Why live when you can die?

[Gahars]

A) This is the internet where we can't verify someone's credentials even if i told you that i am involved with MIT. There's no way to prove that to you unless you want to stop at the MIT cafeteria on Friday.

Believe me, your posts tell me all anyone needs to know about your credentials.

B) True. But sometimes it's not a crapshoot.

When you endlessly throw shit at the wall, eventually something will stick. As much as we would all love workable cryogenics technology, there's no reason to believe that this particular turd has any better chances than the rest.

Jesus is a crapshoot for 2000 years.

And as I already mentioned, this is completely irrelevant.

 

[Engert]

Like my granddaddy used to say "never judge a book by its contents but by its cover".

But Gahars people have been throwing shit at the wall for 2000 years about Jesus. Still nothing. How do you explain that?

 

[Gahars]

But Gahars people have been throwing shit at the wall for 2000 years about Jesus. Still nothing. How do you explain that?

...I don't because that's not the subject at hand. I haven't made an argument about the validity of Christianity at all here, so yeah.

How is Jesus being real or not make your fantasizing any more credible?

 

[Engert]

How is Jesus being real or not make your fantasizing any more credible?

Wow. You just don't want to read huh? My fantasy is more credible because i can make an educated guess based on today's technology and progress.
But because my projection is far into the future it's true that it sounds crazy to you and many other folks. You and Lacious would be more comfortable if i told you that we'd have a man in Mars in 100 years. With that projection you're more comfortable.
But bringing back frozen humans to life? Hell no! That's crazy bat shit.

 

[Gahars]

Wow. You just don't want to read huh? My fantasy is more credible because i can make an educated guess based on today's technology and progress.
But because my projection is far into the future it's true that it sounds crazy to you and many other folks. You and Lacious would be more comfortable if i told you that we'd have a man in Mars in 100 years. With that projection you're more comfortable.
But bringing back frozen humans to life? Hell no! That's crazy bat shit.

First of all, this still has nothing to do with your "Jesus" bit, but whatever. Secondly we've already addressed the flaws with your "educated" guess. It seems you've been the one skipping the reading.

Also, there's a world of difference between your Mars example and this issue of cryogenics. A manned mission to Mars is conceivable because we already (basically) have the technology and know-how to pull it off. While a little refinement may be necessary, budgeting the project is the biggest obstacle. The techniques cryogenics call for just don't exist at the moment; they might never come about. I'd love to see it come about, but there is pretty much no scientific basis for thinking it can be done. Wanting it to be real won't make it so.

Scientific thinking calls for conjecture based solely on measured, quantifiable evidence. Your cryogenics fantasy couldn't fall further from this standard. At the end of the day, you're simply displaying the sort of blind faith you criticize religion for.

 

[Engert]

You sound very rational Gahars (by missing the point again). This means that someday you will get a blue-collar respectable job where you will be respected by your peers on your rational decisions and your short 6-months projections on the department budget.
But all your other undoable projects will be handled by people like me. People like me who get 'renegade' in their review for not following company policy and for getting many written warnings in the HR file. The reason they don't fire people like me is because we do the undoable projects your department rejects, and sure we laugh in their face when we do it.
So if you don't mind i'm gonna go ahead and freeze myself when i die m'kay?
Just because you can't make the progress leap from Mars to cryogenics it's not my fault.
Now give me three Hail Marys and let's accept the status quo because faith in progress is worse than religion.

 

[Lacius]

Just because technology is advancing doesn't mean I have any sound reason to accept the claim, for example, that humans will someday have the technology to turn a ham into gold, or the humans will someday be able to revive people frozen using a flawed freezing technique that destroys the cells. To accept either of these claims would be an act of faith.

If/when the freezing and unfreezing processes are perfected, it will be because people used reason and evidence to figure out what works and what doesn't, and it will be because people worked around issues like cell-obliteration during freezing. It won't be because people chose to believe whatever they wanted despite the lack of reason/evidence, because those kinds of faith-based beliefs don't effectively serve as a foundation for progress. In fact, those kinds of beliefs hinder progress.

 

[Engert]

Just because technology is advancing doesn't mean I have any sound reason to accept the claim, for example, that humans will someday have the technology to turn a ham into gold.

Why not? Why don't you consider the possibility on this object (ham) which we can touch and smell of turning into gold? Why reject it right away because it doesn't make sense to us right now?

I say if you want to make a new battery that's dirt cheap, you start from dirt.

http://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy.html

 

[Lacius]

Why not? Why don't you consider the possibility on this object (ham) which we can touch and smell of turning into gold?

Is it possible that humans might someday be able to turn a ham into gold using knowledge I'm unaware of? Sure, just like it's possible that pixies exist. I very much consider the possibility. The problem is I have no reason to accept the claim that humans will one day be able to do it, and I have no reason to even think the laws of physics allow for it.

Why reject it right away because it doesn't make sense to us right now?

Because we don't accept claims until they have been demonstrated to be true through reason and evidence.

 

[Engert]

Lacius you have some serious problems thinking outside the box. Are you sure you're not gahars with another account? If we had people like you on the Moon team it would have never been done with the timeline Kennedy proposed. But everyone is different i guess and that's what makes the world more interesting. Everyone is good at something. Since you like to play it safe at everything, you'd be great at designing safety products. Airbags for example. Can you come up with a breakthrough airbag which pretty much saves you from any type of car crash?

 

[Lacius]

Lacius you have some serious problems thinking outside the box. Are you sure you're not gahars with another account? If we had people like you on the Moon team it would have never been done with the timeline Kennedy proposed. But everyone is different i guess and that's what makes the world more interesting. Everyone is good at something. Since you like to play it safe at everything, you'd be great at designing safety products. Airbags for example. Can you come up with a breakthrough airbag which pretty much saves you from any type of car crash?

My failure to accept the claim that, for example, someone can turn a ham into gold has nothing to do with me not "thinking outside the box." It's about using reason and evidence to believe as many true things as possible and as few false things as possible. And reason and evidence are how things like the moon-landing were accomplished.

 

[Prophet]

I'm with Engert on this one. Physics and biology be damned! If we never learn to popsicle people, just think of all those sci-fi movies that will have been proven wrong. Are you prepared to live in a world where there is a discrepancy between movie science and real world science? I for one, am not.

 

[Lacius]

I'm with Engert on this one. Physics and biology be damned! If we never learn to popsicle people, just think of all those sci-fi movies that will have been proven wrong. Are you prepared to live in a world where there is a discrepancy between movie science and real world science? I for one, am not.

If human freezing and unfreezing is ever figured out, it won't be because people said, "physics and biology be damned."

 

[Gahars]

My failure to accept the claim that, for example, someone can turn a ham into gold has nothing to do with me not "thinking outside the box." It's about using reason and evidence to believe as many true things as possible and as few false things as possible. And reason and evidence are how things like the moon-landing were accomplished.

Lacius, stop. The truth isn't sinking in.

Arguing with Engert is like arguing with a brick wall. No matter how compelling you make your argument, and no matter how well you present the facts, neither of them are going to budge.

 

[Prophet]

Physics and biology have had a good run, but ask yourself: what have they done for us lately? No hover cars, no time travel, no super powers caused by gamma-rays. Seriously science, wtf? It might be time to just start over. Science has failed to live up to the promised future that was depicted in movies and that is unacceptable in my opinion.

 

[Lacius]

Lacius, stop. The truth isn't sinking in.

Arguing with Engert is like arguing with a brick wall. No matter how compelling you make your argument, and no matter how well you present the facts, neither of them are going to budge.

I figured long before the airbag quip that he's only flamebaiting. Thanks for your concern though, Gahars.

 

[stomp_442]

Lacius you have some serious problems thinking outside the box.

I think you hit the nail on the head.

 

[Castiel]

Science has failed to live up to the promised future that was depicted in movies and that is unacceptable in my opinion.

What? Seriously? This is the argument you have? If you think movies are created in order to show us what the world will be like in 50 some years I think that you're missing the whole point of a movie, aka for entertainment purposes (unless you are watching a documentary. But even those have some appeal of interest in them). Just because it is depicted in a movie doesn't mean that it's going to become a thing...

I think you hit the nail on the head.

You guys seem to be missing the point of what Lacius and Gahars are saying. So I'll do my best to try and explain it. They aren't having troubles looking "outside the box." They accept the fact that it is a possibility that someday these things will become realistic. Lacius isn't shooting down the idea of freezing a human and unfreezing them years later because it's never going to happen; he is shooting it down because it is currently impossible. And investing money, especially $200,000 in something that is currently impossible is a waste of money.

 

[ZAFDeltaForce]

Why live when you can die?

Everyone dies, but not everyone lives.

That's good enough for me to keep on living.

 

[Prophet]

I see Poe's law is strong in this thread.