alyssavance comments on Shortness is now a treatable condition - Less Wrong

9 Post author: taw 20 October 2009 01:13AM

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Comment author: jimrandomh 22 October 2009 02:09:14PM 3 points [-]

Not being immortal (in the sense of dying from old age) is obviously an illness, but hasn't been recognized as such by most outside the transhumanist community, because it's universal. It would be in a sane society, but there you go.

Is the set of all possible fatal illnesses itself an illness? I don't think so; that just seems like a type error. Lack of immortality is a bad thing that society ought to take steps towards fixing, but calling it an illness is just mixing up terminology.

Comment author: alyssavance 22 October 2009 03:33:00PM *  5 points [-]

You're right that death isn't a disease, it's an effect of disease. But aging itself is clearly a disease. When you get old, it's not like you're perfectly fine until you're age 80, and then you get struck down by a random sickness. The body itself degrades over time and loses various functions, like Lou Gehrig's disease.