[ben_w]

We are diverse.

Myself? This blog entry reads kinda like the Wiccan self-help books I was into in a big way as a teenager and no longer care for.

I hope to live long enough to benefit from SENS. I’m planning as if I don’t, because I have no control over which reality I will face and doing what I’m doing has the best expected utility given that uncertainty.

Then there’s the limits of any plausible form of immortality: While the idea of being part of a starlifting project to extend the lifespan of Sol by a factor of a thousand (and of being able to enjoy the benefits of that project ten trillion years from now) appeals greatly, curing ageing and all disease — leaving only injuries both accidental and malicious as causes of death — still leaves humans with a half-life of something like 800 to 1200 years. Give us mind-backups (which also appeal to me, but less so when I consider the likelihood of misuse) and you still have to consider the radical change in what it means to be over such timescales.

I don’t know what the future will bring, and I will plan for all too short a season, even though I will embrace life extension and do what I can to stay around for as long as I can.