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.)
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.)