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Transhumanist Children's Book Argues, "Death Is Wrong"
destinyland writes "Hoping to inspire life-extending medical research, science fiction author Gennady Stolyarov has launched a campaign to give away 1,000 free copies of his transhumanist picture book for children, Death is Wrong. 'My greatest fear about the future is not of technology running out of control or posing existential risks to humankind,' he explains. 'Rather, my greatest fear is that, in the year 2045, I will be...wondering, "What happened to that Singularity we were promised by now...?"' Along with recent scientific discoveries, the book tells its young readers about long-lived plants and animals '"that point the way toward lengthening lifespans in humans,' in an attempt to avoid a future where children 'would pay no more attention to technological progress and life-extension possibilities than their predecessors did.'"
This is here .... why?
There's already far too many humans on the planet. If we stop dying there'll be nothing to eat and nowhere to stand.
when quality of life is what really matters? Maybe once we can create a sustainable society where people are actually happy we can focus on resource drains like people who never die.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
As awkward of a subject as it might be for some, it seems pretty clear that death is just as important a part of organic life as birth. If things didn't die, we would have far too many creatures to live in comfort together.
How is he going to raise that kind of money? I just don't think it's possible ...
Wow, I get the strong impression the author has only lived and traveled in developed nations his entire life. Its fun to wish for the things he writes about but they're unrealistic given human history.
It's especially awkward how he keeps saying he's not espousing a libertarian view and then does just that.
"What happened to that Singularity we were promised by now...?"
Who promised this and why did you think they had the ability to make good on that promise?
Here's a suggestion for the next /. article. "Morons who successfully pass themselves off as Philosophers and Serious Thinkers.. - A Threat To Human Survival?"
WTF!
Goes from a children's book to "liberty" and then slavery and then back to death is wrong and extending life.
Gibberish.
Grow up, death is desirable, just imagine someone like Zuckerberg alive forever.
No one "promised" you a singularity, it was a prediction like flying cars (which are an absurdity when you think about it) and a very small percentage of population deserve such things.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
for all the negative remarks, maybe i'm the only one who wonders how awesome this would be for space travel XD
we would be able to explore a meaningful part of the galaxy XD.
the 100 year ban is over.
we waste time.
Without death, there's no evolution possible as one generation can no longer replace the previous one. Immortality would be death of the specie (*), just the same as when cells become immortal we call it cancer and the organism dies. If it happened at once society would collapse as children would no longer inherit (and be able to afford a house), you'd no longuer be able to replace your boss at work, and indeed never get a job because nobody would move up the corporate ladder... A pretty good novel about that: The Postmortal by Drew Magary.
(*) A justification is that an immortal 'specie' stays static. If another similar specie keeps evolving, it'll eventually outcompete it and beat it to death.
Want longer life spans ? Very simple: start breeding later in life and let evolution sort it out.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Killing is wrong; death is a part of life.
Therefore, to say that death is wrong is to say that some fundamental part of life is wrong.
Except that Windows is fine these days. Mod parent down.
Death is appropriate and welcome when timely... it is untimely death (accident, too young, pain filled, etc) that is a tragedy.
The singularity is a fascinating idea that ain't going to happen. Vernor Vinge himself did a much better treatment on what happens in this case.
We're already living in the Age of Failed Dreams. Advancements in technology, aside from computing, have all but halted. Flying cars? We can barely improve planes; yes, that IS your fathers airframe. Cheap and limitless energy? Nope. Life extension? John Adams died at 90 over 200 years ago, and he wasn't THAT unusual; many more live that long today, but few live much longer. Progress on stopping disease has even stopped and regressed. And most notably for the purposes of the singularity, strong general AI hasn't progressed much.
and look out a window. The last time I landed in Las Vegas I was stunned at how much of the us is completely and totally unoccupied.
Drive out to state college PA sometime - nothing but trees on either side of you for hours on end.
I heard a stat a few years ago saying the entire population of the world could fit into the state of Texas at the density of NYC. Yes, that doesn't account for infrastructure, and food production, but the point is that the entire world would be left over for that.
There is lots of room on this blue marble. Technology will find a way to support us all.
the new Childrens Storybook Fiction Writer overlords.
Gently reply
What happened to that Singularity we were promised by now...?
I didn't promise anyone a singularity. Did you?
Sure, it'd be nice if it came along before I shuffle off, but right now life's too short to keep getting annoyed because you think you're entitled to stuff from sci-fi.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Why would you find it "funny" to have someone destroyed his life by not living to the fullest?
It's really sad to see the comments about life extension being bad or we are going to overpopulate the planet etc. They truly show the lack of imagination and understanding of much of the /. readership. There are some truly closed minds here among people calling them selves Liberals, Libertarians and Progressives. The reactions are very much like those of a society and system of thinking that thinks a cat can steal the breath of a baby, a society where superstition is given more weight than science.
The population models of Thomas Malthus were wrong. Paul Ehrlich's reuse of those models was wrong and reusing those same tired models will continue to be wrong. You are placing your hopes in Armageddon and self distraction instead of the creativity and ingenuity of humanity to make more from what we have than the last generation thought possible.
Stop being small minded lovers of doom!
It all starts at 0
An essence of life is the continuation and gradual improvement of the self-sustainment capabilities of the information pattern that is conserved; that is, the genome.
Individual organisms are temporary containers (guardians) of the pattern, ensuring that the pattern survives (remains embodied in local matter and energy) for some more time. But each individual is almost always a redundant guardian of the information. There are many backups.
The inevitability of either accidental catastrophic destruction of the organism container, or of slow entropic decay of the complex structure and complex process of the container, is why life a) creates multiple copies of the pattern, and b) has a "reproduction of the container" mechanism, whereby the physical container's complex structure and process can be periodically rebooted. The container of the information is recreated in its simplest possible physical form, that uses the least material, and is again at a relatively simple and uniform beginning of its structural evolution. The beginning (embryonic) stage of the form, being simpler and smaller and newer in arrangement of atoms, is refreshed and cleaned of defect (like a rebooted computer), ready to begin its new round of combatting accident and entropy.
Another essence of life is entailed in the simultaneous creation of multiple almost identical but subtly varying containers of almost identical but slightly varying information patterns. This does not have to be specially engineered, because the variation (by accident and entropy) would be the natural expected outcome of multiple concurrent complex physical construction processes. It is generally the prevention of the variation that is remarkable, and was among the first results of the evolutionary selection process. By creation of multiple co-existent almost identical copies, a game playing field is set up, and competition (and co-operation strategies) ensue, and evolutionary selection creates more viable forms, and forms more viable) that become able to inhabit more general physical environments over time.
Endless perpetuation of one individual organism instance is not an essential feature of this evolution of self-maintaining information patterns, and may arguably be counter-productive to the larger maintenance of life agenda of life.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I welcome the centenarian SAT, wherein the desiccated (if not decrepit) demonstrate that they retain the mental flexibility to allow necessary social change to redefine the terms of continued living.
The movement loses most of its gloss when retirement age gets bumped to 165. Under present conditions, the extremely gifted can amass enough wealth by the present retirement age to coast on equity for a long time.
This of course all changes once life extension begins to rock the boat. Living forever will, however, always remain highly appealing for the 1% of the 1% of the 1%.
Even if we get the population sorted out, if we live forever, what drive do we have to accomplish anything? "Oh, I'll just do it in a few thousand years." Death is the drive behind making life meaningful.
I have an aunt about to hit 99. She spends at least 2 mornings a week at some sort of doctor - paid by Medicare. She is on about a dozen medications - expensive ones paid by Medicare. She's in the hospital at least twice a year - all paid for by Medicare.
She can't shit or pee well. She has a colostomy bag. She has trouble walking by herself. She is blind in one eye. We try to spend as much time as we can with her, but there aren't anyone her own age around to relate to.
Her life is in pain.
I don't want to get that old. I took/take care of myself. I have ate correctly and exercised since I was a kid. I am thinking slower. I move slower. I am unable to exercise and play sports like I did even 10 years ago. The fact of the matter is that nature cannot be beat.
Our culture is death phobic and we are under this illusion that we can still have a fulfilling life in old age.
We cannot.
Like all living creatures on this planet, we evolved a limited life span.
Childhood and infant death has been pretty much eliminated from Western society. We can talk about childhood cancer, but that will probably never be beat because those illnesses are just shit happens. Sometimes, things go haywire and people die. It's a fact of life.
And from reading the author's (of the article) drivel, it looks more like he is talking about extending life well past our time on this Earth.
And lastly, without death, our lives become even more meaningless then they already are. The meaning of our lives is to reproduce. Any other meaning attributed is a delusion to keep from jumping off of a bridge.
Long (or unending) life is pointless if your quality of life keeps gradually decreasing over time.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The author is looking forward towards a better world, one filled with hope instead of one filled with suffering. You seem to be arguing that we should not be positive in our outlook as long as the current reality is bleak.
If I may say so, yours is a horribly blinkered and tragic viewpoint, one which condemns everyone to misery until some magical point in the future when our problems are finally solved, only then permitting us to consider good things.
The real world is bleak enough already. It doesn't need to be bleak in our hearts and minds and foresight as well.
I like this line of thinking. I mean, there's fish and lizards and stuff out there that live for hundreds of years... Why not humans?
I for one think that a longer life might be the key first step to that bright-shiny technological future we've been promised; Imagine what some of the greatest minds of our time could accomplish with an extra hundred years, or even an extra sixty.
Besides... Future generations should have a better life than us, otherwise what was the point?
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
"Life is an endless adventure to discover yourself, so the universe conspired to kill you before you could succeed in your self-discovery adventure." -- Sofia Koutsouveli in The Hermit's Game (1951)
With present technology we have no way of knowing whether immportality is even possible, aside from the whole desirability debate.
If I were selling transhumanism to children, I would try to inculcate a love of science (finding out about the unknown) combined with an adventurous, can-do attitude toward technology. If you can influence a generation of children away from the fearful, suspicious anti-science culture of their parents, you will be the greatest children's author in history by increasing the possibility that some of those transhumanist ideas might actually come to pass.
Most people here seem to be arguing about the effects of a cure for aging as though it would be cheap and readily available to anyone. Experience has shown that that's not always the case. Certain substances are hard to synthesize and certain operations are very difficult to perform without killing the patient.
So, hypothetical scenario: the treatment is so incredibly difficult and expensive that you can extend your life and "freeze" the aging process, but only at the cost (in 2014 US dollars) of $1,000,000 per year or more.
Now, question: who starts living forever, and what are the economic effects? And will efforts be made by that population to actually keep the costs high and the treatment relatively inaccessible to those outside it?
Koans and fables for the software engineer
I find it the essence of emotional immaturity to fear death so much we need to somehow eradicate it or even just call it "wrong." Death is quite right and quite natural. We'd do much better getting to know death as a good thing, as the natural term limit to our personal administrations, so that we can get out there and live...fully!
I believe the most powerful thing you can do is make death your friend. Let it advise you, guide you, make you stronger. It takes work, maybe most of a lifetime, but I believe it's well worth it, and certainly a much more sensible approach than railing against the bars of your emotional crib, screaming over not having enough.
"Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
- Deep Thought
It's here b/c it's relevant...and hilarious!
A transhumanist childrens book called "Death is Wrong"
i lol'ed
also, I noted with joy at the category TFA was placed in..."sci-fi"...well played, samzenpus
Thank you Dave Raggett
It's right next to the jetpack.
No child born to die? I subscribe to that mantra wholeheartedly. I'll be a bit of a doddering geyser by 2045-2050, but the singularity could change all that. I say could, because the whole concept is that the future from that point is accelerating and unknowable. I hear things like 'Who'd want to live to 200? You'd be useless by your 90's and just sit in a chair, and there would be too many people.'
Yes, by the old model. The singularity will realise a whole new existence if it comes to pass. I'd guess the merging of biological with technological.
Hear we are adults and well mostly adults arguing about whether immortality is ethically right or wrong, calling each other names and tackling complex issues in a few dozen characters or less? The only conclusion I can draw is that this is a complex topic that children are ill equipped to deal with. So I have to suppose that a children's book is an attempt at shaping the morals of a future generation such that they skip the ethical quandaries and just get down to the indefinite life extension. Sad really but can't kids just be kids? Why do we have to make them believe in religion and fictional (at this time anyways) technology so they will most likely do what we want? I'm going to teach my children calculus, ethics, motor vehicle and home repair, cooking, gardening, a bit of programming... and let them figure out what the want to do with life.
Please stop by your local bookstore and pick up a copy of my new book, "Stupid is wrong."
Thanks for your support.
hell I'm still waiting to get a decent winter out of this so-called global warming a promised 'singularity' ain't even on my radar! And don't even get me started on the flying cars!
Many people reach a point in life at which death is no longer an enemy but a welcome friend. Perhaps it is better never to hang on to that terrible point in life. Perhaps we could look towards the idea of finding ways to make end days enjoyable and concentrate more on premature death preventions. Once we can do those things extending life longer than a reasonable span would seem to then be a goal to establish. Imagine America with one hundred million Alzheimer victims with a greatly extended life span. What a nightmare that could be.
I could tell you how, but you're not going to like it. It involves religion, and most of you have an extreme dislike for religion.
If you expect nothing after you die, you won't be disappointed. Have fun with the years you have left because that's all you'll get.
It's impossible. At most it's a phase..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I say we stop treating the deceases I don't have/won't get... Well, that and the people I love.
Oh, and the people involved in the shows I love on TV.
Also, the people involved in the scientific research that will benefit me or I think is cool...
Oh, I would be willing to let a few of the above groups die if it means less lawyers and politicians.
Because any geek who knows his/her science knows what forever means AND thus logically won't want to live forever
That does not follow, at all.
I doubt people are psychologically able and stable enough to _enjoy_ a mere billion years of existence. A thousand years, ten thousand years, maybe
Statistically speaking even if your body can live forever, some kind of accident will almost certainly kill you in that ten thousand year timeframe. So a real geek knowing that would have no problem with any technology that lets you live "forever" knowing the actual range of life will be "reasonably" short due to many other circumstances.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We'd be immortal, sure, but we'd be sad all the time, have incredibly low birthrates, watch some lesser race take over the world, and then sail into the west. What kind of life is that?
Death and procreation are how the human organism deals with entropy. To be undying means you have found another way to deal with the naural increase in disorder that occurs in what is a very complicated organism (think spaghetti code that's been under development with constant tweaks and fixes for about a million years). The thing is, the human organism is what it is, a temporary solution, temporary until the next generation. Then again, there are a lot of temporary fixes out there that are still in production years later.
Ponce de Leon said we were a few decades from eternal life if he could just get the financing for an expedition. LMAO, idiots are still believing this crap all these years later. You will be dead in 100 years, and there's nothing You can do about it.
Methinks it is high time to apply Godwin's Law to any discussion of trans-humanism. As long as not all have access, those who do will consider themselves a Herrenfolk.
"Death" is a natural event.
"Wrong" is merely a human concept.
Not at all. The pressures have simply shifted from physical traits to mental ones. And in my opinion, those mental traits that the system desires are not good for society as a whole.
Yet another thread full of Death Cultists singing the praises of Death over Life.
Bite me.
like how helping people with reproductive issues have kids make it harder for everyone to have kids
We can fight more than one battle at once.
Really?
[citation needed]
Because, you see, fuck all is being done about global climate change/warming. And fuck all will ever be done, because of how game theory and economics explain human behavior.
The truth is we can't even fight one (significant) battle at once.
For all I can understand with my squalid understanding of philosophy, singularity isn't logical, and immortality is impossible. Consciousness is contingent to this universe and dependent on matter in order to exist (no matter the matter, you need matter organized in X way to have consciousness), talking about singularity is like talking about a simulator simulating itself, consciousness is contingent to the universe, not the other way around, and it can't achieve that point precisely because it's inside the universe. To think that just because the universe gave birth to conscience it means that it will keep on going like that until it becomes totally conscious of itself in the end makes no sense, the person afirming this forgets that he's talking about something happening to him, he's basically saying "singularity will happen no matter what I do or what I know (even if I'm not aware of singularity) although what I do or know is part of the universe and so is also part of the process that will create singularity", thinking like that is ok if you're religious, believe in fate or such things, but it makes no sense.
...is a thought experiment by early computer scientists... popularized by a work of science fiction. Perhaps Stolyarov should take off his plastic Spock ears and live on Earth for a while.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I've wondered for a while if the preservation of knowledge has exceeded the value of evolution. The internet is great as an information repository but having people with first hand knowledge and experience is so much more valueable. Possibly in the future the need to evolve will exceed the need of knowledge but at the moment, it seems like human potential with knowledge has execeeded present life spans.
I see this get tossed around a lot and, somehow, it ended up +4 insightful this time. Why do you seem to think that we should only work on one single problem at a time? Should we put all medical research on hold to stop wars? Should we give up on finding new forms of efficient energy because people are fighting each other? The fact that people are "killing each other" (different people, by the way; the author's not really involved with that and probably isn't a specialist in that field, so his ideas wouldn't be helpful there) does not mean that we can't work on improving ourselves in other ways while continuing to work on that particular problem. The solutions and the pursuit of them are not mutually exclusive.
Good news: they've found a cure for niggers.
Bad news: it's the chinky's!
I like how it's "if we don't live forever in 2045, it's because we didn't take it serious enough" without the possibility that it should be "by 2045 we know it's not possible to live wildly longer than we did in 2014 and these guys whole schtick has been a fools errand".
If we just let everyone pro-death eventually die, immortality becomes a good thing.
Death is quite right and quite natural
What significance does death being natural have here? It is your own assumption that something which is natural is automatically good or at the very least should be followed. Now I completely agree that the preservation of many of the things I care about on Earth is maintained by nature in somewhat of a fragile equilibrium, but there are far too many exceptions to make such a generalization. "Nature could decide" to incinerate all of it in the next 10 minutes--is that a good thing to you? And our tendency to fuck things up simply means we need to be more careful. Not to mention there are creatures on Earth that do not undergo senescence, so even assuming the appeal to nature was ever a valid reason for anything, it would be somewhat wrong to apply it here.
...to fear death so much we need to somehow eradicate it.
Why are you so certain that the desire for an extended lifespan is motivated purely by fear? For example, I personally accept that my death by old age is quite likely and I've decided that what is inevitable (or at least is quite likely to be) is not worth worrying about any more than is innate. However, I would still like to live longer simply because life is so enjoyable. There are so many things to experience that I'll never have the time to, so many things to learn, so many things to explore (on this planet and otherwise, in the mind...), etc etc. I want to live longer not out of negative emotions, but of positive. You state that death motivates you to live your life to the fullest--that's great if that's what works for you, but not all of us need that. We'll go on living just as happy as otherwise (and perhaps less anxiously than you) because life on its own can be just great.
Lastly, you keep describing those that fear death as immature babies. What relevance does this have? Even assuming these people are "immature" and childlike, this lends no reason to the debate--it's pointless. Or is this how you intend to motivate them to agree with you? By attacking their egos? "I've given up on the desire to live longer because someone on the internet called me a baby!" How about using some reason.
Why would you find it "funny" to have someone destroyed his life by not living to the fullest?
I guess you haven't studied Mimbari humour.
I guess you've never used Windows 8? But I guess you're accidentally right in that it is off-topic.
Phhtt what juvenile ideas transhumanism ... the really smart guys know its better to spend money to figure out how survive/be alive ad infinitum in a world where my odds are known to favor my survival [wikipedia] than in this one where the odds are aganist me anyway.
Work (sometimes) when rational arguments fail...
There's already far too many humans on the planet. If we stop dying there'll be nothing to eat and nowhere to stand.
People don't taste like chicken, they taste like pork.
Does that mean they aren't Kosher/Halal?
Of course, Kosher/Halal people taste like pork, too.
No Problemo.
--
If life gives you dichotomies, pick any two.
we are already living well past our entirely natural lifespan, due to technology.