Everytime I read about longevity research and how many people are in favor of it I can't stop thinking about this speech.
And one of the endings of Cyberpunk 2077.
I think people generally, and the Silicon Valley set in particular, have a hard time abstracting from “would I like” to “would the world be a better place if”.
Would I like to live a thousand years? Yes, with the obvious caveats.
Would the world be a better place if the technology for living a thousand years existed? Absolutely not, at least not at first, and certainly not today. There’s a great many people around right now who’s primary redeeming quality is their impending mortality - it’s not just science that advances one funeral at a time.
How many times has your life or someone close to you in your life not died from something they would have died of 100yrs ago? If you're happy medical tech saved their lives then you're arguably for life extension because all it really means is saving more lives from more things that kill them.
1) Possible solutions aren't binary (true vs false) but trinary (true vs false vs indeterminate)
2) The devil is always in the details. The world is fucking complex and and a first order approximation isn't going to get you there anymore. We've had 100kyrs to solve problems, we got most of the simple ones down (appearing simple does not mean simple)
2.5) A clique wouldn't be a clique if it wasn't something practically everyone knows and can recite but is not something people demonstrate an actual understanding of by observing their actions. (Just like LLMs: just because you can repeat some knowledge does not mean you're able to (ineptitude), or have the will to (malice), use the knowledge in any meaningful way)
> Would the world be a better place if the technology for living a thousand years existed? Absolutely not, at least not at first, and certainly not today
If you want to sacrifice your life for a better world, that is your decision. But do not force that decision to other people.
We could live for 20 years or 200 and it wouldn't matter - entities will emerge that will attempt to consolidate and abuse power. Those may be individual dictators, tyrannical governments, or global conglomerates. The answer is the same, and it doesn't involve hampering scientific progress.
roughly|2 years ago
Would I like to live a thousand years? Yes, with the obvious caveats.
Would the world be a better place if the technology for living a thousand years existed? Absolutely not, at least not at first, and certainly not today. There’s a great many people around right now who’s primary redeeming quality is their impending mortality - it’s not just science that advances one funeral at a time.
nox100|2 years ago
JKCalhoun|2 years ago
Ha ha, that's funny (but not nice — but I like it).
KittenInABox|2 years ago
godelski|2 years ago
1) Possible solutions aren't binary (true vs false) but trinary (true vs false vs indeterminate)
2) The devil is always in the details. The world is fucking complex and and a first order approximation isn't going to get you there anymore. We've had 100kyrs to solve problems, we got most of the simple ones down (appearing simple does not mean simple)
2.5) A clique wouldn't be a clique if it wasn't something practically everyone knows and can recite but is not something people demonstrate an actual understanding of by observing their actions. (Just like LLMs: just because you can repeat some knowledge does not mean you're able to (ineptitude), or have the will to (malice), use the knowledge in any meaningful way)
zajio1am|2 years ago
If you want to sacrifice your life for a better world, that is your decision. But do not force that decision to other people.
squigz|2 years ago
borbulon|2 years ago
Lorkki|2 years ago