Falkus:
I don't really regard nature as a valid argument. After all, transhumanism is about going above and beyond nature, taking our evolution into our own hands.
Let me rephrase, you're ignoring the law of unintended consequences. We are the products of billions of years of evolution, all of which centered around us dying. We are literally built to expire. After a certain number of years, our body shuts down. Acting as though that's just accident and charging onwards seems foolhardy. Maybe there's a reason why those animals who didn't have a built in 'and now you die' gene ultimately didn't pass it on? Perhaps there's a reason why those species ended while the rest of us continued on? Nature isn't inherently good, but it is inherently functional. Changing that functionality begs for problems.
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I believe that people should have the right to choose the time and means of their own death.
Why is that? Should they be given the right to choose the time and means of their birth?
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I'm confident that we once reach that point, many of our resource problems will have been solved.
For the sake of argument, let us assume physical resources are taken care of.
What about the mindspace? Can you imagine growing up where you're 14 and 90% of the population is 200 or above? Can you imagine the size of the republican party? Geez, can you imagine the painfully long stories over family dinner?
By letting the older generation lose power allows a new generation to form a new world, realizing a new world view. I can assure you, if the population were primary made up of people like my dad, we wouldn't have computers, everyone would just use a pencil and paper still. And I'm guessing my kids accept my 'new' reality as the baseline in their formative years, and they will adopt some new protocol I simply can't or won't keep up with.
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Severe depression is a mental illness. As I said, only people thinking rationally should be allowed to commit suicide.
How can someone who is either in extreme pain, or hopped up on painkillers all the time, possibly think rationally?