Just a little thought I had:
You can continue living as you are now, with your friends and family, until you die of old age, which for most people here I would surmise to be hopefully around 2060-2080.
or
Be cryogenically frozen and be awoken in 2211. However, because of the strain caused on your body by the freezing process, after you wake up you will only live half as long as you would normally. Your body will be kept in a top-secret vault under heavy security for the duration of the two-hundred years, with the machine programmed to unfreeze you in the summer/winter of 2211. Everyone alive today will eventually die and you will awaken to whatever kind of world awaits you in 2211.
How much is the future worth to you?
(Edit: changed it from 100 to 200 years.)
Nothing beats being the poor mock in a "caveman in modern times" comedy. No thanks.
Waking up in 2111 would mean that my computers are obsolete, my knowledge is obsolete, everything I've done in my life has been forgotten[1], and I'll be living in a society that has no use for me or my skills. I couldn't work for a living and I doubt I'd be entitled to welfare[2]. I wouldn't even be interesting to historians - we live in a digital age, information can be retained for as long as we like, and in 2111 a standard search engine is likely to yield better answers about 2011 events than I would.
[1] well, probably still stored in a database somewhere, but nobody cares.
[2] That's assuming that humanity at large doesn't change too much. Waking up in a utopian paradise with no shortages (and as such, no currency system) is very very unlikely when extrapolating the current state of earth's natural resources. Waking up in a post-apocalyptic wasteland is far more likely, and I'm no good at hunting two-legged rats and scorpions.
I'd go with the former option anyway. I don't have confidence that I'd be any happier in the future than I would be right now, and the culture shock would be pretty brutal.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 7/30/2011
Posts: 129
Location: Watching a TAS in the basement...
Tough question. I'd have to hesitantly say no freezure. (Is that a word?)
I'd rather live normally with my family.
Heck, maybe the secret to eternal life will be found (by me).
Even if the freezing had no drawbacks at all, I think I wouldn't take the risk. It may be a bit pessimistic, but the way the world is going right now (with all the climate change, oil crisis, economic crisis, terrorism, the not-minuscule chance of worldwide islamization, the possibility of nuclear war due to more and more countries developing nukes, and so on) I wouldn't bet on the world being a nice place in 200 years. Better enjoy the good times now than risk a possibly dark future.
but frozen it's probably not possible to be frozen because the water takes more place in the state of ice our bodies would suffer damage
Admittedly, I'm not familiar with the repurcussions of being cryogenically frozen, but I included the clause where, if one were to choose to be frozen, they would awaken with only half their original life span. Mainly because I thought there should be some sort of repurcussion in exchange for the ability to witness the future. The question is one more of philosophy rather than one of pragmatism.
Thank you for all the responses so far; I've enjoyed reading them. My apologies to Lex and Tub for slightly editing the topic after you both posted.
Erokky I'm not familiar with the repurcussions of being cryogenically frozen to.
I know just the problem of water.
So mitjitsu being frozen if you have an serious illness it's a good idea.
In 200 years the Human can evolved and new disease have emerged , disease that will kill human who would not have evolved
If you're interested in actual problems of cryonics, start with the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics
In short: there's no evidence that the freezing is reversible, there's no evidence that the freezing process doesn't destroy critical pieces, it's just taking a guy's money, putting him in a freezer and leaving the rest as an exercise to future generations.
But this thread isn't about the feasibility of cryonics, it's a question about the appeal of trading half your lifespan for the ability to live in the future.
erokky wrote:
My apologies to Lex and Tub for slightly editing the topic after you both posted.
I noticed your edit after I posted, but since my answer doesn't rely on the actual timeframe, I didn't bother to update.
I am so curious about the fate of humanity and the technology of the future that I would choose the second option hands down.
AzumaK wrote: I swear my 1 year old daughter's favorite TASVideo is your R4MI run :3
xxNKxx wrote: ok thanks handsome feos :D
Help improving TASVideos!
What is happening in the next few years is going to be so interesting that I wouldn't like to miss it. Then again, what's happening 200 years from now may be even more mind-blowing, but at least now I know the context. :-)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
How about flying near the speed of light as a form of traveling to the future? That could have less to no bad consequences (except maybe being extremely expensive).
I would like to go to the future yes, I believe in the evolution of ethics. The way people think right now just makes me sad.
How about flying near the speed of light as a form of traveling to the future? That could have less to no bad consequences (except maybe being extremely expensive).
As you approach the speed of light your mass (weight) becomes infinite. That may be a drawback.
erokky wrote:
Mainly because I thought there should be some sort of repurcussion in exchange for the ability to witness the future. The question is one more of philosophy rather than one of pragmatism
You bring up an interesting point erokky. What would I give up to witness the future? As amazing the future might be for me, I would be the only one impressed. I would have no one to tell about how amazing the future allegedly is/will be because my future is their present.
I would not go into the future. I think it will be much more like the present than anyone thinks, anyways.
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
How about flying near the speed of light as a form of traveling to the future? That could have less to no bad consequences (except maybe being extremely expensive).
As you approach the speed of light your mass (weight) becomes infinite. That may be a drawback.
I guess one would sound like an old man in the future. I suppose you've all heard the stories from old people. "I remember back in the days when I was young. The air was fresh and everything was black and white."
I think that we would more or less sound like old people when going to the future. Well... Timewise we would add another 200 years to our ages somewhat. So it qualifies for being old.
Even though I would hunger to see a future in 200 years I wonder if I would actually do it?
Did either of you people see the movie Idiocracy? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
It covers the topic slightly. :)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
Idiocracy shows a somewhat terrifying view of a future possibility. It isn't completely terrifying because nobody here will live to see it, so we can laugh at the idea.
It is a good movie for its jokes, but I don't really think the main point of the movie is plausible. There are way too many people in the world for that to happen.
Would someone from 1811 want to live today? (Or even further back (e.g. 1611) because the rate of social/technological advancement is exponential)
There would be some interest from historians, but apart from that one would be quite isolated.
It might be interesting to see how far humanity has come, but I'd only do this near the end of my current lifetime.
Would someone from 1811 want to live today? (Or even further back (e.g. 1611) because the rate of social/technological advancement is exponential)
Interestingly, on the wikipedia page for Cryogenics that Tub linked to, it states that Benjamin Franklin harbored some regret that technology and science was still so primitive that his body could not be preserved in order to see what America would be like one-hundred years on. I posed a similar hypothesis in the IRC channel: What would George Washington (or Thomas Jefferson, for that matter) think, should they see the United States, and indeed the world, today? Or if Newton met Einstein. It's fundamentally the same question but from a historical point of view.
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
creaothceann wrote:
Would someone from 1811 want to live today? (Or even further back (e.g. 1611) because the rate of social/technological advancement is exponential)
There would be some interest from historians, but apart from that one would be quite isolated.
It might be interesting to see how far humanity has come, but I'd only do this near the end of my current lifetime.
Farmers wouldn't, but people related to science would be marvelled, I think.
