To those who think that death should be a choice. What about the benefits of knowing that we are mortal, which death by choice doesn’t allow for. e.g. as a counter force to arrogance and as a force to act now, and so as we age to start reevaluating our priorities, in other words, the benefits while we live to knowing that we are mortal may outweigh the benefit of immortality. I suspect these concerns have been dealt with on this site, so if they have feel free to link me to an appropriate post instead of writing a new response,
Thank you, but that post doesn’t seem to answer my question, since it doesn’t take up how death interplays with our cognitive biases. I agree that if we were perfectly rational beings immortality would be great, however I don’t see how that implies that considering our current state that the choice to live forever (or a really long time) would be in our best interest.
Similarly I don’t see how that argument indicates that we should develop longevity technologies until we solve the problem of human irrationality and evil. For example, would having a technology to live 150 years cause more benefit or would it cause wars over who gets to use the technology?
You keep using the words “we” and “our”, but “we” don’t have lifespans; individual humans do. So the relevant questions, it seems to me, are: is removing the current cap on lifespan in the interest of any given individual? And: is removing the current cap on lifespan, for all individuals who wish it removed, in the interests of other individuals in their (family, country, society, culture, world)?
Those are different questions. Likewise, the choice to make immortality available to anyone who wants it, and the choice to actually continue living, are two different choices. (Actually, the latter is an infinite sequence[1] of choices.)
Similarly I don’t see how that argument indicates that we should develop longevity technologies until we solve the problem of human irrationality and evil.
No one is necessarily claiming that we should. Like I say in my top-level comment, this is a perfectly valid question, one which we would do well to consider in the process of solving the engineering challenge that is human lifespan.
[1] Maybe. Someone with a better-exercised grasp of calculus correct me if I’m wrong — if I’m potentially making the choice continuously at all times, can it still be represented as an infinite sequence?
“You keep using the words “we” and “our”, but “we” don’t have lifespans; individual humans do.”
Of course, but “we” is common shorthand for decisions which are made at the level of society, even though that is a collection of individual decisions (e.g. should we build a bridge, or should we legalize marijuana). Do you think that using standard english expressions is problematic? (I agree that both the question of benefit for the self and benefit for others is important and think the issue of cognitive biases is relevant to both of them)
I just looked at your comment, and I agree with that argument, but that hasn’t been my impression of the view of many on this site (and clearly isn’t the view of researchers like De Grey), however I am relatively new here and may be mistaken about that. Thank you for clarifying.
Also there is the possibility of fighting over the resources to use that technology (either within society or without). Do you disagree with the general idea that without greater rationality extreme longevity will not necessarily be beneficial or do you only disagree with the example?
That sounds more like something that would motivate the side that’s not already long-lived. They’d already have plenty of motivation. I’m saying the country that has access to the tech but wants to restrict is isn’t going to have the will to fight.
Well, “not necessarily be beneficial” strictly means “is not certain to be beneficial”, but connotationally means “is likely enough to prove not-beneficial that we shouldn’t do it”, so I ADBOC—it’s conceivable that it could go wrong, but I think it’s likely enough to have a beneficial enough outcome that we should do it anyway.
yes and that was the meaning of my initial comment, and that is a concern in today’s world where we do have limited resources so that not everyone would be able to make use of such a technology. The country that has it (or the subset of people that have it within one country) will be motivated to defend their resources necessary to use it., This isn’t an argument against such research in a world without any scarcity, but that isn’t our world.
I am still not sure whether it is likely to be more beneficial or not for heavily emotional and biased humans like us.
Does that even work? I’m thinking that an arrogant person will generally shrug off the mortality thing and go on with being arrogant, barring some near-death experience.
as a force to act now
Or at least “this decade” rather than “some day”. But death seems like a steep cost for this benefit. Is there another way to get it? Like, if we’ve got immortal people anyway, we’re going to want to have a retirement equivalent, but it won’t be a matter of working forty years and taking the rest of your life off. What if we had a system whereby people took ten years off work after every thirty or so, with a guaranteed salary during that time that’s more than sufficient for living? Then you would have a specific timeframe in which you are expected to relax, take long vacations, knock off a life goal or two, that sort of thing.
That requires reworking social security / state pensions and probably requires a lot more wealth in general to enact. But we don’t currently have a cure for death, so there’s time to work out how to deal with a lack of death and enact those policies.
We are all arrogant to some degree or another, knowledge of or mortality helps keep it in check. What would the world look like with an unrestrained god complex?
Taking 10 years off after 30 years doesn’t seem to solve the problem of the psychological issue, in today’s world, as we get older we start noticing the weakness of our bodies which push us to act, since “if not now, when”.
Unless we solve the various cognitive biases we suffer from, extreme longevity seems like a mixed blessing at best, and it seems to me that it would cause more problems than it solves.
I agree that these arguments don’t decide the issue, but the counter argument of letting people choose doesn’t seem to me effective. Also, arguments about how we would be superbeings who are totally rational, may be applicable to some post-human existence, but would not help the argument that longevity research should be pursued today (since, e.g. there would likely be wars over who gets to use it which might kill even more people, as we see in the world today the problem with world hunger and disease is not primarily one of lack of technological or economic ability but rather one of sociopolitical institutions)
We are all arrogant to some degree or another, knowledge of or mortality helps keep it in check.
Do we have any evidence regarding this? I know there are parables serving to emphasize humility due to mortality, but I have no information on their effectiveness. It seems like it needs some immediacy to be effective, which means it only takes place when you start feeling old—I’m guessing this will be forties to sixties for most Westerners.
Taking 10 years off after 30 years doesn’t seem to solve the problem of the psychological issue, in today’s world, as we get older we start noticing the weakness of our bodies which push us to act, since “if not now, when”.
A well-funded, extended retirement is a perfect opportunity to do all the things you haven’t had time to do while working. The threat of having to work for another few decades should be a reasonable proxy for the fear of death.
Specifically, people don’t tell themselves they’ll put things off for thirty years until the next retirement phase; they tell themselves they’ll do it eventually. Thirty years is subjectively a very long time, and people won’t be inclined to happily delay for that long.
Also, arguments about how we would be superbeings who are totally rational
are not included in anything I said here. My suggestion would require large societal changes and provides no mechanism to enact them, but it accounts for normal people, not rational agents.
I would have to look around to see if there is non-anecdotal evidence, but anecdotally ~40 is when I have heard people start mentioning it.
I don’t think your proposal would work since I don’t think the time factor is the biggest issue, How often do people make big plans for summer vacation and not actually do them? They probably wouldn’t say “I’ll put it off for thirty years”, but rather repeatedly say ” I’ll put it off till tomorrow” .
They probably wouldn’t say “I’ll put it off for thirty years”, but rather repeatedly say ” I’ll put it off till tomorrow” .
And then they get a reminder that they only have a year left before they go back to work. And then they get a reminder that they only have six months left. Then three months. At that point, the time crunch is palpable. They have a concrete deadline, not a nebulous one.
And if they miss it? Well, they’ve learned for next time. That’s an option unavailable to a dead person.
That doesn’t strike me as how psychology works, since in the real world people often repeatedly make the same mistakes. It also seems that even if your proposal would work, it doesn’t address the original issue since you are assuming that the person has a clear idea of his goals and only needs time to pursue them, whereas I think the bigger issue which aging encourages is reorienting ones values.
I appreciate your taking the time to address my question, but it seems to me that this conversation isn’t really making progress so I will probably not respond to future comments on this thread. Thank you
To those who think that death should be a choice. What about the benefits of knowing that we are mortal, which death by choice doesn’t allow for. e.g. as a counter force to arrogance and as a force to act now, and so as we age to start reevaluating our priorities, in other words, the benefits while we live to knowing that we are mortal may outweigh the benefit of immortality. I suspect these concerns have been dealt with on this site, so if they have feel free to link me to an appropriate post instead of writing a new response,
Some commentary on the matter is here: How to Seem (and Be) Deep.
Thank you, but that post doesn’t seem to answer my question, since it doesn’t take up how death interplays with our cognitive biases. I agree that if we were perfectly rational beings immortality would be great, however I don’t see how that implies that considering our current state that the choice to live forever (or a really long time) would be in our best interest.
Similarly I don’t see how that argument indicates that we should develop longevity technologies until we solve the problem of human irrationality and evil. For example, would having a technology to live 150 years cause more benefit or would it cause wars over who gets to use the technology?
You keep using the words “we” and “our”, but “we” don’t have lifespans; individual humans do. So the relevant questions, it seems to me, are: is removing the current cap on lifespan in the interest of any given individual? And: is removing the current cap on lifespan, for all individuals who wish it removed, in the interests of other individuals in their (family, country, society, culture, world)?
Those are different questions. Likewise, the choice to make immortality available to anyone who wants it, and the choice to actually continue living, are two different choices. (Actually, the latter is an infinite sequence[1] of choices.)
No one is necessarily claiming that we should. Like I say in my top-level comment, this is a perfectly valid question, one which we would do well to consider in the process of solving the engineering challenge that is human lifespan.
[1] Maybe. Someone with a better-exercised grasp of calculus correct me if I’m wrong — if I’m potentially making the choice continuously at all times, can it still be represented as an infinite sequence?
“You keep using the words “we” and “our”, but “we” don’t have lifespans; individual humans do.” Of course, but “we” is common shorthand for decisions which are made at the level of society, even though that is a collection of individual decisions (e.g. should we build a bridge, or should we legalize marijuana). Do you think that using standard english expressions is problematic? (I agree that both the question of benefit for the self and benefit for others is important and think the issue of cognitive biases is relevant to both of them)
I just looked at your comment, and I agree with that argument, but that hasn’t been my impression of the view of many on this site (and clearly isn’t the view of researchers like De Grey), however I am relatively new here and may be mistaken about that. Thank you for clarifying.
I don’t think anyone’s willing to fight a war just to prevent another country’s life expectancy from increasing.
Maybe, but on the other hand there is inequity aversion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequity_aversion
Also there is the possibility of fighting over the resources to use that technology (either within society or without). Do you disagree with the general idea that without greater rationality extreme longevity will not necessarily be beneficial or do you only disagree with the example?
That sounds more like something that would motivate the side that’s not already long-lived. They’d already have plenty of motivation. I’m saying the country that has access to the tech but wants to restrict is isn’t going to have the will to fight.
Well, “not necessarily be beneficial” strictly means “is not certain to be beneficial”, but connotationally means “is likely enough to prove not-beneficial that we shouldn’t do it”, so I ADBOC—it’s conceivable that it could go wrong, but I think it’s likely enough to have a beneficial enough outcome that we should do it anyway.
yes and that was the meaning of my initial comment, and that is a concern in today’s world where we do have limited resources so that not everyone would be able to make use of such a technology. The country that has it (or the subset of people that have it within one country) will be motivated to defend their resources necessary to use it., This isn’t an argument against such research in a world without any scarcity, but that isn’t our world.
I am still not sure whether it is likely to be more beneficial or not for heavily emotional and biased humans like us.
Does that even work? I’m thinking that an arrogant person will generally shrug off the mortality thing and go on with being arrogant, barring some near-death experience.
Or at least “this decade” rather than “some day”. But death seems like a steep cost for this benefit. Is there another way to get it? Like, if we’ve got immortal people anyway, we’re going to want to have a retirement equivalent, but it won’t be a matter of working forty years and taking the rest of your life off. What if we had a system whereby people took ten years off work after every thirty or so, with a guaranteed salary during that time that’s more than sufficient for living? Then you would have a specific timeframe in which you are expected to relax, take long vacations, knock off a life goal or two, that sort of thing.
That requires reworking social security / state pensions and probably requires a lot more wealth in general to enact. But we don’t currently have a cure for death, so there’s time to work out how to deal with a lack of death and enact those policies.
We are all arrogant to some degree or another, knowledge of or mortality helps keep it in check. What would the world look like with an unrestrained god complex?
Taking 10 years off after 30 years doesn’t seem to solve the problem of the psychological issue, in today’s world, as we get older we start noticing the weakness of our bodies which push us to act, since “if not now, when”.
Unless we solve the various cognitive biases we suffer from, extreme longevity seems like a mixed blessing at best, and it seems to me that it would cause more problems than it solves.
I agree that these arguments don’t decide the issue, but the counter argument of letting people choose doesn’t seem to me effective. Also, arguments about how we would be superbeings who are totally rational, may be applicable to some post-human existence, but would not help the argument that longevity research should be pursued today (since, e.g. there would likely be wars over who gets to use it which might kill even more people, as we see in the world today the problem with world hunger and disease is not primarily one of lack of technological or economic ability but rather one of sociopolitical institutions)
Do we have any evidence regarding this? I know there are parables serving to emphasize humility due to mortality, but I have no information on their effectiveness. It seems like it needs some immediacy to be effective, which means it only takes place when you start feeling old—I’m guessing this will be forties to sixties for most Westerners.
A well-funded, extended retirement is a perfect opportunity to do all the things you haven’t had time to do while working. The threat of having to work for another few decades should be a reasonable proxy for the fear of death.
Specifically, people don’t tell themselves they’ll put things off for thirty years until the next retirement phase; they tell themselves they’ll do it eventually. Thirty years is subjectively a very long time, and people won’t be inclined to happily delay for that long.
are not included in anything I said here. My suggestion would require large societal changes and provides no mechanism to enact them, but it accounts for normal people, not rational agents.
I would have to look around to see if there is non-anecdotal evidence, but anecdotally ~40 is when I have heard people start mentioning it.
I don’t think your proposal would work since I don’t think the time factor is the biggest issue, How often do people make big plans for summer vacation and not actually do them? They probably wouldn’t say “I’ll put it off for thirty years”, but rather repeatedly say ” I’ll put it off till tomorrow” .
And then they get a reminder that they only have a year left before they go back to work. And then they get a reminder that they only have six months left. Then three months. At that point, the time crunch is palpable. They have a concrete deadline, not a nebulous one.
And if they miss it? Well, they’ve learned for next time. That’s an option unavailable to a dead person.
That doesn’t strike me as how psychology works, since in the real world people often repeatedly make the same mistakes. It also seems that even if your proposal would work, it doesn’t address the original issue since you are assuming that the person has a clear idea of his goals and only needs time to pursue them, whereas I think the bigger issue which aging encourages is reorienting ones values.
I appreciate your taking the time to address my question, but it seems to me that this conversation isn’t really making progress so I will probably not respond to future comments on this thread. Thank you