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tipareth's avatar

I'm sorry but this discussion is so academic as to be useless.  If man were immortal we would be entirely different creatures with an entirely different history and psychology. We also would have stopped reproducing a long time ago and would most likely have a perfect society because we wouldn't have had pesky deaths and falls of empires and history to repeat. This is just silly and pointless.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Good post Katja. Quoting the quote:"Immortality would lead to a general motivational collapse because it would sap all our decisions of significance."Made me think (and worry about) this (quote):"Science advances one funeral at a time." Max PlanckEither this is a brick wall for all future-tech and hyper-growth rates, or in the future, expert opinion will not be so highly regarded or cared about. Something has to give, or we will be stuck at current rates of growth and progress, or things might even get worse if life extension technologies become somewhat successful. What to do about this?"This is interestingly at odds with my observations, which suggests that people are much more motivated to do things that seem unimportant, and have to constantly press themselves to do important things once in a while."Are important things more effortful than the unimportant things (in general)? If yes, then the brain is an effort-minimizing device, not a utility maximizing one (or perhaps it's both). If no, then why would people avoid attending to important things if they were relatively easy to deal with?In regard to the last few paragraphs and the closing question; Is life too long, rather than too short? Whenever i see people standing on slow, mildly inclined elevators, i'm sure the general answer is 'yes'.

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