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gwern comments on My Childhood Death Spiral - Less Wrong
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I disagree with the fundamental premise here. I would much rather be immortal and stuck in an akratic loop for a few centuries - because a few centuries is very finite and I'll still be alive at the end.
While even if I become absurdly productive and self-controlled, I will still die like a dog of disease & decay in the likely event there is no Singularity and SENS fails.
Remember Steve Jobs: he used all the cutting-edge treatments and even used his billions to buy his way to the head of the transplant line - and died anyway.
Akrasia doesn't begin to describe the problem. I'm going to quote a line from HPMoR that resonated strongly with me:
I get heroic responsibility. I've felt it in my gut since I was five. When I was 13, and it finally dawned on me that everyone around me was miserable and terrified and angry because the God they were praying to wasn't listening, my immediate resolution was to abandon worshipping him, and attempt to become a better God myself.
But, some of us aren't as smart as others, or as charismatic, or as willful, or as physically or mentally strong or resilient. We hear the call, but we don't have what it takes to answer it properly.
And that's our fault, too.
And we can't just stop listening. Not knowing that people need saving isn't any more of an excuse than not being strong enough to save them. Re-wiring your mind to not feel the crushing need to save them is ALSO a cop-out.
So... yeah. And lest anyone think I'm trying to be self-congratulatory here about my "superior morality", please understand that I am most assuredly not doing it right - this is a bug, not a feature.
Well...
Meanwhile, all the immortals with a greater sense of urgency about things have outstripped your ability to ever catch up.
I don't think a longer life is a good reason for taking things easier.
I think you misread. The choice is between fixing akrasia now, and getting immortality now. If you go for curing akrasia, you'll probably die before immortality gets done, even if you do get to enjoy the benefits of being insanely effective in the meantime. Whereas if you first make sure to not die, you can fix your akrasia later, and then be insanely effective for the rest of however long your new lifespan is.
I'd certainly take an unlimited lifespan plus akrasia-cure-300-years-later over normal human lifespan + akrasia-cure-now.
By the Rule of Comparative Advantage, on a planet of billions of people, both can be worked on at once. Since Eliezer -- the person originally addressed -- is not a biologist, there's nothing he's likely to be able to do about senescence, beyond convincing other people that curing death would be great and hoping they come up with something. Fixing akrasia, though, is something that there is at yet no specialised knowledge about, so he has about as much chance as anyone of similar smarts.
Ok, that's my New Year Resolution: don't die. Sorted!
I'd take all of it right now. And a pony. (Yes, I'm rejecting the hypothetical. I do that.)
Well done, you missed the point.