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hen comments on Rationality Quotes February 2014 - Less Wrong
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So, the solution is to deny them immortality. Right?
I'm continually amazed by people who think that conflate the concepts of whether immortality is a sensible choice for any given individual and whether it's ok to decide, for all of humanity, whether the choice should even be available. (And, almost invariably, answer the latter question in the affirmative, and furthermore usually decide that no, the choice should not be available.)
My answer to statements, or questions, or insinuations (like the one in the parent) that maybe it's not a good idea to be immortal, is:
"By all means, don't be immortal. Go ahead and die. I won't stop you."
But don't think you have any right to make that decision for me.
So suppose everyone (who wanted it so) were right now made immortal. Except, for moral reasons, the possibility of suicide were left open.
How confident are you that human beings would be around forever? Or for, say, a trillion years?
Right now, I don't want to die. There's more I want to see and do! And even if I can't think of anything, I think I'll come up with something new.
But after a trillion years of subjective experience? I really don't know. What kind of a person can keep themselves ticking for that long without just getting bored to death? Finding something for us all to do that will occupy us forever is a non-trivial existential problem, assuming most or all of the other ones get solved.
Is this meant to be an argument against anything I said? If so, I don't see how it is.
I think as a child I got bored from time to time and didn't know what to do with my time. I didn't really felt that at all in the last 5 years.
I feel the same way, but I we're both working with a very small, probably very unrepresentative sample. Suppose you did live to be a trillion, with no end in sight: the years between 20 and 30 would probably be quite unlike most of your years so far.