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Neslit | 10 years ago

Personally, I really like living, mainly because there's a lot of awesome stuff to do and see and build, stories to tell, people to be with, etc. The logical next step is that I don't want to die, at least any time soon or involuntarily. Avoiding death may be difficult, but it seems rather sad to just give up; and anyway, say what you will about humans, but we are pretty goddamn clever occasionally.

So it seems quite worth it to fight death. I don't know if avoiding involuntary death should seem so implausible---humans are machines that can be fixed when they start breaking; that's how ordinary medicine works! I think it would actually be surprising if we could extend lifespans from 30 years all the way up to 100+ years, but couldn't possibly go much further, even given massive future advances in our understanding of biology, neurology, and technology.

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shopkins|10 years ago

Except we're not machines. "You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else," as Tyler Durden would say.

Some might say the next logical step isn't to wish to live forever, but to die, and hope your genes and ideas live on. We're not the eternal ones in this universe, no matter how big our capacity to wish for that.

Neslit|10 years ago

>Except we're not machines.

I only mean that we're machines enough so that medical techniques work. We are made of parts that break and can be fixed. This is on extremely solid empirical footing.

>Some might say the next logical step isn't to wish to live forever, but to die, and hope your genes and ideas live on. We're not the eternal ones in this universe, no matter how big our capacity to wish for that.

Do you say that? I wish to live a very long time, and I wish the same for my loved ones and anyone who wants. I would keep wishing this even if it were an impossible wish. Also, it happens to probably not be impossible.