Thread: Fear of death - A rational fear?

Originally Posted by ZeraCook

haha no but what was your point wolf wood?

Before?

Just when it's said that most of the world is uninhabited (or free for expansion) when in actuality it's quite the opposite. Unless we don't count wildlife, and wish to destroy animals and ecosystems etc... and the photosynthesis part was specifically pointing to the fact that around 1/3-1/2 of atmospheric oxygen comes from forests. So it would be seemingly unwise to occupy most/all of the world. We humans need about 17% minimum O2.

Unless of course mother nature has its own homeostasis systems in place to restore oxygen levels in the event of change. After all, it is quite bizarre that oxygen levels have stayed around 20% despite widespread industrialisation and tons more humans etc.

I may be wrong here.

I'm going to put the fear in such a way it is related to the person before the person loses conscious.

Fear of death is a rational fear to me, you mentioned fear of dark alley being a rational fear, I don't see how so. Instead I would think fear of fire is a rational fear because you'll get hurt from it, you'll experience pain, and if you survive from it, probably terrible scars that will never recover.

When talking about death, instead of talking about losing everything you have now, which is a fear of losing things, I would think most people fear pain or blood or simply just seeing themselves injured badly or a fear of gore. If we don't feel pain, I honestly think many people would do extreme things everyday like injuring themselves or killing themselves since there are no after pain effect.

Unless you enjoy such pain, right Carrot?

Originally Posted by Wolfwood

Before?

Just when it's said that most of the world is uninhabited (or free for expansion) when in actuality it's quite the opposite. Unless we don't count wildlife, and wish to destroy animals and ecosystems etc... and the photosynthesis part was specifically pointing to the fact that around 1/3-1/2 of atmospheric oxygen comes from forests. So it would be seemingly unwise to occupy most/all of the world. We humans need about 17% minimum O2.

Unless of course mother nature has its own homeostasis systems in place to restore oxygen levels in the event of change. After all, it is quite bizarre that oxygen levels have stayed around 20% despite widespread industrialisation and tons more humans etc.

I may be wrong here.

People can live with trees all around them, I have.

Originally Posted by ZeraCook

People can live with trees all around them, I have.

I wish to. I'd love to.

Originally Posted by Wolfwood

Unless you enjoy such pain, right Carrot?

Don't tempt me.

I'm trying to keep myself alive. Fortunately, I have fear of gore.

Originally Posted by Wolfwood

I wish to. I'd love to.

what do you mean you wish, the thought that people can't coincide with nature is just something conditioned into us. its far more do able then people think.

Originally Posted by ZeraCook

what do you mean you wish, the thought that people can't coincide with nature is just something conditioned into us. its far more do able then people think.

What do you mean? That I should live without nature?

No, no, no. I need nature. I hate cities. Nature speaks with an audible silence, and cities with a screech and scream.

Originally Posted by Wolfwood

What do you mean? That I should live without nature?

No, no, no. I need nature. I hate cities. Nature speaks with an audible silence, and cities with a screech and scream.

I misread the old quote I thought you said I wish too, Impying that I was only wishing I could live surrounded by nature, I was like its easily doable. my bad wolfwood

Alric I'm not looking at it in a spiritual way, I'm just not buying this idea that we would evolve faster and be better off if we kept the same old people around forever. Wars are not started by young people, they're started by old people. If we had the same people here that were here during the civil war or whatever, we'd still be wasting time in useless wars. We learn in cycles, or rather spirals. Learning is not a linear thing. Each generation learns almost as a reaction to the last and because of that we learn faster by having new generations born than we would by keeping the same people around. This is because the new generation can observe the old generation. It may seem like it's going no where but that's only because it's moving in a spiral. The only reason you think death is impractical is because you haven't come to understand how life works yet.

You're also wrong to say evolution has stopped. We are continuing to increase in diversity. You have no scientific basis to claim evolution has stopped happening. In fact it shows how little understanding of evolution you have. It can't stop. It can only change modes. When there is a motivation to evolve in a certain direction, such as a disease wiping people out who aren't immune or a predator, you see evolution occur rapidly. When there is no such motivation, you see the species continue to increase in diversity. This is what we're doing now, and in imperceptible ways, certain traits which prove superior spread faster than others.

And finally, I'm not afraid of death, and I'm not coping with anything. And I don't think life is meaningless. On the contrary, I think life is the most beautiful and sacred dance imaginable and I relish every second of it.

You, however, simply don't understand what life is. You think life stops at the skin. You think once the skin goes, the tragedy has occurred. I see no barrier between life and non-life, especially not at my skin. This is not a spiritual outlook, this is just reality. Nature is nature, and it's unified. A man is his environment. A man is his community and his cause. He is not separate from it. But if we lived forever, we would fall for the myth that we are separate and have no reason to remember what we really are. If a leaf stayed year round on a tree, for what reason would it have to know that the tree is the real life-form?

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Alric I'm not looking at it in a spiritual way, I'm just not buying this idea that we would evolve faster and be better off if we kept the same old people around forever. Wars are not started by young people, they're started by old people. If we had the same people here that were here during the civil war or whatever, we'd still be wasting time in useless wars. We learn in cycles, or rather spirals. Learning is not a linear thing. Each generation learns almost as a reaction to the last and because of that we learn faster by having new generations born than we would by keeping the same people around. This is because the new generation can observe the old generation. It may seem like it's going no where but that's only because it's moving in a spiral. The only reason you think death is impractical is because you haven't come to understand how life works yet.

You're also wrong to say evolution has stopped. We are continuing to increase in diversity. You have no scientific basis to claim evolution has stopped happening. In fact it shows how little understanding of evolution you have. It can't stop. It can only change modes. When there is a motivation to evolve in a certain direction, such as a disease wiping people out who aren't immune or a predator, you see evolution occur rapidly. When there is no such motivation, you see the species continue to increase in diversity. This is what we're doing now, and in imperceptible ways, certain traits which prove superior spread faster than others.

And finally, I'm not afraid of death, and I'm not coping with anything. And I don't think life is meaningless. On the contrary, I think life is the most beautiful and sacred dance imaginable and I relish every second of it.

You, however, simply don't understand what life is. You think life stops at the skin. You think once the skin goes, the tragedy has occurred. I see no barrier between life and non-life, especially not at my skin. This is not a spiritual outlook, this is just reality. Nature is nature, and it's unified. A man is his environment. A man is his community and his cause. He is not separate from it. But if we lived forever, we would fall for the myth that we are separate and have no reason to remember what we really are. If a leaf stayed year round on a tree, for what reason would it have to know that the tree is the real life-form?

I watched that video on reincarnation, and now I've been watching all of his other lectures. You did the same with Alan Watts (downloaded EVERYTHING of his). You git. I like it, but my timeeeee.... all gone. Maybe living a lot longer would be useful to me.

Originally Posted by Wolfwood

I watched that video on reincarnation, and now I've been watching all of his other lectures. You did the same with Alan Watts (downloaded EVERYTHING of his). You git. I like it, but my timeeeee.... all gone. Maybe living a lot longer would be useful to me.

Geez. That's motivating. There are people who wants to live longer. ^^

Don't misunderstand me, people would still have random changes from generation to generation, but as a species, as a group evolution isn't happening. Since no changes we experience are giving any advantage over anything else.

For example, there might be a small group that develop a resistance to a disease, but that resistance isn't going to spread to the species as a while.

If however we stop giving people medicine, people who don't have the resistance will slowly die off, leaving behind just the people with the resistance. That is how evolution normally works, when one group gets an advantage over another and so they breed more often and more successfully and their genes spread and take over.

No offensive but I think allowing millions of people to die so a tiny population is more resistant to diseases is idiotic. You are talking about allowing the vast majority of us die, so that a handful of people have stronger children, who if they just took the medicine wouldn't even need to have that stronger immune system.

It goes back to the overall theme of this thread. There is no real benefit to allowing people to die.

Wolfwood,

Living longer is a whole other argument. After all no matter how long you live, as long as you die eventually, by the time you're done it will have felt as though you lived but the blink of an eye. And you'll still fear it. I wouldn't mind living a few centuries. Most of the time though, I'm find myself wishing for eternity before the sun sets on a perfect day, not wishing to live for eternity as a concept. I'm not attached to what I identify as my life, but I do get attached to my positive experiences.

Alric,

From your point of view. But there's some trees in the forest with seeds that only sprout after a fire, and they're some of the most beautiful. So frankly I find your opinion arrogant, assuming in your 20 years or whatever of living that you can fix a system with a few billion years of practice.

You're also speaking specifically to Natural Selection, and even more specifically, to one particular instance of natural selection. Let me give you an example of how evolution is currently working. The World Bank exploited South America, South America evolved by taking in Marxist Doctrine and going through socialist reformation, the World Bank responded by paying very bad men to crush the revolution in very horrific ways. Cuba's revolution was successful anyways, so the World Bank responded by getting the US to go in. This was also unsuccessful, so the US put a trade embargo on Cuba. Cuba responded by localizing its agriculture.

If you wish to speak purely of genetics, which is not the only kind of evolution, then currently, thanks to technology, we are going through a diversification phase, meaning we are becoming more and more diverse and one's individual genes matter little in their ability to move up in the world and become successful. This is why ethos has become such a vital aspect of evolution. But the Western Ethos is currently trying to wipe out Middle-Eastern Ethos, just as Catholic Ethos attempted to wipe out South American Ethos. Just as the Ethos of the rich continue to exploit the poor by controlling their Ethos using the media.

Originally Posted by Carrot

Geez. That's motivating. There are people who wants to live longer. ^^

lol @ you morphing it into melancholy. These crazy people wanting to live longer haven't even lived yet.

Originally Posted by Alric

No offensive but I think allowing millions of people to die so a tiny population is more resistant to diseases is idiotic. You are talking about allowing the vast majority of us die, so that a handful of people have stronger children, who if they just took the medicine wouldn't even need to have that stronger immune system.

It goes back to the overall theme of this thread. There is no real benefit to allowing people to die.

It wouldn't be so that the tiny population could be resistant. you do realise the effect medicine is having is creating stronger things to attack our immune system, because see viruses and other small things evolve much quicker then species like us. while we may be evolving slow and depending on this medicine we are making them stronger. I think if someone where to kill of the major population it wouldn't have anything to do with making the survivors have stronger it would be about stoping the parasites(Us) from killing the Host(Earth). so there is a benefit to allowing people to die.

Originally Posted by Wolfwood

I watched that video on reincarnation, and now I've been watching all of his other lectures. You did the same with Alan Watts (downloaded EVERYTHING of his). You git. I like it, but my timeeeee.... all gone. Maybe living a lot longer would be useful to me.

I know... I've been listening to Alan Watts constantly lately. 4 exams next week? oh well.

I know all about that Zeracook, which is why we should be more careful to stop things from becoming resistant to our medicine. Letting everyone die isn't really a valid option for stopping them from becoming resistant.

Omnis Dei, I been saying that all along. There are many types of evolution and biological is by far the slowest. So why are we focusing on that? Why would you sacrifice technology evolution, which is far superior to boost biological evolution? It really makes no sense.

It is like you are trying to resist evolution as much as possible. All this stuff is clearly pushing us towards longer lived humans, so why resist that? Because biological evolution came first? I think that is kind of silly. Why should we die because we used to die in the past. Why not embrace our medicine and technology, and evolve in the way we were meant to?

Originally Posted by Alric

I know all about that Zeracook, which is why we should be more careful to stop things from becoming resistant to our medicine. Letting everyone die isn't really a valid option for stopping them from becoming resistant.

Omnis Dei, I been saying that all along. There are many types of evolution and biological is by far the slowest. So why are we focusing on that? Why would you sacrifice technology evolution, which is far superior to boost biological evolution? It really makes no sense.

It is like you are trying to resist evolution as much as possible. All this stuff is clearly pushing us towards longer lived humans, so why resist that? Because biological evolution came first? I think that is kind of silly. Why should we die because we used to die in the past. Why not embrace our medicine and technology, and evolve in the way we were meant to?

If we were meant to live forever we would. how can you say biological evolution is inferior without it we wouldn't have evolved into something that had enough intelligence to create the inventions we have. there is no need to sacrifice technology evolution, but in all fact most technology is harming just as much if not more then it is benefiting. the only reason our tech has pushed to humans with longer life is because the fear of death. If we all one day woke up and couldn't die, but we could still produce, our technology discovery would not be able to keep up with our births, we would become overpopulated and destroy the earth. you say if you could live forever, you could try to make it so that the carrying capacity would increase but you wouldn't be able to invent things to increase the capacity at a rate sufficient enough to stop overpopulation.

That isn't true since the longer people live the less children they have. We already see this trend all over the world. In all modern countries birthrates have fallen to the point where the populations of people born in the country is now shrinking. That includes the US. The only reason the populations are not shrinking is because of immigration from poorer countries. If we didn't have immigration the US population would be falling right now. It would be falling in all of the first world countries.

It is only a matter of time before the poorer countries catch up with us, and then the world population will begin to drop. With the falling birthrate, and increases in technology we should have no problems.

I don't accept the, "If we were meant to live forever we would' argument. There are millions of things we weren't born with the ability to do but we can do anyway thanks to technology. You think technology is bad but is obvious you are reaping the great benefits of it. The benefits of technology has always greatly outweighed the disadvantages of it. The fact is technology has saved the lives of billions of people, we would be nothing without it.

Originally Posted by Alric

That isn't true since the longer people live the less children they have. We already see this trend all over the world. In all modern countries birthrates have fallen to the point where the populations of people born in the country is now shrinking. That includes the US. The only reason the populations are not shrinking is because of immigration from poorer countries. If we didn't have immigration the US population would be falling right now. It would be falling in all of the first world countries.

Yeah because the longer people live the harder it is for them to have kids due to medical issues. Plus if people could live forever eventually they would want another kid, especially once the one they have is raised and gone.

Originally Posted by Alric

It is only a matter of time before the poorer countries catch up with us, and then the world population will begin to drop. With the falling birthrate, and increases in technology we should have no problems.

I don't accept the, "If we were meant to live forever we would' argument. There are millions of things we weren't born with the ability to do but we can do anyway thanks to technology. You think technology is bad but is obvious you are reaping the great benefits of it. The benefits of technology has always greatly outweighed the disadvantages of it. The fact is technology has saved the lives of billions of people, we would be nothing without it.

I'm also reaping the downfall of technology, some technology is bad and some is good, but most have harmful side effects somewhere down the line. I'm no technophobe obviously.

Alric please quit putting words in others mouths. I like the part where you say technology has saved the lives of billions of people, as if we haven't invented things that are destroying our world, things made to kill humans, such as guns, oh and things made to kill humans and really damage the earth like nukes.

ZeraCook, how many acres of land on earth are actually able to be farmed and grow crops on? Less than the number you proposed no doubt.

Modern technology is one huge reason that we are able to sustain the population we have on Earth. Technology developed because of a rising population and the necessity for it.

Want to plant some shit? Grow a garden dude. Help yourself out. But you aren't going to be able to feed tons of people that way.

Originally Posted by Warheit

ZeraCook, how many acres of land on earth are actually able to be farmed and grow crops on? Less than the number you proposed no doubt.

You should really read all posts before addressing something because I already stated that.

Originally Posted by Warheit

Modern technology is one huge reason that we are able to sustain the population we have on Earth. Technology developed because of a rising population and the necessity for it.

I already stated this too if you would have read. Due to everyone having to die so far in life we have been able to have our technology keep up with the rising population, but if we stopped dying then the rate of people would start to go up even more and our Tech most likely would not be able to keep up.

Originally Posted by Warheit

Want to plant some shit? Grow a garden dude. Help yourself out. But you aren't going to be able to feed tons of people that way.

I have a garden, haha and its funny you say this because I already addressed this to, even though I don't believe that its on this thread I think it was in chat. but anyways I stated that without tech it would be way harder/impossible to be a vegetarian because most places you can't grow year round, without tech we can't preserve food vegetables and fruit as easily, where as Dry meat stays good all winter.

I am meant the longer the average life span of people, the less children they have over their life time. So in american where people expect to live to 80 they have far fewer children than in countries where most people die at younger ages. So it has nothing to do with the inability to have children, since people simply choose not to have them because of the expectation that they will live longer and be healthier.

Of course there is technology to hurt people but the number saved far outweighs the number hurt. In fact most of the people killed by weapons and stuff wouldn't even be alive to begin with if we didn't have technology. Yea there are bad things but taken as a whole technology is a huge net positive for us.