|
DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,818
|
human nature and life extension technologies
#27519122 - 10/26/21 04:31 PM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
This quote is from Preston & Child's excellent book The Cabinet of Curiosities. It struck me as particularly thought-provoking. I thought I would post and see if others agree.
"The wise and good are outnumbered a thousand to one by the brutal and stupid. When you give an Einstein two centuries to perfect his science, you give a thousand others two centuries to perfect their brutality."
This quote was made in the context of the question of extending the human life span, which is one of the main themes of the book.
There are really two premises here: the wise and good/brutal and stupid part, and the question of whether life extension would be a boon or a bust.
How do you feel about this? Do the brutal and stupid really outnumber the good by such a margin? Would life extension programs (if such things are ever discovered) revolutionize life on Earth -- or be a total disaster?
Certainly, it would further impact the ecology of the planet with even more people, which we all know is at the breaking point already. But this is just one facet of the subject.
I'd be very interested to learn of your thoughts on the topic.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
|
redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: DividedQuantum]
#27519186 - 10/26/21 05:27 PM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
there would be no retirement, which also means no giving up the fight, which also means that the slaves revolt and stay revolted, and we just learn to get along on our own two feet without slavery.
--------------------
_ 🧠_
|
Ferdinando


Registered: 11/15/09
Posts: 3,664
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: redgreenvines]
#27519658 - 10/27/21 02:34 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
we are slaves of our mind rid the ego all the time we sit and meditate the ego is ridded somewhat it is very tangible very real it is matter the meditation chips away at it
-------------------- with our love with our love we could save the world
|
BrendanFlock
Stranger


Registered: 06/01/13
Posts: 4,216
Last seen: 2 days, 8 hours
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: Ferdinando]
#27519687 - 10/27/21 03:50 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
If there was some type of birth control.. we could live forever with a small or minute increase to our total population..going on over the ages.
With the installations of new building structures we could maintain harmony and equilibrium.
|
pineninja
Dream Weaver



Registered: 08/17/14
Posts: 12,468
Loc: South
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: DividedQuantum] 1
#27519694 - 10/27/21 04:22 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
It all depends on how you measure success.
It seems like the next logical next step In the majorities drive to escape the circle.
Human physical longevity and the use of created VR universes are about to merge imo. A choice beside the polluted skies and ailing physicality isn't to far away. Paradoxically leaving earth enmass metaphorically speaking could be the last saving grace for it.
We inch ever closer to the next big bang.)
-------------------- Just a fool on the hill.
|
redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: pineninja]
#27519773 - 10/27/21 06:44 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
I would miss the wonder of babies
--------------------
_ 🧠_
|
Buster_Brown
L'une


Registered: 09/17/11
Posts: 11,309
Last seen: 1 day, 22 hours
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: DividedQuantum]
#27519779 - 10/27/21 06:55 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
DividedQuantum said:
"The wise and good are outnumbered a thousand to one by the brutal and stupid. When you give an Einstein two centuries to perfect his science, you give a thousand others two centuries to perfect their brutality."
In protecting their interests the wise have occasions to be brutal and appear stupid thus invalidating the perspective in question.
|
redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: Buster_Brown]
#27519805 - 10/27/21 07:27 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
there is that
|
Buster_Brown
L'une


Registered: 09/17/11
Posts: 11,309
Last seen: 1 day, 22 hours
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: redgreenvines]
#27519959 - 10/27/21 10:00 AM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
"The wise and good..."
Veritas remarked "...shaping situations to promote pro-social pursuit of rational self-interest would be far more effective than preaching baseless moralisms."
'Good' can be rational self-interest or the furtherance of the team in Game Theory
Incidentally if Veritas didn't latch on to Icelander's gold then I wonder who did and whether that figured in to the occasion of his demise.
|
laughingdog
Stranger

Registered: 03/14/04
Posts: 4,828
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: DividedQuantum]
#27520044 - 10/27/21 11:14 AM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
DividedQuantum said: This quote is from Preston & Child's excellent book The Cabinet of Curiosities. It struck me as particularly thought-provoking. I thought I would post and see if others agree.
"The wise and good are outnumbered a thousand to one by the brutal and stupid. When you give an Einstein two centuries to perfect his science, you give a thousand others two centuries to perfect their brutality."
This quote was made in the context of the question of extending the human life span, which is one of the main themes of the book.
There are really two premises here: the wise and good/brutal and stupid part, and the question of whether life extension would be a boon or a bust.
How do you feel about this? Do the brutal and stupid really outnumber the good by such a margin? ...
... I'd be very interested to learn of your thoughts on the topic.
The quote of course comes across as very elitist, but is of course more true than not. What is left out is that it takes 18 to 25 years of very careful & intelligent nurturing & education, to raise a vulnerable human to realize its full potential, (assuming it has good genetics to begin with). Due to the poverty, immaturity, unresolved traumas and other forms of dysfunction, of families and parents, it is relatively rare anyone gets what is required.
Full Myelination of the human brain takes decades, hence the impulsiveness of adolescents, when the pre frontal cortex is not yet fully online.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/myelination
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=age+of+full+myelination+of+human+brain&t=h_&ia=web
As regards extending life, I belong to the quality vs quantity camp. Those who have visited nursing "homes", and the wards where folks go after they are permanently in beds, or in chairs together in a room where they are monitored during the day, may understand this view. This is of course at the more extreme end of the spectrum, but decline sets in long before this point.
With the incarceration, & then death of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, this country's aversion to reality, became further ossified, IMO. And it became harder to check out when one feels the balance has shifted from joy and creativity, to decline, decay, memory loss, possibly depression, & various miseries.
From a Buddhist viewpoint perhaps it is not just stupidity and brutality, that are problems, but our selfishness. For some of us old age tempers the insane desire to alway win in the rat race, to fulfill every desire, so to speak.
It is a truism that American culture in particular is infatuated with youth. A well known example being multiple plastic surgeries of some of the rich and famous.
Many fear death and so for them, the desire for quantity and enjoying more pleasure, outweighs other considerations to such a degree that I suspect they never arise, they only want viagra to keep it rising.
As regards the other issue you raised:
Given all of the above I doubt very much that longer lives will improve matters on earth, any more than another billion or several billions of people will. In both cases more man hours would presumably result. In fact in either or both cases I expect, what I consider, the downward trend to continue.
|
redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: laughingdog]
#27520207 - 10/27/21 01:20 PM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
incomplete myelination is a non-issue, with age, energy becomes less bountiful, but restlessness is the same.
Youth does not need as much myelination to preserve the charge along nerve fibres, the same results are achieved by higher peak energies, and minor short circuiting does not affect moment to moment experiencing, memory formation, or perception. it is 3/4 redundant and approximate anyway.
@Buster_Brown, what's your beef with Veritas, long absent from these pages. Icelander had a few bucks but not as much as he bragged, i.e. it was not like having the dragon's horde.
I would think it a positive if Veritas or anyone did gain from Icelander's absence: it is a void that remains an epitaph, like the passing of Markos and many others - the empty shape of their personalities.
--------------------
_ 🧠_
|
DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,818
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: laughingdog]
#27520510 - 10/27/21 05:35 PM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
I don't think it would be a panacea, either. In the starkest ecological terms, it would be a disaster to have an order of magnitude more humans alive at the same time. There isn't enough to go around right now, and the present birth rate plus a much slower death rate would compound all of that. We'd have to send a few billion to the Moon or Mars, and I'm not sure how viable that would be.
One could also point out its questionableness in terms of how purely unnatural it is. We're already doing a lot of unnatural stuff. Partial immortality could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Just a thought. Personally, I don't think it's a very good idea, given the practical considerations. People should worry more about coming to a healthy relationship with death.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
|
BrendanFlock
Stranger


Registered: 06/01/13
Posts: 4,216
Last seen: 2 days, 8 hours
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: DividedQuantum]
#27520787 - 10/27/21 09:35 PM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Preventing the cause of aging might be the first step.
|
Moses_Davidson
Non-Prophet



Registered: 05/21/20
Posts: 613
Last seen: 3 months, 28 days
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: BrendanFlock]
#27520822 - 10/27/21 10:22 PM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
There is a pretty awful subjectivity bias to consider. The more wise and good one is, the higher their barometer for "normal" is and therefore the larger the number of stupid and brutal people there are. So the more wise and good you are the more elitism you struggle to overcome.
However, if life extension tech was given to everyone randomly and without prejudice, it would be very different than if life extension tech was given to those who could afford it.
I would imagine that the good versus brutal balance would not shift so much, but there is an asymmetry because people in the bottom 10% of the IQ ranks are very poor... so maybe life extension tech would have a darwinian pressure that would ultimately leave the gene pool a little less stupid?
-------------------- "In finance, everything that is agreeable is unsound and everything that is sound is disagreeable." --Sir Winston Churchill "The world may not only be stranger than we suppose, it may be stranger than we can suppose." J.B.S. Haldane "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't." Mark Twain
|
BrendanFlock
Stranger


Registered: 06/01/13
Posts: 4,216
Last seen: 2 days, 8 hours
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: Moses_Davidson]
#27520897 - 10/28/21 12:12 AM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Everybody has something to contribute to the human race..
Having said that, merit is merit..
So even the less than 10% are still human.
But I think we can work our pyramid scheme none the less.
|
Buster_Brown
L'une


Registered: 09/17/11
Posts: 11,309
Last seen: 1 day, 22 hours
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: redgreenvines]
#27521011 - 10/28/21 03:20 AM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
redgreenvines said:
@Buster_Brown, what's your beef with Veritas, long absent from these pages.
I don't know, maybe it's a subconscious desire to be the father of her children. What's your beef with the raising of the dead?
|
redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: Buster_Brown]
#27521080 - 10/28/21 06:11 AM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
I respect dreams. even wet ones. I am glad they reanimated superman in Hollywood, but that's fantasy not dreams.
--------------------
_ 🧠_
|
DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,818
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: Moses_Davidson]
#27521439 - 10/28/21 12:09 PM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Moses_Davidson said: There is a pretty awful subjectivity bias to consider. The more wise and good one is, the higher their barometer for "normal" is and therefore the larger the number of stupid and brutal people there are. So the more wise and good you are the more elitism you struggle to overcome.
However, if life extension tech was given to everyone randomly and without prejudice, it would be very different than if life extension tech was given to those who could afford it.
I would imagine that the good versus brutal balance would not shift so much, but there is an asymmetry because people in the bottom 10% of the IQ ranks are very poor... so maybe life extension tech would have a darwinian pressure that would ultimately leave the gene pool a little less stupid?
So you're arguing for Social Darwinism?
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
|
Yellow Pants


Registered: 05/14/17
Posts: 1,386
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: DividedQuantum]
#27526597 - 11/01/21 04:27 PM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
I truly think it's a god given nice smooth curve starting at idiocy and culminating at genius. A good even portion balanced and true are dispersed on this innate incidental curve of human capacity.
But then enter education, upbringing, life experience, evil, manipulation etc. and the even gradient may become awkward and ill proportioned.
|
psilocybinmansions
Stranger

Registered: 06/13/21
Posts: 223
Last seen: 4 months, 4 days
|
Re: human nature and life extension technologies [Re: Yellow Pants]
#27526900 - 11/01/21 08:48 PM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
I think evolution will solve a lot of our problems including age-related decline. We're not finished yet, in case you didn't notice.
|
|