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kxrmtoday at 4:15 PM2 repliesview on HN

> who wouldn't want to witness and be a part of a new world?

Me?

This view is grounded in the assumption that the future will be better than today. There is no guarantee of that. This is, in my opinion, the same flaw in the thought process of wanting to live forever. The assumption being that, this "new world" is a better place than where you are now. That it is compatible with you as you are. That you will never grow tired of existing.

I know for a fact that I will grow tired of existence. Why would I want to continue it? The bar is very high for me to want to continue to exist in a "new world". I would need guarantees that the world will be a better place where I can thrive in ways I can not in this one. That I will be accepted in this "new world".

Can anyone guarantee those things?


Replies

thesmtsolver2today at 5:57 PM

> Can anyone guarantee those things?

No one can guarantee those things.

No one can guarantee anything in this world.

You are free to choose non existence but others are equally free to be brave enough to wake up in a worse world.

They may even feel responsible enough to try and fix it rather than requiring a "guarantee".

> The assumption being that, this "new world" is a better place than where you are now.

No one is assuming that. At least, I am not assuming that. Even if the world gets worse, I think it is rational to want to live longer and try and fix that.

Even if it is provably 100% unfixable and worse, any existence is better than non existence (certain forms of Hindu/Buddhist meditation teach you how to get into a state where that is obvious).

KronisLVtoday at 5:05 PM

> This view is grounded in the assumption that the future will be better than today. There is no guarantee of that.

It could be better, it could be flawed in the same ways, it could be flawed but in different ways, or it could be worse altogether. Compare our current lives with someone a century ago. Two centuries. A millenia. Plus hey if you wake up and the oceans have boiled off, there's solutions to your continued existence then.

> I know for a fact that I will grow tired of existence.

I think that's the main part - ceasing to exist should be a choice. It wasn't one to be brought into this world, but inhabiting it and going out of it should be done on one's own terms and when having lived as good of a long life as one might want to. For some people that will be close to a century. For others that might be a thousand years. Who knows, for some it might be a million years.

If this is all thought experiments, why not? At that point, why even care about waking up in a capitalist dystopian hellhole? Might take a few centuries to overthrow them but it's not like that sort of life is the end point of humanity. And if it is, at least you'd know that for sure. Or maybe it's nuclear winter. Or something closer to a utopia, or at least something where everyone's basic needs are more or less met. Asking for guarantees doesn't work either way.