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kulahan 5 days ago

Xi Jinping is worse, by orders of magnitude.

Death is part of the necessary cycle of biology, and in no way is it bad. It’s certainly SAD, but in no way is it bad. Rotting isn’t this horrible mark on your body, it’s the beauty of nature recycling things so that the new has a chance.

Not only that, but could you imagine the absolutely incredible strain on Earth’s resources if we had 50 billion people instead of 8 billion? Global warming would’ve happened ages ago, and we’d be far, FAR beyond it now. In this scenario, it should be obvious nobody has a yacht, let alone a smartphone. There simply isn’t enough to go around here on earth.

There simply isn’t any positive to immortality, besides “well I won’t be sad about that one particular thing anymore”, which is… really lame when compared against the untold damage this will do.

I’m a little surprised you’re not taking any time to explain the benefits here, because I’m not actually seeing any besides you not having to cope with nature anymore.

Edit: I should also mention that I’m not looking for shitty black mirror outcomes, I’m just looking at the modern world, which continues to stratify massively, and pretty much has (with few exceptions) since time immemorial. Can you explain why things will suddenly become fair and equitable when nobody dies for some reason?

ACCount37 5 days ago | parent [-]

If you think that the evils of Xi Jinping outweigh the suffering of billions, you should consider killing Xi Jinping. Plenty of people tried killing Hitler, and Xi Jinping is apparently even worse?

>There simply isn’t any positive to immortality, besides

You mean, besides billions of people not rotting to death in their own bodies? Besides that little incredibly unimportant easy-to-overlook thing?

>Can you explain why things will suddenly become fair and equitable when nobody dies for some reason?

Can you explain why amazing technologies like cars and smartphones and air travel became available to the masses, instead of being hoarded by a dozen uber-rich uber-powerful billionaires?

The short answer is "economics". Do you expect anti-aging technology to be exempt from economics somehow?

kulahan 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah, I dunno about you, but I’m not using the same kinds of stuff as billionaires.

It will be the same - because of economics. If you think you’ll be just as healthy as long-lived as them, you’re crazy. It’s literally not the case anywhere else in life. Food, housing, opportunities, healthcare ALREADY, transportation, and kitchen sinks.

> besides billions of people not rotting to death in their own bodies?

Man, when you’re so melodramatic about something as benign as aging, you’re really hard to take seriously.

If you can’t see my point of view by now, and how it’s a hell of a gamble to hope we stop doing the thing we’ve been doing pretty much since the dawn of man, I don’t think I have anything else to add to the conversation.

I also just think it’s mentioning that you are your body, in its entirety. We almost certainly have more than one brain, at the very least.

ACCount37 4 days ago | parent [-]

That's what aging is. Aging is the process of rotting to death in your own body. There's nothing "benign" about it.

Humans learned a lot of ways to sugarcoat it. Many ways to cope. But if I told you that I want to create and unleash something that would make billions suffer, getting worse over decades, and all afflicted people would eventually die?

You'd call me a twisted monster, rightfully so.

And yet, when I propose we do the opposite, you say "no, it's natural, it's benign, rotting to death is fine actually, everyone does it".

viking123 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I can't see how there wouldn't be a revolution if the rich had all this anti-aging technology and the plebs would sit there and watch.

People like to cope a lot, they are fine with playing whack a mole with 50 different diseases and putting the 90 year old through chemo, but treating aging (the actual root cause)? OH MY GOD MUH NATURE

kulahan 4 days ago | parent [-]

I wasn't going to respond because this comment is so dense, but I feel like it's valuable to the conversation to point out: wtf do you mean "people"? I've literally never met anyone who shares my view on this.