Facing Mortality

[Kyriakos]

I keep reading the title of the thread as "facing moriarty"

 

[AmazonQueen]

Finding a way to avoid this is kind of the point of the discussion in his case. The idea is that age doesn't lead to decrepitude and death. I'm not sure to what extent that is even attainable, but it's a useful goal.

There has to be some prioritising though. A lot of things will extend lifespan without that being their main aim which is fine but as a priority I'd say extending lifespan should be pretty low atm
My parents were lucky. They were that generation that grew up just after the war when economies were expanding rapidly and social mobility was greater than ever before and greater than it is now.
I've been pretty lucky too and I think I'll be dead before the entire system collapses but my children? Will they be grateful for their extended and ever extending lifespans if they are working longer, environmental degredation is hitting hard, and our health and social care systems have collapsed?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There has to be some prioritising though. A lot of things will extend lifespan without that being their main aim which is fine but as a priority I'd say extending lifespan should be pretty low atm
My parents were lucky. They were that generation that grew up just after the war when economies were expanding rapidly and social mobility was greater than ever before and greater than it is now.
I've been pretty lucky too and I think I'll be dead before the entire system collapses but my children? Will they be grateful for their extended and ever extending lifespans if they are working longer, environmental degredation is hitting hard, and our health and social care systems have collapsed?

Not everyone works on the same things, so it's not like we have to ignore those problems to work on aging/death. Regardless, death is a pretty big cause of suffering and knowledge loss in its own right. I don't have some master list of priorities that theoretically optimize the human species, but I suspect you're actually underselling the benefits of removing "old age" as a major contributor to death.

For example, if you're still around and in good health 60 years from now, what's stopping you from helping to address one of those problem factors? What if our greatest scientific minds from the 20th century were also all still alive and well? I find assertions that we'd be worse off with such technology unconvincing at best.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Not everyone works on the same things, so it's not like we have to ignore those problems to work on aging/death. Regardless, death is a pretty big cause of suffering and knowledge loss in its own right. I don't have some master list of priorities that theoretically optimize the human species, but I suspect you're actually underselling the benefits of removing "old age" as a major contributor to death.

For example, if you're still around and in good health 60 years from now, what's stopping you from helping to address one of those problem factors? What if our greatest scientific minds from the 20th century were also all still alive and well? I find assertions that we'd be worse off with such technology unconvincing at best.

If you look at where we are spending money well we are ignoring those problems and extending lifespan is making them worse.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

what is the worth of infinite life when it becomes equal parts tedium, stupor and suffering? how many people can this planet realistically support before life is unenjoyable for everyone? will we just revert to utter escapism like a voluntary simulation? it seems the more I ponder the idea of neverending life the more it effaces itself as not just horrible, but blatantly damaging and selfish.

population growth is already exponentials with us passing like flies. how much faster would it accelerate when people suddenly stop dieing? I genuinely believe that we don't even need to live forever, it would already be sufficient for India, the entirety of Africa, and every other country to have medical support as good as Europe for the world to become overpopulated in no time.

For example, if you're still around and in good health 60 years from now, what's stopping you from helping to address one of those problem factors? What if our greatest scientific minds from the 20th century were also all still alive and well? I find assertions that we'd be worse off with such technology unconvincing at best.

the same thing that is stopping 99,9% of the world population from not engaging in environmental/social activism, being that people fundamentally don't give a **** about anyone else, nor this planet (and I don't even exclude myself for that, after all I support the superstructure that makes the exploitation of the planet possible. cnvenience is just overpowering, it's one of the strongest forces.)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you look at where we are spending money well we are ignoring those problems and extending lifespan is making them worse.

On the other hand, people have more incentive to consider long-reaching consequences when those consequences will matter to them directly.

Consider the issue of climate. 60 year old random corporate dude might plausibly believe that whatever comes of this, he'll be long gone before it impacts him enough to matter. Same for someone who is mostly retired and working part time as a cashier or something.

This takes on a new lens if both of these people consider the very real possibility that choices regarding it could lead directly to it killing them outright. I would anticipate this to have a non-trivial impact on the way policies get set.

It wouldn't fix the world by itself, but it's worth doing if we can do it.

what is the worth of infinite life when it becomes equal parts tedium, stupor and suffering? how many people can this planet realistically support before life is unenjoyable for everyone?

We're also given the question: if offered eternal life (even with 0 strings attached), what % of people take it? I suspect not 100%, but am not sure how close to 100% we'd get.

If overpopulation is the issue you could have laws like "immortal = can't have kids" or some such. Coupled with laws similar to China's humans could throw the brakes on population growth pretty significantly.

Also noteworthy is that this is one of a few solutions to interstellar travel and conveniently one that doesn't need to violate physics as we understand it. It doesn't matter if it takes 150 years to reach somewhere if you live 5,000+ and actually have a means to sustain the energy required to make the trip. Just in case overpopulation happens to require new places or something.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

(tmit i am not directly responding to you, even if it seems like that, just venting ITT because your post caused me to think, pls don't see this is an attack )

if immortality means not having kids then earth would literally be one big giant circlejerk of people that, after enough time passes, know each other. that is utterly depressing. what makes this world interesting is how it embraces and rejects change. imagine your family dynamics if you know you're stuck with these people for all eternity. imagine marriages, friendships.. how are they even in any way significant if everything is everlasting? how can you put up with anyone, especially yourself, for an eternity? how can you put up with life for an eternity? after some time, I want to see what else there is. there may be more than life, and being immortal means you will never get to experience that.

that new ideas come along, often purpoted by new generations that throw everything their parents believe in out of the window. i deeply believe that at some point, everyone just has to go. like when you're visiting a friend there is a window of acceptability:

you can stay for this long, but stay longer and it becomes weird, you become a nuissance. how long are we allowed to "visit" this planet before it's just too long? or, expressed in a different way: what right do you have to live, compared to the infinitude of people who are not even conceived yet? why should you be allowed to live on while infinite potential lifes are not realized yet? why wouldn't everyone get some time, like some big cosmic egalitarian lottery, that he has very little control over? it seems an imperfect, yet the best solution so far.

why do YOU get to breathe air, pollute water, kill animals, take up living space, over someone else, someone who might or might not be born already? isn't it so obvious that it's utterly arbitrary? what is your cosmic significance that you deserve an infinite spot in this everchanging manifestation of cosmic dust? is your life really that important that you should go on to live forever while literal millions of genealogies never get to see the light of the world because of your selfishness?

old death and new life has always been the driving motor of change in the world. imagine, for a second, what would happen with our economic and political system, if immortality was available. how much better could corruption foster? how much more influence could a group of like-minded people attain? how will we ever have new paradigms if no one is scared of any consequences anymore? immortal people can be locked up. they can be tortured. they can be silenced. they can be beaten. immortal dictators, however, cannot be assassinated. what're you gonna do, shoot me? too bad.. all structures will become more crusty, solidify themselves.

old money? all money is old money now. there is no inheritance. if you're rich, like really rich, chances are you can live off of the money you already have forever, or at least until the economy collapses. of course there are workarounds for these particular issues, just pointing out how vital death is for our systems (of redistribution of power, wealth etc.) to function at all.

do you ever notice how people's personality changes significantly as they get older? no, it's not just alzheimers. we are, to a great part, what we do and what we experience. people have the opportunity to change their ways every goddamn second of their life, but do they? most don't. most carry on as they always did. in fact, I think most people hardly if ever change their voting or consumer patterns, unless outside influences change significantly. I know from personal experience many old people that keep voting for a party they hate and don't even believe in anymore, just because it's what they always did.

We're also given the question: if offered eternal life (even with 0 strings attached), what % of people take it? I suspect not 100%, but am not sure how close to 100% we'd get.

If overpopulation is the issue you could have laws like "immortal = can't have kids" or some such. Coupled with laws similar to China's humans could throw the brakes on population growth pretty significantly.

Also noteworthy is that this is one of a few solutions to interstellar travel and conveniently one that doesn't need to violate physics as we understand it. It doesn't matter if it takes 150 years to reach somewhere if you live 5,000+ and actually have a means to sustain the energy required to make the trip. Just in case overpopulation happens to require new places or something.

very good question, and one I actually hadn't thought about too much. surely a decent amount of people would reject, i mean after all a decent amount of people already reject being kept alive artifically after an accident or such!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Certainly not an attack in either direction! Some interesting thoughts though.

if immortality means not having kids then earth would literally be one big giant circlejerk of people that, after enough time passes, know each other. that is utterly depressing. what makes this world interesting is how it embraces and rejects change. imagine your family dynamics if you know you're stuck with these people for all eternity. imagine marriages, friendships.. how are they even in any way significant if everything is everlasting?

How are they significant if everything *isn't* everlasting? Why should such significance change, what are you even using to determine significance?

We don't know what this actually looks like. Maybe people move on, in contrast to current society/culture, after 200 years or something and just associate with whoever they feel like at the time.

Unless we're also upgrading our minds, a lot, I don't think we have the capacity to remember several billion unique people. I struggle to remember significant details about people I knew 20 years ago as acquaintances, and their experiences would render them very different people to interact with now. Why would we anticipate this not being true in the hypothetical scenario of immortality?

that new ideas come along, often purpoted by new generations that throw everything their parents believe in out of the window. i deeply believe that at some point, everyone just has to go.

So you say, but I see no reason it's a self-evident conclusion (unless you're asserting heat death of universe, I don't have an answer for that one). Also, it may well be the case that if we introduce immortality after X amount of time people WANT to go and do so on their own terms. Sounds horrific to today's conception of life/death, but maybe a 1200 year old feels differently?

why do YOU get to breathe air, pollute water, kill animals, take up living space, over someone else, someone who might or might not be born already? isn't it so obvious that it's utterly arbitrary? what is your cosmic significance that you deserve an infinite spot in this everchanging manifestation of cosmic dust? is your life really that important that you should go on to live forever while literal millions of genealogies never get to see the light of the world because of your selfishness?

What *isn't* arbitrary? The existence of distant future lives isn't a foregone conclusion, even if we don't develop immortality. The way quoted paragraph reads, choosing not to have children is necessarily selfishness because one is denying non-existent people a chance at living. But even if we consider that, who are we to say these future lives should be prioritized over those already living? It's a strange position to take. People living now are also experiencing already and can already influence future choice...one of the few non-arbitrary distinctions in considering this.

old death and new life has always been the driving motor of change in the world.

That's not true actually, Earth predates life on Earth by a wide margin. Even more so for the universe.

imagine, for a second, what would happen with our economic and political system, if immortality was available. how much better could corruption foster? how much more influence could a group of like-minded people attain? how will we ever have new paradigms if no one is scared of any consequences anymore? immortal people can be locked up. they can be tortured. they can be silenced. they can be beaten. immortal dictators, however, cannot be assassinated. what're you gonna do, shoot me?

The answer is that we don't know. I was thinking more of a "no aging/natural death" world by the way, not literal immortality where you can shoot someone 50 times or throw them into the sun and they don't die. I consider the former far more likely, and it spares us outlandish considerations like "everyone is immortal and doesn't need to eat and can't be killed no matter what". Incentives under such a model are hard to predict, I'll give you that, but I also don't think we're all becoming such literal gods even if we stop aging.

do you ever notice how people's personality changes significantly as they get older? no, it's not just alzheimers. we are, to a great part, what we do and what we experience. people have the opportunity to change their ways every goddamn second of their life, but do they? most don't. most carry on as they always did. in fact, I think most people hardly if ever change their voting or consumer patterns, unless outside influences change significantly. I know from personal experience many old people that keep voting for a party they hate and don't even believe in anymore, just because it's what they always did.

How much of these changes are physiological properties of decline? You're making some assumptions we can't reasonably make.

very good question, and one I actually hadn't thought about too much. surely a decent amount of people would reject, i mean after all a decent amount of people already reject being kept alive artifically after an accident or such!

Maybe everyone rejects eventually, or maybe only a small % do. I have no idea. I know from talking to various people that most told me they would reject the offer if they were offered immortality individually. Well over half, probably over 3/4 of the people I've asked answered that way.

Not me. If I'm given such an offer and it's legit (big IF on that one) I'd take it.

 

[El_Machinae]

If I expect to be dead before any of the consequences of my selfishness bear fruit, why would I care about those consequences?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If I expect to be dead before any of the consequences of my selfishness bear fruit, why would I care about those consequences?

You wouldn't, and you shouldn't. What you should be concerned about is the selfishness.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Another question I want to bring into the discussion: How do you think our society would look like if there were literally no young people around? No children, no teens, no mid 30s, nothing of the sort? Like, no one below a few thousand years? Because this is where the no aging/immortality scenario is ultimately heading, innit? I personally find a world without children horrible, but I'm sure others might like it.

If I expect to be dead before any of the consequences of my selfishness bear fruit, why would I care about those consequences?

it's this kind of mentality that has brought us global warming, economic catastrophe and bloody wars. not everyone is a nihilist, you know. some people don't even have kids, yet still devote their entire life for the betterment of humanities future. it's called altruism.


1. Certainly not an attack in either direction! Some interesting thoughts though.

agreed

2. How are they significant if everything *isn't* everlasting? Why should such significance change, what are you even using to determine significance?

a marriage is significant because our time on earth is our most precious and most sparse ressource (therefore it is signifcant imho, just like clean water, air, and living space are, because we know for a fact that those are limited, at least right now). making the decision to spend most of your time with one person is perhaps the single biggest commitment we as humans can make.

3. We don't know what this actually looks like. Maybe people move on, in contrast to current society/culture, after 200 years or something and just associate with whoever they feel like at the time.

absolutely true, it's just wild speculation. we have no idea how the human mind would cope with being alive for that long. maybe people utterly need the change after 200 years and decide to develop a completely different person via a sort of ego-death. I'd say that's not unlikely.

4. Unless we're also upgrading our minds, a lot, I don't think we have the capacity to remember several billion unique people. I struggle to remember significant details about people I knew 20 years ago as acquaintances, and their experiences would render them very different people to interact with now. Why would we anticipate this not being true in the hypothetical scenario of immortality?

I don't actually mean knowing every single person on earth, I doubt we can remember more than a few thousand people properly, but rather what I was trying to say is that without sufficient change there is no novelty, or at least no feeling of novelty, which is just as important. however consider the above point of people essentially reinventing themselves, which could clear up the issue somewhat.

5. So you say, but I see no reason it's a self-evident conclusion (unless you're asserting heat death of universe, I don't have an answer for that one). Also, it may well be the case that if we introduce immortality after X amount of time people WANT to go and do so on their own terms. Sounds horrific to today's conception of life/death, but maybe a 1200 year old feels differently?

I did not mean it as an "is", but rather an "ought". I think everybody should die at some point. it's something I deeply believe in (a belief like a religious belief). but yes, people leaving voluntarily could be the saving grace in this hypothetical scenario!

6. What *isn't* arbitrary? The existence of distant future lives isn't a foregone conclusion, even if we don't develop immortality. The way quoted paragraph reads, choosing not to have children is necessarily selfishness because one is denying non-existent people a chance at living. But even if we consider that, who are we to say these future lives should be prioritized over those already living? It's a strange position to take. People living now are also experiencing already and can already influence future choice...one of the few non-arbitrary distinctions in considering this.

The bolded part is very true and a slip up on my part I guess. we all tend to think teleological. but then you come in with the false equivalency. in the hypothetical scenario you are denying someone else the opportunity to live by taking up space, air, water and so on. that is undoubtedly selfish. by not having children and dieing you are doing the exact opposite, you are making space via self-sacrifice. Then comes the second bolded part. I genuinely have nothing to counter that, you are correct, it is entirely arbitrary. it's literally my breeder mentality manifesting itself. the rationale is the following: "more people ever having lived = good", "one person denying thousands of potential lifes=bad". you reveal it for what it is, which is non-justifiable. I cannot say why I would prefer for thousands of people to live a short life over one person to live a long life. it's some inherent preference for diversity I suppose.

7. That's not true actually, Earth predates life on Earth by a wide margin. Even more so for the universe.

i didn't mean change as in cosmic change, or change on earth, which is utterly insignificant for our pragmatic concerns, but rather societal, human, environmental, cultural change, should have made that clear.

8. The answer is that we don't know. I was thinking more of a "no aging/natural death" world by the way, not literal immortality where you can shoot someone 50 times or throw them into the sun and they don't die. I consider the former far more likely, and it spares us outlandish considerations like "everyone is immortal and doesn't need to eat and can't be killed no matter what". Incentives under such a model are hard to predict, I'll give you that, but I also don't think we're all becoming such literal gods even if we stop aging.

I don't think so either, but it wasn't my scenario, it was El Mac's scenario, and he didn't want "no aging", he wanted a world in which no kid dies of cancer or gets run over by a bus, and that's immortality and not "no aging". however, I think El Mac meant it in a medicinal sense, i.e. we are able to cure all ills, revive people, etc., not us being immune to literally everything, so if you denied someone service he could technically die. maybe @El_Machinae can clarify? anyway, I actually prefer the "no aging" scenario, which comes with it's own set of problems.

9. How much of these changes are physiological properties of decline? You're making some assumptions we can't reasonably make.

True, I cannot prove that they're not physiological, however I fully believe that they're mostly cultural/conditioning.

10. Maybe everyone rejects eventually, or maybe only a small % do. I have no idea. I know from talking to various people that most told me they would reject the offer if they were offered immortality individually. Well over half, probably over 3/4 of the people I've asked answered that way.

Not me. If I'm given such an offer and it's legit (big IF on that one) I'd take it.

I think such a question is rather meaningless unless the real possibility is actually a thing and you're actually forcing people to make a decision. It is akin to asking: Would you shoot Hitler if you had the chance? Surely many people would say yes, but it*s doubtful if anyone actually would.

 

[Kyriakos]

Anyway, wasnt the thread about facing moriarty/mortality? I think it is off topic to make it about dreams of immortality/mass life extension. It just wont happen during our lifetime.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Anyway, wasnt the thread about facing moriarty/mortality? I think it is off topic to make it about dreams of immortality/mass life extension. It just wont happen during our lifetime.

I think a great many people face mortality by pretending they don't have to.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Another question I want to bring into the discussion: How do you think our society would look like if there were literally no young people around? No children, no teens, no mid 30s, nothing of the sort? Like, no one below a few thousand years? Because this is where the no aging/immortality scenario is ultimately heading, innit? I personally find a world without children horrible, but I'm sure others might like it.

The number of factors different from today would make it extremely hard to predict. You'd not need significant investment into public schooling/education for example, and law enforcement would look different.

Still, absent the magic kind of immortality where people can't die, some people still would. So I'm not convinced we have literally no children as a species under such a scenario.

a marriage is significant because our time on earth is our most precious and most sparse ressource (therefore it is signifcant imho, just like clean water, air, and living space are, because we know for a fact that those are limited, at least right now). making the decision to spend most of your time with one person is perhaps the single biggest commitment we as humans can make.

Right now, we can at most commit around 80 years, but usually people don't make it to that. I'd say a 150+ year commitment would be more significant by that logic. Having more of a precious resource for everyone isn't a bad thing, it should broadly be seen as good similar to how modern society has more resources/better work hours/etc than in the past.

I did not mean it as an "is", but rather an "ought". I think everybody should die at some point. it's something I deeply believe in (a belief like a religious belief).

I'm interested in what makes you feel this belief strongly. At face value it seems pretty brutal. I get that everybody *will* barring some miraculous knowledge development, but "should"? What makes that a desirable outcome?

in the hypothetical scenario you are denying someone else the opportunity to live by taking up space, air, water and so on. that is undoubtedly selfish. by not having children and dieing you are doing the exact opposite, you are making space via self-sacrifice.

That doesn't make sense. Your rationale is that not having children denies future lives at global scales. Per that logic, it should also apply at individual scales...otherwise you're simultaneously asserting that a large group of people not having children are both making a sacrifice and being selfish as a result of the same decision.

I actually prefer the "no aging" scenario, which comes with it's own set of problems.

I went with it because I can't manage to even picture the other one. Like we don't find a way off earth, sun goes red giant, and we all just stay alive because we're immortal? Picturing how that actually works in our reality doesn't work for me. Even medicinal stuff like reviving the dead (maybe via cloning?) has some oddities in how it would actually work.

I think such a question is rather meaningless unless the real possibility is actually a thing and you're actually forcing people to make a decision. It is akin to asking: Would you shoot Hitler if you had the chance? Surely many people would say yes, but it*s doubtful if anyone actually would.

I actually suspect a good % of people would. That percentage would also increase or decrease depending on the consequences they'd face for doing so, same for whether you have perfect knowledge of the long-ranging consequences of the action (better world outcome vs worse).

I think a great many people face mortality by pretending they don't have to.

Pretty much. I'd like to live forever and whatnot, but I don't like the odds of that actually happening. The only consolation is that once we're gone we won't care. It still sucks, but what's the alternative?

 

[El_Machinae]

maybe, just maybe, building a space project that allows human settlement on other planets is a bit, I mean a tad more ambitious and expensive than buying a new pair of shoes? and that huge sum of money could be used, for example, to clear our ocean of microplastic.

It's not terrifically different in ambition. The Canadian Space Agency is about $18 per taxpayer annually. That is a fraction of the spread between a functional pair of shoes and a fancy pair of shoes.
When someone shows off a $69 pair of shoes when a $50 pair would do, they've literally wasted more money than the space agency gets on their behalf. They spent it on fashion. That same $19 could have been used to fund a malaria net. Schizophrenia research. Environmentalist cause X,Y, or Z. Doesn't matter.

So yeah, notice how when we're talking about space (or medical research) there's hand-wringing for the poor or the environment? I'm not saying that the hand-wringing is wrong, there's a conversation to be had. But, the fact that shoes, vacations, Netflix streaming all get passes from this same concern is very frustrating for those of us trying to build a more optimistic future.

it's this kind of mentality that has brought us global warming, economic catastrophe and bloody wars. not everyone is a nihilist, you know. some people don't even have kids, yet still devote their entire life for the betterment of humanities future. it's called altruism.

I agree. Altruism is the answer. It's also been completely insufficient.
I'm cognizant of the problems you're describing. "Letting people die" isn't the answer. If your 'solution' to any problem is "well, old people gotta die", then (again) it's a failure of imagination.

This talk of future children is non-sensical. You're fighting for a world that you're not willing to live in. The immortalists, at least, are trying to create a world they want to live in. If and when they insist that your family must die to achieve their dream (as you're doing to me), then there's maybe a conversation to be had about their ethics.

 

[Farm Boy]

If and when they insist that your family must die to achieve their dream (as you're doing to me), then there's maybe a conversation to be had about their ethics.

Therein lies war.

 

[Phrossack]

Another issue I have with immortality is that the human mind tends to solidify in adulthood and fiercely resists all contrary beliefs. Like Planck's saying that science progresses when old opponents of new ideas die and are replaced by younger people who grew up with it, social values only really change, with very few exceptions, when the old opponents of new values die and are replaced by young people who grew up with them.

Do you think gay rights would be this far if people from 1900 were still in charge? Do you think the Civil Rights campaigns would have gone anywhere if old slaveowners were still the rich and powerful? Until we can find a way to reliably make the human mind open to change even in advanced age, we'd be chaining ourselves to the tyranny of the past with immortality.

And that's not to mention the stranglehold on power and wealth someone could have if they were born rich and have spent centuries amassing more wealth and power.

I also want to say, this is not "letting people die." As there is no immortality now, we don't get to choose to live forever or help others to do so. "Letting people die" means having the power to save someone and deliberately not using it, and we don't have that power.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Another issue I have with immortality is that the human mind tends to solidify in adulthood and fiercely resists all contrary beliefs. Like Planck's saying that science progresses when old opponents of new ideas die and are replaced by younger people who grew up with it, social values only really change, with very few exceptions, when the old opponents of new values die and are replaced by young people who grew up with them.

Do you think gay rights would be this far if people from 1900 were still in charge? Do you think the Civil Rights campaigns would have gone anywhere if old slaveowners were still the rich and powerful? Until we can find a way to reliably make the human mind open to change even in advanced age, we'd be chaining ourselves to the tyranny of the past with immortality.

And that's not to mention the stranglehold on power and wealth someone could have if they were born rich and have spent centuries amassing more wealth and power.

I also want to say, this is not "letting people die." As there is no immortality now, we don't get to choose to live forever or help others to do so. "Letting people die" means having the power to save someone and deliberately not using it, and we don't have that power.

We do have that power and don't use it all the time though. No research needed to tackle problems with clean water supplies in the 3rd world, or air pollution that takes a year off average life expectancy worldwide.
Dealing with those problems might require changing the way we live but would improve everybodies lives.

 

[Phrossack]

We do have that power and don't use it all the time though. No research needed to tackle problems with clean water supplies in the 3rd world, or air pollution that takes a year off average life expectancy worldwide.
Dealing with those problems might require changing the way we live but would improve everybodies lives.

I meant the power to prevent someone from ever dying. We don't yet have that power, thankfully.

 

[Kyriakos]

@El_Machinae Your family will die cause they are human, not because someone took stuff from you. And i am not sure how you get to be the one accusing others where they spend money on; at least no one here said you can't spend yours on whatever. If you are angry that your own money aren't enough to fund re search with the noble end to turn your parents immortal then asking others to spend too is rather strange.