Immortality - What would it do with humans?

[warpus]

There is great strenght with the bottom 99% no doubt but what Carlin was talking about is that liberal democracy is largely an illusion for wilfully ignorant...

It has its pros and cons. But I don't think he was talking about liberal democracy. I think he was just talking about the type of democracy he was used to himself

 

[Valka D'Ur]

So, the two kneejerk concerns are overpopulation and cultural stagnation.

What I like to keep in mind is that the proposed 'solution' to these two concerns are to kill off everyone slowly, with one or two decades of decrepitude and dependence. With the poor starting earlier and having a faster fall into these conditions. Obviously.

This is a terrible 'solution'. It's really, really bad. It's not the worst, but goshdarn, it really isn't all that impressive.

We're already overpopulated, we could really use some help on this. And 'population' is only a portion of the I = PAT formula. We could use your help here. We already need your help here. There are literally a gazillion ways that people could help with this. The current 'solution', again, is terrible.

And cultural stagnation? We already have an onus to improve the cultural mileau. In fact, we want to. But, golly, sentencing 1/6th of Baby Boomer women to half a decade of Alzheimer's in the name of 'progress' is hardly progress. The idea that we should force the weakest to suffer in order for things to 'get better' is a little disgusting. If it's really so damn important that things get better, then maybe it's worth a little elbow grease from the people who have such a callous attitude?

And finally, our defeat of the Dragon Tyrant is something that benefits from synergy. Any efforts to conquer aging will draw upon previous efforts as tools and will create additional tools for others to use. It's not a zero sum game. And it's literally life or death.

It's hardly "kneejerk" to wonder where to put everyone, if everyone becomes immortal. Of course some say the solution would be to limit the number of offspring. But then without offspring, culture would begin to stagnate since each new generation brings new ideas.

But where are all these new, immortal people supposed to go?

Immortality won't work unless we also have the means to leave Earth for other planets, space stations, or just hop on a starship and go exploring.

 

[Hrothbern]

It's hardly "kneejerk" to wonder where to put everyone, if everyone becomes immortal. Of course some say the solution would be to limit the number of offspring. But then without offspring, culture would begin to stagnate since each new generation brings new ideas.

But where are all these new, immortal people supposed to go?

Immortality won't work unless we also have the means to leave Earth for other planets, space stations, or just hop on a starship and go exploring.

I prefer to use a time machine and hop through history, being 36,000 year Sumerian King or so

 

[Hygro]

Culture stagnation won't happen and no women part of the "we're gonna live forever!" culture of my region, harbinger to your region, will let themselves have babies as long as they "still could" in the future.

If immortality is effectively permanently in your mid 30s; weathered but healthy, people aren't going to have kids by choice. Culture won't stagnate because culture is all we're going to be doing together, and most people will be living most of their time in one The Matrix or another.

 

[onejayhawk]

I had to write a story once for class. It was state something like this, "A substance was released in the atmosphere, after which people lived forever." My story, which likely no longer exists (the professor is dead and I have no copy) was called "Starfish". The substance enabled human DNA to regenerate like a starfish. As part of this process, aging stopped at physical maturity. Everyone became 22 years old and stayed there.

Rather than deal with crowding issues, I made the process 99% fatal. So, it was a post-apocalypse story. Years later, I tried to flesh the concept out. The organism was a bio-weapon intended to be 100% fatal. Basically, the survivors had advanced colon cancer. So, it was a fine line. Either the cancer was too advanced and the person died of it. Or the cancer was too immature for the symbiote to adapt to the host, hence killing the host. The line became slightly wider at hospitals and cancer centers, where support was available--in theory. In practice, the only large group is in Houston at the MD Anderson Center. Thus far the outline. The story was never written.

J

 

[El_Machinae]

Culture won't stagnate because culture is all we're going to be doing together, and most people will be living most of their time in one The Matrix or another.

It really matters how you measure 'stagnation'. But it's really the wrong question. We'd be better off looking at things like poverty or net quality of life, or satisfaction with life. Etc.

'Cultural stagnation' is a very evil god to ward off if the only thing that works requires the sacrifice of 100,000 people per day.

Lots of social ills could be combated if we killed 100,000 people per day. But I am really sure we'd not like the results.

That's twice as fast as WWII. I don't think we'd look at WWII more fondly if the death rate had been doubled.

Geez, and it's all win/win on our route there. Giving money to a research charity is a 'win' from all angles, depending on how you divide your spending pools. Maybe it shouldn't come out of the 'anti-malaria' pool people give to. But if you're the type of person to buy veggies for your family, then $20 per month to a charity that is trying to future-proof them really does matter.