[SamPatt]

Is there any advancement people won't decry?

Defeating aging would be the most significant achievement in human history. But sure, let's worry about centuries old overpopulation concerns instead, despite having demonstrated them false continually.

Yes, a 2-3°C increase in earth's temperature would be an unbearable cost for DEFEATING AGING.

Aging and death are awful. Unavoidable, currently, and so must be acknowledged and prepared for, but still unspeakably destructive.

[dumpsterdiver]

> Is there any advancement people won't decry? Defeating aging would be the most significant achievement in human history. But sure, let's worry about centuries old overpopulation concerns instead, despite having demonstrated them false continually.

Discussing concerns and potential scenarios doesn't have to be viewed as decrying. I would argue it's a normal and healthy way of advancing science safely.

[vlovich123]

> Aging and death are awful.

For whom? For the dying and aging sure. For the young who want to make space for themselves in the world and make their own mark, ageless elderly could be a sentence to a life not worth living. The ability to progress career wise and find good work could be stunted. Political and social change could be halted even more than it is today.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do it if we can, but one thing that is certain is that it’s going to drastically adjust human society in a very unequal way.

[stephc_int13]

It is also awful at the civilization level. There is a huge amount of knowledge loss occurring every generation.

Our culture and technology are evolving as they are supported by language, but this is barely enough and from the societal organization (politics) we keep collectively falling in the same traps over and over.

Humanity could do with a bit more wisdom.

[AllegedAlec]

> Humanity could do with a bit more wisdom.

like the wisdom to know when to give way to a new generation?

[stephc_int13]

If you imagine a reality where humans only die because of accident/homicide/suicide, the necessity for generational replacement would be a moot point.

You have to imagine a whole population with a biology locked at around 25 years old, with a very small minority of infants and teenagers, to stabilize population growth.

[AllegedAlec]

> Even if you’re going to live three thousand more years, or ten times that, remember: you cannot lose another life than the one you’re living now, or live another one than the one you’re losing. The longest amounts to the same as the shortest. The present is the same for everyone; its loss is the same for everyone; and it should be clear that a brief instant is all that is lost. For you can’t lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don’t have?

> Remember two things:

> 1) that everything has always been the same, and keeps recurring, and it makes no difference whether you see the same things recur in a hundred years or two hundred, or in an infinite period;

> 2) that the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose.

[mensetmanusman]

If there were no deaths the knowledge would be in stasis due to the nature of what gets funded and the power structure inherent under limited resources.

[stephc_int13]

I think this can be debated, but I am not as pessimist. In any case, the whole dynamic is hard to predict.

The whole society would change, including many roles and structures.

[6aagaba]

Check out Max Planck's principle of "Science progresses one funeral at a time"

[nradov]

What wisdom? On average I haven't found any particular correlation between age and wisdom. In fact, most of the advice I have received from elderly people was worse than useless.