Ok. So, my death benefits me insofar as I care about other people (altruism) and my death benefits those people.
Obvious next question: how does my death benefit the people I care about?
Roughly delineated, I care about my family and friends immensely; casual acquaintances / colleagues / peers / etc. a good amount; and other people roughly to the degree that they share my culture (variously defined).
Thus, for death to benefit me via altruism, it would have to benefit my family and friends a lot (to offset the great loss they would feel at my death); and/or benefit casual acquaintances / colleagues / peers a pretty large amount (to compensate for the discount factor of how much I care about them); and/or benefit various other people in the world an almost astronomical total amount (ditto).
Does my death in fact do this? I can imagine certain specific scenarios where one or more of these things is the case, such as if my death serves to save my family, or save the world from destruction. However, death in common circumstances does not seem to fit the aforementioned criteria for me to judge it a net positive.
If you have children who in turn plan on having children, then you might be inclined to die eventually in order to secure more resources for your progeny. Similarly if you have close friends with children.
Of course, I’d prefer to incentivize having fewer children and make it harder to have children as a means to control population. If death were necessary, I’d recommend a lottery (assuming there are insufficient volunteers).
how does my death benefit the people I care about?
Directly? It doesn’t. It only benefits society at large and even then only in so far as it conveys a fitness advantage. Same as sexual reproduction does. The obvious difference being that sexual mechanisms are visible as motivations on your conscious level but aging mechanisms stop at the biological level. But denying it’s operation will not work same as an AI couldn’t deny the operation of it hardware (at least not without conferring comparable disadvantages),
It only benefits society at large and even then only in so far as it conveys a fitness advantage.
Once again, what does it mean for something to benefit society, apart from any benefit to individuals in that society?
If something doesn’t benefit any of the people I care about directly, at all, then how can it benefit society, which is made up of those people?
It only benefits society at large and even then only in so far as it conveys a fitness advantage. Same as sexual reproduction does. The obvious difference being that sexual mechanisms are visible as motivations on your conscious level but aging mechanisms stop at the biological level. But denying it’s operation will not work same as an AI couldn’t deny the operation of it hardware (at least not without conferring comparable disadvantages),
Are you familiar with the concept of the selfish gene?
It doesn’t.
Except in the same way as altruism does.
Ok. So, my death benefits me insofar as I care about other people (altruism) and my death benefits those people.
Obvious next question: how does my death benefit the people I care about?
Roughly delineated, I care about my family and friends immensely; casual acquaintances / colleagues / peers / etc. a good amount; and other people roughly to the degree that they share my culture (variously defined).
Thus, for death to benefit me via altruism, it would have to benefit my family and friends a lot (to offset the great loss they would feel at my death); and/or benefit casual acquaintances / colleagues / peers a pretty large amount (to compensate for the discount factor of how much I care about them); and/or benefit various other people in the world an almost astronomical total amount (ditto).
Does my death in fact do this? I can imagine certain specific scenarios where one or more of these things is the case, such as if my death serves to save my family, or save the world from destruction. However, death in common circumstances does not seem to fit the aforementioned criteria for me to judge it a net positive.
If you have children who in turn plan on having children, then you might be inclined to die eventually in order to secure more resources for your progeny. Similarly if you have close friends with children.
Of course, I’d prefer to incentivize having fewer children and make it harder to have children as a means to control population. If death were necessary, I’d recommend a lottery (assuming there are insufficient volunteers).
Directly? It doesn’t. It only benefits society at large and even then only in so far as it conveys a fitness advantage. Same as sexual reproduction does. The obvious difference being that sexual mechanisms are visible as motivations on your conscious level but aging mechanisms stop at the biological level. But denying it’s operation will not work same as an AI couldn’t deny the operation of it hardware (at least not without conferring comparable disadvantages),
Once again, what does it mean for something to benefit society, apart from any benefit to individuals in that society?
If something doesn’t benefit any of the people I care about directly, at all, then how can it benefit society, which is made up of those people?
Are you familiar with the concept of the selfish gene?