[hinkley]

Why would you want to go on in a world that has either left you behind or keeps making the same mistakes over and over in a cycle and won't listen to you because you're too old to understand?

And conversely, I think Kim Stanley Robinson puts it best in the Mars trilogy. Scientific progress often has to wait for the old guard to die so new ideas can be tried. Sometimes there are actually new things and they need to be allowed to cook.

[HarHarVeryFunny]

I think the idea originated with Max Planck:

German physicist Max Planck somewhat cynically declared, science advances one funeral at a time. Planck noted “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

[kiba]

A questionable assumption.

A scientist like Einstein experienced scientific revolutions within his lifetime. That's hardly going to be the norm in the history of science, and also a horrible assumption to think revolutions would endlessly be occurring and reoccurring.

Also, we know when we're on the edge of knowledge, especially in cosmology and physics. We're waiting for revolution there. There's dark energy and dark matter. It doesn't matter if you're old or young, you knew that your theories isn't good enough to explain whatever these are.

Scientific knowledge don't get swept away especially if they're rock solid. Newtonian physics still has a lot of relevance after all. It's just that relativity is even more accurate.

[hinkley]

Einstein and Feynman both supposedly struggled with unseating some of Dirac's ideas.

[giantg2]

Just imagine someone who died 50 years ago coming back and hearing skibidi toilet, no cap, ohio, etc. Then not being allowed to board a plane without a body scan, and not having money for a plane anyways since bread was dime and a gallon of gas was a quarter last you checked. You can't even get a job you're just a brain and all the knowledge work you could do is 50 years out of date.

[skeaker]

I gotta say, none of that would make me rather want to be dead.

[giantg2]

Everyone has their own idea of living hell. I'm sure there's a version for you if this isn't it.

[hinkley]

I'm still alive and this shit is already starting to get to me. This last round of inflation was a kick in the nuts.

[idontwantthis]

There’s a short story about uploaded consciousnesses being used as AI slaves. They go bad once enough years have gone by that they can’t speak the modern language anymore. Then they usually lapse into insanity or depression.

[anon84873628]

Reminds me of: https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

[idontwantthis]

That’s the one.

[bee_rider]

I dunno. I’m a pretty open minded guy so if anyone is going to be immortal, might as well be me. I promise not even to shout at too many clouds.

Plus there are a lot of assholes in the world. Come on, there isn’t anybody you’d enjoy watching get Ozymandias‘d? I’d enjoy it.