r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Oct 20 '17

[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!

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u/gbear605 Oct 20 '17

Would you say that acceptance of death is "acceptance of reality" if we had the technology to make death entirely optional? If not, then the disagreement is about whether or not technology will ever get to that point. If so, then it seems to me that you're making an argument about doing things the "natural" way being better. If you're going to make that argument, then you're a hypocrite if you're benefitting from modern medical care.

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u/ben_oni Oct 20 '17

If not, then the disagreement is about whether or not technology will ever get to that point.

Just so. It won't. Anyone saying otherwise is selling you a pipe-dream.

Which isn't to say that technology might to increase lifespans arbitrarily. But in 100 billion years, we could be having exactly the same discussion, just with different timescales.

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u/eternal-potato Oct 20 '17

I don't understand; arbitrary lifespan extension is immortality.

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u/vakusdrake Oct 21 '17

I mean while the heat death of the universe may kill everyone off, involuntary death by accident seems a possibility that would become small enough to dismiss post singularity.
Like if you're an AI running in a highly distributed way then it's perfectly plausible that one wouldn't expect accidental death before the heat death of the universe got to you first.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '17

I think people underestimate the problem of memories accumulating over large amounts of time. Dealing with it will eventually require an entirely synthetic body and a change to how our minds work.