[Foxmilk]

Without trying to imply any criticism of the life extension movement, when I read about arguments in support of technological immortality, they usually rest of the notion that death is a bad thing.

Which seems intuitive. But I frequently wonder to myself: why is life preferable to death?

Obviously we're all been programmed through evolution to fear and avoid death, since if we didn't we wouldn't be here reading this thread. Our entire society, all human society, revolves around avoiding death in nearly all circumstances. And with the invention of religion even death isn't really 'death.'

But the preference of being alive over being dead still seems arbitrary to me. In the same way it seems odd to believe that water is preferable to ice. People may argue that giving the people the choice of immortality lessens the suffering associated with dying. But what about the suffering associated with living? To be alive is to suffer, you can't suffer if you're dead. Perhaps if we really want to reduce suffering human extinction is our best bet.

I also feel like when most people imagine technological immortality they imagine it is 'them' that remains alive for hundreds of years, which involves a continuous static self that I'm skeptical of. I already change so much from year to year, it's hard to imagine that this body in a decade will be 'me'. And a hundred years? Maybe that future person would have some of my memories, but they'd be so different that I might as well be dead anyway.

What if tomorrow somebody offered you a lifetime supply of one of two pills.

One pill will prevent you from aging, you will be functionally immortal until you are killed by some other circumstance (like murder or an accident).

The other pill will completely remove your fear of death, or the death of your loved ones. You won't become suicidal or take irrational risks, you'll just be as zen as this guy: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Th%C3%AD...

Which pill would reduce suffering more in your life?

[knodi123]

From a certain point of view, we're all biological machines designed to spread life, and the reason we want to be alive is because the creatures who didn't, didn't fight hard enough to get here today. So from that point of view, sure - choosing to be alive for as long as possible is about as meaningful as trying to get the highest score on an arcade game.

So sure, a person ought to be free to step off of the biological treadmill and come up with their own goal and purpose. But what alternate purpose do you propose? I've come up with quite a few that appeal to me, and for all of the ones I like, living longer is still beneficial.