I’m not smart enough to think through what “money” would mean in an economy where immortality is available.
Suppose tomorrow a philanthropist introduces a free shot that grants people immortality for as long as they want it. - so the world would be the same as it would be today, except everyone is immortal. Why would money disappear? People would still want goods and services, and having a medium of exchange would still be convenient.
What were once a once-in-a-million-lifetimes experiences would be become bound to happen eventually.
The birth of any particular person would only happen once—so the birth of your child would still be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You’d only see them grow up once. You’d only be able to meet someone for the first time once. Etc.
As for investing your time, you could still do that even if you have infinite time. If something goes wrong, you may get another chance at it (if it’s not a once-in-a-lifetime experience) but in the meantime, things could be quite unpleasant. If you gamble your house away, you could probably live long enough to make enough money to buy another house, but in the meantime you would have lost something, and that would be bad.
I mean death isn’t the end of anyone else’s conscious experience. It does end yours.
Yes, and the end of your conscious experience prevents you from enjoying anything ever again. Isn’t that an enormous loss?
Suppose tomorrow a philanthropist introduces a free shot that grants people immortality for as long as they want it. - so the world would be the same as it would be today, except everyone is immortal. Why would money disappear? People would still want goods and services, and having a medium of exchange would still be convenient.
I don’t know. Economy implies some scarcity. I suppose it would depend on what was required to remain immortal. Would we need some currency to pay for future injections or upgrades? In that sense, would we even be immortal? Wouldn’t we still be in a similar survival mode to what we are in now? Would only the rich truly be immortal while the poor had the potential, but not the ongoing means for eternal life?
The birth of any particular person would only happen once—so the birth of your child would still be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You’d only see them grow up once. You’d only be able to meet someone for the first time once. Etc.
Birth of immortal children? You could have a billion of them. You’d meet new people infinite times if you wanted.
As for investing your time, you could still do that even if you have infinite time. If something goes wrong, you may get another chance at it (if it’s not a once-in-a-lifetime experience) but in the meantime, things could be quite unpleasant. If you gamble your house away, you could probably live long enough to make enough money to buy another house, but in the meantime you would have lost something, and that would be bad.
I think we have very different view about a future that includes immortality. Probably my lack of imagination.
Yes, and the end of your conscious experience prevents you from enjoying anything ever again. Isn’t that an enormous loss?
No. Death is neutral. The idea that life is necessarily optimal is simply hardwired into your animal-nature. If it were another way, you wouldn’t have made it this far. This was my point orignally on this thread. The “lifeism” on LW, as I’ll call it, is weird to me. Life is really cool and I hope it continues for a while for me, but I do not view my death as “bad”.
Cryonics and the desire for immortality in tranhumanism circles reminds me very much of my background in Evangelical Christianity. Nowhere else have I seen such irrational fear of death (i.e. fear of no longer experiencing consciousness).
There would still be scarcity. Perhaps you would not longer need to eat or drink to live, but you would still want to do it for enjoyment from time to time, and resources would still be limited. If you want to buy a house, there is still a limited number of houses and good places to live. You’d want to be protected from criminals, so you’d want to pay for police and courts, etc. If you wanted to live out in the street without any clothes, you could do that for as long as you wanted, but if you want more than that, you’d run into scarcity much like you do today.
Birth of immortal children? You could have a billion of them. You’d meet new people infinite times if you wanted.
But they’d be unique children, and their birth would be a unique event. Just like now you could theoretically have 20 kids, but a moment with each would be unique.
The idea that life is necessarily optimal is simply hardwired into your animal-nature.
Sure, but why does that make it wrong? I like sweet and fatty food for evolutionary reasons too—does that mean that if it’s a result of evolution, my preference is wrong? But in the case of life, it goes beyond just being hardwired—enjoying good things is good, and death prevents that, so logically death is bad.
I think we have a profoundly different expectation for what a future with sufficient technology for immortality might be like. It seems you think it will look alot like 2014, but with immortality. I’d imagine it will be basically unrecognizeable from our current world, so much so that it is relatively useless to speculate about the details.
I also think you are discounting how powerful an aspect of experience novelty can be, and therefore how trivial giving birth to your 100th, let alone 10,000th child might be.
As far as taking pleasure from your animal-nature: Cool. It isn’t bad. I’d argue your desire for life is fundamentally identical to your love of fatty food. It serves an ultimate purpose (pass on the replicators), and simply basing your (wannabe eternal) existence off of the hedonistic side-effects of these sorts of drives will lose its appeal over the course of eons.
The idea that death is bad ’cuz good stuff could be happening in our potential lives after we are gone is not compelling to me at all. It’s an opportunity cost argument, right? Okay. Except you cease to exist in this particular case.
Anyway, good to chat with you. I’d love to hear any other thoughts you have. At this point, I’m tapping, as I don’t have anything else to say in this discussion with you.
I agree that a world in which immortality would be possible would look very different from today’s, but that’s because the development of immortality would require technological advances (maybe nanotechnology) that would change the world by themselves even if they didn’t lead to immortality. Immortality by itself wouldn’t make the world look that different, though—funeral homes would go out of business, and maybe hospitals as well, but other than that, it wouldn’t make a huge difference.
I think novelty is highly overrated as a source of value. Certainly, it’s nice to play a good new game or something like that, but as far as possible sources of value, it’s quite low on the list. Regarding having children, the parent-child bond is part of human nature, so I don’t think it’ll ever become trivial. As for hedonism, I don’t expect it to ever lose its appeal, especially as new fun things are created.
It’s an opportunity cost argument, right? Okay. Except you cease to exist in this particular case.
Yes, it is an opportunity cost, and the fact that you wouldn’t exist is the problem, because it means that instead of getting something positive, you’d be getting nothing.
Suppose tomorrow a philanthropist introduces a free shot that grants people immortality for as long as they want it. - so the world would be the same as it would be today, except everyone is immortal. Why would money disappear? People would still want goods and services, and having a medium of exchange would still be convenient.
The birth of any particular person would only happen once—so the birth of your child would still be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You’d only see them grow up once. You’d only be able to meet someone for the first time once. Etc.
As for investing your time, you could still do that even if you have infinite time. If something goes wrong, you may get another chance at it (if it’s not a once-in-a-lifetime experience) but in the meantime, things could be quite unpleasant. If you gamble your house away, you could probably live long enough to make enough money to buy another house, but in the meantime you would have lost something, and that would be bad.
Yes, and the end of your conscious experience prevents you from enjoying anything ever again. Isn’t that an enormous loss?
I don’t know. Economy implies some scarcity. I suppose it would depend on what was required to remain immortal. Would we need some currency to pay for future injections or upgrades? In that sense, would we even be immortal? Wouldn’t we still be in a similar survival mode to what we are in now? Would only the rich truly be immortal while the poor had the potential, but not the ongoing means for eternal life?
Birth of immortal children? You could have a billion of them. You’d meet new people infinite times if you wanted.
I think we have very different view about a future that includes immortality. Probably my lack of imagination.
No. Death is neutral. The idea that life is necessarily optimal is simply hardwired into your animal-nature. If it were another way, you wouldn’t have made it this far. This was my point orignally on this thread. The “lifeism” on LW, as I’ll call it, is weird to me. Life is really cool and I hope it continues for a while for me, but I do not view my death as “bad”.
Cryonics and the desire for immortality in tranhumanism circles reminds me very much of my background in Evangelical Christianity. Nowhere else have I seen such irrational fear of death (i.e. fear of no longer experiencing consciousness).
There would still be scarcity. Perhaps you would not longer need to eat or drink to live, but you would still want to do it for enjoyment from time to time, and resources would still be limited. If you want to buy a house, there is still a limited number of houses and good places to live. You’d want to be protected from criminals, so you’d want to pay for police and courts, etc. If you wanted to live out in the street without any clothes, you could do that for as long as you wanted, but if you want more than that, you’d run into scarcity much like you do today.
But they’d be unique children, and their birth would be a unique event. Just like now you could theoretically have 20 kids, but a moment with each would be unique.
Sure, but why does that make it wrong? I like sweet and fatty food for evolutionary reasons too—does that mean that if it’s a result of evolution, my preference is wrong? But in the case of life, it goes beyond just being hardwired—enjoying good things is good, and death prevents that, so logically death is bad.
I think we have a profoundly different expectation for what a future with sufficient technology for immortality might be like. It seems you think it will look alot like 2014, but with immortality. I’d imagine it will be basically unrecognizeable from our current world, so much so that it is relatively useless to speculate about the details.
I also think you are discounting how powerful an aspect of experience novelty can be, and therefore how trivial giving birth to your 100th, let alone 10,000th child might be.
As far as taking pleasure from your animal-nature: Cool. It isn’t bad. I’d argue your desire for life is fundamentally identical to your love of fatty food. It serves an ultimate purpose (pass on the replicators), and simply basing your (wannabe eternal) existence off of the hedonistic side-effects of these sorts of drives will lose its appeal over the course of eons.
The idea that death is bad ’cuz good stuff could be happening in our potential lives after we are gone is not compelling to me at all. It’s an opportunity cost argument, right? Okay. Except you cease to exist in this particular case.
Anyway, good to chat with you. I’d love to hear any other thoughts you have. At this point, I’m tapping, as I don’t have anything else to say in this discussion with you.
A last word from me as well, then.
I agree that a world in which immortality would be possible would look very different from today’s, but that’s because the development of immortality would require technological advances (maybe nanotechnology) that would change the world by themselves even if they didn’t lead to immortality. Immortality by itself wouldn’t make the world look that different, though—funeral homes would go out of business, and maybe hospitals as well, but other than that, it wouldn’t make a huge difference.
I think novelty is highly overrated as a source of value. Certainly, it’s nice to play a good new game or something like that, but as far as possible sources of value, it’s quite low on the list. Regarding having children, the parent-child bond is part of human nature, so I don’t think it’ll ever become trivial. As for hedonism, I don’t expect it to ever lose its appeal, especially as new fun things are created.
Yes, it is an opportunity cost, and the fact that you wouldn’t exist is the problem, because it means that instead of getting something positive, you’d be getting nothing.