[melling]

Sometime in the next 500 years we’ll figure out how to extend life to be at least a couple hundred years. Then we’ll look back and wonder how people managed such short lives.

The universe is a pretty big place. We’re going to need long lives if we expect to go anywhere.

[hsitz]

Needing to live longer is not the main problem. I'm not sure it's even a problem at all. Whatever our expected life span is, we will adapt and think of it as "too short". The main problem is to figure out how to die (1) with dignity and (2) without physical pain. I say "physical" pain because I don't see any way we can learn to die without some level of mental agony, even if of the bittersweet kind; it's always hard to say goodbye.

We're born; we live; we die. Just like every other living organism.

[AgentME]

This line of thinking seems to also argue against trying to cure any diseases. What's the point of curing a disease that makes someone's life span shorter if all life spans are too short anyway?

[hsitz]

I'm not sure. Having been born, it's natural for us to want to live longer. That's the impetus for all this. Okay fine.

But if you to try to objectively answer a more abstract question, "Is it better for humans to live to 150 years of age rather than 75 years of age?", I don't think there is objectively a right answer.

It's not very different from the question of whether having more people living on earth is a better or worse thing. Is having 5 billion people living on earth better than having 1 billion? Or 100 million? Or 1 million? Or 50,000? Why?

You might end up making an argument that "more progress is possible" if we have more people, or if people can live longer lives. But the idea of "progress" for the sake of "progress" is not necessarily one that enhances the human lives being lived.

There is a current strain of thought that the pinnacle of happy lives for humans was during the hunter-gatherer stage tens of thousands of years ago, and that the switch to agriculturally based societies did not enhance human lives, although once it happened it was not possible to reverse the change. For one example of this, refer to Noah Harari's first book, _Sapiens_, an excerpt here: https://www.ynharari.com/topic/ecology/

Something very similar may have happened with the industrial revolution, and be happening now with, e.g., the digital revolution. IN the realm of medicine/health there are many areas of "progress" that have the potential to make our lives worse. E.g., cloning. On another note, there is little doubt in my mind that merely inventing new ways to prolong human lives is by no means necessarily a good thing. You can see that in current medical world, where many people are kept alive in an undignified state and with extremely low quality of life, while at the same time voluntary euthanasia is illegal.

At the very least, more careful thought should be put into what impact major "progress" is likely to have on human life. Unfortunately, in our world things are driven by corporations, profit, and a mostly unquestioned assumption that "progress is good". As it is, technological progress continues at a pace we can't really grasp, and we're left to try to make sense of it after the technology is here. Not a good scenario, it's like unleashing the genie in the bottle, opening pandora's box.

[speedplane]

> But if you to try to objectively answer a more abstract question, "Is it better for humans to live to 150 years of age rather than 75 years of age?", I don't think there is objectively a right answer.

This answer depends on the definition of what is "better".

Is it "better" to have two "medium" happy people or one "very" happy person? On a societal level, should we be measured by collective happiness (the sum), average happiness, the most happy person, or the least happy person? Or maybe "happiness" should not be the measure at all. Evolution dictates that the "best" is the one that survives the longest as a species, so maybe we should tune society simply for long term survival, regardless of happiness. Or maybe you believe in god, and "be fruitful and multiply" is the standard, so the more the better, regardless of other criteria. Maybe the answer is to maximize GDP. Or perhaps seeking knowledge is the pinnacle, so any society that builds the largest pool of knowledge is the best.

There are countless other ways of determining "better". Take a philosophy course and dig into it.

[johnsea]

no