This comment perplexes me. Do you think there is no research happening? In that view, what do you think disease research, anti-aging research, and medical/pharmacological research is? And do you suppose that there are a finite amount of great minds, that the current set of them dying off implies that we'll be left without any soon enough, or that the current set needs to be maintained forever? As important as his work was, do we need to keep him around forever as some sort of special class of person?
I think people should eventually die. I don’t think that’s a controversial viewpoint. I don’t want billionaires turning into trillionaires simply because they took their money, threw it into index funds, and waited a few hundred years.
Just about every project is looking at things from a material perspective.
The "spiritual" perspective has legs with respect to life-extension, as well, though there are at least two distinct scientific definitions of spirituality, one based on mindfulness and one based on its exact opposite, mind-wandering resting.
Both strategies (based on distinctly different meditation practices) have research suggesting that lifespan can be extended by their approach.
Transcriptomics of Long-Term Meditation Practice: Evidence for Prevention or Reversal of Stress Effects Harmful to Health
https://www.mdpi.com/1648-9144/57/3/218
See also:
On the Neurobiology of Meditation: Comparison of Three Organizing Strategies to Investigate Brain Patterns during Meditation Practice
https://www.mdpi.com/1648-9144/56/12/712
For how distinctly different types of meditation have different effects on nervous system and body.
A hint: the words used to teach meditation can lead to radically different measurable physiological outcomes depending on the context in which those words are spoken and the persistence of those effects is also very dependent on the context in which instructions are given, often leading to exactly the opposite effect on certain physiological measures:
You can't get more distinct than "reduced" vs 100% coherence across all leads simultaneously.
And thereby hangs the tale for explaining how and why different mental practices have different long-term, persistent changes in brain activity in favor of longevity: reduced EEG coherence => reduced resting; 100% implies that the brain is only resting; the longer you practice some forms of meditation, the less restful the brain becomes.
Always mindful vs always resting or moving back into resting mode asap given the chance.
This is something I think about quite a bit:
There are about 8 billion people on this earth. Of the 8 billion, I would argue only 1 in 10 (800 million) have their basic needs met and a decent education. This is the pool of people most of our innovations, business and scientific come from.
Imagine what would happen if we doubled or tripled that number.
How many more companies founded, inventions created, or if you care about art, new creations never imagined.
We really MUST do better, it is in all our best interests.
Why are there many people dying the last few days? I am reading hacker news every day, but it feels like there’s at least a death note or two a day currently
I can't imagine myself not being "with it" and having some knowledge about current technology.. Do you think any of the early modern Internet pioneers know about LLMs? (Besides John Nagle)? Or does the brain biologically give up on processing new information?
I met and worked with alot of the early internet pioneers and they were some of the most clever and insightful people that I've ever met. I assure you that barring a serious medical condition they all maintain at least a basic awareness about the state of computing.
To make a blanket anecdotal statement, personally they seem to be fairly with it on new technologies. Not the most in depth understanding but definitely above the average person.
The way I look at it is that I was, in hindsight, barely sentient for the first ~25 years, so that means we've only really gotten to live for 10-20 years!
I like this argument, I just wonder if the bar rises over time. Do you think that in 5 years you will say you were barely sentient for the first ~30 years?
It does make me sad sometimes. But I find great comfort knowing we were all along for the journey together. Whether we knew each other or not, I’m glad to have shared this space time with you and others.
We are here because of those before us. Those after us will be there because of us. Good stuff.
I wasn't aware of it, but found it extremely interesting. A topic I find particularly interesting is the illusion of longevity many have in modern times. Look at the Ancient Greeks and most of them lived 70-100 years of age, with a median age beyond 70. [1] The typical argument is of a survivorship bias, but most/all of the Greeks we know of today would still have gone in history if they had died many decades prior.
You can also look at other samples like the Founding Fathers of the US. Most lived past 70, and some even lived beyond 90. The only people who died before 60 were Alexander Hamilton, killed in a duel and John Hancock, died of gout - which can be caused by things including excessive drinking. There was indeed a very low life expectancy in the past, but it was 100% due to infant mortality. If one child dies in infancy, and the other lives to 80, then you have a life expectancy at birth of 40.
That the Bible itself also noted this, is extremely interesting. Not even from a religious perspective, but from a historic one. It's really interesting to think about. As an adult today, you have a similar life expectancy to an (upper class) adult from thousands of years ago. There are many implications that one can apply to modern life. For instance it's safe to say that their dietary/lifestyle choices are very much worth considering, if not emulating.
I'm reminded troublemakers are the ones who often change history and make huge piles of money but are seldom stable marriage prospects. On the other hand, those whose who are too timid make great marriage prospects but are seldom remembered. There's not much middle ground in the agreeableness trait, except to use disagreeableness with discretion.
A Brief History of the Internet https://arxiv.org/html/cs/9901011
Daniel C. Lynch interview https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10271712...
2019 Internet Hall of Fame: Dan Lynch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RowVk_kW8dQ
The Past and Future History of the INTERNET https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/253671.253741