I'm torn between the argument that the gift of life is such a precious one that eliminating death is one of the most virtuous endeavors at all – and the other argument where this is peak escapism and a fundamental not-getting-it-what-life-is-about.
At least one can be sure: Death is such a fundemantal part of life that every social norm we take for granted (thus not even noticing it exists) will be uprooted.
Technically that doesn't need to be a bad thing. It just makes it so much more likely that advocats of ending death are overlooking the bad parts.
Plus, I can't think of a scenario where, once this technology exists to extend life indefinetly, the state's monopoly on power won't turn into a dystopian monopoly on life.
Suppose we hit the SETI gold medal, and meet and interact with intelligent aliens. We discover that these aliens are effectively immortal.
The aliens ask you for advice about how to live. Would you recommend that they all commit suicide at age 100, because it will be so good for them and their society?
Always flip the default and ask, will you switch back.
What if you could ask an octopus the same, and it suggested that dying after breeding is best for society to prevent the problems of overpopulation [1]? Unlike your hypothetical aliens, octopodes live in the same resource-constrained world we do.
>I'm torn between the argument that the gift of life is such a precious one that eliminating death is one of the most virtuous endeavors at all – and the other argument where this is peak escapism and a fundamental not-getting-it-what-life-is-about.
The problem with this line of thinking is that no one is ever going to eliminate death, ever. Even if you completely eliminate aging, people are still going to die at some point, whether it's from war, or natural disasters, or accidents, or murder. Making people ageless isn't going to keep them from dying when a piano falls on them.
So pontificating about humans living until the heat death of the universe is utterly pointless. Statistically, even without aging, humans aren't going to live beyond 1000 years most likely.
> Plus, I can't think of a scenario where, once this technology exists to extend life indefinetly, the state's monopoly on power won't turn into a dystopian monopoly on life.
And the wealthy’s monopoly on wealth will only consolidate.
It reminds me of two quotes:
“Science progresses one funeral at a time” (paraphrasing Planck’s principle).
“[…] Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. […]”
That’s probably what worries me most, when it comes to extended or unending lives.
I wouldn't be so cynical. Many power structures rely on death to drive churn. But there are other mechanisms, e.g. sequential term limits and retirement. (Retirement doesn't mean you can't do anything anymore. Just not that thing.)
Moreover, while longer lifespans may drive calcification, they would also promote long-term thinking. How would we vote about the climate differently if we knew we'd be around for a couple hundred years?
> Moreover, while longer lifespans may drive calcification, they would also promote long-term thinking. How would we vote about the climate differently if we knew we'd be around for a couple hundred years?
Would we act more in favor of the general long-term good, or would we scramble even more to get ours now in order to secure our own future? I'm not so sure cooperation would win.
“Science progresses one funeral at a time” (paraphrasing Planck’s principle).
I would be careful at citing that quote as evidence for how science work, especially when considering the historical uniqueness of the last two centuries or so.
This article said it's more complicated than that and more hopeful.[1]
Also Kuhn’s idea of a paradigm shift. Good luck getting a new paradigm adopted when the decision makers at academic and scientific institutions never leave.
It is easy to see why an individual would choose life over death, if one has the means for a comfortable life. A second order question would then be: would the society value your life over their own? Even as we speak, many thousands are dying of preventable causes, including man made starvation. There is no way immortality will be accessible to all, and will only increase inequality.
I'll happily change my mind if we can fix world hunger and homelessness before conquering death.
>100,000 civilians killed instantly and an additional 130,000 died from the exposure afterwards and till this day no official excuse from the US.
With all due respect to the enormous civilian suffering behind yours and the following numbers, why should there be an official excuse other than the obvious of winning the war against a barbaric enemy that had already ferociously invaded most of eastern Asia, the western Pacific and ruthlessly killed over 15 million people in the process?
The atomic bombings, by the perspective of the time and what had already been done, weren't even so terrible in terms of dead. The mass firebombing campaigns of the entire last couple years of the war against Japanese cities, using completely conventional weapons, had already killed possibly as many as 700,000 people with hardly any allied leader batting an eye, or the U.S. public for that matter. Given this mentality, and the subsequent lack of an apology for those conventional bombings, what would have made the atomic bombings deeply unique? (except for the nature of the bombs themselves).
Let's not also forget that Japan itself did everything possible to make the use of atomic bombs seem reasonable, having promised repeatedly that it would fight even in the face of horrendous casualties both for its own people and the forces of any invading army. Given the absolutist stance of Japanese forces in the field previous to those last weeks, fighting until every last man is dead and killing as many civilians as they could in the process, on directives and mentalities instilled directly from Tokyo, it's not hard to see why the Americans took seriously the idea of an unimaginable bloodbath in any potential invasion of the home islands.
Just look at the battles of Okinawa, in which the local forces encouraged their own local civilians to commit mass suicide as they lost the island, or the battle of Manilla, in which the knowingly losing Japanese just kept fighting, butchering, raping and burning the city solely for the sake of doing so.
Yes, but the people making those threats aren't the people who were killed. As you yourself say, they were civilians; and they certainly weren't in Manilla.
But i'm not sure what your point is. If you're referring to the tragedy of those civilians killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it's grotesque, but how is it different from the tragedy of million of civilians killed by the Empire during its conquests, or the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by the U.S. bombing raids with conventional weapons before the nuclear bombs were dropped, or most crucially, the possibly millions of civilians and soldiers who could have been killed if the American forces had directly invaded?
Under the lack of foresight at the time, and given the nature of Japanese belligerence, it's not hard to understand why the U.S decided to drop the two atom bombs, given what they'd already done while still facing Japanese intransigence. Maybe it wasn't the most moral of choices, but under the circumstances, it had an understandable logic of hardened pragmatism that it's too easy to sweep under a rug of condemnation today with foresight, which itself might be mistaken even now.
So were those in Tokyo and the other 72 cities levelled in bombing campaigns on Japanese homeland prior to the two additional cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I think what the pandemic showed was that you can "follow the science" and do whatever you want, because when scientists disagree you pick the one who says what you want. The same for lots of things - UK drug policy (which involved things like firing a scientific advisor for giving the wrong advice), what to do about global warming, etc.
The whole idea of science as handed down by authority also helps people like creationists and conspiracy theorists because if its just a matter of authority then you can choose a different authority.
Close your eyes, hear an Israeli speak English and then a German and the only difference you will notice is the same intonational difference between standard German and Yiddish. Other than that, they basically will have the same accent.
Who could have thought that under the protective veil where every critique about a policy or program is succesfully labelled as right-wing, climate-change-denialist, or naz*, corruption would flourish?
This is neither the first nor the last case of illegal activities environmentalism has produced in Germany (Prokon scandal, Graichen scandal, Christmas benefit payments, corona benefit payments, Harald Friedrich etc).
This is good, PV panels can ammortize themselves even quicker when electricity costs are higher.
> Topping out at 56 kWh in a day is pretty good... The best summer days generate almost twice as much energy as the best winter day
It was really worthwhile seeing the stats put in order like this, thank you.
Really puts the spotlight on the technology to store the energy over longer periods (ie into the Winter). What is available on the market?
AFAIK standard home batteries empty out pretty quickly even without getting used. What about Vanadium-Redox? Hydrogen-Storage is too expensive and storying it via crypto-mining feels a bit like betting.
While I welcome your enthusiasm I would urge anyone not to contaminate your soil with toxin laden printed paper (or its even toxin denser derivative of recycled packaging). At least if you're going to grow food on it you have a responsibility for the mouths fed with it.
With regards to the article: It's inconsistencies like these shown in the article, where there's a detailed list of sciency arguements about why no tilling makes sense but then the same Harvard PhD continues to cover her whole garden with toxic old newspapers which loses me.
Could be that I'm biased since I inherited a garden from similar lassez-fair style "gardeners" and had 20 year old trees collapsing without any storm due to their pest-infestation...
> there is the unpleasant whiff of colonialism here [...] reinforced racist tropes [...] widespread notion in the West that much of Africa didn’t have a history
It is indeed unpleasant – that people resort to this cheap rhetorical kick in the teeth of using white-shaming as an argument itself.
Especially when the author touches on an important topic. Because doing it this way – by slipping in intent – contorts cause and effect.
Yes, the dichotomy of history and prehistory is an underrated one. Yes, it deduces prehistoric cultures as dull. But this includes the pre-history of the alledged racists!
The matter at play here is not the interlined plot to plunder and subjugate the world, but our inability to recognize that the written word is just a small appendix to our every-day culture, till this day.
Even today we barely notice how much of our behaviours and rituals can be shaped in complete abscense of any written and oral communication. Nobody tells the Copenhagen cyclist to cycle much more considerate (with regards to other cyclists, drivers and pedestrians) than a Berlin cyclist. But they still do.
When judging cultures, it's the insignificance of the written word that us writers fail to see. And thus today's richness is just as hidden as the richness of the past.
Agree and would add that software projects also run through different phases in their lifespans with each phase having their own objectives [1].
So while - as you say - best practices can be at odds with each other - dev teams might be following both over time, just prioritizing one in some phase while completely disregarding it during another.
[1] E.g. the UI of the actual product might pivot multiple times at phase 1 because the product has yet to find its niche or core offering. While at a later stage the focus might be on massive scaling, either in numbers of devs or rolling out the product in new jurisdictions. Other phases might be a maintenance one, when an "offshore" team is given ownership or a sundown of an application.
At least one can be sure: Death is such a fundemantal part of life that every social norm we take for granted (thus not even noticing it exists) will be uprooted.
Technically that doesn't need to be a bad thing. It just makes it so much more likely that advocats of ending death are overlooking the bad parts.
Plus, I can't think of a scenario where, once this technology exists to extend life indefinetly, the state's monopoly on power won't turn into a dystopian monopoly on life.
reply