immortality: how would things change?

let's say for a moment that we found the cure for death. it could come in many forms, like greatly improved medical science, or a complete understanding of the human brain so we can upload ourselves to artificial bodies. or some other way. who cares.

how would things change? that might be a broad question, so i'll toss out a few others to get the ball rolling.

1. would you still support the inherent right to reproduction? here's the thing: death is pretty much half the reason why overpopulation doesn't happen. the other half is not having kids in the first place. with death "cured," we're going to be looking at a humongous population explosion if people still keep having children. we could literally burn all of earth's resources in a single generation... since that one generation of people could be having an unlimited number of children.

2. ownership. would you still support the right to property, or the idea of money? a good chunk of power gets passed on from generation to generation. when you have power, it's easy to get more power. a rich guy can easily invest more money into more options and get richer faster than a poor guy. good thing people die and distribute these things and spread it out among their children.

3. employment and credentials. how would this even work in an immortal society? some new jobs are created when new industries are created, sure. but the majority of new job openings are created when someone dies, quits, or retires. if someone's fit to work indefinitely, they're not going to die or retire. on top of that, why would anyone hire someone inexperienced when you have dozens of other candidates with, say, 200+ years of work experience? how will children find any new jobs, other than attempt to create new businesses for themselves to compete against giant mega-corporations?

 

this is a tough one, but if a *cure* for death was found, i believe it should be destroyed imediatly.

 

why? simply because it's new and different, and you're scared of what it entails?

what if it's just advancing medical science? we can expect to live 100 years now, maybe our grandchildren can expect to live to 150. what if it just naturally progresses... 175, 200, and eventually we find out it's unlimited? and it's not just one single technology? if "destroying" the technology also means destroying the cure to cancer, AIDS, general surgical techniques... etc?

let's face it, the "cure" to diseases that plagued mankind wasn't a single invention. it was clean water, sewage, and available food more than anything.

 

We are meant to die, if we do not, then we aren't natural anymore. We are already trying to play God enough, we dont need something like ethat to come around. imagine if hitler was immortal, i doubt any of us would like some one like that living indefinatly.

 

funny, the "playing god" argument has been around ever since... i dunno, irrigation. i think that's the silliest reason i've ever heard. in any case, technology marches on. those who refuse to use it will die out, and those who embrace it continue to live. it'll happen regardless. might as well prepare for it.

hell, at one point people thought the machine gun was such a destructive weapon it would be the weapon to end all wars.

 

But we know better then that now, atom slicing is the way to go. However, people have to die, its so life can move on, without it were stuck. Anyway we already have a form of immortality, you just have to make sure you're remembered.

 

books can burn. who knows how many stories we've lost over the ages? besides, only a very tiny percentage of people get to be famous enough to be remembered even 20 years down the road. today's superstars are nobodies tomorrow. it's not exactly fair.

immortality is an instinctive desire that people will strive for.

 

if people are immortals it would be sad, you know why????, first all people in the world will continue to populate, second people will be bored for the people they always saw, in life there is always a cycle and that cycle is exciting.

 

well, it kinda depends on our technological level at the time. If we are at the current level, do not use it, except maybe on the researchers, but only so they dont get pissed. If we have terraforming, it could be combined with birth regulations. if we have hyperspace, we should be okay for the next few thousand years without birth regulations. If we are at the 'OMG, it's bigger on the outside phase' we are okay for a few million years.

beyond that, i think suicide rates would be a lot higher. And suicide would be more socially acceptable since its the only way out

 

lol, if suicide rates are the only possible way to die, then suicide rates will be 100%, eventually. just like the death rate is 100% for anything, given enough time.

 

i assumed the immortality thing only included not dying by natural causes.

When you include non-natural causes, every crazy cult will try to overthrow an alien planet and succeed, since they cant die anyways

 

If we can't die does that mean we do not need to eat or drink anymore? Cause then the need for food and water to drink will be a thing of the past. And a good thing too. Because people will not stop breeding if they lived forever. And that means all these births and no deaths to keep the population numbers under control. So with the population expansion there'd be less free land for things like animal habitats. And less trees to make us oxygen to breathe. But since we are immortal we don't need oxygen anymore as death by no oxygen would be gone.

So in short the Earth would become a place very colonised. Everywhere major cities to cater for the booming populations. And what is left including the skies would be very polluted as no one would care as it would not kill us anymore. So in short we'd trash our planet. Till the day we get enough technology to move to another planet and trash it too. And that'd be humans just moving from planet to planet trashing them all along the way.

And on another note this says nothing about experiencing pain. For example some cruel fellow sould torture another and you'd never die from it. But be in a constant agnoy from it. Same as disease etc. They all could change/cripple/disfigure you completely. To a point where it's a life not worth living anymore. But you can't kill yourself to get away because death is gone.

Really that's a pretty messed up idea. Something I do not want to be a part of.

 

Actually, one of my friends theorized that the reason for aging and death is to cycle through genes until we evolve into a "perfect form", at which point there'd be no need for those. Of course this only means you don't die from age.

 

The cycling of genes for the "perfect form" only applies if the most desirable genes are passed on through natural selection. And seeing as how someone in this day and age who has less then desirable genes can survive and pass them on anyways, that idea's out the window.

And I would imagine that a foreseeable form of immortality would be the prevention of aging through nanomachines in a person's body. Then if one wanted to die, one would only need to turn off their nanomachines and age naturally until they die.

 

also, there's no such thing as "perfect genes." you can be extremely specialized for a very specific place (meaning your genes would be nigh-useless outside of that specialty) or you can be "good" in all-purpose situations.

of course, one way around that is to get rid of the genes thing altogether and go with artificial bodies or something.

 

By immortal do you mean immortal from old age? Or immortal from old age and getting shot in the head? Because those are two very different things, which lead to two very different answers.

If we're immortal from old age, I just say we shoot all the useless people in our society (which is a lot) and keep all the contributors. That way the stupid people are gone. Hunh... this reminds me of an episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Dewey was making a mini-city and said that everyone is smart, but if you're born stupid, you get killed.

If we're immortal from being killed as well as old age, we'll overpopulate the world unless we end up like the people in the movie Children of Men where it's a 100% infertility rate. Of course, we could again kill off the stupid people by forcing them to starve.

Wow I just realized what I wrote. I'm evil. I'm making allusions to things... What's happening to me?!!?!?

 

i kind of decided to leave that open to interpretation. it depends on where technology leads us. if we could make backup brains, for instance, you COULD "survive" getting shot in the head and only lose a day's worth of memories or something. if it's just prolonging life indefinitely (i.e. still vulnerable to traffic accidents and such) then everybody will probably still die eventually via some kind of accident. you can't be supremely lucky for thousands of years, no matter how careful you are...

 

The prevention and reversal of the aging process will be the greatest milestone in human medical science in the history of our existence. I hope it emerges in my life time!

 

sadly...

 

Lol funny comic, but I am not seeing the point of it.