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Comment by crispyambulance | Hacker News Reader

Folks following the Aubrey de Grey line of thought separate "the person" and "their body" as though the person exists as some kind of "software" running in "hardware" that is about to fail. It might not be that simple.

Being suddenly young again would certainly be delightful for a while but there's a huge psychological burden that comes with living for a long time. While it may be possible to extend the life of the body, there are related philosophical considerations that the "live-forever" folks IMHO are flippantly dismissing. It makes me concerned that in the distant future we could find ourselves as a society with ever more problems that we're not equipped to deal with. We'll all likely be dead by then, but it makes for a thought.

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I think many people would prefer to be in a body that Doesn't Age/Die Without Permission, and then figure out how to handle the problems later. I'm not saying that's a _wise_ choice, and it could certainly have issues for wealth accumulation, but staving off a certain thing (death) in exchange for nebulous maybe-bad-things (hypothetical future problems) is something that humans seem to be notoriously bad about reasoning about.

Hell, I type this, and I fall for it too: I'd much rather be able to live forever, without fear of Alzheimer's or a failing body. I have no idea how I'd pay for that, but I'd be a liar if I said I didn't want to Not Die.

Being suddenly young again would certainly be delightful for a while but there's a huge psychological burden that comes with living for a long time

Such as what exactly? No-one knows - including you - because no-one has ever run old "software" on young/rejuvenated "hardware". I think that 99% of people in failing hardware given the option to try their 18- or even 30-year old bodies again would jump at the chance and worry about vague hand-wavy "psychological burdens" later - or perhaps not ever if the new body didn't age...

>there's a huge psychological burden that comes with living for a long time

What is the burden?

A burden I foresee is that people are going to have to choose between life extension and assisted suicide.

Well, I don't know about a huge psychological burden- older people have been shown to have better coping mechanisms than young people.

There might be some wider problems of overpopulation though, and longer lifespan might also cause increased income inequality. That's a separate question though.

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