| HN Mirror

> Status quo bias much?

Randomness much? You could say that to anything said in response to a proposed change. Why is there no possible explanation for what I said in your mind? Why jump to something I can't possibly prove to not be the case, and which adds and asks nothing, right away?

I don't like the status quo in a thousand aspects. But from where I stand, stuff like this is an extension of the status quo, not a meaningful change, it's just another step down the rabbit hole of selfishness and delusion. And it's one I have been waiting for since the 90s, I was always astonished by the creepyness and emptyness of the people talking about such stuff, at least the ones I saw on TV. They talked about learning more languages or traveling a lot, and oh yeah, more time for shopping. It's gonna be great. We will never have to stop consuming!

I don't have anything against longer lifespans per se. I just also smell the petty spirit of this current dream. I see the people ruling this planet, I see our societies, and I say good luck.

By the way, we already live in a world in which people can get locked up and have their shoelaces and belts taken away. Are you really worried about people telling others to stop living? I wouldn't dream of that; but the idea of being forced to live, now there's some scary fucking shit. Let's assume costs go towards zero; fuck prison, let's put people in the eternal hell our forefathers dreamed up.

Nope, not envious. Not envious at all. Just, once again, thinking real hard about wether I want to have children.

On the plus side, combined with automation and current concentrations of power and wealth, what do you think would happen if the rich and powerful knew they could live forever? Do you really think they would share the already burdened and stinky planet with everybody? Haha! Oh wait, you're serious; let me curl up and cry.

> If there are things worth living for and important to learn

I agree. I also still remember one night realizing that I will die one day, and that ENDLESS amounts of cool stuff, like discovering the universe and meeting aliens, will happen while I will simply not exist anymore... that was the first time in my life I felt real deep grief, incurable grief, I cried so hard. Thankfully I had no idea about the heat death of the universe then ^^ But on the other hand, I was a kid...

> it is incredibly illogical to postulate there there is a maximum length of lifetime after which they aren't desirable/important anymore.

... and as I grew up, I intellectually came to "know" (as far as anyone can claim that about anything) that there is no free will, that everything is everything period, and all subdivisions just constructs and ultimately delusions. If you can reason about this and come to other conclusions, I'd love to hear them.

Although I'm far from achieving realisation of that, I think ultimately ego is just a fever to be overcome, that a joy and peace are to be found that way which are without equal, from what I can tell so far from random bright moments of the soul. And I think I can be forgiven for assuming that once one has overcome their ego, life and death and "doing important things" kinda loose their weight, since why would it be so terribly important that I do an important thing? If I still have to be continually fed with experiences, peoples and things, I still haven't found liberation and peace. Like Plutarch said, the mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled. Like Erich Fromm said, to have or to be.

50 years for that just sounded good, I wasn't actually trying to name a hard limit here, but I guess the whole point was lost on you anyway. I wasn't talking of lifespan either, but about 50 years to "become yourself, learn empathy, get perspective", etc.

You also have to consider that 5000 years doesn't just mean having 5000 years to go into whatever you would consider a good direction. It could also mean 5000 years to become more sadistic, intellectually dishonest, good at sociopathy, crazy, sad -- my point being, that in my books, if you go a good way, you trend towards a happy and content center, of both yourself and the universe, and once you roughly reached it, you only settle in better, but don't really move far away from it anymore. On the other hand, if you do NOT go a good way, you can basically run into the woods as far as you can run for as long as you live, build better and better walls and illusions. I'd even say the more deranged people are the more driven they are... Noam Chomsky is a super busy bee, but not really driven, like, say, Steve Ballmer.

I'd be the first to agree I'm a simpleton in the black and white way I think about this stuff but it's simply false that I just "want stuff to stay as it is for the sake of stuff staying as it is". You don't know me, at all, and the fact that you come out with such a cheap shot right away says more about your end of the conversation than mine. Even if I'm utterly wrong and misguided, it's not for that reason.

> How would you react to the assertion that 20 years of adult life are enough to experience everything worth experiencing and everyone who doesn't commit suicide at 40 is greedy and pitiable.

I already said I wouldn't agree with that, see the reference to "Logan's run".

But hey, let's say there is a pill tomorrow which makes you immortal (and, while we're at it, physically invincible) for 5000000000 years - would you take it? If not, you agree that there is some point beyond which it might not be desirable to live, at least not with our current psychological makeup, right?. 100 years, 1000, 10000, 100000000000 etc... we could squabble about that, and I think it really depends on what you consider worthy aims in life, and how you consider your importance versus others who live or could live - I tried to roughly answer that for myself, I appreciate that the mileage of others may vary, but I also reserve the right to frown upon some of the motivations and horizons that are to be found out there. Simply put, we're still stunted children in the big scheme of things, and to become immortal now would be the worst curse imaginable. It's not just the nice people, you know. It's not just you and your friends and Kurzweil. It's Henry Fucking Kissinger and Schwarzenegger, too. All the artists and actors who just don't know when to quit in dignity - forever.

And the people who are already ruthless cutthroats will react in a very predictable way to the stakes suddenly getting a lot higher. No more philantropy near the end of your lifetime, now it's literally the winner takes all. Good luck with all that, you'll need it.