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Comment by slibhb | Hacker News Reader

One of Don DeLillo's later good novels is about this stuff (Zero K).

I always think people's attitude toward possible future worlds is interesting. You can see a wide spread of opinion in this thread -- whether you think functional immortality would be a good thing says a lot about who you are. Ditto for colonizing other planets, automating all work, building AGI, and so on.

I suppose I'm on the side of the technologists. I think immortality is probably possible and humans should try to achieve it. But along the way it will mostly be snake oil and cults. And, of course, it's all but guaranteed that everyone in this thread isn't going to make the cut-off.

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I'm certain immortality is possible, and it's also likely to be achieved, because we always do everything we can do, regardless of consequences.

But I think this is the acme of selfishness. I don't want to be immortal, and I wouldn't want to live in a world with 500-year-old know-it-alls running around "oldsplaining" everything to everyone else.

I have, thankfully, a fairly good chance of dying before that happens.

It's funny people always talk about this in extremes.

"Do you want to live longer?"

"Yes"

"OH YOU WANT TO LIVE A MILLION BILLION YEARS?!?!"

There are values in between immortality and ~80 years.

Oh and when we have defeated death, when will people decide it's time to go? And how will they do it?

They'll decide when they're ready. I would love a little more time on this planet. And when it's time, I'll hop in the nitrogen pod. People are already making that decision in some parts of the world.

> when will people decide it's time to go?

They'll decide when they want to decide. Some might choose to actually live forever, and that's fine. Others will choose a more current-human type lifespan, and that's fine. Some will choose 150, some 300, some 1000, some 10,000. All of those numbers are fine.

> And how will they do it?

There are already humane forms of medical euthanasia performed in progressive places in the world; this question already has answers, and likely more will be developed over time. I don't think it's an important question or issue to discuss, as long as people have legal options.

Car accidents.

Which do you think the Jeff Bezos of the world will choose?

How is immortality selfish? Selfishness requires taking from other “selves” who have unmet needs of their own. But there’s every reason to believe a society of immortals could either function perfectly well without producing new selves, or that it could choose to reproduce at a slow rate sustainable with its ability to extract resources to support itself. Any new selves that were born would be provided the same opportunities that we provide new selves in the present day—breastfeeding, education, healthcare. How would that be “selfish?”

Is it selfish when a centenarian lives past 100? Is each additional year of life obtained by a centenarian “selfishly” stolen from some hypothetical unborn self?

People living forever will stall humanity. Generations and their old ways dying with them are necessary for civilizations to progress.

There's no proof of that.

Life expectancy has been increasing over time, especially in the past century or so. I don't think it's credible to suggest that civilizations have progressed meaningfully slower now that people live to be 80 or so instead of only 30, which was common in recent history.

And even if immortality "stalls" humanity, so what? People matter, not technology or some amorphous concept of "progress".

There could never be proof of that but I think it's generally agreed that the Renaissance was born out of the Black Plague.

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