[silisili]

Not OP, but my opinion is that I want to die when I'm supposed to, and I want everyone else to also. Time is the great equalizer, and the well to do's should not be able to purchase more.

The last time I wrote this opinion, I was met with everything from 'just kill yourself' to 'quit trying to control my life.'

Funny bunch here.

[boomboomsubban]

The dying part bothers me less than the aging. I'd be fine dying at the "normal" age, but I'd rather do so with a healthier body than my grandparents.

And telling other people when they should die is sorta messed up. Ignore these anti-aging medications, should people be cut off other medicines at a certain point? What's the difference?

[silisili]

I've had all these arguments before, that I don't care to have again.

> And telling other people when they should die is sorta messed up

I'm not telling other people when to die! I'm thinking more of a societal contract. Which in fairness, seem less and less these days.

Like, if I go to the back of a queue, and see you going to the front, and request you go to the back... I'm not trying to control your life. I'm just asking you to acknowledge and respect that we live in a society.

[boomboomsubban]

>I've had all these arguments before, that I don't care to have again.

The arguenent of "I don't want to need help going to the bathroom/eating?" Or "I don't want to have effectively a two minute memory?" They're pretty solid arguments to me.

>I'm not telling other people when to die!

No, you want society to agree with you when people should die. This societal contract already does not exist. Maybe it'd be nice if it did, but you'd still need to answer the question of "should I stop this person from taking medicine because it's time for them to die?"

[midoridensha]

>Time is the great equalizer, and the well to do's should not be able to purchase more.

The entire medical (and dental) profession is all about keeping you from dying when you're "supposed to". You're supposed to die in your teenage years of a tooth infection, or in your 30s or 40s of cancer, or any random age of an injury.

People in rich countries live much longer (and healthier) than people in poor countries because of access to modern medicine.

So apparently you think people shouldn't have access to any medical services?

[glerk]

Our ancestors probably also had to put up with people like you trying to prevent them from making fires because night is the great equalizer and everyone should sleep when it's dark or some other nonsense.

I feel miserable just trying to imagine why a person would think this way. I'm grateful I don't have this kind of psychology.

[snvzz]

That's fine, you and your ilk can get old on your own, suffer from the degradation of health and consequently quality of life caused by aging, and eventually die from old age, we won't stop you.

The rest of us will support the relevant research, and use the results to remain young or to be young again, possibly lasting for millennia.

[account-5]

Sounds like hell on a dying planet where more people keep coming and no one leaves.

(Dying from the point of view of being about to sustain human life)

Unless of course we have magically conquered space travel too.

[vineyardmike]

> Unless of course we have magically conquered space travel too.

If everyone sticks around, they can help solve the problem. If people don't die, maybe they'll be forced to care for the planet instead of spoiling it for the next group.

[account-5]

Lot of ifs and maybes there. And a lot of faith that the human race can actually pull together to do that.

[snvzz]

It beats giving up on mankind from the get-go.

[silisili]

I have a feeling we'll both be worm food by 80 or 90. The difference being my ilk had a better appreciation for time, while yours thought they'd live forever.

[Dylan16807]

Do you really think it makes that much difference, day to day?

Because if better appreciation just means you're on the right side of an argument that very rarely comes up, then your life quality is the same.

[somenameforme]

Contrary to the person you're responding to, I think it does make a large impact on the day to day. It's going to drive very different philosophies of life. One obvious embodiment of this would be on fertility. One who ignores, let alone denies, their own mortality is going to, on average, a different perspective on fertility than somebody who accepts their own imminent mortality. And these sort of things can often sort of snowball into impacting many other issues in life, in very significant ways.

[silisili]

Day to day, not at all. Just more generally. How many times have we heard 'I wish I'd visited my X more before they died.' Timelines and sense of mortality force you to think about such things.

It's definitely not about taking solace in winning some inane argument. I won't be celebrating my death, nor yours, as some kind of win.

[snvzz]

You think the problem of aging cannot be resolved?

Aging has long been characterized. We understand in which ways degradation happens, and no new ways have been found for several decades. There aren't that many; They can be tackled, one by one.

We have an assortment of tools today that weren't available a mere 20 years ago, and it is our moral imperative to do this research.

There's more people suffering from aging and the conditions it does cause than any other health issue. All of us will eventually degrade, suffer and perish if nothing is done about it.

Improving the quality of life of our aging population by supplementing the shortcomings of metabolism (and thus un-doing aging) is the target.

Longevity would be a byproduct of this.

[Nursie]

You're entitled to have opinions about your own life. When you start using your values to try to decide how long I should live mine... this is why you get hostile reactions.

> Time is the great equalizer

Yes, totally, we all get to live exactly the same amount of time, so it's perfectly fair. Also that fixed term life deal is the perfect amount of time by definition, so we should never, ever try to change it.

[silisili]

Yes, your reaction was covered under the 'quit trying to control my life' clause. Not sure what else is being added here.

[Nursie]

> Not sure what else is being added here.

A challenge to your assumption that there is an implied system and that said system is somehow fair in its current state. It's nonsense.

[silisili]

Would you agree that for every year added to your life, a year should also be added to all those in third world countries?

My main argument is against the wealthy buying time that others cannot. This is why I'm not against say, penicillin and such.

If you feel that is a bad argument, please explain why. If you feel it's fair, then I think we may agree. I'm not against humanity living longer, I'm against some select few doing so.

[Nursie]

I don't disagree with that at all, in principle.

"I should get to live longer and everyone else can rot" would be a particular sort of evil.

However what I don't agree with is going from there to "unless everyone can have it, noone can". An awful lot of medicine is not (yet) available to everyone in the world, and while I think it should be, and we should work towards every last human being having access to free, socialised healthcare of the highest quality, you won't find me calling for denying cancer treatments to those in wealthy nations because other nations can't foot the bill.

[silisili]

Well, the other side of the coin is whether those folks even want to live longer.

We have gotten so used to being generally blind to essentially slave labor to support our lifestyles. Is it fair if we double our lifespan while those stuck in poverty making our products don't, or perhaps don't even want to?