Would I Want to Live Forever? · 3:19pm Oct 18th, 2017
Depends very much on my quality of life. If I were 123, but as healthy as I am now at 53, or even better as I was at 23, I would want to keep living. Luna discusses that issue in her little speech: that one deciedes to live day by day, year by year, and that few Ponies would wish to die if they chose it that way. Obviously, if I were in horrible pain and otherwise suffering, life might become a burden -- though even then, I might hope for a cure from whatever was causing me to suffer.
The fallacy of asking "Would you want to live a thousand years? A million years? How would you spend the time? Wouldn't you be horribly bored?" is that it puts one in the position of having to plan one's itinerary for the next millennium or thousand millennia.
But that's not how we actually live -- not even Twilight Sparkle. We acquire an aim, work our way toward it, achieve some success or failure at that goal, and then decide what we want to do next (Twilight just plans out her life a little farther ahead and in greater detail than most of us).
Also, we should remember that the culture around us would also produce new things over those expanses of time. In a million years, I might be able to read every word of fiction Humanity has produced in its five thousand years of civilization -- but during that million years, Humanity would produce much, much more. A million years is also a lot of time to take up new professions or diversions.
The question comes up of when someone's desire to end their life ought to be gratified. I would argue that, especially among immortals, the depressed one should have to demonstrate serious and lasting committment to the idea of ending his life to have his wish granted; so that an immortal life should not be ended on a momentary whim. (Poul Anderson wrote a few stories about the ethics of these kind of situations: the SWSV Luna, as a manic-depressive immortal, has faced these sorts of thoughts more than once).
We must beware of "sour grapes" thinking. Envy is likeliest of all human vices to cause us to bar our own way to living forever.
And the same is true for the Ponies.
Mmmm... I think there's room for a lot of viewpoints. I have zero doubt that you want to live forever, or that you could fill eternity, but I also can see other people with less inquisitive dispositions, or with a strong belief in an afterlife, or a pessimism toward the longterm, overall direction of humanity (or equinity) deciding it's not for them. Not to mention that self-sacrifice towards a goal or ideal or as a protest can be viewed as just as noble, if not more so, and is far more likely to come up given infinite time (something discussed in Sun and Hearth.)
4701396
Well yes. I don't preclude that suicide should be legal in some circumstances, but we have to be very careful how we do it. Aside from the obvious example of temporary (and perhaps treatable) depression, with suffering a depressed period being weighed against enjoying the whole rest of one's potential life in the future, there is the great danger that any voluntary euthanasia law can be abused to commit murder. Such has frequently happened where they have been tried: hence the value of a requirement to attempt treatment first, or at least observe the suicidal person for some period of time to determine that they are really serious about wanting to do this, rather than merely suffering a brief bout of depression.
(c)
4701396
Self-sacrifice is a bit different in that one gives up one's life for some goal, generally to save or try to improve the lives of loved ones. This is arguably a difference in kind, and certainly degree, from merely being depressed out of boredom.
We don't want to forbid risk-taking entirely, lest we become the wards of something like Jack Williamson's "Humanoids" (from "With Folded Hands," 1947). Luna, the High Lady of War, understands more than most that it is sometimes important to let Ponies take risks in order to achieve greatness.
4701402
I'm really uncomfortable with the limits that places on personal freedom in all but the most obvious cases of mental defect/illness. Keep in mind, that's also been used toward all sorts of totalitarian ends, far more often than acceptance of suicide.
("That" being involuntary commitment/imprisonment.)
But the legality and acceptance of suicide is something of a technicality, considering the results, and often if people do know about it they're people who have already been attempting treatment or observing them.
4701406
It might be, but what's the system if the loved ones object? That's sort of where I'm going with the personal freedom angle. Say you wanted to stop taking your meds as a protest again the pharmaceutical industry? Your family would certainly object, and may even think it's "insane," but if you felt strongly enough you might consider effectively hunger striking to draw attention it whatever it is a worthy strategy, or refusing to participate the moral action, even if it leads to your death.
To go into more depth here, now that the kid is napping (and I know you'll forgive me for pressing/spamming the conversation.) This is interesting to me because both my original fiction novel and my current ongoing fanfic brush on the questions of immortality and suicide/refusing life sustaining magic. So it's something I've thought on a lot, from very different angles.
My general thought is that immortality brings with it a lot of extra concerns, and the means of achieving immortality bring about even more. When you're talking about an immortal, depression is a very different issue: even if it is an irrational mental illness, is it right to expect someone to live with that forever? What if treatments in the setting are non-existent or lagging behind modern earth? How much hope should they hold out, for how long, that something might be developed? Can they even imagine in their current world that something might be developed?
There are also questions of negative situations. An immortal could be (or perceive themselves as) tortured indefinitely, facing an eternity of loneliness or existential angst, or consuming resources that could be better used by others but not providing anything of corresponding value. And, unless there's a precognitive to argue otherwise, they might be right. Or not. No one knows.
Then we get to the means of sustaining immortality. Is a vampire who has to kill or injure people to achieve their immortality wrong to want to commit suicide? Is stealing the lifeforce of another being to continue to live self-defense, or stealing a loaf of bread to avoid starving, or a moral wrong? Is sustaining an immortal life inherently more important or less important than allowing the survival of a mortal?
What about someone who requires access to something and is trapped in an abusive relationship or powerless position to get it? Is slavery better than death? How much hope does there need to be for an end to the slavery? What if it's comfortable slavery, is the very notion of self-ownership a moral consideration? Does "give me liberty or give me death" only apply to mortals?
And, along those lines and with regards to self-sacrifice, there can be very unclear lines between recklessness and suicide, between protest and self-serving suicide, and between adhering to ones values to the point of death and suicide. And having already lived several lifetimes as compared to others in the world could easily change the way you weigh the importance of those things.
And, if all of those questions that obviously can be rationally argued both ways are not the decision of the being in question to make when and how they want, who has the moral authority to make them, or to decide how much thought has to be given? Can they decide that the being in question is wrong, and force them into eternal imprisonment, slavery, or to go against their own moral code indefinitely? Why couldn't they, if they believe the reasoning is wrong?
My personal take is that a person's (being's, pony's) life has to be their own to do with as they please, no matter how long or short it might be. It's entirely likely that other people who care will act to try to prevent a mistake, but those actions don't automatically become good just based on intentions, they depend entirely on the actual likelihood of mistaken judgement or information and the actions taken to prevent it. (That is, a being of otherwise sound reason and intellect is not likely to be mistaking the information and conclusion, even if one does not agree with this particular conclusion.)
Now, in the real world, most cases of suicide are due to mental illness, which drastically increases the likelihood of mistaken judgement or irrational thinking; in fact, that's one of the defining aspects of the condition. In that case, trying to prevent suicide is significantly more likely to be a good act, though we still need to pay very close attention to the actions taken to prevent it in balance with individual rights (and recognize that one doesn't have an absolute moral duty to do so; for example, a lover threatening suicide if a loved one leaves is a very common sign of an abusive relationship. If the loved one leaves and the person then kills themselves, that doesn't mean the loved one contributed to the death.)
I think the obvious solution is mind control. If someone's immortal and unhappy, then make them happy! If they don't want to live anymore because of boredom and ennui, erase (or sequester) their memory so that they can experience everything again!
I'm sure you'll get it wrong a few times and make things worse, but if people live forever you can always try again.
At least if it's the good kind of immortality where you don't accumulate disabilities and injuries and eventually end up as a twitching skeleton. THAT kind might be a curse.
Of course, a friend of mine wrote a book (The Moon Etherium) where people were immortal, but to be 'safe' they also needed to be immune to injury and impossible to restrain... and they still found ways to hurt each other. Still, those are a couple of obvious loopholes to close.
4701404
I explicitly stated that euthanasia should be legal in an immortal society. I, however, believe that the process has to be well-observed to avoid, on the one hand, people killing themselves in momentary fits of depression; on the other hand, murders disguised as suicides or mercy-killings. The last-named is a serious possibility because other people, possibly next of kin, may have nefarious motives for wanting their relatives removed from the picture.
4701505
I hope you're being sarcastic. Mind-controlling people to make them want to live doesn't sound as if they'd have very happy lives.
4701575
Why wouldn't they? I mean, assuming you used charm-style mind control instead of puppeting their bodies.
If the change wasn't permanent, you'd effectively be addicting them to a drug (either a literal one or the magical equivalent), but prescribing addictive drugs to people that actually need them is only bad when they start re-selling the pills.
This is already what we do for people with depression but those drugs aren't perfect. If we can imagine immortality, though, we can imagine a version of editing peoples' emotions and personalities that actually works.
Most people have a pre-conceived notion that mind control should be horrible and add on extra gotchas when they write about it to make sure it's horrible. It's so annoying. One of the things I like about FIM is that they don't do that -- the mind control is only as bad as the effects that it has on ponies and the ponies are only as mad about it as the misuse of it deserves.
4701472
Indeed. When I said that it would be necessary to monitor euthanasia to avoid having people kill themselves in momentary fits of depression, I didn't mean by this that it should be forever denied. If someone really, consistently wanted to kill herself, I'd let her. After all, she owns her life.
I was assuming in Twelfth Equestriad Interview a high and advancing level of medical magic and technology, which is why an immortality program seemed reasonable, but yes. Given especially nasty curses or limited medical technologies, death might well be the more rational option.
4701472
Obviously, all sapient beings have the same right to life as any others. I actually examined this idea in His Recipe For Love (NSFW) in which Harmonia Pie and her Cupcake Bakers believe that they -- as valuable elite healers and alchemists -- have the right and duty to torture other Ponies horribly to death to bake their Food of Life from them.
Now, my theory about this is that they have fallen into a moral trap and have been driven mad by what they found at the bottom. They should be obvious by the sadistic glee that Harmonia and Aventurine take in their killings, and by the way their murderous actions are starting to bleed into their personal lives (Aventurine thinking of killing his niece's noble lover for, essentially, being a jerk).
But they do have a point, if a bad one. Among other things, their work feeds into one of the techniques Luna's considering (no, not horrible torture-murders, but using other power sources to charge a telomerase based alchemical immortality system).
The point being both that when one starts regarding other people as mere resources, the results can be horrible -- and that even evil research adds to the sum of knowledge. And yes, I'm quite aware of the Nazi medical experiments in World War II.
4701424
Disguised murder is a real problem with any system of euthanasia. There have been numerous cases in European health care systems in which inconvenient patients have been encouraged to end their lives. The most famous American case, Terri Schiavo, may have been disguised murder by her husband. It's very important to be careful when you're doing something that leads to intentionally ending the life of another human being, and the more so when that person hasn't actually committed a capital offense.
4701590
You don't think more people have been involuntarily committed and drugged into compliance for neferious readons than have been murdered via euthenasia?
Though I admit I'm mostly talking here about people who can voice their desires on the question.
4701592
Oh, almost certainly. But committment is revocable. Euthanasia isn't.
4701597
I feel like my point rests in the question of consent of patient in question.
Euthenasia isn't technically suicide, though some forms of immortality might require assistance to end. In those cases, I do think that the establishment of sound mind is in order on behalf of the assistant, though the whole situation is a weird one in terms of personal agency (this is a large part of the plot of my OF novel.)
In cases where a person can choose to end their own life, whether activly or via refusing "life support," it's only a question of when intervention is morally necessary and to what extent. That's not euthenasia, and while it is used for neferious means, it's unusual that you'd need to be arguing with the potential victim over it. Either they are trying to kill themselves, or someone is trying to kill them against their will.
There was a comic that explained how fanfic writers under 30 have Twilight angst about it, those over 30 have Twilight celebrate being about to screw over death.
Rather reminds me of that episode of Voyager with Quinn. If I was immortal, I would kill myself.
....someday. eventually. after I had done everything I could ever think of, and then all the other things I hadn't been able to think of before. When I felt like I could no longer benefit society, which would take an awfully long time. But that's very different from wishing I wasn't immortal in the first place.
I absolutely want to be immortal. Thinking that immortality carries with it a risk of eternity spent aged to frailty and beyond, though, is absurd, assuming the damage theory of ageing is correct (and almost certainly so for most other theories for how ageing works): ageing to death involves accumulation of damage to the point that some life-critical system finally fails, and on the journey there, the thus-far accumulated damage is what's ultimately responsible for basically all of the physical and mental traits we associate with middling to advanced age; therefore, fixing the damage also turns back the clock in that regard. Since fixing said damage just happens to be the plan for extending lifespan under the damage theory of ageing, it follows quite readily that the fear of those extra years spent in aged frailty is baseless.
Similarly, there's no reason to expect that we would just accumulate injuries over the eons until we're a barely-functional shadow of our former selves; we are already able to grow replacement tissues for many areas of the body starting from a small skin scraping, and we're on the threshold of full organ replacement in this manner. From there, it's a relatively short hop to being able to replace limbs and the like wholesale, and of course that completely discounts simply using artificial replacements, technology for which is also progressing by leaps and bounds.
On a slightly different tack, realistically any society which provides for immortality must also provide an out; it would be just as tyrannical for a society to completely forbid self-termination as it would for a society to forbid making use of immortality-providing technologies that are readily available. The name of the game should be personal choice, after the normal assurances that said choice is stable, not being made under duress, etc.
I would not wish to live forever, nor shall I have to. Christopher's gone ahead, and I have a strong conviction that we'll meet again in an afterlife, but even if I'm wrong, ceasing to exist doesn't frighten me. Every day that I remain here carries me further away from him, but also that much closer to meeting again. If I did not have that faith, I'd have killed myself long since.