the human body and mind, but well...
I don't believe that the author expressed that this is the optimal way to go about things. Other people who also advocate for longetivity also seem to actually suggest that people should lead more active and healthy lifestyles, have better diets with elements of intermittent fasting/caloric restriction and so on. Even if we as a species cannot have immortality now, it is definitely worth to pursue enjoying our later years and remaining functional for longer, is it not? In that regard, nature is indeed our enemy if we don't look at what can affect us negatively (be it alcohol, smoking, sedentary lifestyle, bad diets, lack of sleep, or anything else)
> But it definitely doesn't follow from the brainfarts that came before.
It seemed to follow the previous statements pretty well - it is pretty important (at least from our subjective point of view) to remain alive and little if anything else can substitute that.
Lastly, i'd like to quote the Hacker News Guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Let's remain civil here!
And that is exactly what I meant.