Are you saying you don't ever want to die at all?
That's interesting because there are some people who feel very strongly that they should die, and there are those who feel that they would never want to and should not need to.
Some people faced with certain death will go to very extreme lengths to prolong their lives by the tiniest amount. Others will accept it.
There's a sort of "natural way of things" mentality that is very pervasive. People believe that we are meant to die. I think this is another very difficult barrier that the SENS community faces.
> Are you saying you don't ever want to die at all?
Emphatically yes.
> That's interesting because there are some people who feel very strongly that they should die
People often accept what they feel they can't change, more because they don't see any obvious way to change it rather than actually liking the situation they find themselves in. That can lead to rather impressive rationalizations of why we "need" to die, but that seems like sour grapes to me. I think a majority of that set of people would choose to live forever if they actually had the option. If the option actually existed in practice, rather than in philosophical conversations, intentionally choosing not to use it would amount to suicide. I'm not suicidal, so I want to live forever; I really don't see a middle ground there, other than indecision and procrastination.
Frame the question inductively instead, to help people think about it less abstractly; I bet you'd get an almost universally positive response to "do you want to live at least one more day?". Or phrase it negatively and count the "no"s: I doubt you'll get many positive responses to "do you want to die tomorrow?", and the ones you do get probably indicate a need for immediate psychological help.
> Some people faced with certain death will go to very extreme lengths to prolong their lives by the tiniest amount. Others will accept it.
Depends on whether you think of "dead" as the absolute zero point on your value scale or not. If you don't, you can imagine scenarios in which you'd prefer death. Personally, I do see that as the zero point, so no scenario exists for which I'd consider death a preferable alternative.
> There's a sort of "natural way of things" mentality that is very pervasive.
I think almost all instances of this argument would very quickly dissolve in the face of an actual option to live forever, leaving only a few random fanatics who really believe that they "should" die.
Say you were given some gene therapy at age 15 or so, and you will never die of natural causes. Would you take a pill at age 80 to end it?
The way the survey questions were asked must have just been terrible. I think what happens is people get this picture in their mind of someone that looks like a damned ghoulish skeleton if they live to be 150, which is just silly.
One of the commenters on the site was a good example. He said something along the lines of "people start losing their senses, things stop working..." etc. No. No they don't - these are the things that kill you which would not exist if we could allow people to live indefinitely.
That started as a concise response to you, and went on to be me venting about the subject. Of course I want to live forever!
>I think what happens is people get this picture in their mind of someone that looks like a damned ghoulish skeleton if they live to be 150, which is just silly.
Far from silly it is what has happened to everyone who lived to be even 120 or 90. And the people know enough people to know it.
So they answered based on actual experience and observation instead of wishy washy Kurzeill-like hopes...
Why would one call this silly?
It's like calling someone who thinks that travelling to Africa and back to SF every day tiring "silly", because he doesn't take into account the possibility of tele-portation...
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.
>Some people faced with certain death will go to very extreme lengths to prolong their lives by the tiniest amount. Others will accept it.
And I wouldn't want to be with the first guys company. They would screw you or everybody to achieve it.
One would never want to experience war, mass violence or extreme events of course. But ever more so, one would never want to experience war or mass violence near those kind of people.
Remember those taking the place of kids in the lifeboats of Titanic? You think in another, non life and death, social situation, but one that could have great benefit for them, they would be more graceful?
Some people faced with certain death will go to very extreme lengths to prolong their lives by the tiniest amount. Others will accept it.
There's a sort of "natural way of things" mentality that is very pervasive. People believe that we are meant to die. I think this is another very difficult barrier that the SENS community faces.