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A comment on Billions’ worth of high-tech research seeking to make death optional. Parent comment

Re:Billions’ worth of high-tech research seeking to make dea... by fsloth on Tuesday March 28, 2017 @01:26AM (#13974323)
"Where would we be if Newton and Einstein were still alive?"

Einstein and Newton contributed a lot but they were part of a historical trend, not genetic hail marys who ushered mankind from one epoch to the next.

"...it seems like insufficient reason to let brilliant people die."

This is - look, you can't argue that someone has the right to live based on their life achievements. This is like the ultimate perversion of the 'american drem' delusion - just achieve great thing and you can live forever.

Unfortunately Johnny never did crack the Navier-Stokes equation so instead of given the Immortality Treatment he became fertilizer in the end

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Billions’ worth of high-tech research seeking to make dea... by hwillis on Tuesday March 28, 2017 @06:36PM (#13981464)
Newton and Einstein were absolutely brilliant beyond their time, and would definitely have continued to make great contributions. Overall people have gotten smarter over the generations, but the geniuses of the past would still be geniuses today. In mathematics alone there are dozens of examples of people who were proving things that we still haven't replicated. Just by looking through their notes we have found solutions to problems we hadn't been able to solve yet.

>This is - look, you can't argue that someone has the right to live based on their life achievements. This is like the ultimate perversion of the 'american drem' delusion - just achieve great thing and you can live forever.

I'm very anti-libertarian and totally against the idea that the ends justify the means wrt achievement. However geniuses do exist, and their productivity is very often cut short by death or age. As a race we would have been able to gain immensely if a few hundred people had lived a decade or two longer.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Billions’ worth of high-tech research seeking to make dea... by fsloth on Wednesday March 29, 2017 @03:23AM (#13984113)
I most certainly don't deny that geniouses are critical for moving forward. What I was after, is that there never is just one - the one we remember is the one who publishes first - and it's sometimes hard to tell who they are from an institutional perspective.
[ Parent | on HN ]