That was a cool discussion, thanks for the link.
I agree with everything you say here. If anything I said disagrees with it, I take it back.
I would undergo the procedure iff I knew I could maximize its effectiveness. I doubt I could maximize the effectiveness, though, so it would be a tough sell.
Good for a "would you rather" scenario, though.
As to your goal to get more exercise:
I work at a computer for 9 hours a day, and spend about 3 hours commuting on a train
I wouldn't spend extra energy working out. When I commuted last summer 3 hours/day I found that working out wasn't worthwhile. I exercised like a maniac the first month and a half and then just lost all motivation. Maybe 30 minutes, 3 times per week, but in order to keep a healthy body, I would suggest improving your diet. This is just advice; take it or leave it, I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life.... (read 451 more words →)
there would be a very difficult calculation involved
Absolutely, which is why I tried to give obvious cases (except for the blissful coma) which most people would agree is not worth it. I wasn't trying to say that the calculation is easy, only that when you say that life is the ultimate good, you ignore the calculation altogether, which I don't think is wise..
While I see your point for the most part, I wouldn't want to end my life rather than "suffer" 50 years of bliss prior to dying.
I wasn't saying that everyone would agree with my analysis of every situation I gave, only that most people have a point at which they will decide life isn't worth [fill in the blank].
I cannot even imagine suffering 50 years at Guantanamo Bay. Is 20 potential years of freedom after 50 years in Guantanamo Bay worth enduring? Probably not, at least to me. Is there a point at which 50 years in Guantanamo Bay becomes worthwhile? Probably. I don't know exactly where that point is, but I know that it exists (e.g., 1000 yrs of satisfying life is worth it, but is 100?).
Given the human failures, "unsolvable" is usually a mistake, especially when you can expect more than two decades of lifetime.
I agree completely. This is even more obvious when you postulate life-extending technology. However, this still does not change the fact that death is not the absolute worst thing, which was my point (however well I communicated that).
You are right. There are people who believe that nothing is worse than death. There are also people who believe that in the primordial past, thetans brought the material universe into being largely for their own pleasure. I believe that both are wrong. I am not surprised at the existence of people who disagree. I would be surprised by the existence of people who have critically considered their beliefs and decided that there is no fate worse than death, and I would be very interested to hear them explain why they believe this.
I don't, however, believe that just because there are fates worse than death, you should ever kill yourself, for the reason that we can't see the future, and it is a terrible thing for someone to die who could have possibly had positive life experiences in the future.
The claim has been made that, all things being equal, it is better to be alive than dead. I dissent.
It is much more complicated than this. If I knew somehow that I would spend the next fifty years of my life in Guantanamo bay, I would rather kill myself than suffer that fate. If a fortune teller showed me that I would be in a car crash and lose all sensory input, but would be kept blissfully comatose on cocaine and ecstasy, I would get my affairs in order and end my own life. And yet, if I knew that every day for the next 50 years I would be horribly... (read more)
Perhaps the intellectuals of less wrong individually have decided that they don't see animal suffering as a bad thing, or eating meat as leading to animal suffering, or any other very normal reasons for not choosing to not eat meat.
I avoid eating meat because I prefer to get a higher percentage of my calories from carbohydrates in my diet than protein and fat. But when I'm working out, you can't get a better protein-to-fat ratio than you can in meat (nuts, grains, etc. all have at least a 1:2 protein:Fat ratio, lean meat is more like 9:1, and I don't like getting my dietary protein from supplements). Which is only to say... (read more)
What about teaching other people these skills/helping other people become aware of their own incorrect beliefs? Is that completely separate?