Thanks for this post. I basically agree with you, and it’s very nice to see this here, given how one-sided LW’s discussion on death usually is.
I agree with you that the death of individual humans is important for the societal suporganism because it keeps us from stagnating. But even if that weren’t true, I would still strongly believe in the value of accepting death, for pretty much exactly the reasons you mentioned. Like you, I also suspect that modern society’s sheltering, both of children and adults, is leading to our obsession with preventing death and our excessive risk aversion, and I think that in order to lead emotionally healthy lives, we need to accept risk of failure, pain, and even death. Based on experience and things I’ve read, I suspect we all have much deeper reserves of strength than we realize, but this strength is only called on in truly dire circumstances, because it’s so costly to use. If we never put ourselves into these dire circumstances, we will never accomplish the extraordinary. And if we’re afraid to put ourselves in such circumstances, then our personal growth will be stunted by fear.
I say this as someone who was raised by very risk-averse parents who always focused on the worst-case scenario. (For instance, when I was about seven, I was scratching a mosquito bite, and my dad said to me “you shouldn’t scratch mosquito bites, because one time your grandfather was cleaning the drain, and he scratched a mosquito bite with drain gunk on his hand, and his arm swelled up black and he had to go to the hospital”.) As a kid I was terrified of doing much of anything. It wasn’t until my late teens and early twenties that I started to learn how to accept risk, uncertainty, and even death. Learning to accept these things gave me huge emotional benefits—I felt light and free, like a weight had been lifted. Once I had accepted risk, I spent a summer traveling, and went on adventures that everyone told me were terrible ideas, but I returned from them intact and now look back on that summer as the best time in my entire life. I really like the saying that “the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one”. It fits very well with my own experience.
I’m hesitant to say that death is objectively “good” or “bad”. (I might even classify the question as meaningless.) It seems like, as technology improves, we will inevitably use it to forestall or even prevent death. Should this happen, I think it will be very important to accept the lack of death, just as now it’s important to accept death. And I’m not really opposed to all forms of anti-deathism; I occasionally hear people say things like “Life is so much fun, why wouldn’t I want to keep doing it forever?”. That doesn’t seem especially problematic to me, because it’s not driven by fear. What I object to is this idea that death is the worst thing ever, and obviously anyone who is rational would put a lot of money and effort into preventing it, so anyone who doesn’t is just failing to follow their beliefs and desires to the logical conclusion. So it’s really nice to see this post here, amidst the usual anti-deathism. Thanks again for writing it.
Thanks for this post. I basically agree with you, and it’s very nice to see this here, given how one-sided LW’s discussion on death usually is.
I agree with you that the death of individual humans is important for the societal suporganism because it keeps us from stagnating. But even if that weren’t true, I would still strongly believe in the value of accepting death, for pretty much exactly the reasons you mentioned. Like you, I also suspect that modern society’s sheltering, both of children and adults, is leading to our obsession with preventing death and our excessive risk aversion, and I think that in order to lead emotionally healthy lives, we need to accept risk of failure, pain, and even death. Based on experience and things I’ve read, I suspect we all have much deeper reserves of strength than we realize, but this strength is only called on in truly dire circumstances, because it’s so costly to use. If we never put ourselves into these dire circumstances, we will never accomplish the extraordinary. And if we’re afraid to put ourselves in such circumstances, then our personal growth will be stunted by fear.
I say this as someone who was raised by very risk-averse parents who always focused on the worst-case scenario. (For instance, when I was about seven, I was scratching a mosquito bite, and my dad said to me “you shouldn’t scratch mosquito bites, because one time your grandfather was cleaning the drain, and he scratched a mosquito bite with drain gunk on his hand, and his arm swelled up black and he had to go to the hospital”.) As a kid I was terrified of doing much of anything. It wasn’t until my late teens and early twenties that I started to learn how to accept risk, uncertainty, and even death. Learning to accept these things gave me huge emotional benefits—I felt light and free, like a weight had been lifted. Once I had accepted risk, I spent a summer traveling, and went on adventures that everyone told me were terrible ideas, but I returned from them intact and now look back on that summer as the best time in my entire life. I really like the saying that “the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one”. It fits very well with my own experience.
I’m hesitant to say that death is objectively “good” or “bad”. (I might even classify the question as meaningless.) It seems like, as technology improves, we will inevitably use it to forestall or even prevent death. Should this happen, I think it will be very important to accept the lack of death, just as now it’s important to accept death. And I’m not really opposed to all forms of anti-deathism; I occasionally hear people say things like “Life is so much fun, why wouldn’t I want to keep doing it forever?”. That doesn’t seem especially problematic to me, because it’s not driven by fear. What I object to is this idea that death is the worst thing ever, and obviously anyone who is rational would put a lot of money and effort into preventing it, so anyone who doesn’t is just failing to follow their beliefs and desires to the logical conclusion. So it’s really nice to see this post here, amidst the usual anti-deathism. Thanks again for writing it.