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Squark comments on Thoughts on Death - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: BlackNoise 14 February 2014 08:27PM

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Comment author: Squark 16 February 2014 06:47:49PM 0 points [-]

My point is that even if you accept the deathist thesis that a civilization of immortals will become stagnant (which I think is a valid concern), it doesn't mean immortality is black swan technology. Let's give people the choice of how long to live.

Also, even if the optimal life span is not infinite, there's no reason to assume it's close to the natural life span. It might be e.g. 30000 years.

Comment author: ete 03 December 2014 02:01:38AM 0 points [-]

What succeeds at being stable and producing more of itself most efficiently is not necessarily what we consider to be most good or contain the most moral value. The market is a very powerful optimizer, but not an inherently friendly one.

For example, contrast two countries, one an idyllic paradise with happy citizens who pay very low taxes and a country with very high taxes, unhappy workers, but a much more powerful military. If there's a conflict between them, the country with unhappy workers+high taxes has a large advantage, and will win, despite this being not in the interests of the average worker. A possible real life example is the Comache Indians, and more development of this idea (multipolar traps) can be found on SlateStarCodex's Mediations on Molch.