I don't know about you, but I am becoming more disgusted of this planet on a daily basis.
How likely is it that everything which we see now will sooner or later resolve and then there will be peace on earth and everything will be just fine?
I think this is never going to happen. Retards blinded by their perverted religion will probably still be blowing up people 500 years from now.
Why should this ever come to an end?
When I think about how life was 20 years from now and how life is now then it's already hard to bear. Sure, in the past there were also threats and
rumors of wars but terrorism hasn't been on such a level where a bomb can basically go up in a mall,supermarket,stadium,school at any second now.
It's really disgusting.
And terrorism is only one of the threats. What about GMO and environmental toxins? Imo the planet is also becoming more hostile to human life.
Long story short, I really ask myself does immortality (if it could be achieved) make sense if you can't escape this shit hole at the same time?
Immortality would only make sense if you could escape to another planet at the same time where you could live in peace. This might work
for the super rich people but not for the ordinary person.
What's your take on this?
Do people who strive for immortality generally have a positive outlook and assume that conflicts will all be solved in the future?
Or think about this: Imagine they finally have the technology to freeze people and then terrorists come and blow the facilities up and thousands of
frozen people die without noticing it.
And you should also ask yourself if they really get the technology one day then who'd be interested in granting every human being access to longecity
or immortality? Already now they're saying that the planet is overcrowded. Now imagine what happens if people stop dying. This will only result in even more
I think immortalists are seeking to build a society with conditions that are safe and highly favourable to immortalists, even if contrary societies continue to exist. Worldview is crucial to your concern about the condition of the world. In a naturalistic worldview, immortalists would hope to gain sufficient power, through radically advanced technology, to obtain full protection from threats from contrary societies. In a biblical worldview, the source of hope is not in any society of this world, but in freedom from the corruption of the present world through a new creation brought about by the Creator of all that is.
Of course we see the horrors, not of evil, but stupidity, everywhere, but we have to get rid of them, to create a better wordl, or 3,4 Billion Years of evolution have been wasted.
Regional crime, terrorism and wars are ugly. But they only kill thousands of people.
Car crashes kill a million people every year.
And aging kills tens of millions every year.
So to me it's clear which one we should be focused on.
It's not really optimism and I don't even consider myself an immortalist, I'm just concerned with the biggest problem - and as most times in human history it's the one the majority prefers to ignore. If there was a world war raging I'd be a bit more concerned but as things are right now, not really.
www.fightaging.org has some articles on overpopulation on his blog if you're interested. Also please bare in mind people had wars when they were a mere few million spread out on all continents. Anything could be a reason for a war, never denounce a humanist idea on that ground, it's silly. It's like saying we shouldn't feed and help the poor because they'll spread disease - prominent fascists used to say that.
I met an old childhood friend in Prague recently. He was traveling Europe with his beautiful & classy girlfriend.
One on one over a succulent meal and couple glasses of wine on a resplendent sunny patio he mentioned that he had saved $12,000 to take his girlfriend on this epic European vacation. My friend is to put it lightly, killing it.
In the past 10 years he's literally starred death in the face a number of times, fought back, won and has parlayed his remarkable survivor story into a pretty successful speaking career. Knowing him so long, I can really see how he's refined his raw talent for communication and likable personality into a highly profitable skill set.
He also operates a pretty successful marketing firm serving clients like Uber, the Denver Nuggets and Make a Wish.
He has a pretty good immediate family (who I know well) and an enviable social circle.
His most recent toy is a $1500 remote control drone.
We talked about meditation, supplementation, coaching and the great books we devote time to reading. He's really been taking his personal development seriously for a while and it's obviously paying off.
The discussion turned to legacy; how we hoped to leave the world better than we found it. We discussed the merits of doing so by...
Building bigger businesses
Hiring more
Writing books
Inventing awesome supplements or new technology
Starting none-profits or doing more altruistic work
And of course by simply making more money
I then suggest something he didn't really expect; that he should procreate. I shared the sentiment that even though technology has enabled us wield influence in all these amazing ways to change the world, one of the most powerful ways to change the world is to create life and really invest heavily in raising children.
My friend gave me a couple of BS excuses why procreation wasn't on his RADAR...
He likes living with his current roommate in a cool downtown neighborhood
His girlfriend is in an uncertain place in her career
He likes to spend his time on his cool hobbies like rock climbing and traveling
He's got a couple of big, demanding projects ahead of him
Which I didn't buy. I pushed him a little more on the issue...
If what you've told me about your girlfriend is true and she doesn't have some deep, dark secret that would prevent her from being a good wife or mother, then what are you waiting for?
He finally got more honest...
The world is so fucked. So fucked! Climate change. Terrorism. The government taking away our rights. Overpopulation. Technological unemployment. We are so lucky to live at this extraordinary period of history were we have peak freedom, comfort and happiness but it's not going to be like that for long. Shit is going to change. I wouldn't want to bring life into the world that's coming.
I pushed back, trying to strike a balance between frankness and diplomatically pace-leading him out the intellectual maze of nihilism that he was in.
Yeah I can see what you're saying. Sometimes I feel the same when I watch too much of the news aka reality disaster porn, it just seems like the whole world is a train wreck happening in very slow motion.
But you should really read this author Steven Kotler, he's a none-fiction science writer and he writes these books about scientific advancements in really crucial domains; nuclear fission, environmentalism, gene editing, anti-aging, etc - really remarkable stuff!
It doesn't make it into your newsfeed as much but smart people are making tremendous progress on all the global issues you mentioned. The truth is we actually have an excellent reason to be optimistic about the future; throughout history these demons drank cups so full of human blood...
Small pox
Spanish flu
Chattel slavery
Fascism and communism
Large scale religious wars
Infant mortality
Smart people figured out how to fix these problems. In the last 75 years smart people figured out how to set up our world so we didn't have any more world wars that kill off tens of millions of people. Smart people figured out how to end the nuclear stand off between the USA and the USSR that could have ended our species.
We live pretty good lives in this world built by smart people don't we? To paraphrase the comedian Joe Rogan: If I sent you off into the woods in the middle of nowhere with just the clothes on your back and a hatchet how long would it be before you could send me an email?
Your paranoia about creating life that has to live in a world not as good as this one is a self fulfilling prophesy. You've seen the first 10 minutes of Idiocracy. The real problem is not overpopulation, climate change or terrorism, these things can be fixed. The real problem is the cultural and state sponsored eugenic program that encourages the wrong people to breed like rabbits the right people to wait and wait and wait some more before making babies.
Smart people have an obligation to reproduce. Smart individual humans have a tremendous exponential power to fix big problems ailing humanity.
Look man you got a really good life, don't you?
You have this good life largely because your parents (who are pretty smart people right?) choose the inconvenient option of having you! They choose to invest their time in being good parents not... playing with drones and rock climbing! If you think you could be at least as good a parent as your parents you've got a hell of an obligation to reproduce!
My friend then, of course threw my own logic back at me.
OK so what about you then? You certainly seem to be having a lot of fun traveling the world; video blogging, learning languages, salsa dancing and throwing coconuts on the ground. Why aren't you reproducing?
I had the dubiously better excuse of not having found as qualified a partner as he had.
I'm obviously quiet passionate about topic because this is, perhaps the idealogical challenge of our era. If the jaded pop culture and the media ever pushing it's reality disaster porn continue to convince smart people to not reproduce our society will descend into a very unfunny Idiocracy.
Smart people like me (and you?) living these masturbatory lives pursuing shallow hedonism instead of making love to virtuous partners and becoming excellent, committed parents will be the death of our species. The species needs us to do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel.
This brings me to a sobering interview I listened to of Mike Adam the Health Ranger; they discuss shoddy chances of survival our society and species face if we don't manage to fundamentally Biohack ourselves and our world.
The survival of our species desperately needs Biohacking, it needs us to invent new technologies and break ground on science that unlocks blazing light of human potential. It also really needs us to make babies.
Regional crime, terrorism and wars are ugly. But they only kill thousands of people.
Car crashes kill a million people every year.
And aging kills tens of millions every year.
Here are the total deaths of 2014. Be aware of the limitations of such numbers, depending on twisted reporting from health authorities. A recent study found preventable deaths from medical malpractice isn't even reported, but would probably take rank 3.
In the 29 OECD countries for which comparable data were available, the annual average death rate from road injury was approximately 390 times that from international terrorism. The ratio of annual road to international terrorism deaths (averaged over 10 years) was lowest for the United States at 142 times. In 2001, road crash deaths in the US were equal to those from a September 11 attack every 26 days.
CONCLUSIONS:
There is a large difference in the magnitude of these two causes of deaths from injury. Policy makers need to be aware of this when allocating resources to preventing these two avoidable causes of mortality.
Would place terrorism with 3,217 yearly deaths at rank 80 after iodine deficiency.
The cumulative death toll is still 100% since times immortal. Human and other sentient being have experienced unmeasurable sufferings and joys during all this time, and it will continue this way.
But honing in at the presently apparent mass-hysteria about something such minute as terrorism - compared to much, much unsurmountable obstacles for humans surviving as a race - does indicate we're primed for an Orwellian state in the next decade. Also that wont last, only that's for sure.
If it wasn't we wouldn't have much need for this website.
The death toll will always be 100% given a long enough time period, even if we do not age.
Let's start by increasing healthy lifespans and work up from there and see where the leads us.
The mass media induced hysteria is more worrisome than the problems they're talking about, that's true.
Oh and I forgot to add - it's not just terrorism - resources, overpopulation, nuclear power, etc.
Opinion giving "news" programs make sure to spin anything closer to doom and gloom as they can, it's what keeps their mediocre jobs safe.
I hate to sound like a troll here, as I am not doing that, but I think the Evolutionary perspective is one of survival alone.
So the question is "Which human beings will survive?" Well, the weeds will survive, and then the wealthy oligarchs will breed the weeds into whatever kind of human being they want, or the weeds will have to survive in spite of the Oligarchs if they Oligarchs decide that they prefer Terminator style robots or human simulants instead of people. But the long term picture of that latter situation has the Weedlings breeding like cockroaches until they have the numbers to overwhelm the enclaves of Oligarchs when we have a Rhine Freezing Event similar to the winter of 406.
In the end the Weedlings always win, no matter how fine the artistic tastes, or how high the IQs of those they replace.
Humanity will survive, but just not maybe in the form we all prefer.
If it wasn't we wouldn't have much need for this website.
The death toll will always be 100% given a long enough time period, even if we do not age.
Let's start by increasing healthy lifespans and work up from there and see where the leads us.
The mass media induced hysteria is more worrisome than the problems they're talking about, that's true.
Oh and I forgot to add - it's not just terrorism - resources, overpopulation, nuclear power, etc.
Opinion giving "news" programs make sure to spin anything closer to doom and gloom as they can, it's what keeps their mediocre jobs safe.
Yep. As bad as things seem today you can choose any time period and determine that the world was a truly fucked-up place then. For instance, I think the world was much more in danger of swift and imminent destruction in 1960 than it is now. Assuming the world does last another century, I'd like to be here to see what it looks like, even if it's not some sort of crisis-free utopia.
You Are Using Ad Block Plus or some other advert blocking software. More info here: "https://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/84454-please-disable-adblockers/
