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cameroncowan comments on Open thread, Dec. 1 - Dec. 7, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: MrMind 01 December 2014 08:29AM

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Comment author: passive_fist 01 December 2014 11:49:10PM 6 points [-]

About that quote: If life is not worth living for 1000 years, then why is it worth living for 80? And if it's worth living for 80, why not 1000? If you don't want to live 1000 years, why not kill yourself now?

Is there some utility function that is positive up to 80 years but starts to become negative after that? (independent of level of health, since we're implicitly assuming that if you lived for 1000 years you'd be reasonably healthy during most of that time). If so, what is it?

Comment author: cameroncowan 07 December 2014 09:25:29AM 0 points [-]

I think life after 80 goes downhill not just because of health but because people you are familiar with and things start going away. Things change so quickly the world starts to become unfamiliar to you. Its like living on an alien planet. I think living to 1000 years would require one to leave the world, do some adjusting/re-education/reworking and then re-engaging with the world again. It would be like every 100 years going back to college and starting again. New friends, new music, new everything so that one could keep going.