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Comment by montenegrohugo | Hacker News Reader

I have to say I like this somewhat poetic way of writing, especially the sentences with which the author ends paragraphs. Very rich.

On a different note, no. Let's fight death. Fuck aging. We can fight it. We don't have to suffer like cattle under it. We can beat it.

There are plenty of longevity focused startups and academic research groups, and yet we're not spending nearly enough effort and money on this problem. It affects every human on earth, and the immense benefits of adding even one year of healthy lifespan to 7 billion people make it a moral imperative to act upon.

Fighting death should be a multi-national effort that we focus on with all our might, _right now_. You shouldn't have to die.

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> We don't have to suffer like cattle under it.

Most cattle don't suffer from aging. Beef cattle are usually killed in their first year or two. Dairy cows live longer, but tend to be killed after their milk output drops enough (which I guess you could call aging, but they could live for many more years after that).

If you're proposing fighting aging, but against a backdrop of euthenization, ala Logan's Run, I'm in, but we'll need to rebuild the Dallas mall everyone lives in. But if it's trying to get the general population to have a life expectency of 100+, I'm not sure that's a grand plan.

Warren Buffett is probably working hard to buy more time. Sad reality, we just don’t know the outcome after death. If we knew the outcome, it will be okay to accept it.

Even after too much psychedelics. It still doesn’t help anyone accept the deep void of not knowing.

The way I look at it: the year after I die will be just as difficult as the year before I was born. IOW not a care in the world.

I understand being afraid of death because self-preservation is built into us, but unless there really is some hellfire that some of us will be thrown into for all eternity (unlikely but boy would that suck), then logic dictates that it will bother us just as much as our non-existence bothered us for the billions (trillions?) of years before our births.

I can tell you right away that eternal hellfire is made up because nothing is infinite.

Yes, but if nothing is infinite, then when did the universe begin and how? I always struggle with this. Presumably something must have always been, and it is that always that throws a wrench in my secular vision of the universe.

Yes, you really should die. If you want to have kids, that is. What shouldn't be is growing old and weak. That's the real pain.

Could you expand a bit more on why death is a desirable outcome once you procreate?

Because interstellar travel is probably much harder than extend people's lifespan to unreasonable extents. Your children will need room to thrive. Of course, you could argue it's others who have to die. But that seems a morally difficult position.

I love the positive sum framing in your response. Yes earths resources are technical finite, though I’m not sure that’s true in a meaningful sense.

Humans are already well past the natural carrying capacity of the planet for our species. But we’ve figured it out an have been (mostly) successful. I don’t see why that would change between now and when we get access to off planet resources. Especially if humans live forever - priorities are able to shift quite a bit when you can think longer term (what’s 100 years of effort to solve this problem compared to infinity?).

I still wouldn't call death desirable outcome but having kids did start putting many things into perspective. Admittedly there's a certain comfort I take in knowing that a part of me will continue to exist here. Even if the generations that come afterwards have no memory of me as a person.

Why? Life is long enough when well lived. My intuition is decisively against the idea of stretching longevity. How about we try to make more meaningful the time we are given rather than having more capacity for idleness and dread?

Well, feel free to die, but I kind of like living and want to do more of it.

> Life is long enough when well lived.

[citation needed]

"Every man's life is sufficient." - Marcus Aurelius

> You shouldn't have to die.

Yes, you should. Either that, or no one can have children. It's finite planet, and it's already over-flowing with people and their detritus.

Not only that, but if people don't die, then the first generation that doesn't die will end up ruling forever over everyone who has the misfortune of being born later. In a world where no one dies, someone like Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un can and will rule quite literally forever. The U.S. Supreme Court will have no turnover.

You’re assuming the status quo will continue. How will a small group in the Supreme Court maintain power if there’s enough of a willing population to oust them?

Your example of King Jong Un doesn’t work either, because it’s still a dictatorship, and father and grandfather were both dictators, and they both died, so why does it matter?

The world is overflowing with detritus because the incentive structures are not there. If people lived much longer they might be more willing to spend the time to clean up.

> How will a small group in the Supreme Court maintain power if there’s enough of a willing population to oust them?

Supreme court justices serve for life. The only way to "oust" a supreme court justice (in the U.S.) is through impeachment. In the entire history of the U.S. no supreme court justice has ever been removed against their will. The assumption of mortality is deeply embedded into the U.S. Constitution. (Yes, you could amend the Constitution. Good luck with that.)

> so why does it matter?

Because there is at least a possibility that the next generation Kim might be better. Or that a Kim might die childless.

> If people lived much longer they might be more willing to spend the time to clean up.

Yes, that's possible, but much more likely those in power would continue to do what they do now: build enclaves for themselves that keep out the riff-raff.

With some regret, I agree.

If we eventually become a post-scarcity, multi-plantary species then significant life extension or immortality might work. But in the near future it would be a environmental and social calamity.

I suspect in a world where people aren't dying, lifetime appointments would be revised.

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