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Strong No because I firmly believe that the limitation of our lifespan is the thing giving meaning to our lifes in the first place. It gives consequence to our decisions. To spend part of your life on a certain project or with a certain person becomes an important decision only because you asign a non-neglectable portion of your life to it.
@ConstantinHauser Today, I'm traveling so that I can spend Christmas Eve with my relatives. Apparently, this is meaningless because it will only consume a negligible portion of our lives. Hopefully, someone will kill me so that I can die in my 20's - that will make my life 3 to 4 times more meaningful!
Imagine you're an outside observer to humanity floating in the ether looking in at humans considering this question. What happens whenever there is a large demand for a super critical, scarce resource? Does this generally result in less conflict or more conflict? Does peoples' behavior generally improve if you introduce this resource, coming from a point of not having had that resource previously?
The question is not, "do you want to live 10X longer," the question is, "should we pursue it?"
We does not mean you. If you didn't have early access to the COVID vaccine, as in October or November 2020, then you will *certainly* not be getting the magical life extension formula.
You really are not special, literally no one cares about you except your immediate friends and family, and this includes all of the semi-famous youtubers and podcasters on this site with hundreds of thousands of followers - we will all be pretty much 100% forgotten (on the internet and in public) roughly 3 to 10 years after we die. Now, understanding that you are effectively perceived as a farm animal, why would one particular farm animal get this treatment?
In all likelihood NO ONE answering yes is going to get the 10X longer lifespan, even if it were possible, it's going to go to people with much closer access and higher resources.
If you don't already own a private jet, you won't be getting this.
So all of that being said, you have to consider that this treatment is not going to you, but rather some other group of humans in the future, and all of the moral ramifications that this entails.
If you think that you are, you can of course bet on this market for easy mana.
https://manifold.markets/PatrickDelaney/will-someone-join-this-market-who-w
@PatrickDelaney Wouldn't all of these apply equally to any new form of technology? I don't think we should stall the development of technology just because a new technological advance will start out being used by the rich and powerful, as all technologies do, before it becomes more widely available.
Also, if I was an outside observer floating in the ether, I wouldn't care at all about this, "We does not mean you" stuff. I would still rather let other people, even far future people, experience an extended lifespan, even if I don't get to.
@PlasmaBallin Stalling the development of technology…Is “spending money on research which may or may not achieve various benefits,” a different topic from, “spending money to achieve only a specific result, at the expense of other results?” Outside observer…so you wouldn’t care or you would find it important to achieve extended lifespan? Seems like you are saying as an outside observer you both would not care but also think it should be achieved, so strong yes as an outside observer, even though you don’t care?
Is “spending money on research which may or may not achieve various benefits,” a different topic from, “spending money to achieve only a specific result, at the expense of other results?”
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you arguing that we shouldn't spend money on life extension research because it might not work and/or because it will prevent us from investing money in other research?
Seems like you are saying as an outside observer you both would not care but also think it should be achieved
That is not what I said at all. I said that an outside observer wouldn't care about your "We doesn't mean you" arguments. Those arguments only work against someone who is advocating for life extension on purely self-interested grounds. I want life extension to be achieved regardless of whether I personally get to experience the benefits of it, and I think a hypothetical outside observer would, too, if they were altruistic.
Are you arguing that we shouldn't spend money on life extension research because it might not work and/or because it will prevent us from investing money in other research?
I am not arguing anything. This is nothing personal against you, I always push back against life extensionism on Manifold because I think people put little to no thought into it and don't tie it to healthcare or health, they just put it into this little wishful thinking, dreamy bubble and get mad if you push back or start going into the science and technolgy details or ramifications of it. Perhaps it's just a fear of death, aging or mortality, I don't know. Again, not saying you are doing this, it's a trend I have noticed over time. I'm trying to get people to hesitate think for at least two seconds before answering, "YES," because I believe the question people are really answering is, "Do you personally want to live for 1000 years?" Honestly, I would even go into discussions about pet life extensionism for the sake of argument...like, perhaps we shouldn't even put research into dogs being able to live 30 or 40 years, which I think would be an even more unpopular stance (and frankly, painful for me to argue).
There are a lot of directions this could go. Reducing it down to, "because it will prevent us from investing money in other research?" is one particular avenue.
For example, and I am not using this to shut down the argument, but rather to push back against what I see as anti-life-extension arguments being characterized as being (without saying straight out) "being a bummer trying to hold back people from living 1000 years." I had a friend who died of Osteosarcoma in 2008 (actually on January 1st) at the age of 21. At the time, research dollars in rarer forms of cancer, such as Osteosarcoma, which occurs rarely in children and young adults, was essentially nil, while the rate of death was high. While I'm not sure about how the survival rate of Osteosarcoma specifically has changed, I know that in the ensuing decade, disease research priorities changed to help focus more conditions with a high incidence of death, even though they are not as profitable or universal.
So I would say, the while above question, "Is immortality for humans..." seems simple, it's actually a bit click-baity and therefore distracting away from a lot of important detail. I doubt there will be follow-up questions digging deeper and I think it's more designed to raise the profile of person who posted it rather than genuine curiosity. I do not believe this person works in healthcare or life exensionism or has any interest beyond playing the Manifold game (which is fine, not meaning to judge...it's just, not a serious topic).
That being said, my question was:
“spending money on research which may or may not achieve various benefits,” a different topic from, “spending money to achieve only a specific result, at the expense of other results?”
This is a more broad question.
Other questions...what happens whenever there is a large demand for a super critical, scarce resource? Does this generally result in less conflict or more conflict? Does peoples' behavior generally improve if you introduce this resource, coming from a point of not having had that resource previously? Is the question just a simple, "Oh yeah, it's already a given," or is there some kind of catch? It just seems way too overly simplistic to not have some kind of catch.
"Do you want to have magic or no magic? Why would you prevent people from having magic?"
Aside from clear moral and ethical setbacks—what’s the point? Thinking hedonistically, is living a thousand years actually that fulfilling? I feel like living a thousand year life would be like trying to sit through a 20 hour movie. I would much rather learn to love the fleeting, delicate nature of mortal life
@thepurplebull 1. Aging can limit your options for quality of life. Immortality presents an opportunity to maintain those options. 2. You assume that if you're immortal, you HAVE to live a thousand years. That would be quite an unethical requirement. It's not just a longer life, it's a new option of when to die.
Aside from clear moral and ethical setbacks
What specific moral and ethical setbacks do you think justify not pursuing immortality? People often allude to vague "moral concerns" about life extension, but when these concerns are actually explained, they're usually either not worth taking seriously at all (e.g., "It's unnatural") or real concerns but not enough to outweigh the immense good of saving billions of lives.
what’s the point?
I assume you are exaggerating here since the point is obvious - people want to live longer. Most people hold continued existence as a terminal value.
Thinking hedonistically, is living a thousand years actually that fulfilling?
Even if a longer life was, on average, less fulfilling throughout your lifespan, you would still have more fulfillment overall if you lived longer, unless it was way less fulfilling. I don't see any reason to think that you would feel less fulfilled at an average time, let alone that you would feel so much less fulfilled to make a longer life not worth it. Also, this assumes that fulfillment is the only thing that matters. I would rather live a longer life even if I was less fulfilled because I think life is good for its own sake.
I feel like living a thousand year life would be like trying to sit through a 20 hour movie.
I don't see the analogy here. A 20-hour movie would be too much to sit through mainly because people don't have a long enough attention span, we have biological needs that have to be met within those 20 hours, and most stories that are made into movies can be told in that format in less than 20 hours, so stretching them out for longer would require adding extraneous stuff that makes the story less focused and more boring. The first two reason clearly don't have any relevance here, and the last one only matters if you think your life is a story structured in the same way as a typical movie, which it is most certainly not.
I would much rather learn to love the fleeting, delicate nature of mortal life
How does being fleeting or delicate make life better? I think this is just a pretty way of dressing up the fact that most people don't live as long as they would like to and that many people die in tragic accidents, both of which are definitively bad things.
I'd be very interested in knowing the average age of those voting in this. When I was in my 20s and 30s the idea of immortality was very appealing. As I've gotten older (43 now) I'm starting to feel differently about it and more accepting of death. Perhaps having kids changes your perspective on it.
(ETA: I approached this in an unkind and unhelpful way, for which I am sorry. I've decided to not participate any further in this thread.)
I understand feeling personally weary of the world, but is your acceptance of death something you'd impose on everyone? Do you want your kids to die?!
@adele Well, let me clarify a couple of things.
No need to use my children to try and trigger an emotional response from me 😂
I'm not weary of the world
I think if I had to try and explain it, it's that life has a natural cadence to it. When you're young, it's exciting and new. You reach middle age and your goal is to try and give your kids a great life and set them up for success, then you age out and hopefully you see them succeed.
When I was in my 20s, I loved the idea of being able to upload my mind into a computer simulation. Or that they would figure out how to preserve your physical body forever. I'm going out on a limb here and assuming you're still in your 20s or 30s (apologies if you're not!) but I also couldn't imagine not wanting this. Then I got old lol.
Anyway, that's my perspective. I think the other reasons you wouldn't want to have immortality is that:
The rich would probably get access to it first
It would ossify human development.
For point 2, I think we need a combination of both the old and the young to be a successful, developing species. Too much of either would be detrimental IMHO.
Your kids were used to try and trigger an emotional response because you mentioned them when explaining your position
Why don't you want to participate in it or explore it further then?
Yes, like all treatments that get popularized afterwards. You need funding and early adopters/scouts.
What's the goal of human development? Having long, interesting, fulfilling lives. Human development can slow down as long as this goal is being reached. But sure, we have to make sure nobody is left behind, and seeing the world today, this will be difficult to say the least. But hopefully having long lives will reveal current attempts at immortality through military or economic conquest as what they are: futile and vain. The search for meaning in life should push the rich towards more noble goals. Or maybe they'll turn into immortal Musks and every city will be Mariupoled one by one into submission to an immortal dictator.
This response is of course only scratching the surface of this exciting debate.
"Do you want your kids to die?!" which is a direct quote, is quite a different tack to me speculating in passing that they might have changed my perspective.
At no point have I mentioned that I want to stop participating in the world or exploring it. I said "I feel more accepting of death" which is true. I don't want to die (yet) but I have a very different opinion on it (avoid at all costs) to what I do now (a natural part of human existence).
You're absolutely right, I'm sorry for having missed that angle. There is a debate to have around those ideas (the laws, the ethics of preventing others to access this), but this was worded in an awkward, blunt and insensitive way.
That's something I can't understand (yet). I always feel less invested when I know that I can be interrupted at any point, or when I know that I don't have a lot of time in front of me. Are you really involved and serious in your plans if you know you probably won't have time for the long term? Besides, the "natural" component has no intrinsic appeal. Pain when giving birth is natural, but no thanks.
That's fine, and thanks for saying sorry 🙂
You're absolutely right that the "natural" argument holds no water and at best it's just a feeling and isn't based in any logical argument.
To your second point regarding interruptions. I still feel like I have enough time to accomplish what I want to do. For example, I've started a business and I feel like I have enough time to both build that business and hopefully enjoy some of the results of the effort that have gone in it despite being more aware and accepting of my mortality.
I wonder that even if we did invent immortality that most people would willingly die after approximately natural life span anyway. Certainly having a high quality of life over those years would be welcome however.
I think it was in the culture novel series where immortality was available but most people chose to live only ~300 years due to the "weight" of the memories you would carry with you.
@SamuelRichardson I don't think there is anything wrong with the way you feel towards your own immortality, but saying that we shouldn't pursue immortality because of those feelings assumes that everyone else feels the same way. You mentioned, for example, that having kids changed your perspective, but lots of people never have kids. I don't think the "natural cadence" you described is anywhere near being general to all humanity.
@PlasmaBallin re the "natural cadence" I would be very interested to see a breakdown of that by age and kids. I don't think either of us can say that it's general to humanity or not.
I'm not trying to speak in truisms here but to offer a perspective that is probably not common to this site based on (my assumed!) demographic breakdown of it.