squibbles

I see the big issue here as whether people want free speech or not. Technology continues to greatly amplify what a single person can accomplish. A person can give their opinion, offer advice, relay misinterpreted or misunderstood information, or even outright lie. The point is that free speech is just that -- free and without constraint.

If there are going to be limits to free speech, then who gets to set those limits and who enforces the limits? Whoever gets to set those limits and enforce them assumes control over public discussion. I think the point of free speech usually has been to protect the people from unbridled power. Unfortunately, excessive free speech makes the signal-to-noise ratio intolerably low, and free speech itself becomes a weapon used against free speech.

Adjudicating free speech is a very hard problem when everyone has the ability to communicate with everyone else. It is not clear that Facebook, even if it were to prioritize ethics over economics, can address the issue in a manner satisfactory to all (or even most) stakeholders.

Regarding "huge, across-the-board gains in human flourishing and well-being," how do you envision economics and labor would play out? What does this look like with regard to resource allocation?

Unfortunately, projects and discussions focused on immortality, or life extension in general, do not necessarily improve the aggregate well-being of all humans. (One could argue that capitalism does improve the aggregate well-being of all, but that is a different topic.)

Across the entire planet there is unimaginable suffering everywhere one looks. Some of that suffering is obvious, while other suffering is hidden behind an illusion of prosperity. When considering how to invest finite resources, and claiming to seek a positive outcome for all, why not address the immediate problems?

Technology is knowledge of tools -- tools that provide leverage for solving (or causing) problems. As for why we have those tools, why we improve the ones we have, and why we invent new tools, aspirational goals are nice, but it seems callous to ignore applications that could significantly improve the quality of lives today; raising quality of life would also accelerate the rate of innovation.

Should we actively advance technology, and potentially spread out into space? Yes, I think we should. However, the more we spread out, the more advanced certain segments of humanity become, the more potential there is for others to be left out of the equation and relegated to the role of wasted human potential.

I disagree that technology will get us asymptotically closer to true immortality. It is far more likely that technology gets us asymptotically closer to a theoretical maximum lifespan that is determined by our relationship with the environment. Radical changes to our form might extend that theoretical maximum, but it is not clear that someone who wants immortality would be satisfied with a form radically different from human.

As an example, an entity with a fractured consciousness that spans tens of thousands of lightyears (yet not necessarily dispersed enough to be considered immortal) would have a radically different concept of self. If one was uncomfortable with the concept of a few dying for the many, in order to perpetuate the species, then a dispersed consciousness devoid of a self seems equally unpalatable.

Though it may be depressing to contemplate, death is an essential element of a fitness function, a requirement for evolution in the broadest sense. No death would lead to either depletion of resources or a stagnation of growth that would inevitably lead to extinction due to inevitable and unanticipated catastrophe.

That said, a reduction of suffering may naturally lead to extended lifespans. However, the elimination of mortality is something altogether different.

Mortality is inevitable and necessary. I posit that the purpose of technology should be to reduce suffering. The purpose of technology should not be the redistribution of wealth from the masses to those who are adept at manipulating the systems employed by civilization.