You have my condolences and sympathy. It makes it somewhat difficult to write a critique of your post esp. as my position on death is controversial here and the only relatives I lost until now were grandparents so I feel I’m not qualified to strongly defend my (tentative) view here.
So instead I make this into a question: Is anybody qualified to defend deathism who hasn’t at least lost a child, partner or parent?
The idea that you have to meet some criterion, or have to experience something personally before you are allowed to argue for a position really irks me. Especially when that criteria is asymmetrical like this, it sounds like you’re trying to get an excuse for ignoring the other side.
Anyway this criterion would probably backfire. (Edit: oh wait, you probably wouldn’t see this as a backfire) Older people have lost many more child/partner/parents, and are probably more likely to be deathist. If deathism is a sour grapes/get hit over the head every day with a baseball bat and come to say good things about it response, those who have been hit over the head the most should say the most good things about it.
So instead I make this into a question: Is anybody qualified to defend deathism who hasn’t at least lost a child, partner or parent?
Having lost all my parents and grandparents in the last few years to various causes, from Alzheimer’s to cancer to accident, I suppose I am partially qualified.
First, I dislike the locally popular term “deathism”, as it has built-in negative connotations, like “slut” and so thwarts your rationality before you even start thinking.
Second, there is a big difference between growing old, weak and sickly before checking out for good, or having one’s life interrupted by a freak accident, and staying healthy and capable for a predictable fixed number of years and then discontinuing in an orderly fashion. Most would agree that the former is strictly worse than the latter. It is debatable, however, whether fixed-duration youthful and healthy life is necessarily worse than eternal life, as far as the continuing prosperity of the human race is concerned. I commented about it before, and got downvoted severely, presumably by the anti-deathist crowd.
First, I dislike the locally popular term “deathism”, as it has built-in negative connotations, like “slut” and so thwarts your rationality before you even start thinking.
Negative connotations of “deathism” seem to me to flow entirely from the negative connotations of “death” (or, almost-entirely. Adding “ism” onto anything makes it sound a little evil, but most philosophies are named with an “ism” and that doesn’t thwart our rationality). Mostly, the negative connotations flow from our actual utility functions. The idea of replacing it with a word designed not to arouse these emotions brings to mind this paragraph from Orwell’s Politics and the English Language:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.
Negative connotations of “Slut” on the other hand seem to flow from the utility functions of people who aren’t me, and from the expectation that their utility functions are common in society, and from the self-reinforcing classification of the word as an insult as a result.
It is debatable, however, whether fixed-duration youthful and healthy life is necessarily worse than eternal life, as far as the continuing prosperity of the human race is concerned
I think this depends a lot on how cheaply you can train the new productive individual. If I died but you could create me again without cost at will, what’s the loss?
The statement that “death is good, ceteris paribus”. Seems like virtually everyone would agree it is false.
The statement that “death is sometimes preferable to life”. Seems like virtually everyone would agree it is true. I don’t think many people think killing a person is a bad choice under all circumstances (e.g. probably everyone would agree killing a lunatic about to blow up the Earth is good if it’s the only way to stop her).
The statement that “suicide is sometimes preferable to staying alive”. More debatable, but I think that most LWers at least would agree suicide is preferable to an eternity of torture?
“Deathism” is something like the position that the current way in which people typically die is preferable to a hypothetical where people usually don’t die. This is associated with arguments like “death gives meaning to life” (motivates during life to do more), the hypothetical overpopulation/resource shortage problems, and the idea that without new people, there will be a shortage of new ideas or social change.
OK, now I understand. Indeed it doesn’t seem either obviously false or obviously true.
However, won’t the free market solve it automatically? If societies that embrace immortality technology will be less successful than societies that won’t embrace it, the latter will eventually own most of the resources.
If societies that embrace immortality technology will be less successful than societies that won’t embrace it, the latter will eventually own most of the resources.
“Success” is not specific enough (has misleading connotations). When measles virus kills a person, the virus is “more successful”, but that doesn’t indicate that the outcome is a good thing.
My point is that even if you accept the deathist thesis that a civilization of immortals will become stagnant (which I think is a valid concern), it doesn’t mean immortality is black swan technology. Let’s give people the choice of how long to live.
Also, even if the optimal life span is not infinite, there’s no reason to assume it’s close to the natural life span. It might be e.g. 30000 years.
What succeeds at being stable and producing more of itself most efficiently is not necessarily what we consider to be most good or contain the most moral value. The market is a very powerful optimizer, but not an inherently friendly one.
For example, contrast two countries, one an idyllic paradise with happy citizens who pay very low taxes and a country with very high taxes, unhappy workers, but a much more powerful military. If there’s a conflict between them, the country with unhappy workers+high taxes has a large advantage, and will win, despite this being not in the interests of the average worker. A possible real life example is the Comache Indians, and more development of this idea (multipolar traps) can be found on SlateStarCodex’s Mediations on Molch.
OK, now I understand. Indeed it doesn’t seem either obviously false or obviously true.
However, won’t the free market solve it automatically? If communities that embrace immortality technology will be less successful than communities that won’t embrace it, the latter will eventually take control of most resources.
Is anybody qualified to defend deathism who hasn’t at least lost a child, partner or parent?
Can you elaborate? Seems like this could introduce more bias, depending on how the people died and how young. We’re all mortal so far, I think that’s qualification enough. I’ve probably already seen more death professionally than anyone here will ever see personally, but I see that just as another source of bias if I want to examine the issue dispassionately.
Query death in my brain and it will return images of how people have died or rather how they have lived just before their deaths. It will return images of how their loved ones have continued living. This doesn’t have much to do with the rather abstract concept of death and how we should value it ceteris paribus.
I’d certainly be interested in your view, especially if it’s controversial.
OK. I bite. I will write a post about deathism explaining my controversial view. I already collected the necessary references but didn’t get around to make it into a comment yet. I answer this comment to commit to actually writing the post this weekend. Please call me on it if I shouldn’t.
The key points are: Humans can cope with death/loss (actually learn from it). And death/loss is adaptive (for the group).
Postponing likely would have meant: Never. At least: At a later time to the same conditions (punctuated constant postponing). That’s because due to the ongoing discussion (and later research) I had sufficiently many facts swapped in. But for finishing a sufficiently high quality post I just don’t have the time.
It still stimulated active discussion. Consider that a victory.
I do. I’m used to posting with 85% positive rate. I wonder whether being controversial fades with time.
What would it mean to examine this issue dispassionately? From a utilitarian perspective, it seems like choosing between deathism and anti-deathism is a matter of computing the utility of each, and then choosing the one with the higher utility. I assume that a substantial portion of the negative utility surrounding death comes from the pain it causes to close family members and friends. Without having experienced such a thing oneself, it seems difficult to estimate exactly how much negative utility death brings.
(That said, I also strongly suspect that cultural views on death play a big role in determining how much negative utility there will be.)
In lieu of losing someone, you could put yourself through a realistic simulation (of the first stages).
Really though, we’re all qualified to defend either deathism or immortalism. I’d love to hear what a deathist thinks is the strongest arguments for deathism.
If someone asked me to arrange one… Firstly I’d schedule a random date a year or more hence, and not look at it. I’d determine how much cooperation I could expect from simulated and family and friends. More cooperation makes it easier. On that random day, I’d get an email, and I’d let people know, and start things moving. Anything from one parent calling about the other’s death to “police” calling to their partner summoning them home… The better people are at acting and the further away the simulated death occures the more realistic and longer experience they get. Given a specific situation there are probably better ideas.
Then there are less normal possibilities, perhaps hypnosis?
Hypnosis could work if you’re susceptible to it. I don’t think I would fool myself with the “wait a year or more” thing. Unless said person was really competent, and said “What the hell kind of request is that? You need professional help.” (or something to the same effect, but more plausible and less exaggerated) when you asked, and then did it anyway a few years later.
I don’t know anyone with the skills to do either plan who I think would be willing to entertain weird requests like that. Also I wouldn’t like to make my reaction known to other people without knowing it myself first, because I might not be sad enough for their expectations. Especially the expectations of the person I’m supposed to think has died.
You have my condolences and sympathy. It makes it somewhat difficult to write a critique of your post esp. as my position on death is controversial here and the only relatives I lost until now were grandparents so I feel I’m not qualified to strongly defend my (tentative) view here.
So instead I make this into a question: Is anybody qualified to defend deathism who hasn’t at least lost a child, partner or parent?
The idea that you have to meet some criterion, or have to experience something personally before you are allowed to argue for a position really irks me. Especially when that criteria is asymmetrical like this, it sounds like you’re trying to get an excuse for ignoring the other side.
Anyway this criterion would probably backfire. (Edit: oh wait, you probably wouldn’t see this as a backfire) Older people have lost many more child/partner/parents, and are probably more likely to be deathist. If deathism is a sour grapes/get hit over the head every day with a baseball bat and come to say good things about it response, those who have been hit over the head the most should say the most good things about it.
Having lost all my parents and grandparents in the last few years to various causes, from Alzheimer’s to cancer to accident, I suppose I am partially qualified.
First, I dislike the locally popular term “deathism”, as it has built-in negative connotations, like “slut” and so thwarts your rationality before you even start thinking.
Second, there is a big difference between growing old, weak and sickly before checking out for good, or having one’s life interrupted by a freak accident, and staying healthy and capable for a predictable fixed number of years and then discontinuing in an orderly fashion. Most would agree that the former is strictly worse than the latter. It is debatable, however, whether fixed-duration youthful and healthy life is necessarily worse than eternal life, as far as the continuing prosperity of the human race is concerned. I commented about it before, and got downvoted severely, presumably by the anti-deathist crowd.
Negative connotations of “deathism” seem to me to flow entirely from the negative connotations of “death” (or, almost-entirely. Adding “ism” onto anything makes it sound a little evil, but most philosophies are named with an “ism” and that doesn’t thwart our rationality). Mostly, the negative connotations flow from our actual utility functions. The idea of replacing it with a word designed not to arouse these emotions brings to mind this paragraph from Orwell’s Politics and the English Language:
Negative connotations of “Slut” on the other hand seem to flow from the utility functions of people who aren’t me, and from the expectation that their utility functions are common in society, and from the self-reinforcing classification of the word as an insult as a result.
I think this depends a lot on how cheaply you can train the new productive individual. If I died but you could create me again without cost at will, what’s the loss?
What exactly is “deathism”? Is it:
The statement that “death is good, ceteris paribus”. Seems like virtually everyone would agree it is false.
The statement that “death is sometimes preferable to life”. Seems like virtually everyone would agree it is true. I don’t think many people think killing a person is a bad choice under all circumstances (e.g. probably everyone would agree killing a lunatic about to blow up the Earth is good if it’s the only way to stop her).
The statement that “suicide is sometimes preferable to staying alive”. More debatable, but I think that most LWers at least would agree suicide is preferable to an eternity of torture?
???
“Deathism” is something like the position that the current way in which people typically die is preferable to a hypothetical where people usually don’t die. This is associated with arguments like “death gives meaning to life” (motivates during life to do more), the hypothetical overpopulation/resource shortage problems, and the idea that without new people, there will be a shortage of new ideas or social change.
OK, now I understand. Indeed it doesn’t seem either obviously false or obviously true.
However, won’t the free market solve it automatically? If societies that embrace immortality technology will be less successful than societies that won’t embrace it, the latter will eventually own most of the resources.
“Success” is not specific enough (has misleading connotations). When measles virus kills a person, the virus is “more successful”, but that doesn’t indicate that the outcome is a good thing.
My point is that even if you accept the deathist thesis that a civilization of immortals will become stagnant (which I think is a valid concern), it doesn’t mean immortality is black swan technology. Let’s give people the choice of how long to live.
Also, even if the optimal life span is not infinite, there’s no reason to assume it’s close to the natural life span. It might be e.g. 30000 years.
What succeeds at being stable and producing more of itself most efficiently is not necessarily what we consider to be most good or contain the most moral value. The market is a very powerful optimizer, but not an inherently friendly one.
For example, contrast two countries, one an idyllic paradise with happy citizens who pay very low taxes and a country with very high taxes, unhappy workers, but a much more powerful military. If there’s a conflict between them, the country with unhappy workers+high taxes has a large advantage, and will win, despite this being not in the interests of the average worker. A possible real life example is the Comache Indians, and more development of this idea (multipolar traps) can be found on SlateStarCodex’s Mediations on Molch.
OK, now I understand. Indeed it doesn’t seem either obviously false or obviously true.
However, won’t the free market solve it automatically? If communities that embrace immortality technology will be less successful than communities that won’t embrace it, the latter will eventually take control of most resources.
Can you elaborate? Seems like this could introduce more bias, depending on how the people died and how young. We’re all mortal so far, I think that’s qualification enough. I’ve probably already seen more death professionally than anyone here will ever see personally, but I see that just as another source of bias if I want to examine the issue dispassionately.
Query death in my brain and it will return images of how people have died or rather how they have lived just before their deaths. It will return images of how their loved ones have continued living. This doesn’t have much to do with the rather abstract concept of death and how we should value it ceteris paribus.
I’d certainly be interested in your view, especially if it’s controversial.
OK. I bite. I will write a post about deathism explaining my controversial view. I already collected the necessary references but didn’t get around to make it into a comment yet. I answer this comment to commit to actually writing the post this weekend. Please call me on it if I shouldn’t.
The key points are: Humans can cope with death/loss (actually learn from it). And death/loss is adaptive (for the group).
There: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jop/a_defense_of_senexism_deathism/ you got it. Didn’t go well as expected.
Thanks. While I appreciate your effort I suspect it would have gone better if you had prepared better. What’s with the rush?
It still stimulated active discussion. Consider that a victory.
Postponing likely would have meant: Never. At least: At a later time to the same conditions (punctuated constant postponing). That’s because due to the ongoing discussion (and later research) I had sufficiently many facts swapped in. But for finishing a sufficiently high quality post I just don’t have the time.
I do. I’m used to posting with 85% positive rate. I wonder whether being controversial fades with time.
What would it mean to examine this issue dispassionately? From a utilitarian perspective, it seems like choosing between deathism and anti-deathism is a matter of computing the utility of each, and then choosing the one with the higher utility. I assume that a substantial portion of the negative utility surrounding death comes from the pain it causes to close family members and friends. Without having experienced such a thing oneself, it seems difficult to estimate exactly how much negative utility death brings.
(That said, I also strongly suspect that cultural views on death play a big role in determining how much negative utility there will be.)
In lieu of losing someone, you could put yourself through a realistic simulation (of the first stages).
Really though, we’re all qualified to defend either deathism or immortalism. I’d love to hear what a deathist thinks is the strongest arguments for deathism.
How would you do that?
Ask a creative friend to arrange one.
If someone asked me to arrange one… Firstly I’d schedule a random date a year or more hence, and not look at it. I’d determine how much cooperation I could expect from simulated and family and friends. More cooperation makes it easier. On that random day, I’d get an email, and I’d let people know, and start things moving. Anything from one parent calling about the other’s death to “police” calling to their partner summoning them home… The better people are at acting and the further away the simulated death occures the more realistic and longer experience they get. Given a specific situation there are probably better ideas.
Then there are less normal possibilities, perhaps hypnosis?
Hypnosis could work if you’re susceptible to it. I don’t think I would fool myself with the “wait a year or more” thing. Unless said person was really competent, and said “What the hell kind of request is that? You need professional help.” (or something to the same effect, but more plausible and less exaggerated) when you asked, and then did it anyway a few years later.
I don’t know anyone with the skills to do either plan who I think would be willing to entertain weird requests like that. Also I wouldn’t like to make my reaction known to other people without knowing it myself first, because I might not be sad enough for their expectations. Especially the expectations of the person I’m supposed to think has died.