>>1346
(continued reply)
> If we can lose millions of men to war and move on just fine without them, how will any society be driven to be negatively impacted by thousands of men withdrawing from society while contributing to their economies and paying into their tax systems?
Ask Japan. Fuck ask much of the developed world, dealing with population shrinkage will be one of the great issues of the 21 century.
Will society always relegate men, as long as they are human, probably. I can't change society, but I can change myself, maybe help a handful of others who also seek enlightenment. I sit here under the Bodhi Tree and you may join me if you want, or you can move on.
>I am not concerned about the copy paradox of a copy existing at the same time as its original. I mean to say that the copy literally is not the original, and thus a copy is not a form of defeating the mortality of the original. Whether the original dies in the process of copying or not is irrelevant - the original has still been terminated and replaced with a copy. The copy is not the self. It is not the same consciousness. It is not defeating death in this way.
This is a philosophical debate, but you have already died. You see your body changes out new cells all the time, new neural pathways grow that replace old/broken/dead ones, you may have memories of who you were once, but those memories are plastic and continually decay and morph as new pathways replace old ones. Years later, with enough experiences and learning, you have become a new person, you are not the same consciousness as that person, that person is died.
Death comes in many forms, some of which are inevitable and immutable. The cheats for death are all limited in one way or another. Having children is only an extension of genes, sure we can brainwash children with our own ideals, try to program a bit of our consciousness into them, but don't even get me started on how poorly that works.
Now a copy of your mind, every neuron, every synapse, that thinks it is you, in an immortal form, is certainly a better means of immortality then children. You may argue that it is only a copy, but it better then no copy.