This is a bad faith interpretation of what the parent said. They did not suggest gassing anyone or executing old people. There is a world of difference between that and saying that immortality is a selfish goal.
I don’t believe it is bad faith interpretation. I used a rhetorical technique where you ask a question which shows where a line of reasoning ends up.
The poster said we shouldn’t seek immortality as it goes against evolution. By the exact same logic we shouldn’t lift a finger to medically help people beyond child rearing age. It’s the same argument. And if we really believe that evolutionary incentives define morality, than we might as well cull that population to eliminate dead weight.
Sounds horrific? That’s because our sense of right and wrong has very little to do with what benefits evolution. And as a consequence, evolution has little if anything to contribute to this discussion of whether we should research immortality or not.
I think our sense of right and wrong actually has a lot to do with evolution. Indeed, it's one of the things that drives our evolution as a species.
Self-preservation is very important, and anything that puts it in question tends to elicit a very negative visceral reaction. However, I do think you mischaracterized what I said. Not putting one's survival first and foremost is not always horrific in the grand scheme of things. We tend to call people who sacrifice their life to save others heroes. In the end, continued survival of the group outweighs the survival of an individual in human societies.
So far we have a working method for maintaining and evolving culture by way of knowledge transfer as well as replacement of the bodies that run this "software". And yes, it is absolutely "co-designed": our neural patterns shape the way we think as much as the collective knowledge does. With immortality the author is proposing to do away with a significant driver of cognitive evolution, and it's unclear to me what the benefit of this is, other than pandering to a selfish desire of self-preservation.
I also agree that if immortality was a thing humanity would still continue to evolve. It would just be a very different path, and it's not clear that it would be better.
> The poster said we shouldn’t seek immortality as it goes against evolution. By the exact same logic we shouldn’t lift a finger to medically help people beyond child rearing age. It’s the same argument.
No it isn't, and if it seems that way then you're oversimplifying. For one, someone living forever is a far bigger insult to "evolution" than someone living 20 years past "child rearing age." You only get to "gas the elderly" by being over-literal and over-strict. Living a little longer doesn't disrupt the system, but living indefinitely longer does.
> “Insult to evolution” is not a viable moral argument.
So? The point was your reductio ad absurdum fails. You said "exact same logic" gets you both places, when it doesn't actually, especially once you start adding in real-world complexities.