Desire to live indefinitely is not that uncommon in the general population in the first place, this is a transhumanist forum so there is a self-selection effect from the outset (LWers beliefs about AI are way weirder than the immortality thing), and almost every single person here has been exposed to explicit arguments for wanting immortality, moreover, in a setting where not wanting immortality is low status. Isn’t this kind of like asking why church members are more likely to believe in God?
In this discussion there was the hypothesis that people don’t want to fight aging because of the promise of eternal life from religion.
When we want to convince people it’s useful to know whether that’s true.
The polling data doesn’t seem to suggest that hypothesis when religious Brazil in general is pro-longevity while more atheistic Russia has the lowest support for longevity.
Of course that are single data points but it still suggests that religion isn’t the core force that prevents people from wanting longevity.
Isn’t this kind of like asking why church members are more likely to believe in God?
It quite useful to understand how people come to believe and then go to Church.
(By the way, I never was suggesting that religion caused people to not desire earthly longevity. I was saying that the fact that nearly all human religions often feature immorality suggest that nearly all humans find it difficult to understand and accept true-death and wish for immortality on some level.
Furthermore I was saying that if someone happily believes in an afterlife, we should probably count them as desiring immortality even if they claim to desire an earthly death. I’m disagreeing with the idea that we should take claims of wishing to die at face value—I think that most who would turn down an eternal life (assuming good health, companionship, purpose, and so on) are either mistaken about what they prefer, or mistaken about the universe.
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/08/06/living-to-120-and-beyond-americans-views-on-aging-medical-advances-and-radical-life-extension/
http://inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com/2009/07/who-wants-to-live-forever.html
Desire to live indefinitely is not that uncommon in the general population in the first place, this is a transhumanist forum so there is a self-selection effect from the outset (LWers beliefs about AI are way weirder than the immortality thing), and almost every single person here has been exposed to explicit arguments for wanting immortality, moreover, in a setting where not wanting immortality is low status. Isn’t this kind of like asking why church members are more likely to believe in God?
In this discussion there was the hypothesis that people don’t want to fight aging because of the promise of eternal life from religion. When we want to convince people it’s useful to know whether that’s true.
The polling data doesn’t seem to suggest that hypothesis when religious Brazil in general is pro-longevity while more atheistic Russia has the lowest support for longevity. Of course that are single data points but it still suggests that religion isn’t the core force that prevents people from wanting longevity.
It quite useful to understand how people come to believe and then go to Church.
Agreed.
(By the way, I never was suggesting that religion caused people to not desire earthly longevity. I was saying that the fact that nearly all human religions often feature immorality suggest that nearly all humans find it difficult to understand and accept true-death and wish for immortality on some level.
Furthermore I was saying that if someone happily believes in an afterlife, we should probably count them as desiring immortality even if they claim to desire an earthly death. I’m disagreeing with the idea that we should take claims of wishing to die at face value—I think that most who would turn down an eternal life (assuming good health, companionship, purpose, and so on) are either mistaken about what they prefer, or mistaken about the universe.
With many exceptions, of course.)