Mentioned at NPR (By a Deathist)

I see that one of the NPR bloggers posted on the topic of longevity science today and linked to the Longevity Meme. Unfortunately that was done in the process of dismissing the whole exercise of working to extend human life span:

I confess that I find the whole trajectory to vastly miss the point of being alive which, I would say, is not how long it’s going to last but what it’s like to have it. Returning to the framing concept at the start of this piece, I think of my finite life cycle as a gift, or at least a gift by comparison with the dreary notion of endless existence. Its finiteness allows me to do my thing, make my mistakes, achieve my successes, love and nurture my family and community, run my course like every other critter, and then move out of the way.

Because, evidently, death is life. How very Orwellian. I will make the observation that the only people who say this sort of thing are those who keenly feel the bite of future loss. It is a compensation statement, a shield, a wrapper to hold in seeping existential fear and bitterness. No-one should take it at face value. Those folk who are truly unconcerned about the future state of being dead have no need to protest so loudly - in fact you won't hear them say much at all on the topic.

Sadly, there stands, slouching, a legion of people much like the author of the post quoted above. They sneer at actual research into aging and longevity, do nothing to help, and pretend to believe that death is life - all the while fearing what lies ahead, and working to convince themselves and others that nothing can be done. They will no doubt be jostling for a spot in line when, despite their inaction, rejuvenation therapies are developed and commercialized.

It's all human nature, standard issue, ugly as sin and twice as petty. Nothing to see here, business as usual.

Comments

agreed - the paradoxical notion that the ability to live forever removes the motivation to live is way too prevalent. What baffles me are the people who believe in heaven and the immortal soul but say that eternal life would be a hellish existence. Immortality through afterlife is no different than immortality on earth/the physical universe - except that we know earth exists.

Posted by: Aaron at July 15th, 2010 8:47 PM

Speculating about other people's motivations is always a tricky thing, to say the least. Reason may have a point about author Ursula Goodenough but then it may be that she simply believes what she writes without being "secretly" bitter.

What would make her pause is the simple deGreyian angle (which Aubrey has been using increasingly) of living longer as a simple side effect of not getting sick. I'm sure nobody can't be against the latter!

Posted by: FrF at July 16th, 2010 6:57 AM

The difference between immortality in Heaven and superlongevity here on Earth is that on Earth, one must take responsibility for one's own life and happiness and follow through with purposeful action. Some people don't have the confidence or the will to do that, so they welcome an externally imposed cap on their possible achievements because it allows them to narrow their focus.

Posted by: shegeek at July 16th, 2010 9:09 AM

Yeah, I find the bleating of deathists to be tiresome. They always trot out the same non-sense everytime.

Posted by: kurt9 at July 16th, 2010 3:39 PM

"The difference between immortality in Heaven and superlongevity here on Earth is that on Earth, one must take responsibility for one's own life and happiness and follow through with purposeful action. "

Deep down they know that heaven is a lie, which is why even when their life is difficult and filled with pain and hardship they do not which for a major catastrophe to take them and their friends and family to heaven. Even if their family or friends die and they're left alone most do not which to die(and if they do, it's not cheerfully in the hopes of going to heaven and rejoining them, it is deeply depressed and just wishing for it all to end.). And if all their friends and family are on a plane they do not which for it to crash and kill them.

In fact if they find most are going to die they try to survive or at least help someone survive.

Posted by: Cameron at July 18th, 2010 6:08 PM

"Deep down they know that heaven is a lie"

Tell that to the suicide bombers of Islam or the cultist fanatics on the fringe of Christianity. Heaven is easily believable by those who are exposed to flawed information their entire lives.

Posted by: Aaron at July 19th, 2010 1:18 AM

Personally I don't dream of living "forever", and I do think that the race might stagnate without some turnover. I'm not sure a world without kids is desirable.

However, at present we just get a cruelly short amount of quality time on the planet. We are well onto the downslope by 40, which just isn't right. This may be enough time for fast livers who happen to find "their thing" early enough, but I don't see any reason to believe that this is the "perfect" life schedule for maximizing human potential. It's jut a random number that evolution came up with, and it seems pretty rushed to me.

Posted by: Will Nelson at July 19th, 2010 9:26 AM

I think the deathists are completely wrong on another level as well.

Radical life extension goes hand in hand with a positive attitudes towards technological innovation in general, economic growth, pioneering, and individual freedom. All of these values are logically consistent with each other.
I do not believe it is possible to believe in all of these other things while, at the same time, believe that radical life extension is a bad thing. It is logically inconsistent to believe that life extension is bad while claiming to believe in all of these other values.

I also believe very strongly that believe in the above mentioned values are the hallmark of an ascending society, as these values are an expression of personal and civilizational self-confidence. I believe that "deathism" is a part of a larger philosophical outlook that believes that continued technological innovation and economic growth are a bad thing. This worldview, which I believe to be an outgrowth of the "Romantic" intellectual movement of the last century, is the hallmark of a declining civilization. I believe such luddite beliefs, at root, are an expression of a lack of civilizational self-confidence. I believe that any society that becomes infested with these kinds of belief is doomed to mediocrity and decline. I think any kind of luddism is symptom of an intellectual disease that destroys the health and vitality of any civilization.

Based on personal experiences, conversations with people,and stuff I have seen on the net over the last few years; I am convinced that the West is headed for irrelevancy and that China, and the other East Asian countries aligned with it, will become the global hyper-power of mid-21.

I think all transhumanists and life extensionists should, at some point, learn Mandarin and develop at least a working knowledge of Chinese people and culture. Our future will depend on it.

Posted by: kurt9 at July 19th, 2010 4:26 PM

"Tell that to the suicide bombers of Islam or the cultist fanatics on the fringe of Christianity. Heaven is easily believable by those who are exposed to flawed information their entire lives."

Good call, those are good exceptions. But I'd still say that in general, most people can tell the difference between delusion and reality, even if they won't admit it publicly or to themselves.

"I think all transhumanists and life extensionists should, at some point, learn Mandarin and develop at least a working knowledge of Chinese people and culture. Our future will depend on it."

I'd say it still all depends on where the next major technological discoveries occur. Developments in advanced molecular machinery or agi could propel a nation beyond bounds. These could occur anywhere, but I'm still mostly seen vast progress in the west(agi conferences, research, and synthetic bio.)

Posted by: Cameron at July 19th, 2010 7:18 PM

That is what I need a bunch of superannuated hippies living forever off my dime while they keep voting higher retirement ages to keep me slaving away to support them.

What a future!

Posted by: anton at July 20th, 2010 10:59 AM

Remember decades ago when all the experts pointed to Japan as the ideal? We were all supposed to learn Japanese. How did that work out? Now the current fad is to learn Mandarin. About the same logic as learning Spanish to converse with my gardner. Might be nice but not really very useful or important. Asia may be good at cheap assembling operations but when it comes to innovation and technology China, Japan and the rest of the world fall fall short of the Western World. In particular American exceptionalism should never be underestimated.

Posted by: Calandman at July 20th, 2010 11:18 AM

"Deep down they know that heaven is a lie"

Disparaging believers in an attempt to bolster your own sense of self-worthlessness is no way to go through life, son. In fact, the rest of you supremacists here may want to consider whom, exactly, will be the recipients of extended life...

You are, in fact, arguing for ALL of mankind. Right? Or, maybe just the ones that think like you.

Posted by: apb at July 20th, 2010 11:39 AM

Humanity derives pleasure from experiences. Pleasure from experiences depends on many things, but novelty (the "freshness" of the experience) is one of the biggest factors.

Imagine living forever, doing everything you can possibly do in a physical world. Sure, you'll probably have a blast for a while, but then you'll realize that everything there is to do, you've already done. Then, you decide to do it again.

After experiencing every repetition and permutation of everything that you can possibly do as an individual (without affecting the lives of others seriously) in a limited universe, what exactly is there to do? Pretty soon, nothing is left but to meddle with the lives of other people, for better or worse, with "better" being an arbitrary thought.

Living forever might sound like a nice idea, but you're eventually going to run out of things to do. Living for 200 or so years, assuredly? Yes, that would be very nice.

Living for millenniums on end? How could one mind survive that? You'd go insane from the tedium and sheer knowledge that you've accumulated, and you'd probably start doing very bad things about a couple of centuries. All of the horrible things that happen to the normal person in their lifetime, you'd stack them end on end, without the benefit of finding lasting peace. An immortal, supremely-knowing entity, with a huge chip on your shoulder after a while. I would not want to be your enemy, and I would wish you death just so you could be at rest.

Posted by: The False God at July 20th, 2010 12:41 PM

@The False God: that viewpoint is actually pretty well refuted by a number of writers. See, for example:

https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2004/03/healthy-life-extension-and-boredom.php

http://lesswrong.com/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/

Even a lifetime of millions of years could not come close to accounting for the sum total of what might be experienced as novelty by an ageless but otherwise unmodified human.

Posted by: Reason at July 20th, 2010 12:45 PM

In particular American exceptionalism should never be underestimated.

I think you would agree that the drivel the "false god" put forth here is not compatible with Western or American exceptionalism. If most people think like him, what does that say about the future of American and of American exceptionalism?

Posted by: kurt9 at July 20th, 2010 3:21 PM

Loathe though I am to agree with much from the NPR set, I sort of think the blogger quoted here has a point.

Essentially, there is somewhat of an element of market value here, in that any, well, let’s start with a commodity, loses value the more of it there is. I think the blogger might be saying here that even life cannot escape the inevitable reality of supply and demand, and that as a lifetime prolonged de facto renders each individual day to be of less inherent value, thus an “immortal” life almost mathematically renders each individual day to be valueless.

I sort of agree with this when I argue in favor of the death penalty. If one opposes the death penalty for egregious crimes, based on all life having “value”, one is sort of devaluing, even if only to a small extent, a life well and morally lived. If the Nobel winning medical researcher and the rapist-killer of children have equal inherent value of life, that equilibrium lowers the former much much more significantly than it raises the latter.

Obviously, the first response to this would be that human life is not gold or pork bellies, so maybe these rules do not apply. But I (and possibly the blogger) would reply that the supply-demand determination of value may be absolute, or close to it.

It’s a very strange and philosophical topic, not one I have spent a lot of time pondering, FWIW, but I do think that bit unfair to just dismiss out of hand as “Orwellian” the idea that the inevitability of death may add a great deal of meaning to life.

Posted by: Andrew X at July 20th, 2010 3:27 PM

It's all human nature, standard issue, ugly as sin and twice as petty.

Speak for yourself, buster. Death worship is a bad idea, not a gene.

Posted by: Seerak at July 20th, 2010 3:42 PM

As you may know by now, there was an article about cryonics in the NY Times that attracted considerable comment, much of it negative. Based on reading the comments there, I think very little of the hostility towards cryonics and life extension is based on religion or comes from religious people.

The vast majority of the hostile comments comes from people who strike me as having little, mediocre minds and are people with nothing better to do than to criticize anyone who dares to think or make any different choice than they do.

I think the hostility is rooting in nothing more than a nihilistic hatred of anything that is better than themselves and their petty thoughts.

Blaming the hostility on religious people is an insult to religious people.

Posted by: kurt9 at July 20th, 2010 4:00 PM

I am personally annoyed that so much stuff happened before I got here and so many cool things will come to be when I am gone. I love history, I love current events - how is it fair that I don't get to see more than 7 or 8 decades total?
You believe in an eternal life after this one and a magic invisible friend who will be your personal tour guide? Good for you. I don't.
We only get one life, one time
Worship death, pass on - knock yourself out
Don't wait for me to go with you though, I want to stick around for a while.

Posted by: GW Crawford at July 20th, 2010 5:45 PM

"Disparaging believers in an attempt to bolster your own sense of self-worthlessness is no way to go through life, son. In fact, the rest of you supremacists here may want to consider whom, exactly, will be the recipients of extended life..."

Tell me then why the only counter examples to my arguments are mostly people that are mentally unstable. People like Suicide bombers and Rapture advocates... people that can't wait to cross to the other side, and don't care what happens to the rest of those around them. Some even revel in delight at the thoughts of death, "the infidels will burn" in the case of suicide bombers, and " My neighbor oh how I pity you who will be left here to suffer the apocalypse, even with some of my family members while I'm teleported to a blissful existence in Heaven".

I'm pretty sure most any psychologist/psychiatrist will clearly say that someone who's joyfully wanting to die, often irregardless of others and believing the quicker the better, is mentally ill.

"FWIW, but I do think that bit unfair to just dismiss out of hand as “Orwellian” the idea that the inevitability of death may add a great deal of meaning to life. "

Eliminating aging will not take away the inevitability of death it will only make it far less probable in the immediate future, and thus likely to be significantly delayed. But it would still be an inevitability in the long term.

"comes from people who strike me as having little, mediocre minds and are people with nothing better to do than to criticize anyone who dares to think or make any different choice than they do.

I think the hostility is rooting in nothing more than a nihilistic hatred of anything that is better than themselves and their petty thoughts. "

That's been my experience too, I've heard of individuals who say they'd outright refuse a cure for aging if it were available(IMHO, I'd have to see them do that to believe it).

Most individuals do not aspire to anything more than the goals that they've assimilated from peers, family and culture. It's the nature of the human mind's development. They do not realize that they're in a cage, a mental cage, as limiting to their potential growth and freedom as any jail is. Like a bird that has never seen the sky, they do not even realize that they themselves are prisoners, limited to an insignificant subset of choices, unable to even conceive of the vast landscape of possible choices available to an intelligent agent in this universe.

Their status, that of most of humanity, of prisoners unable to realize their condition, is something that is simply tragic. Having the keys to their cell yet being unable to choose to open the doors to the outside, unable to even realize that there's more than just their small little cell, unable to even conceive of the outside.

Posted by: Cameron at July 20th, 2010 7:07 PM

So, I'm guessing you all favor raising the retirement age, right?

Goody goody. We can all live to be a hundred, which means another thirty years on the rock pile, assuming they're hiring someone in their seventies.

Posted by: Greg at July 21st, 2010 3:58 AM

Because you deserve it, right? Because your presence here contributes so much that the world can't get along without you... Or is it your fear of exactly the opposite? Or is it just fear?

Posted by: Gunga at July 21st, 2010 8:38 AM

FWIW, but I do think that bit unfair to just dismiss out of hand as “Orwellian” the idea that the inevitability of death may add a great deal of meaning to life.

I don't think its unfair at all. I think its entirely justified.

Because you deserve it, right? Because your presence here contributes so much that the world can't get along without you...

"Deserve" has nothing to do with it. Its like if I decide to go kite surfing or mountain climbing this weekend. Whether or not I "deserve" to do so is irrelevant. I decide to go climbing this weekend and I go do it, period. Its no different with life extension. I choose to do it and I do it. I don't have to "justify" my choices to anyone.

Look, guys.

Those of you who are into death, you have the right to die. We're not about to interfere with that right. We respect your right to choose and you respect ours.

Do we have a deal?

Posted by: kurt9 at July 21st, 2010 11:25 AM

"So, I'm guessing you all favor raising the retirement age, right?

Goody goody. We can all live to be a hundred, which means another thirty years on the rock pile, assuming they're hiring someone in their seventies."

Hoping for the abolition of obligatory work within this century. The attainment of a science of mind design, will make human labour in all fields obsolete, bringing about a new golden era where work is optional and voluntary with no penalties for skipping out and taking a break, as long as needed.

Cracking the workings of the human mind, holds untold promises. The ability to abolish obligatory work is but the first out of the gate. Once we know fully how it works, it will open the doors to vast progress in virtual technology, allowing us to manipulate sensory perception directly, bestowing the ability to experience anything at any time at will virtually without costs. Finally freedom from the constraints of the physical world, into a world of our making, a world with our own laws, a world where we are as gods.

Posted by: Cameron at July 21st, 2010 9:39 PM
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