Personally, I’ve been hearing all my life about the Serious Philosophical Issues posed by life extension, and my attitude has always been that I’m willing to grapple with those issues for as many centuries as it takes.
I conjecture that we’re supposed to read it under the classical definition of “philosophy”, which used to include pretty much every type of intellectual discussion, including such practical issues as how to properly raise children, how to organise a political society, etc.
There is a great ted lecture on this subject. I thought he did a good job at addressing the concerns. At least to the point of defending that research should continue to at least allow future generations to decide if they think it is acceptable.
However, the provided link does not seem to work due to the huge length of the thread (it’s trying to create a tree threaded discussion out of 4189 posts), but I was able to see several references to it inside, including the beginning as a snippet.
Due to the new release of Google Groups, I was able to go through this thread and found the original reference on page 41 of the thread, posted 08 Aug 2000.
-- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
This is a good example of how some areas are most concisely dealt with by ridicule.
What are the Serious Philosophical Issues posed by life extension?
I can see many serious practical issues, but in what way should philosophical opinions change due to the mere extension of human life span?
I conjecture that we’re supposed to read it under the classical definition of “philosophy”, which used to include pretty much every type of intellectual discussion, including such practical issues as how to properly raise children, how to organise a political society, etc.
“Who wants to live forever when love must die?”
There is a great ted lecture on this subject. I thought he did a good job at addressing the concerns. At least to the point of defending that research should continue to at least allow future generations to decide if they think it is acceptable.
http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html
I don’t know.
What is a day for?
Is the source online? The first page of Google results seems to be just people quoting the line.
I tracked down the source as rec.arts.sf.fandom, 09 Aug 2000 (previous to any use as a quote), in a thread titled, “Do cats go to heaven?”
It’s (sort of) available online in the Google Groups archive.
However, the provided link does not seem to work due to the huge length of the thread (it’s trying to create a tree threaded discussion out of 4189 posts), but I was able to see several references to it inside, including the beginning as a snippet.
Due to the new release of Google Groups, I was able to go through this thread and found the original reference on page 41 of the thread, posted 08 Aug 2000.
Is Rain’s quote the most upvoted entry of all time? Its currently at +62.
I win!
It’s the most upvoted comment I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure about top-level posts, though.
The current first page of ‘Recent Posts’ shows 7 with a higher point total than 62; two posts are above 100 points, both by Yvain.
It would be interesting to see a compilation of the most upvoted entries from all the quote threads.
DanielVarga created a top quote list, last updated in March.