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Comment by nxc18 | Hacker News Reader

I don’t want to live longer than a natural human lifespan. When I was younger and immature I did, but I’ve outgrown that. Death is as natural a part of life as birth.

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Perhaps I will mature enough to appreciate death if I'm given a few hundred, or a few thousand, years to think on it. For now, I stand firm in my conviction that death is bad in the general case.

I assure you it can happen as young as thirty. Or you can desperately cling to life until it is ripped away forcefully, leaving you in a panic.

I think early death is bad in the general case.

What is an early death?

Life expectancy has changed a lot. In 1900 the life expectancy was around 40. A while before that it was 30. What will it be if we cure cancer, alzheimers, dementia, heart disease (the main killers of "old age")?

This sounds like you've just accepted that death is inevitable and you might as well not fight it, which is fair, but that's quite different from not wanting to live longer if the opportunity was available.

The question is not if you want to live longer. It's "when you'll get cancer, will you refuse the cure to get rid of it"? And when you'll be old and frail and full of aches, will you refuse medicines to make your mind sharper and your body stronger? And when you'll be a strong, healthy and sharp 95 yo, will you choose euthanasia because you've reached the natural human lifespan?

This is just copium. On your deathbed, offered the chance to live another decade with the vitality of your 20s alongside your loved ones, you almost certainly would not say this unless you were actually just suicidal.

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