I know this image is pretty much pure applause light and no substance, but I think it might serve as a great talking point to post on Facebook for all my less rational friends.
Not by me! One friend immediately replied, describing living forever as an ‘unbelievably horrible concept’. An argument developed in which he claimed to be opposed to medicine in general because it results in overpopulation. A few friends who are LW readers and/or transhumanists joined in and it grew a bit one-sided. I tried to inoffensively explain that his arguments seemed to be neglecting the fact that the other human problems we have (which would be exacerbated by cured aging) might also be solvable, failed at the ‘inoffensive’ part, and he got angry at me for thinking I knew what he was thinking better than he did and then abandoned the thread. Afterwards a few of the people who’ve ‘already seen the light’ discussed a few interesting points about the topic, like hard limits on energy consumption/use, etc.
I’ll take partial blame—I didn’t work hard enough to maintain civility, in my own posts or in the atmosphere in general. I have previously argued with this person about life extension etc and found that he pattern matches very promptly into the ‘typical’ opposer—who summons up every problem they can connect to the idea immediately without any thought for plausibility or relevance.
Overall it was a bit of a disappointment but some friends who I don’t think would have been exposed to the idea much otherwise did put some ‘likes’ on a few comments, which is heartening.
I know this image is pretty much pure applause light and no substance, but I think it might serve as a great talking point to post on Facebook for all my less rational friends.
Having seen the outcome of your plan, I think we have learned that talking points are only great when you have strictly great people talking.
Would it be considered impolite to ask what happened?
Not by me! One friend immediately replied, describing living forever as an ‘unbelievably horrible concept’. An argument developed in which he claimed to be opposed to medicine in general because it results in overpopulation. A few friends who are LW readers and/or transhumanists joined in and it grew a bit one-sided. I tried to inoffensively explain that his arguments seemed to be neglecting the fact that the other human problems we have (which would be exacerbated by cured aging) might also be solvable, failed at the ‘inoffensive’ part, and he got angry at me for thinking I knew what he was thinking better than he did and then abandoned the thread. Afterwards a few of the people who’ve ‘already seen the light’ discussed a few interesting points about the topic, like hard limits on energy consumption/use, etc.
I’ll take partial blame—I didn’t work hard enough to maintain civility, in my own posts or in the atmosphere in general. I have previously argued with this person about life extension etc and found that he pattern matches very promptly into the ‘typical’ opposer—who summons up every problem they can connect to the idea immediately without any thought for plausibility or relevance.
Overall it was a bit of a disappointment but some friends who I don’t think would have been exposed to the idea much otherwise did put some ‘likes’ on a few comments, which is heartening.
I used to agree with that.