Comment by i000 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by i000 | Hacker News Reader

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Not sure, again, how to respond to this. Why resort rhetorical devices?

I said "courage of people wo have no fear of dying" you said "courage in choosing death", very different.

You have not defined what type of "progress" you refer to, but let me just quote one sentence from one random article on that topic [1] "The relationship between population growth and economic growth is controversial." Care to provide a reference for your "This is pretty much a fact"?

> It would be a choice - live forever or have kids.

Wouldn't this mean that within few generations there would be no more kids, as sooner or later each genealogical line will end with an individual who decides to live forever?

> The slow deaths of billions of people, entire generations, is not an acceptable cost for faster progress.

Acceptable by whom? I understand it is not acceptable to you, and I value your perspective, but why do you write it as if it was some form of consensus.

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21582440177360...

> The relationship between population growth and economic growth is controversial

But the relationship between population growth and technological growth seems fairly clear.

In either case, whether technological growth happens or not is irrelevant. It's not worth billions of lives. Nothing is.

> Wouldn't this mean that within few generations there would be no more kids, as sooner or later each genealogical line will end with an individual who decides to live forever?

Sure. And that would be a choice. I see no issue with this scenario.

> Acceptable by whom?

Consider a society in which everyone lives forever. You start saying that they should all start slowly dying for the sake of progress, that they likely won't even be around to see.

You'd be regarded as somewhat crazy. We shouldn't have to have (billions of) people die to accomplish our goals. That's like trying to hammer in a nail with a meteoroid.

> But the relationship between population growth and technological growth seems fairly clear.

Not at all. Many of the most densly populated regions in the world are far from the most technologically developed. Many of the most innovative countries (e.g. Sweden) are also quite sparsely populated.

> Sure. And that would be a choice. I see no issue with this scenario.

I do. While not extinction in the traditional sense, the world were the last human was already born. I cannot imagine being part of it.

> I cannot imagine being part of it.

It would likely be temporary until we find a way to create more space and/or move to a synthetic medium.

In either case, it would be a choice. If you think people would choose living forever over having kids, you yourself are implying that people would find living forever more meaningful than having children, thus not "depriving them of the meaningful aspects of their lives," but rather, introducing something more meaningful: the ability to enjoy life without the Damocles Sword of death.

Bodily autonomy/choice ought to be a part of any society, and that includes dying when you choose to die. Who is anyone to tell an individual when they should die? The best we can do is give them the choice, as it's a deeply personal decision.

> If you think people would choose living forever over having kids, you yourself are implying that people would find living forever more meaningful than having children

No, I am not saying this. Even if only a very small fraction of people decides to live forever (rather than having kids), after sufficient generations all genealogical lines will hit an immortal. Think of it as a human gene-drive. Even a small minority will change the world for everyone.

Sure, and that would be their choice. Who are we to infringe on the bodily choices of others?

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