immortality: how would things change?

You remind me of the type of person that has a realisation of some sort, and sets out into the world to make it happen, stepping on anyone and everyone in their way, crushing any moral or religious argument against it to achieve your goal.

Yes you are playing God, lot's of people love to play their own God, make their own rules create their own world and encourge others to embrace their own vision.

Immortality changes nothing, wars need to be fought, accidents will occur and people will still be lost. We can't even look after our own populations without enough problems do you think immortality would change anything?

People would need better life insurance, real insurance, real security. The threat of terrorism will be much greater considering the loss of a loved one wouldn't be considered a 'normal' factor of life anymore. Working classes could not operate the way they do if everyone has a realistic expectation to one day become the CEO of their company.

Not to mention the fees it would cost for such immortality to be provided and maintained, I expect as much that only the wealthy could afford to maintain immortality at first, people would have many careers during their lives, many hobbies etc.

Music, art, media may not change at it;s current rate, we may find that the design and application of new products and devices may not be as wide-spread as they are as the majority of people lack new ideas or simply don't see things the younger generation would.

Would kids still be born? Would society allow people to 'expire'? Would you see fund rasing tv ads to support people dieing from OLD AGE?

Immortality means that you have more time for an already short life, nothing more. Everyone will die sooner or later.

 

yes, i'll have to agree with that. in fact, i'll clarify:

- the "realization" i've had, with regards to this argument, is that medical (and other) sciences will continue to improve. at some point in the future, people might not have to worry about natural deaths any more. at some point farther in the future, we may not have to worry about death, period.

- what i'm setting out to do is to prepare for such an eventuality. i don't like sitting around and waiting for the problem to arrive before i start thinking of solutions. thinking doesn't hurt, even if it's a few centuries too early, it's still a fun exercise.

- the people who i like to step on are people who somehow believe that thinking does hurt, and simply choose to close their eyes. they honestly believe the "what you don't know can't hurt you" mantra. for example, you said:

you think things won't change? if we can't look after our own populations without all the problems we have today, what happens when everyone can expect to live much longer? unemployment rates will shoot up if people stop retiring from "old age." and how about crime? if people commit major, non-violent crimes these days, they can expect to get out of prison after sacrificing 10% of their lifespan. what if that's suddenly become 1% of their lifespan? that means the punishment just becomes a slap on the wrist in the long run. do we increase prison sentences? that means we need more prisons, meaning more taxes to keep them running. you'd be a fool to think any major revolution will solve all of society's problems, and you'd be a bigger fool not to realize they'd introduce a hundred more.

 

I never mentioned anything about revolutions solving problems, like I said long term nothing will really change. Being in jail may mean little if you only lose half or less of your total life span, but keep in mind a criminal record could destroy the persons life period.

I don't think this is a case of "what you don't know can't hurt you" more of "what won't occur cannot hurt me". I think there are moral implications with such immortality, but I like sci-fi and the concept of immortality in a society seems interesting enough.

But at the end of the day if I think hard enough about it, I can say 100% I would not have any desire to have said immortality or to live in a society with immortality. Got nothing to do with me being closed minded, I;m open to the subject but I can see problems with such a concept.

 

I think that if there was a 'miracle drug' that was making Human's immortal, then I think to punish Criminals, maybe take their immortality away? Also, I think immortality would be a great thing. It would also probably urge scientists to discover a way to terraform other planets also.

Everyone knows how in China you can only have one child? Maybe they would just do that everywhere, so to keep the population lower than it would be with no restrictions. Sure, if you couldn't die by old age, there is still everyday accidents, wars, terrorism etc, but those still don't happen to everyone, so I'm sure that people would still live to several hundred, if not several thousand years.

 

As far as I can see, immortality can be a blessing, but just as easily a curse. Yes you will get to see and do everything you wanted, but what about for the next 1000 years? Or the next 10000 years? I remember hearing something similar to that from an argument about eternity in heaven, saying that eventually your life would become devoid of purpose.

If one could truly live for eternity/be immortal to everything, eventually you would run out of things to fill your time with.

The only way I could see people becoming truly immortal(immune from hunger, physical injury, etc) would be from some form or robotic body with the ability to be extremely durable, immune to any form of electrical interference, and able to self repair any level of damage, no matter how severe. As such, I really can't see that as a possibility since if the controlling unit got damaged/destroyed, the body would be unable to repair it effectively enough without some other controller within to regulate and control repairs while the main brain is gone.

Even if it was possible, the body would still need some form of energy to run itself, which would most likely be some form or deviation of solar power, unless personal sized nuclear plants become available. In which, even both of those would need to be replaced eventually and could become victim to severe damage and cease functioning.

 

I'd rather be immortal... and I'll die if/when I choose to. And I'd happily give up the right to reproduction for immortality.

 

Right to reproduction: if all of society is immortal, then, yeah, reproduction would have to be limited if not completely halted. If it is just a fraction of society, and an immortal's children are mortal, then I don't see it being necessary.

Ownership: If all of society is immortal, and reproduction is limited, ownership shouldn't be a problem. Finite population, finite resources, no big deal. Skilled immortals might accumulate more wealth over time, but that's not really a problem in and of itself. It's certainly not a problem we don't already have to deal with. Instead of money staying with family, it will stay with one person- the one that earned it in the first place. If anything that's a better situation overall.

Jobs: If population is limited, as before, no big deal. If it isn't, still no big deal- the immortals would be a minority. They would be able to take the highest-skilled jobs, but there are countless other jobs where they would be overqualified- where their skill would suggest they be paid much more than a less-skilled person would take. Now, an immortal might opt to take lower pay, thus putting the less-skilled person out of a job, but guess what? Stuff like that happens without immortality.

In all, immortality, like anything else, would not pose any problems that couldn't be solved, if not embraced, by a well-adjusted society.

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Some people would go insane if they were immortal. If you think immortality would suck after 10,000 years, just because you've done everything, you're probably one of them.

To be a happy immortal, you probably have to be a happy mortal, one that takes joy in life, can smile at common things that they see day-to-day. What do you think about trees? Are they mind-bogglingly amazing, or are they just, you know, trees? The answer to that would probably be closely related to your ability to deal with immortality.

In Combat Arms (a game), most guns you can buy only last a finite period of time before you lose them and you have to buy another. If you want a gun that lasts forever, you have to fork out a bunch of money for it. Nexon (the company that makes the game) makes money hand and fist by selling permanent guns, but when people get them, it turns out that having a gun you never have to pay for again is quite a lot like having a gun you pay for every month. In fact, many players make a big deal about permanent weapons, but never even realize that the game starts you with a whole set of permanent weapons.

Immortality would be like that. A mortal could talk to an immortal, and ask, "what is it like to be immortal?" And he would answer, "it's a lot like what it is like to be mortal, except you aren't".

 

If this did happen we would face a lot of serious problems. Mainly over population, and this could cause an untold problems. I mean if everyone in the world stopped dieing then we would need to find a method of deep space travel ASAP. If not there would be massive food shortages, lack of medical supplies, increase in crime, and any resource in general wouldn't be plentiful enough. This plus we would be hard pressed to find room to produce these resources as the people would need a place to live. We would run out of room on earth very quickly.

 

holy ****, this might happen sooner than i thought:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/201...tic-organisms-molecular-kill-switch-included/

ok, so they're not doing controlled human breeding or human test subjects, but still, US military funding on directing evolution towards "resistance to death." wow. shame they're only getting $6 million. that's a tiny budget for what they want to achieve.

 

Yes and then the US millitary inject this resistance to death in all their soldiers. And then just wait 150 years. And all of what they consider to be the enemy would be dead from old age. It'd be a war won without bloodshed.

 

Yeah... except the enemy would just keep training new soldiers? Like they do for over 150 years already?

 

You will always need some kind of ressource to sustain yourself.
You can´t live without anything. Becuause then, if you not did use any kind of ressource, you could not talk, move breathe or anything. In short, as alive a stone.
Therefore, i believe we maybe, maybe can be immortal from "old age" which is heart problems, lung dysfunctionalities and so on. But you could always be starved to death or beaten, since you need to reproduce cells if you scrabe your knee.

 

That has to be one of the most retarded concepts I've ever heard. Directing Evolution?
A process we have thus far not been able to test or even observe, and they want to try directing it...

Sorry but if the US Army want their soldiers to live longer they need to get rid of their heavy specialisation and bother to TRAIN their men to do more than 2 - 3 tasks in their job descriptions.

The ability to kill people at the molecular level is what I would be more concerned about, because thats where this research is really going to go towards.

 

Yes I guess directing it would be silly - oh wait! We did that for thousands of years now! Oops:

 

There's more to evolution than just genetics - there is a cultural component to it aswell.

Like with the Higgs' bananas. The banana is adapting to human preference, since humans play a big role in the 'natural' selection of which banana survives and gets propogated.

The modern banana survives because it has a symbiotic relationship with humanity, who clears land and plants lots of banana trees, giving it premium growing space that it may struggle to achieve by other means.

If humanity were not part of the equation, the banana may not be sufficiently adapted to cope with survival and procreation as well as it's ancestors.

The symbiosis works both ways, but the reverse direction is perhaps not as obvious: Humans are pleased with the banana, which is an arbitrary psychological construct. The preference for farming the banana survives culturally, by being handed down from one generation to the next. By adapting to human pleasure, look what it has achieved for itself!

 

so the banana is actually an evil genius?

 

That was a close one though. I almost started worrying that we have a creationist on board.

 

You're obsessed with religion Higgs.

 

The last banana i tried to eat was all bruised and when i tried to open the top it just squashed so i had to open it with a knife but eventually decided it was not worth eating it since it looked (and tasted) quite sickly.

Wish god created my banana instead of some slack jawed yokels (Queenslanders) =/

In other banana related news (Oh wait this thread is about immortality) they've known how to stop the ageing process for a while. Its just all the mice they try it on get cancer and die...ageing gradually is our natural defence against cancer so its gonna be tricky to stop it. Damn you evolution and your total disregard for sentient (banana eating) beings!

 

Thank you man, I love you! :yes:

Sorry people, you have to forgive me. But I as a scientific person found it "very natural" to play God, because I'm simply in control. If I'm not in control, then I do learn, which is natural, too. So? So I'm a God and many others are Gods, too. Just religions are not smart enough to understand the truth. Sorry again, and sorry for the hard words, but I have found that religious people are very stupid. Well, Albert Einstein once said: "I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion."

Bill Gates isn't a religious person either. But look how much power he has. I can only agree that one day, with the help of advancing science, the cure against old age, will be found. I just have to wonder whether Aura Research could help. I have to admit that I would love to see Aura Research to crush todays religions and answer all the questions: Who, where, and what is God? Or: How to become old age immortal?

I have to wonder, if science finds a cure against old age. So, show such great power over life. Which is God like. What will religions say and do?