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Comment by benched | Hacker News Reader

Are longer lifespans better by definition? I realize fully I'm in the minority on this, and y'all can feel free to live forever, for all I care, but I wish that my personal life expectancy was about 40 years shorter than it is. That would have felt about right to me. Complete, and without too much decline. I mean, is everybody's desired lifespan just "as long as possible?"

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Well, you can just kill yourself at 37, assuming you're American and pessimistically that you're male. There's no difference between that and having a "shorter" "life expectancy".

This might be one of those things that people say but when the reaper is close then they usually want to push him off a little longer and have more life. Much like money maybe.

Based on my relatively limited second-hand experience, it depends a lot on health and relationships. Some of my elderly relatives would have loved to live another 10 years, others would've been happy to have died quietly in their sleep 10 years earlier. My grandfather in particular lived to be in his mid 90s, and did not enjoy the last 10 years: outlived all his friends and his wife, couldn't really hear or see well enough to read, watch television, or carry on a conversation, could not walk, couldn't use the toilet without assistance, was on a bunch of painkillers for joint pain, etc. He was definitely of the opinion that there had been some kind of error and he was living past when his time was up.

They wouldn't have been happy to die in their sleep 10 years earlier, they would have been dead. [grammar distinction].

Whether they would have prospectively desired at the time to die in their sleep 10 years earlier, on the other hand, is something we can objectively measure... because suicide is a thing that exists. Did they?

Signs point to no.

Suicide sort of occupies a different space with a strong stigma (and in many jurisdictions, legal barriers that can go as far as involuntarily committing someone to forcibly prevent them from committing suicide). Though that's culturally variable. There are many people who would not lift a finger to avoid a heart attack if they had the ability to do so, but who still would not actively kill themselves. A fairly common in-between is elderly people who choose to stay at home rather than go to the hospital, even if what they have is potentially treatable (they sometimes also have do-not-resuscitate and no-life-support orders entered, just in case someone takes them there).

You don't want to live half your life as an over-60 geriatric, with daily pains, vocational ostracisation, inadequate income, and decreasing social relevance?

Mind you, some would bin that in with the douchey "I wouldn't want to live if I became paraplegic/deaf/blind," but I do fear that, given how crappy it is to be 75 today, it's not going to be senior Disneyland by the time I'm old. Older.

Put my brain in a jar and I might have a different perspective, but I've seen enough family members admit they're just tired and want to go when their time comes.

I'm pretty sure most over 60s aren't in pain and friendless.

My dad is over 70 and is completely fit, healthy, independent and pain free. Sure, not all old people have it so good, but with increased live expectancy comes increased quality of life at older ages

I don't understand. Our goal should be to maximize choice: people who want to live long should have the option to. The problem is that this choice is currently missing. You can always live your life as if this year is your last year.

Make an accounting for being Tired of Life, for lacking the finances for longer lifespans, for cognitive and physical decline... blah blah blah.

Young people always think we want to live longer. Somehow, our minds end up changing by the time we become old people.

> Young people always think we want to live longer. Somehow, our minds end up changing by the time we become old people.

No they don't. Old people might say they wish they'd died younger, but their actions show otherwise.

You mean their actions like having a living will that says to let them die in some circumstances, or outright filing "right to die" lawsuits? Or their attempts at suicide, which come at a rate well above those of the general population?

Those actions?

If they truly wished that they'd died younger, then they'd already be dead.

Are you honestly claiming an unsuccessful suicide attempt is an example of wanting to live? That's getting near "revealed rational preferences" in its level of sheer bullshit.

Nice strawman.

But yes, if somebody makes a failed suicide attempt, and doesn't follow up on that, I'd say that they wish to live (except for those who are left physically incapacitated due to their attempt, obviously).

I'd say you're completely full of shit. Suicide is hard, and, contrary to the propaganda about it, takes a great deal more courage than, say, skydiving.

Look, I apologize for the curseword, but you have to admit, in suicide as in all other actions, there are a million things that come between people's real intentions and their realized actions.

Yes.

[1] http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/simplified/

[2] http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html

That is a sentiment I've often expressed in the phrase "I want to die before someone else has to wipe my arse."

Increasing life expectancy in places like India is mostly reduced childhood mortality, not longer lives at old age.

That would put you what, late mid 30's? early 40's at most.

So you might get to see your kids graduate high school, if you have them young enough. Very high chance their kids never meet grandma/grandpa, and they almost certainly won't be old enough to remember.

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