Well, I had in mind a situation in which immortal people maintain a physical age of roughly 50 forever. But that the first 50 years of a person’s life are so much better than any succeeding immortal 50 year period so as to make up for the mortal “bad years” from physical 50 to death.
So, I am taking it into account, though perhaps I was insufficiently explicit.
It strikes me as entirely rational to regard death as so terrible or youth as so angst-ridden that a world filled with immortals is the ideal. In which case cryonics makes sense. But it certainly is not a slam-dunk judgement. And this judgment is also inconsistent with a lack of activism regarding population limitation in the absense of cryonic revival.
It could be argued that while the creation of new children has positive utility (it certainly suits the preferences of the parents, e.g.), it is not anywhere near as high as the continued survival of humans already in existence.
Probably not for the humans already in existence. But, given a reasonable life prospect, the utility of being born is pretty high for the child being born. Higher for a neutral onlooker, too, I think.
Your argument doesn’t seem to take into account the plausible difference between old dying people and old immortal people.
Well, I had in mind a situation in which immortal people maintain a physical age of roughly 50 forever. But that the first 50 years of a person’s life are so much better than any succeeding immortal 50 year period so as to make up for the mortal “bad years” from physical 50 to death.
So, I am taking it into account, though perhaps I was insufficiently explicit.
It strikes me as entirely rational to regard death as so terrible or youth as so angst-ridden that a world filled with immortals is the ideal. In which case cryonics makes sense. But it certainly is not a slam-dunk judgement. And this judgment is also inconsistent with a lack of activism regarding population limitation in the absense of cryonic revival.
It could be argued that while the creation of new children has positive utility (it certainly suits the preferences of the parents, e.g.), it is not anywhere near as high as the continued survival of humans already in existence.
Probably not for the humans already in existence. But, given a reasonable life prospect, the utility of being born is pretty high for the child being born. Higher for a neutral onlooker, too, I think.