“Ah, the ancient Greeks getting Science right, and starting a scientific and industrial revolution more than 2000 years ago!
Yes please!”
Ah, gladiators living thousand year lifespans with injury-related chronic pain, having taken millions of heads and faced millions of moments of the most extreme torment, yes please!
Being a slave for 50.000 years, yes please!
But of course, this wouldn’t happen, right? We all know that life is simple, just office work, eating McDonald’s and watching TV.
Or even better, those Greeks then would just naturally “become good people” (because we all know how easyyyyyy it is for people to change morally and/or to give up on their power) and just create utopia for all anyway. Right?
I’ll say it again: only such unrealistic times could ever produce such unrealistic thoughts.
Ah, gladiators living thousand year lifespans with injury-related chronic pain, having taken millions of heads and faced millions of moments of the most extreme torment, yes please!
You think that a scientific and industrial revolution would leave all of society fixed in amber?
“You think that a scientific and industrial revolution would leave all of society fixed in amber?”
In moral terms, mostly. Unless you’re naive enough to think that people easily change morally or easily give up their power. Which you definitely are, I get it.
In fact you don’t even need to travel to ancient Greece to see how horrific your dream would be. Just go anywhere outside our modern Western bubble or comfort and semi-decency, really. There’s still plenty of slavery and concentration camps to choose from.
Just a reminder, in this argument we are not the modern people who get to feel all moral and righteous about themselves, we are the Greeks. Do you really want to die for some hypothetical moral improvement of future generations? If so, you can go ahead and be my guest, but myself I’d very much rather not to.
Like the popular saying goes, you either die a hero, or live long enough to become a villain. We are flawed beings, and unfortunately (yes, unfortunately, I would like to live forever as well (I mean, at least my present self, I’m pretty sure after a couple centuries I’d have gone insane even with all the memory-editing and cell-rejuvenating tech you can imagine (maybe that would extend it to a few millenia))) death is a necessary balancer of power.
So, no, I don’t wanna die for future generations, but I better do someday. Personality needs coherence, that’s why we’re advert to change (some more, some less). That’s why new beings are important to keep the power balance, if there is even any balance in this chaotic world.
One way to accept death is simply thinking how bad things could get beyond this current unusual normalcy (which won’t last long). Cancer patients want to die. Slaves want to die. Imagine denying death to those least fortunate. That would be way worse than mortality. (And yes, you could probably cure cancer or any pain in a world with immortality, but the problem are the slaves, of those denied the treatment… i.e., the problem is the tyranny, which would be greatly amplified in a deathless world, and being naive to the point of not considering it.)
You’re fighting a strawman (nobody’s going to deny death to anyone, and except for seriously ill most people who truly want to die now have an option to do so; myself I’m actually pro-euthanasia). And, once again, you want to inflict on literally everyone a fate you say you don’t want for yourself. Also, I don’t accept the premise there’s any innate power balance in the universe that we ought to uphold even at the cost of our lives, we do not inhabit a Marvel movie. And you’re assuming the knowledge which you can’t possibly have, about exactly how human consciousness functions and what alterations to it we’ll be able to make in the next centuries or millennia.
“you’re assuming the knowledge which you can’t possibly have”
Naturally, I can’t predict the future (unfortunately). But neither can you:
“nobody’s going to deny death to anyone”
You’re making just as much assumptions as myself. The only difference is that you want to spin the heaven/hell wheel of fortune (this is a metaphor), while I don’t—at least not until we’ve had a hell of a lot more time to study it (aka no immortality in a foreseeable future).
Ah, the ancient Greeks getting Science right, and starting a scientific and industrial revolution more than 2000 years ago!
Yes please!
“Ah, the ancient Greeks getting Science right, and starting a scientific and industrial revolution more than 2000 years ago!
Yes please!”
Ah, gladiators living thousand year lifespans with injury-related chronic pain, having taken millions of heads and faced millions of moments of the most extreme torment, yes please!
Being a slave for 50.000 years, yes please!
But of course, this wouldn’t happen, right? We all know that life is simple, just office work, eating McDonald’s and watching TV.
Or even better, those Greeks then would just naturally “become good people” (because we all know how easyyyyyy it is for people to change morally and/or to give up on their power) and just create utopia for all anyway. Right?
I’ll say it again: only such unrealistic times could ever produce such unrealistic thoughts.
You think that a scientific and industrial revolution would leave all of society fixed in amber?
“You think that a scientific and industrial revolution would leave all of society fixed in amber?”
In moral terms, mostly. Unless you’re naive enough to think that people easily change morally or easily give up their power. Which you definitely are, I get it.
In fact you don’t even need to travel to ancient Greece to see how horrific your dream would be. Just go anywhere outside our modern Western bubble or comfort and semi-decency, really. There’s still plenty of slavery and concentration camps to choose from.
Just a reminder, in this argument we are not the modern people who get to feel all moral and righteous about themselves, we are the Greeks. Do you really want to die for some hypothetical moral improvement of future generations? If so, you can go ahead and be my guest, but myself I’d very much rather not to.
Like the popular saying goes, you either die a hero, or live long enough to become a villain. We are flawed beings, and unfortunately (yes, unfortunately, I would like to live forever as well (I mean, at least my present self, I’m pretty sure after a couple centuries I’d have gone insane even with all the memory-editing and cell-rejuvenating tech you can imagine (maybe that would extend it to a few millenia))) death is a necessary balancer of power.
So, no, I don’t wanna die for future generations, but I better do someday. Personality needs coherence, that’s why we’re advert to change (some more, some less). That’s why new beings are important to keep the power balance, if there is even any balance in this chaotic world.
One way to accept death is simply thinking how bad things could get beyond this current unusual normalcy (which won’t last long). Cancer patients want to die. Slaves want to die. Imagine denying death to those least fortunate. That would be way worse than mortality. (And yes, you could probably cure cancer or any pain in a world with immortality, but the problem are the slaves, of those denied the treatment… i.e., the problem is the tyranny, which would be greatly amplified in a deathless world, and being naive to the point of not considering it.)
You’re fighting a strawman (nobody’s going to deny death to anyone, and except for seriously ill most people who truly want to die now have an option to do so; myself I’m actually pro-euthanasia). And, once again, you want to inflict on literally everyone a fate you say you don’t want for yourself. Also, I don’t accept the premise there’s any innate power balance in the universe that we ought to uphold even at the cost of our lives, we do not inhabit a Marvel movie. And you’re assuming the knowledge which you can’t possibly have, about exactly how human consciousness functions and what alterations to it we’ll be able to make in the next centuries or millennia.
“you’re assuming the knowledge which you can’t possibly have”
Naturally, I can’t predict the future (unfortunately). But neither can you:
“nobody’s going to deny death to anyone”
You’re making just as much assumptions as myself. The only difference is that you want to spin the heaven/hell wheel of fortune (this is a metaphor), while I don’t—at least not until we’ve had a hell of a lot more time to study it (aka no immortality in a foreseeable future).