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Tech Based Youthful Immortality

Meffy said:
So no refutations? I'm disappointed.

And please do not attribute to me attitudes and opinions I have not explicitly stated.
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I'm not attributing, I'm asking. And I don't think it's attitudes or opinions I'm asking about as much as your assessment of where your root motivation stems from. It's honest curiosity, not some sort of sneaky type of ad hominem.
 
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Meffy said:
Maybe, maybe not. I'd have liked to see them stated by the person who brought it up though. *shrug* And who knows? Maybe the refutations could be refuted. That's what discussion's about, yes?


Obvious but I think there's a lot more than economics involved in this. I cannot imagine that most people would consent to sterilization in exchange for such treatments, nor can I believe this could be enforced. Consider the problems population growth already provides, even with naturally limited lifespans. The only nation I know of [there might be others] that routinely employs sterilization in order to control population is China; it's not generally voluntary, it's mandatory; and the practice is widely viewed as a severe violation of human rights.

What I would foresee is short-sighted people wanting to fill the planet with immortal offspring, political and economic considerations determining who would be chosen to receive immortality, and opportunities for the worst sort of tyranny.
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technically, I think the core asymptote is keeping our rate of increase of efficiency equal to or higher than the rate of growth of our material needs and desires + entropy. If we can do that forever, we can can survive in comfort forever as a species, regardless of whether we have individual immortality, even if our population grows at a certain rate (which would be factored into the rate of growth of our material needs). Not so different from living within a budget, the only difference is we'd be factoring in all the externalities that we generally don't.
 
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Dave, I think you give humanity far too much credit for levelheadedness and altruistic self-sacrifice than I see evidence for. Greed and selfishness are the motivators that seem to govern what people do on the grand scale. I don't foresee this changing because of a big "gift."

But whatever. You want to live forever, go right ahead. Given the choice I would refuse such treatments. I've no desire to see how much worse we could screw things up if given such a double-edged sword as immortality.
 
Meffy said:
Dave, I think you give humanity far too much credit for levelheadedness and altruistic self-sacrifice than I see evidence for. Greed and selfishness are the motivators that seem to govern what people do on the grand scale. I don't foresee this changing because of a big "gift."
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I'm not a techno-optimist per se. Who knows what will happen? I just want to persist as a conscious entity. Although I'd rather persist in a relatively hellish state than not persist at all, of course my 1st choice would be to persist in a peaceful, enjoyable society.

But whatever. You want to live forever, go right ahead. Given the choice I would refuse such treatments. I've no desire to see how much worse we could screw things up if given such a double-edged sword as immortality.
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And that's what I support. Healthy immortality as an option, not as some type of Terry Schiavo law.
 
Just think of the opportunities for abuse. Does everyone get the treatment who wants it? If not, how does the controlling body decide who gets it and who will be denied? Who decides who will be on the controlling body? And so forth.
 
Meffy said:
Just think of the opportunities for abuse. Does everyone get the treatment who wants it? If not, how does the controlling body decide who gets it and who will be denied? Who decides who will be on the controlling body? And so forth.
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Those will certainly be thorny ethical and legal issues to be worked out. I suspect that more than a few lawyers and ethicists will put their kids through college by being paid to help society hash out these type questions.
 
I don't think they could be worked out. There are too many examples of the privileged few keeping their pretties to themselves for me to believe it wouldn't happen all over again, but with feelin'.

That's no world I'd want to live in.
 
Meffy said:
I don't think they could be worked out. There are too many examples of the privileged few keeping their pretties to themselves for me to believe it wouldn't happen all over again, but with feelin'.

That's no world I'd want to live in.
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I support you having a right, now and in the future, to cease to exist as a conscious entity.
 
I would guess that this technology is going to come on slowly. Immortality requires more than no aging, it also requires curing all terminal diseases. I'd imagine this would be a gradual process, with expected lifespan inching out further and further.
 
roger said:
I would guess that this technology is going to come on slowly. Immortality requires more than no aging, it also requires curing all terminal diseases. I'd imagine this would be a gradual process, with expected lifespan inching out further and further.
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I think that's not unreasonable. But I do think how quickly the various challenges to our immortality are solved is probably a function in part of how society invests its resources. For example what we as a society have invested in suvs and extra pairs of shoes alone that could have gone towards finding cures for cancers, heart disease, and alzheimers.
 
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Foster Zygote said:
Immortality would also bring a grinding halt to human evolution. I would like a long, healthy life but I guess as a parent I now better understand the need to make way for following generations. Plus it would get rather crowded after a while.

Steven
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It would bring a grinding hault to natural selection, yes. But if we were smart enough to live forever, surely we'd be smart enough to modify ourselves. Who needs natural selection when you have intelligent design? :D
 
Agreed!

Look, those who say "we need to make way for the future" must understand that all reproduction efforts throughout the entire history of all living things only existed for one purpose, the closest thing to immortality we could get. We invest a lot of energy training entire new beings, and the "catch up" time with new generations of scientists is getting greater and greater simply because we as a species are attaining more and more knowledge. I can see a point in time where the time it takes to train someone to the point where they could actually be expected to make their own discoveries is greater than the current human life span, and science could grind to a hault. (In fact, I'm surprised an episode of Star Trek hasn't addressed this already. If it has though, I'm sure the fans here will promptly correct me.)

In other words, why waste time rebooting civilization every generation when we can just keep going on and on with just one? To prevent overpopulation, I'd say we just cut down on the breeding. Hopefully there will be a tech to take care of the desire to mate (rather than sterelization) by then, so someone CAN decide to mate at some point but the rampant expansion of the population won't happen because of drunken teens (though catholics would see it as sinful, they would probably also see eternal life on earth a curse rather than a blessing).

And again, you can always just destroy yourself. Skunky person, keep this in mind. Even if it is made completely illegal to do yourself in, what are they going to do, arrest you? Suicide is like the most convenient crime there is. You only get punished if you fail (though in my view success is it's own punishment, I love living). I'm sure it'll be a lot more acceptable once we are all highlanders.

Again though, it's a personal choice. If you want a limited life span, go for it. Natural selection does indicate those who die are less likely to survive than those who live though, so it would seem that the immortals are the ones more likely to proliferate.

The social implications:- No labour shortage and minimum wage $1 a day.

The housing crisis.

Living at home with your parents till you could afford to rent an apartment , aged 70.

The wars.
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Why would minimum wage drop exactly? I'm not sure I see why that would be the case. I do see your point though. Who wants wastrels living forever? Still, with no way to determine who will and won't be useful to society, why not just give it to everyone?

As for wars, people can still be killed, and if they couldn't, war wouldn't really mean anything would it? Can you imagine?

Someone: Infidel! I will shoot you for heresy! *bang*
Someone else: Stop that.
First someone: Jihads just aren't the same...

I mean to say that without death war would just be an annoyance, and hitler would just be "a jerk".

But if you mean that wars would get so much worse with eternal life, I'm not seeing it. What would make them so much worse?

People can be losers no matter how short their lives are (well, to an obvious point, I wouldn't call a child a loser). I'm not sure that pointing out that someone CAN in fact be a lazy good for nothing for all eternity means anything. The parents always have the option of kicking them to the curb. Dying of starvation would still be in full effect.

What I would really like is, on top of having eternal life, the ability to metabolize almost anything this planet could throw at me and extreme resistance to damage and the elements, as well as a much higher tolerance so I wouldn't be so frickin' specific about where I'm "comfortable" (I'd like to be perfectly content sleeping on a jagged rock in the rain). Then I would no longer need to find shelter or food and can just live in the wild. Apply such exotic tech to everyone and you can say goodbye to wage slaves.

But then again, death terrifies me. I can see no point where I would say "this is so bad I'd rather give up any future possibility of it coming to an end and I'll just face nonexistance". In fact, give me otherwise eternal life and I'm off to prevent catastrophies to the planet, then preventing catastrophies to space colony 195, then facing the horror of the heat death of the universe. I mean if I have full access to my own mental faculties by that time I think I'd be able to easily modify myself to constantly be interested in living if at some point I started getting bored.
 
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Meffy said:
Not only do I not think I deserve longevity or immortality, unless minds could somehow remain always lively, inquiring, and interested, I can't imagine many horrors worse than physical immortality. No thank you, I'll return my borrowed chemicals to the planet when I'm done with them. Others better than I will follow.
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Considering the direction in which mankind is going generally, I doubt it.
 
Well, the traditional human solution to overpopulation is war.

Does our techno-fix also cure all disease, including late life diseases such as cancer? If so, it would enormously increase our fertile breeding period, certainly in men, possibly in women.
(If not, we have a lot of youthful men married to increasingly aged , infertile women... no, I'm sure that won't cause a problem).

Human culture- law, inheritance, marriage, property, the lot is founded on the solid assumption that people will die before the second generation of their offspring are old enough to provide serious competition.

Increasing the time in which humans remain healthy may seem like a fine plan for the individual, but it would be the end of society as we know it.

Any way, the question in the OP was clear- "So, do you think we as individuals, on this message board, have a shot at the option of tech based youthful immortality before we die, decompose, and entropy does its worst to us?"
And like I said, I only need one glance in a mirror to know my answer is "No".

 
It's true that each generation must be taught and trained. But here's what this makes me think of: When I was very young, I was nearly alone in wanting to learn to program computers... even more alone in actually learning. Nowadays children routinely learn to write programs and nobody thinks anything of it. Training techniques in other fields have also improved, with multimedia and interactive educational software and the Internet. Barring theocratic-type revolutions I expect the trend to continue, giving each successive generation a better education. This won't eliminate the problem but it will help.

I don't see how natural selection can select for people who wish to be immortal, unless death occurs before reaching reproductive age... or unless immortals are allowed to breed more than those who reject such extended lifespans, and that this won't happen seems to have been assumed.

I'm glad some of you support the right to end one's own life. Now if you could convince insurance companies, the government, and society at large...

shemp said:
Considering the direction in which mankind is going enerally, I doubt it.
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Some things are getting worse, some better. I'm pretty sure that old minds become set in their ways, while newcomers have new outlooks and sometimes notice what the old minds have missed... or discarded as valueless.

I believe societies must evolve or die, too.
 
Well the thing about insurance companies is they don't want to be "scammed". The fact that you tend to give them far more money than they ever give you back doesn't matter, it's the "peace of mind" they say they are selling you.

But really, when it comes right down to it, suicide being legal or illegal only really matters in the sense that it prevents a proffesion from starting up making it as easy and painless as it can reasonably be. This is bad in itself to be sure, but the reality is the government just can't stop anyone from offing themselves or punish the offenders, unless they fail of course. And, not succeeding in killing yourself is like failing at failing :D. I kid of course, but considering the effort I go through to make sure I don't accidently ingest drain cleaner or fall off a building, it seems that killing one's self is like the easiest thing in the world. And since you won't be around to deal with people being "shocked" that you could do such a thing, I mean why do you care if society frowns on it? Note that I am NOT suggesting it. I disaprove of nonexistance myself and might actually be one of those who frown upon it, at least in the "I'm the only one who's ever been dumped and this is the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone who has lived 14 consecutive years!" sense, as opposed to the "I AM pain!" sense.

And you make a good point, that our teaching methods improve as well. And, if we are suggesting some miracle of technology to make us eternals, we might as well suggest some method of rewiring our minds to include all manner of new information.

At the same time though, if there is an OPTION for me to live 1000 years with no health issues and someone says I can't have it, they just told me they are going to kill me in less than 100 years as far as I'm concerned.

By the way, if all of civilization must be broken down and built back up to deal with the new issues immortality brings, I'm all for it. Modern laws and concepts of life and death are getting boring anyway. A total upheaval of everything society stands for is fun every now and then.
 
I'm not concerned with society being hard on me but those around me. And the thing about life insurance is this: if you kill yourself, they don't pay out.
 
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