steven0461 comments on You Only Live Twice - Less Wrong
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I have a standard answer for cryonics advocates: ask me in 10 years.
In 10 years, I'll be 32, and if all goes well I'll have my life together, I'll be able to point to a few successes, and I'll be able to say that my life isn't a waste. If I like being alive at 32, I'll probably like being alive hundreds of years from now. On the other hand, if I'm 32 and everything has gone wrong, and I'm down and out, and I wake up every morning wishing I hadn't, then I'm probably not going to want to live one more year, let alone hundreds.
In the meantime, I really don't know. I'm in limbo. Sometimes I want to be around to see what happens next, sometimes I really don't. Sometimes I'm crazy excited about planning for my future and how great it's going to be, and sometimes I feel certain that I'll never make it, and all I want is to have never been born, and anyone who thinks well of me must either be lying or must be a loser himself.
So... call me in ten years.
Surely one can expect the long-term future to be different enough that one's quality of life 10 years from now isn't a particularly trustworthy estimate?
It isn't the future I'm worried about, it's me. If I don't like me then I'm not looking forward to any future; if I like me, then I want to stick around and see how the future turns out (except perhaps the most horrible possible futures.)
Future will change you as well.