# Nightclubs in Heaven?

> I worry primarily about whether there are nightclubs in Heaven.
> 
> -Tom Waits

Nightclubs are a strange thing. Loud music, people crammed in amongst one another, they are usually physically uncomfortable. Spending the night in one involves a loss of sleep (and usually loss of one's senses via alcohol or similar substances). They are an experience remarkably unique to young folk.

I suspect the rationalist community aren't the biggest fans of them. But I think experiences like it are an interesting part of the human experience. There seem to be many things which are exclusively done by certain age demographics. What are the reasons?

*   Physiological? As we get older, people get less able to handle exhaustion and hangovers.
*   Cultural? Being over 35 in a nightclub is weird, and older people have more responsibilities.
*   Psychological? Something about the experience just stops resonating with older people.

As someone who's just past the "nightclub-heavy" portion of my life, it's genuinely quite spooky how quickly my preferences have changed.

Eternal Life and Eudaimonia
---------------------------

One of the cases I make for living forever, or at least a few billion years (to other young people, everyone I speak to over 35 seems to be onboard with it) is this: you imagine a world where everyone is old, but with immortality, everyone is young; in fact everyone is younger than the youngest people now, because they have more years left. But I'm not 100% sure about this. 

Years left and years spent are confounded in our current existence. Old people and young people differ due to a mixture of both. But what happens when both are centuries?

(This might be a moot point. With AGI we might have enormous control over our psychology, but on the other hand I suspect meddling with our psychology is one of the riskiest things we can do as a species.)

One of the differences is that old people have made more mistakes than young people. This is one of the most noticeable differences between $me_{2021}$ and $me_{2016}$. Some of these aren't worth repeating, but a great many mistakes people make in their youths are basically harmless and very entertaining (and I am no exception).

Eudaimonia is a word which comes up a lot with regards to this sort of discussion. There is a potential failure mode of humanity which slowly dissolves into boredom.

Biology and Society
-------------------

I do have hope here. This is not one of my biggest worries about the future of humanity. Ageing might change our psychology because of some fact of biology. Maybe a society of biologically-25-year-olds will still be as entertaining as regular-25-year-olds without all the worst aspects of young folk.

Or maybe it's mostly cultural. We are "expected" by "society" to behave in certain ways. I suspect a coordinated humanity could - and would - change things in the face of eternal life. I know of older people who have realized "society" no longer holds sway over them. I sometimes wish people could remember this for the period between 16 and 60 as well.

Preferences and Meta-Preferences
--------------------------------

Are these preferences the same sort of thing as ageing related belief changes? If I know I'll have different political beliefs at age 30, there's a strong argument for changing them immediately. I wouldn't want to go back to having the same preferences I did when I was 10, for example. 

So is the following the case?

*   20-year-olds have 20-year-old preferences (nightclubs) and 20-year-old meta-preferences (wanting people, including themselves to want nightclubs).
*   60-year-olds have 60-year-old preferences and 60-year-old meta-preferences.

Or:

*   20-year-olds have 20-year-old preferences and a static meta-preference which points towards their current preferences.
*   60-year-olds have 60-year-old preferences and a static meta-preference which points towards their current preferences.

I don't think so, I think lots of older people, given the option, would go back to having 20-year-old preferences. So are 20-year-old preferences "better" in some sense?

This is perhaps evidence for the "society" view of psychological ageing. But it's not very strong at all.

* * *

So what's the conclusion? Would eternal life require a rewrite of the human code? Or will we end up eternally dull? I don't know, and I think it's something worth bringing attention to. I know the future I'd want, and it's not one where the only fun is bridge and golf.

> I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
> 
> -Tom Waits

But maybe $me_{2021}$ shouldn't choose the entertainment for my millionth birthday party just yet.