Today I Learned...

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by Ultramaroon

While I took immortality the same way as Tcoat, I see your interpretation. In that context, I can't bring myself to hope for more than my fair share. There are already too many of us. Let the kids have a turn.

Intellectually, I'm on board with this. See the show, Altered Carbon. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to keep reading the story at least.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by Spuds

Intellectually, I'm on board with this. See the show, Altered Carbon. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to keep reading the story at least.

Sure! I'm enjoying the story every day. The idea of not growing old, or even living longer than average is enticing but, and this thought just now occurred to me, I feel just as dirty about owning a big v-8, or leaving any more of a carbon footprint than is reasonable (in my perspective). I feel a twinge of sadness every time I open a jar, or can of something that my cousins walk down to the neighborhood market to buy fresh, or do without. I can't un-live or un-learn the experiences I've had the rich fortune to ... experience.

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by Spuds

1. You don't want to live forever because you will inevitably experience some great tragedy and suffering. One thing to point out here is that people born in 1930s like my grandfather were also around for things like the moon landings and the eradication of polio. On a personal level, a lot of living has been good. Graduations, weddings, promotions, parties, etc. I personally feel that life has more upside than downside but maybe you feel differently?

but i don't care about graduations, weddings, or parties

i think the definition of 'infinite life' needs better definition. are we eradicating just age-type disease, or all disease? and if life is infinite, does disease risk increase with age as it does now? does this mean that someone grows to adult stage, and then 'freezes' at 30ish to remain looking like that indefinitely?

i just think what the workforce would look like if the past dozen generations were still working. or housing...

Originally Posted by Spuds

2. If the length of life was infinite, it wouldn't have any value. By this do you mean (a)"If I didn't have a time limit I wouldn't bother doing anything today because I could just do it tomorrow or some other day", or (b) "Who cares about Bob getting killed, I'm sure I can find someone else like him eventually"? Or something completely different?

mostly (a). without the time constraint of death, the tendency to push stuff off to later increases.

Originally Posted by Spuds

3. You don't want to live forever because you will feel less inclined to pass along your experience because more people will have a similar level of experience relative to your own? I don't really understand this one. Are you saying that you feel the 30 years between you and the younger generation would feel less significant to you? Or is it more concerning that you/they would have more difficulty succeeding the generation before if the elder never had to cede their experience?

so much of history is cataloged and maintained because those people of past generations are no longer here. how many times has a historian said "i wish we could just go back in time to talk to these people". and how many of those historians want to specialize in cataloging an era like the 2010's? not many, because a good majority of people still know and remember that era--some people are desiring to put an effort into it (like the way back machine for example), but much of the value of history is in the fact that things are getting lost to the ravages of time, and more importantly, no one exists to tell the story anymore. if life was infinite, there' s less of a rush to catalog and maintain history because the likely hood of someone being around to talk about those events increases.


it's like a school paper-- there's always a few that will get it done right away, but the majority push it off and cram right at the deadline. the point of deadlines is to get things done. if life has no deadline, what's the rush?

[Dadhawk]

Philosophically, what separates humans from other animals is our capacity to "live forever" as a species. In essence, thanks to our development of writing and communications skills we pass our gained knowledge on between generations and do not depend on just those traits built into our DNA.

No other species, at least on Earth, does that. Everything that surrounds us today at some point started with something developed by a caveman. Had we had to reinvent that each generation, we would not be where we are, good or bad.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

No other species, at least on Earth, does that. Everything that surrounds us today at some point started with something developed by a caveman. Had we had to reinvent that each generation, we would not be where we are, good or bad.

Humans are the only ones who have figured out how to "stand on the shoulders of giants." Indeed!

[Captain Snooze]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Philosophically, what separates humans from other animals is our capacity to "live forever" as a species. In essence, thanks to our development of writing and communications skills we pass our gained knowledge on between generations and do not depend on just those traits built into our DNA.

"Humans Are Doomed to Go Extinct
The most insidious threat to humankind is something called “extinction debt.” There comes a time in the progress of any species, even ones that seem to be thriving, when extinction will be inevitable, no matter what they might do to avert it. The cause of extinction is usually a delayed reaction to habitat loss. The species most at risk are those that dominate particular habitat patches at the expense of others, who tend to migrate elsewhere, and are therefore spread more thinly. Humans occupy more or less the whole planet, and with our sequestration of a large wedge of the productivity of this planetwide habitat patch, we are dominant within it. H. sapiens might therefore already be a dead species walking."
Scientific American

[Ultramaroon]

TIL about

[Sapphireho]

Originally Posted by Ultramaroon

TIL about

I can't see anything.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by Sapphireho

I can't see anything.

Oops. Fixed, I hope

[Sapphireho]

Originally Posted by Ultramaroon

Oops. Fixed, I hope

I see it now. I just got diabetes.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by Sapphireho

I see it now. I just got diabetes.

Must be the diabetic retinopathy kicking in.

[Sapphireho]

Originally Posted by Ultramaroon

Must be the diabetic retinopathy kicking in.

Prolly.

[humfrz]

"Ain't but three things in this world that's worth a solitary dime
But old dogs and children and watermelon wine".

[Sapphireho]

TIL that dill pickle flavored Pringles are disgusting.