Nothing like that should ever be "Forced".
It has to be voluntary & willingly done by the individual.
What kind of technologies would you like to see one day made real?
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
- Start date
It has to be voluntary & willingly done by the individual.
It'd be very tempting for a despot to mandate that everyone have one. Elon Musk reminds me very much of Hugo Drax from Ian Fleming's novel Moonraker and especially its movie adaptation. I wish he'd hurry up, get his ass to Mars and stay there.
He's not and won't ever be a despot, nor is there indication that he'd be "tempted" to forcibly neurointerface people if he were.
One man's despot is another man's messiah. I suspect we're near a phase transition. What humanity looks like on the other side or whether it will even be describable as such is unknowable. At least, it's not a vacuum phase transition.
The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
Elon not a despot is this high comedy? He seems quite Tyrannical when it comes to saying things about him on Shitter...... He bans people who hurt his widdle feelings
DOGE's actions have reportedly led to deaths already. Still, this is not the place for political discourse,
Perhaps AI-designed nanotechnology will solve all our problems or replace us with something else that has an unknown agenda. Basically, what is the purpose of existence? For meat bags, it's survival and procreation. For more advanced life forms, perhaps it's simulating all possible universes having discovered Dr Pangloss was incorrect.
Perhaps AI-designed nanotechnology will solve all our problems or replace us with something else that has an unknown agenda. Basically, what is the purpose of existence? For meat bags, it's survival and procreation. For more advanced life forms, perhaps it's simulating all possible universes having discovered Dr Pangloss was incorrect.
Oh, certainly, but I mean in government. His power is not truly at the despotic level there and will return to zero in just under four years now. Anyway, he's never indicated that he believes in forcibly neurointerfacing people.
According to whom, and how?
As I mentioned, this is not the appropriate forum. If the reports are true, we'll hear soon enough.
Why can you accept the distant future development of telepathic artificial intelligence but not of reanimation? You don't think reversible suspended animation can ever be developed? Why not?
Just be careful you don't end up being exploited as entertainment in the far future:
en.wikipedia.org
or used as the control system for a von Neumann probe:
bobiverse.fandom.com
Cold Lazarus - Wikipedia
or used as the control system for a von Neumann probe:
Bobiverse Wiki
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Yes, I’m aware of those stories, both of which are intended to be humorous rather than anything even attempting to approach realistic projections.
In reality, (completely synthetic) artificial intelligence will be able to do any work far better than any human—and especially any ancient human—by the time reanimation is possible; imagine using time travel to abduct medieval people to serve as tech support or mechanics today!
Again, past and current technology may be too primitive to ever enable reanimation, but it is certainly physically possible and so will inevitably occur one day unless humanity goes extinct first (which is actually far more difficult than most believe; even the most extreme nuclear winter and climate change scenarios would almost certainly leave millions alive across the planet, and even a dark age of many millennia wouldn't even be a blip in deep time). Furthermore, the first reversible human suspension will occur (if it hasn’t already) long before the first human reanimation, and we don’t know the minimum requirement for eventual reversibility, so suspending people immediately after clinical death using the best technology available at the time makes sense from a technical perspective.
It also makes sense from a social perspective because reanimation of people from centuries ago is realistically very unlikely to happen in a dystopian future. Cryopreservation without damage that can be instantly reversed is physically possible—and, again, has recently been achieved in rat kidneys—but remains distant for humans. Reanimation of people suspended with past, current, and near future technology—if ever possible at all—will require extremely advanced repair technology which may not exist for centuries. Any civilization with such incredible technology will have such immense abundance and knowledge that ancient people would be of no use for labor.
Therefore, anyone entering biostasis today can reasonably expect to either be reanimated into a much better world or to not be reanimated at all.
Given that life insurance makes cryostasis accessible to almost everyone in the developed world who plans ahead for it (and there are even ways to enter stasis entirely for free for those who can’t afford it), there’s really no reason for people with a serious interest in humanity’s future not to enter a cryotube—and no, it isn't “selfish,” either; a few centuries of cryostasis incurs expenses around the same as (or less than) just a few years of cancer treatment, and the environmental impact of condensing small amounts of nitrogen from air (around half an inch of LN2 boils off the top of a nine-person cryotube per day) and letting it return to the atmosphere through evaporation is essentially zero (regular cow milk costs about ten times as much and is much more environmentally impactful!).
However, people feel a need to mock and dismiss it mostly because, deep down, they don’t want to consider the possibility that it might work and all that that implies for the individual and for society. Most people still find comfort in superstitious afterlife fantasies, and most of the minority who don’t cast about for ways to romanticize aging and death within a single century as “beautiful” or at least “necessary” when in truth it is neither beautiful nor necessary.
Nonetheless, physics clearly dictates that both reversible human suspended animation and indefinite (though not infinite) healthy lifespans can certainly be achieved, which means that—barring human extinction first—they certainly will be one day, even if not for anyone currently alive or in stasis.
I do not fear death and I am certain that I cannot avoid it forever even if I am reanimated, which I know is far from guaranteed for myself. I simply understand that I have nothing to lose in the attempt to actually see the distant future rather than only imagining it.
Future generations may never have warp drives, but they will certainly have indefinite healthy lifespans and the ability to “warp” across interplanetary, interstellar, and even intergalactic distances in a subjective instant through a combination of relativistic temporal dilation and suspended animation—and, amazingly, the primitive biostasis available right now just might enable people today to subjectively "timewarp" into that future.
In reality, (completely synthetic) artificial intelligence will be able to do any work far better than any human—and especially any ancient human—by the time reanimation is possible; imagine using time travel to abduct medieval people to serve as tech support or mechanics today!
Again, past and current technology may be too primitive to ever enable reanimation, but it is certainly physically possible and so will inevitably occur one day unless humanity goes extinct first (which is actually far more difficult than most believe; even the most extreme nuclear winter and climate change scenarios would almost certainly leave millions alive across the planet, and even a dark age of many millennia wouldn't even be a blip in deep time). Furthermore, the first reversible human suspension will occur (if it hasn’t already) long before the first human reanimation, and we don’t know the minimum requirement for eventual reversibility, so suspending people immediately after clinical death using the best technology available at the time makes sense from a technical perspective.
It also makes sense from a social perspective because reanimation of people from centuries ago is realistically very unlikely to happen in a dystopian future. Cryopreservation without damage that can be instantly reversed is physically possible—and, again, has recently been achieved in rat kidneys—but remains distant for humans. Reanimation of people suspended with past, current, and near future technology—if ever possible at all—will require extremely advanced repair technology which may not exist for centuries. Any civilization with such incredible technology will have such immense abundance and knowledge that ancient people would be of no use for labor.
Therefore, anyone entering biostasis today can reasonably expect to either be reanimated into a much better world or to not be reanimated at all.
Given that life insurance makes cryostasis accessible to almost everyone in the developed world who plans ahead for it (and there are even ways to enter stasis entirely for free for those who can’t afford it), there’s really no reason for people with a serious interest in humanity’s future not to enter a cryotube—and no, it isn't “selfish,” either; a few centuries of cryostasis incurs expenses around the same as (or less than) just a few years of cancer treatment, and the environmental impact of condensing small amounts of nitrogen from air (around half an inch of LN2 boils off the top of a nine-person cryotube per day) and letting it return to the atmosphere through evaporation is essentially zero (regular cow milk costs about ten times as much and is much more environmentally impactful!).
However, people feel a need to mock and dismiss it mostly because, deep down, they don’t want to consider the possibility that it might work and all that that implies for the individual and for society. Most people still find comfort in superstitious afterlife fantasies, and most of the minority who don’t cast about for ways to romanticize aging and death within a single century as “beautiful” or at least “necessary” when in truth it is neither beautiful nor necessary.
Nonetheless, physics clearly dictates that both reversible human suspended animation and indefinite (though not infinite) healthy lifespans can certainly be achieved, which means that—barring human extinction first—they certainly will be one day, even if not for anyone currently alive or in stasis.
I do not fear death and I am certain that I cannot avoid it forever even if I am reanimated, which I know is far from guaranteed for myself. I simply understand that I have nothing to lose in the attempt to actually see the distant future rather than only imagining it.
Future generations may never have warp drives, but they will certainly have indefinite healthy lifespans and the ability to “warp” across interplanetary, interstellar, and even intergalactic distances in a subjective instant through a combination of relativistic temporal dilation and suspended animation—and, amazingly, the primitive biostasis available right now just might enable people today to subjectively "timewarp" into that future.
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You didn't mention accidents, so I imagine people would need to back themselves up. See, for example, the Commonwealth Saga by Peter F Hamilton. Living indefinitely sounds horrendous - count me out.
Accidents could be virtually eliminated by semipermanently ensconcing the physical substrate within a heavily fortified facility from which one could project oneself into various virtual and physical avatars anywhere within realtime range (while retaining the ability to immediately evacuate in an extremely resilient bionic body if necessary). The facility could be on a planet or in space, and planets could be fully explored via realtime telepresence from orbit or even without leaving Earth via mirrorworlds (essentially extremely detailed Google Earths rather than this or that) captured by automated probes.
A more fantastical proposal is an angelnet made of utility fog.
These two approaches could even be combined to attain the absolute maximum in safety for a single instantiation, and, as you mention, pattern backups could enhance survival across deep time much further still. With all three together, each utilized to their maximal possible extents, a single pattern and perhaps even a single instance might conceivably survive for eons, and theoretically until the depletion of all useable energy in this universe. Any potential for survival beyond that is highly speculative.
Yes, or Alastair Reynolds' House of Suns, Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon, or Edward Ashton's Mickey7, among others...
What sounds horrendous about being able to choose how long you live, free of senescence and disease?
How long do you think you'd like to live in perfect health in a safe, comfortable environment with many interesting opportunities?
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Utopian, transhuman fantasies that I will not live to see nor I suspect will many, except perhaps the ultrarich, who definitely do not want to share the benefits. If eventually all states repeat an infinite number of times, perhaps I'll have another chance at rejecting such Nietzschean Übermensch dreams.
So it goes...
So it goes...
Ah, but with biostasis, you just might.
I am not ultrarich nor even rich (except in comparison to the majority of humanity in the developing world), nor are the vast majority of the world's five thousand stasists, only two of whom (Peter Thiel and Robert Miller) are billionaires. Rich people are almost never interested. Most of us are middle or working class, and even minimum wage workers can afford it. There are stasists living in trailer parks.
If all states repeat infinitely, then you'll also accept such "Nietzschean Übermensch dreams" infinitely many times (and already have, and, if an infinite multiverse exists, are right now).
Anyway, you didn't answer my question: if not indefinitely, then how long do you think you'd like to live in perfect health if you could decide for yourself?
Even with perfect health, I tend to think immortality would get boring.
I'm in my 60s, so perfect health is not an option anyway, barring miracle nanotechnology cures becoming suddenly available at affordable prices. The powers that be want a world with only a few hundred million carefully selected people at most so I don't think such treatments will be made available ubiquitously. These thralls might eventually rise up and overthrow their masters and what happens after that, I cannot guess.
I find the prospect of something like Groundhog Day very unappealing. Eternal return holds no terror as one never remembers previous cycles nor does one experience alternate threads of reality. Nietzsche himself couldn't live up to his ideals. All things die and I have come to terms with that.
I concur, this is why "Longer Life", not immortality would be preferable IMO.
Also Genetically Enhanced "Quality of Life" where your physical aging on the outside and inside is a small fraction of what happens today.
So you can maintain your physical & mental health/youth/vitality/function for a much longer span of your adult life.
Think of the genetic enhanced aging curve like the drop off of the voltage curve of a Alkaline vs Lithium battery.
Normal un-enhanced human lives have a almost linear progression to the end of their life, similar to a Alkaline battery's voltage curve.
With a Alkaline battery it's a pretty steep slope, and you get to the end/drop off pretty quickly.
You want the voltage drop off to be as shallow as possible before it eventually falls off the cliff.
This allows you to maintain your physical & mental health/youth/vitality/function for a much longer span of your adult life.
Also you get to function for a longer period of time as well while maintaining near 100% functionality compared to your prime.
Imagine if you can slowly expand humanity's average life-span until the point that is double/triple today's average life-span and maintain & enjoy adult-hood for as long as possible.
Wouldn't that be great? You'll also get to enjoy adult-hood as long as possible with minimal physical signs of aging along with functionality.
That should be the primary goal of genetic engineering, not just blind age extension, but maximizing the "Quality of Life" of the adult while extending their life-span over the generations on a massive scale.
Imagine if the Average Minimum "Old Age" for most humanity would become 135 y/o.
And you could function like a standard 18-60 y/o of today (21st century) for between 18-133 y/o in the future, before you enter the final stages of your natural (genetically enhanced) life.
Your hair wouldn't start whitening until the 2nd to last year of your life.
Then the final year of your life, your hair would be completely white and you would start feeling the effects of older age by that point.
On the outside/inside, you would age a few more years in the equivalency of a 21st century bog standard human.
But that final year, you can wrap things up with your life and know when it's time to go since your natural complete white hair would be the indicator that it's time.
But before then, you could look back at a 115 year or slightly longer run where you were a productive/happy adult, enjoying life to it's fullest.
Wouldn't that be a nicer goal of Genetic Engineering?
Not to be a arrogant "Super Human" like the augments, but more happy / productive / functional people in general with a few enhancements, but none of the "Extreme Modifications" as what Khan's Augments had.
Everybody would have normal functioning bodies, no genetic defects, sicknesses, long term issues.
Everybody would be born with superior vision (20/10) being standard.
Hopefully it would be more common for people to have (20/2) vision as the average upper end like Veronica Seider has.
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With perfect mental and physical health and complete freedom to do as you wish as long as you don't harm others, I think you'd be able to entertain yourself for a few centuries at the very least.
Also, boredom is a neurochemical state which will eventually be trivially easy to prevent if desired. In fact, there are rare people with hyperthymic temperament—such as my acquaintance and fellow stasist Anders Sandberg—who are naturally resistant to boredom, as well as very rare people such as Jo Cameron who are immune to physical pain and psychological distress yet fully open to positive sensations and emotions. Others with myostatin-related muscular hypertrophy are immune to overweight and obesity and gain and retain muscle very easily. Various other rare advantageous mutations are observed. The average human body and mind is currently very far from optimal and genetic engineering offers immense potential for improving the human condition. Those zealots who want to experience disability and disease can continue to do so, but it will become optional.
Plus, you could always return to mortality or euthanize yourself at any time. The goal is to enable people to decide for themselves how long they live. Living literally forever is almost certainly impossible, anyway.
I'm in my thirties, so perfect health isn't an option for me, either. Even teenagers are significantly biologically diminished compared to toddlers. Senescence begins to damage the body even before birth.
That's precisely the impetus behind biostasis: to attempt to transport people across time to when miraculous nanotechnological cures are available at affordable prices. If it doesn't work, you're just as dead as you would have been otherwise.
Who, exactly, are these powers? Pronatalism is trending amongst a certain cohort of plutocrats. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreessen envision tens of billions of people living on multiple planets.
No medical treatments have ever been arbitrarily restricted to the extremely wealthy. With good insurance in the developed world, a middle-class person's healthcare can be just as good as a billionaire's. Even the underinsured and uninsured people of the working class have vastly better healthcare than the wealthiest medieval monarchs. Thanks to humanitarian outreach, even a homeless orphan in a Nigerian slum can potentially receive lifesaving care which even Caesar Augustus could not have purchased for all the gold in Rome because it simply didn't exist in his time.
I do not suggest anything of the sort.
If every physically possible permutation repeats infinitely, then there would be infinitely many recurrences of your pattern in which you would, by sheer chance, have voluminous, vivid, and highly detailed false memories of past lives, similar to a Boltzmann brain but much longer-lived. Some of these memories would happen to correspond precisely to your actual past lives. You'd live infinitely many lives unaware of your past lives and infinitely many lives aware of your past lives. There would also be infinitely many versions of you who always win or always lose in any game of chance, versions of you who graduated from Hogwarts or Starfleet or both, universes in which free pizzas appear on everyone's heads every day at noon, and astronomically more bizarre scenarios, including eonslong lifespans of indescribable bliss and eonslong lifespans of indescribable suffering. Every wonder and every horror and everything in between. Literally everything.
He couldn't live up to his ideals because his biology and the medicine and society of his time failed him. He developed severe mental illness, possibly from syphilis, which became trivially easy to completely cure less than half a century after his death, or perhaps from a brain tumor which might have been fixable today, or maybe from dementia which will be curable in the future.
Sure, but I highly doubt you wouldn't restore yourself to youth and health if you could do so at no cost to yourself or others.
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Why retain any fraction of senescence whatsoever? That's like having only a slight cough or a little cancer.
Why not all of it?
Average American life expectancy is a mere 77 years. 154 or 231 years in perfect health would be better, but why stop there if you still enjoy life?
It'd be great compared to the present but is far short of what's possible.
I'd prefer no signs of senescence at all.
"Blind age extension" doesn't exist. All aging research is actually pursuing extended healthspan with extended lifespan coming as a welcome side effect; you extend lifespan by extending healthspan. Retarding senescence means restoring people to health at the most fundamental level. The idea that we'd be decrepit for centuries is a total misconception.
The Augments are fictional characters created by a nonsensical fictional process envisioned by nonscientist writers with a profound bias against genetic engineering born of profound ignorance and illogical comparisons to historical pseudoscience. In reality, being able to run thrice as fast as Usain Bolt or lift thousands of kilograms or spend hours underwater on a single breath won't automatically turn people into megalomaniacs.
Even within the fictional universe of Star Trek, enhanced humans such as Julian Bashir, La'an Noonien Singh, Zefram Cochrane, and Flint avoid sociopathy, and there are numerous benevolent aliens with superhuman abilities and superlongevity, such as Pelia and Dax (and all Vulcans to some extent).
Why stop there, and why should some have better vision than others?
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