Written by a guy. Misses the most obvious remedy: Regular vacuuming.
(And since that isn’t as cool as shopping for a particle counter, I guess the number of HN readers who will happily die a few days earlier is going to be much higher than the comment section would suggest. Ray Kurzweil happily downs his pills in order to live forever. But I doubt he vacuums his bedroom. Just doesn’t go that well with the whole futuristic life hacker theme. ;))
With all the modern-day stigma surrounding superstition, somehow I'm still always surprising to encounter people who actually believe in fatalism.
Maybe it's the (IMO poor) technical name? It sounds like it refers to death, but it's actually about the concept of fate. I think this misdirect greatly impedes access to that part of philosophical knowledge.
You're overthinking it. Fatalism has nothing to do with it.
I suppose "To die at my time" means to stop worrying about everything that can potentially harm you, enjoy life, and die whenever your body feels like it. I'm not going to stop eating sugar to save a theoretical year or two, and I'm not going to buy all kinds of air purifiers to save a few theoretical minutes of life or whatever the article says.
What difference does it make if I die at 70 or at 90? Why search so much to prolong life? The value of my life is not measured by its length.
I think you must be very young to make that last point. Basically you are saying that your whole retirement life will have no value. As someone who will probably retire in 10 or 15 years, I definitely hope to have a reasonably long and healthy retirement to enjoy. That being said, I'm not going to go to extreme measures like avoiding all sugar (which are scientifically dubious in any case)
You missed where I point out that "fatalism" is not about "fatal" (it's about "fate") and I hypothesized that this misunderstanding causes people to overlook knowledge that might guard against those superstitious beliefs. Thanks for proving my point. ;-D
If you genuinely subscribe to such fatalistic beliefs, I presume you never look both ways to cross the road? Maybe you make an exception in that case, but then why wouldn't that same logic apply to other risk mitigating behaviors? Why the special pleading?
The only rational basis is cost vs. benefit, which the article addresses. This bogus "fate vs. thwarting fate" argument is always applied inconsistently, as a way to justify preexisting personal bias.
(And since that isn’t as cool as shopping for a particle counter, I guess the number of HN readers who will happily die a few days earlier is going to be much higher than the comment section would suggest. Ray Kurzweil happily downs his pills in order to live forever. But I doubt he vacuums his bedroom. Just doesn’t go that well with the whole futuristic life hacker theme. ;))