A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage

Re:A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head an... by redleader55 on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @01:39AM (#22104763)

There's a very famous series of books by Isaac Asimov that deals with this problem - The Robots. Basically once humans are able to increase their life span, they become reluctant to take any risks and the become stuck in their own "immortality". It's no different than what the GP says. Weather it's until the end of the universe or just a few hundred years, we still become more risk adverse and less capable of change.

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Re:A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head an... by xvector on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @01:59AM (#22104846)

I do not see this as a bad thing. I would rather live happily ever after than take life-ending risks.

That said, I disagree with the premise. Any true form of immortality would virtualize us. As individuals we would be able to take risks as never before. Paragliding through dangerous canyons? Why not? Worst case scenario your fleshy avatar dies, and you wait a few weeks in a virtual utopia as a new one is printed.

And even that is only if we choose to continue to confine ourselves to human qualia. Being virtualized would enable us to experience the universe in whole new ways - who would want to constrict themselves to mere human experiences ever again?

I think this short story explains these concept really well. Don’t worry about the cliche romance backstory - it was written in 1989: http://www.skyhunter.com/marcs/GentleSeduction.html

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Re:A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head an... by FeepingCreature on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @02:03AM (#22104864)

Gonna be honest - once we have backups, I'm totally intending to go into seriously risky behaviors. So this is 100% the opposite of how I intend to live my life.

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Re:A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head an... by vidarh on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @06:49AM (#22106082)

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect [1] describes a post-singularity world where an AI prevents people from dying permanently, and one woman in protest takes up finding creative ways to kill herself (and getting stopped and patched up each time) and turns it into a sport with a following... I'm sure there would be some people that'd take risks to that extreme.

[1] http://www.localroger.com/prime-intellect/ (with the warning that it is pretty gruesome)

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Re:A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head an... by ta999999171 on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @01:14PM (#22109647)

So you'll kill yourself doing risky things... and then a clone of your mind will continue your life?

Seems...shortsighted.

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Re:A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head an... by FeepingCreature on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @04:37PM (#22122318)

Patternism is the only theory of self consistent with materialist reductionism.

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Re:A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head an... by baddox on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @02:17AM (#22104928)

Technology can increase our lifespans and it can also reduce the risk of whatever we’re most worried about. People already use technology to drastically reduce the risk of activities that are desirable for various reasons. Obvious examples include prophylactics for sexual activity and seat belts for automobiles.

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Re:A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head an... by yibg on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @05:31AM (#22105701)

People take plenty of risks before the tail end of their life span now. Don’t see why that would change if we live a long time.

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