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Comment by XiJInPaddington | Hacker News Reader

I would give so much to live in a society where people like Aubrey de Gray are heroes like Elon Musk is in ours. The fact that people die does not have to be immutable fate. We look back at people seeking the fountain of youth or the philosophers stone with sneering contempt but at least they had the right goal. Our acquiescence of death is the greatest tragedy ever and collectively we ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

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> Our acquiescence of death is the greatest tragedy ever and collectively we ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

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.

Id say this goes in the same category with the benefits of war. Death is also a tragedy for the person who dies. That adds up to a heck of a lot of tragedy.

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.

Just put the old people on a different planet and solve this rejuvenation issue

Ah, the "just move" argument

They are being moved into the ground anyway so you just change the location.

The decades of middle then old age, tired, first from scrambling to establish ourselves, then raise children, and then as they come to adulthood, we find ourselves an exhausted hollow shadow of what we had hoped to be. It’s not that people need to die so culture can evolve, it’s that we spend so much of our lifetime in decline, what we need is to give people decades or centuries of vitality. It takes so long for us to learn the basics of what others have done before us, decades in school for a short window in which to add to the frontier, its a heartbreaking waste, Longer healthy lives might mean, decades or centuries of flexible open minded thinking, centuries to learn more and become wiser, longer lives, and more robust repairable bodies put the stars and back in reach in a lifetime

Most of society does view the people who save lives as heroes, along with those who have improved the quality of life, or contributed significantly to the eradication of war or disease. The amount of people to whom Elon Musk is a hero is negligible in comparison. So at least you've got that.

I think you need both of them because one of the few novel things that long-lived beings can do is expand into the universe around them and reveal its secrets.

Sneering contempt because it's currently impossible, and we built up all sort of cultural artifacts to dissuade people from doing or coping mechanism with the fact that immortality isn't possible.

The Epic of Gilgamesh(you should listen to it once) is one of our first written story which basically state this opinion about immortality.

Immortality would be spitting in the face of humanity. A race of immortals has no need) or very little need) for children. Such a society would be joyless and without vitality, without the “firsts” that happen only once in a lifetime no matter how long you live.

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.

Excuse me? Lot of people enjoyed life without having children.

It’s not about individuals having children, but a society that collectively has few to no children. 9 out of 10 people age 45+, if they had to do it all again, would have had children: https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.asp.... Only 1 in 10 wouldn’t have had kids if they had to do it over. Immortality would universalize the experience of the 10% to the other 90% of the population.

And? Having children isn't the sole determinant of our well being/happiness nor do they necessarily actually determine happiness.

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.

Lol...I'm pretty sure people would actually be happier.

That's pure speculation. We don't know what they would want, what they would do, how their society would be arranged. The only thing we know about a race of immortals is the fact that they are immortal.

Massive, sweeping, baseless assertions there.

Yes but what do you want on this topic? Speculating about immortality is also baseless.

Speculation is indeed somewhat baseless, however I think it's a bit off to attribute all joy in the world to kids!

Not all of the joy, but a lot of it. My dad was born in a village in Bangladesh. Like a real village. They practiced subsistence agriculture and didn’t get electricity until the 1990s. One out of every three children died before age 5. They lacked of everything a typical child-free American would need to consider life tolerable. But believe it or not, most were pretty happy.

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?

That's not really supportive of the idea that most joy comes from kids, or that a society without many would be joyless.

I'm not contesting that children can bring joy. I am contesting that they are the only source.

I mean, I think it should be more probable that most people would prefer living longer over not, considering the fact that, at any given moment, most people do prefer to continue living.

That in our society wanting immortality is somehow the "fringe" view (not to mention often depicted as evil) is pretty crazy IMO.

I think we’d find something to do. Play ball!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17776

https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football

Please feel free to transfer to me all the years of your life you dont want

Here's a modest proposal: All these benefits to a <100 year lifespan would be even more dramatic with a <50 year lifespan. Just think how much more meaningful each year would be, if you only got half as many! Think of how many more "firsts" there would be if we execute people who turn 50!

Thought experiment - one day aliens come to earth. It turns out they have incredibly long lifespans (practically immortal by our standards). They also have very very few children. This kind of setup has been imagined in plenty of SF novels.

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.

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