Comment by khafra
5 years ago
Even on a site like HN, 90% of people who think about it are instinctively revolted by the idea. The future--unavoidably belonging to the type of person who is perfectly comfortable doing this--is going to be weird.
5 years ago
Even on a site like HN, 90% of people who think about it are instinctively revolted by the idea. The future--unavoidably belonging to the type of person who is perfectly comfortable doing this--is going to be weird.
Right, and "weird" is entirely defined by how we think now, not how people will in the future.
I've thought a lot about cryonics, and about potentially having myself (or just my head) preserved when I die, hopefully to be revived someday when medical technology has advanced to the point where it's both possible to revive me, and also possible to cure whatever caused me to die in the first place. The idea of it working out as expected might seem like a bit of a long shot, but I imagine if it did work, and what that could be like.
I look at all the technological advances that have happened even just during my lifetime, and am (in optimistic moments) excited about what's going to happen in the next half of my life (as I'm nearing 40[0]), and beyond. It really saddens me that I'll miss out on so many fascinating, exciting things, especially something like more ubiquitous or even routine space flight. The thought of being able to hop on a spacecraft and fly to Mars with about as much fuss as an airline flight from home to another country just sounds amazing.
But I also wonder about "temporal culture shock" (the short story has the similar concept of "context drift"). Society even a hundred years from now will likely be very different from what we're used to, to the point where it might be unbearably uncomfortable. Consider that even a jump of a single generation can bring changes that the older generation find difficult to adapt to.
[0] Given my family history, I'd expect to live to be around 80, but perhaps not much older. The other bit is that I expect that in the next century we'll figure out how to either completely halt the aging process, or at least be able to slow it down enough so a double or even triple lifespan wouldn't be out of the question. It feels maddening to live so close to when I expect something like this to happen, but be unable to benefit from it.