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215 points XzetaU8 | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.636s | source
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bigmattystyles ◴[] No.45076621[source]
I wonder if as a species we can ever get more comfortable with death. We’re built not to be I realize, and we should never be for those that are young but I feel like we should be ok with living 80ish or more years and then clocking out. That being said, I’m not cool with the idea of dying when good, but when I’m in a major depressive episode, the idea of immortality is terrifying.
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ACCount37 ◴[] No.45081047[source]
"Get comfortable with death" is the mortal cope.

We should get less comfortable with death, and we should attack the problem until it's solved.

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Intralexical ◴[] No.45081363[source]
That's the logic of a cancer cell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortalised_cell_line

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ACCount37 ◴[] No.45081385[source]
If cancer cells can pull it off, then why not humans? Clearly, there are no "laws of biology" that would forbid it.
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Intralexical ◴[] No.45084796[source]
Because a cancer cell pulls it off by sacrificing all of the cell's useful functions, resulting in the destruction of the host organism as well as the death of the cell itself.
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ACCount37 ◴[] No.45087024[source]
And? How does that apply in any way, fashion or form to making humans biologically immortal?
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Intralexical ◴[] No.45087640[source]
The "law of biology" at play here is tradeoffs. Aging is not single disease, but an accumulation of error states and maladaptations which arise in a thermodynamically unstable system of high complexity, existing in an even more dynamic environment, likely due to the inescapable mathematics of chaotic systems.

In the N-dimensional gradient from homeostasis to oblivion, N is high enough and the ground shakes often enough that it is not statistically feasible for there to be local minima. Only saddles, in one dimension or another other.

Cells from cancerous tumors do not prove biological immortality is technologically viable for humans, nor do hydras nor Greenland sharks, because the tradeoffs they have to make in order to obtain "immortality" (in only a very technical sense) would be wholly unworkable for the complexity and the experience of a human, as well as extremely destructive to human society.

Just think about this for a moment. "Cells from deadly tumors full of mutant hair and teeth refuse to die (until they kill their entire environment), therefore humans can be immortal?" Really? That's the argument you're going with?

People have been trying to explain this to you through this entire thread. But despite leaving 22 comments, you seem impervious to it. Personally, I think we should strive to be less like cancers, not more.

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1. ACCount37 ◴[] No.45088781[source]
Tradeoffs aren't real. Your human brain expects them to be, but they aren't. Life isn't fair, and you can get all downsides with no upsides, or the other way around.

There is no Authority on Biology that says "if you want good X, you'll have to take bad Y to keep things fair for everyone". It's just hard to get "good X, good Y, good Z" at once, and nature never really tried. That's up to us then.

That little "cancer" metaphor of yours is a worthless fluff piece meant to make you feel better about dying a protracted, miserable death before you hit the age of 100.

Personally, I think we should be coping less, and doing more about the problems we're facing - of which aging is one.

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2. Intralexical ◴[] No.45089797[source]
> Tradeoffs aren't real. Your human brain expects them to be, but they aren't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antagonistic_pleiotropy_hypoth...

So… You're just approaching this with, like, zero reference to actual science at all? "My mind imagines I can have eternal life, and therefore I can, and anybody pointing out flaws with my position is worthless miserable fluff"?

Look, I don't like the limits of thermodynamics more than anyone does. But I think it says a lot that there are, you know, actual real diseases that people suffer from and we can make a cost-effective amelioration of with focused effort. And instead you're here raging that we as a society aren't spending billions of dollars trying to make you immortal.

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3. ACCount37 ◴[] No.45098212[source]
Evolution doesn't care. It's a greedy optimizer that loves its local minima. If it happens to optimize for things like quality of life, it's incidental. Humans can do better than that.

I'm baffled by your desire to defend the status quo that involves you and everyone you love dying a long and miserable death before the age of 100. Even more so with the amount of "actual real diseases" that loop back around to aging.