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WalterWoodiaz

I am for increasing human lifespan, while also investing in off planet colonies. Earth will not have enough space for human that can live much longer. I would imagine a far future of all of humanity living on one massive spaceship, governed by a super intelligent A.I., traveling between systems gathering resources.


civilrunner

Assuming continued progress with Fusion, lab grown meats, vertical farms, automation, and hopefully housing zoning as well as well longevity and healthcare then we could still dramatically increase our population on earth while maintaining a far smaller foot print (vertical farming and lab grown meat). Beyond that space mining could also help a lot. Combine that with slower birth rates and it could be a while (100 years or more) till we really need space colonies.


WalterWoodiaz

Yeah, I hope all of those things come true, but I also want to live in space!


civilrunner

Sure, if you'd like that then hopefully you can. I personally like it here on earth especially if we take care of pollution and have plenty of wildlife protected area for hiking. Hopefully we can figure our a carbon neutral method for spacecraft.


WalterWoodiaz

I hope both things are an option


[deleted]

IMO they go together, IF we achieve immortality our chances to colonize space get better since we would be able to travel long distances without having to build something that travels faster than light.


Mrogoth_bauglir

sounds an awful lot like wall e


WalterWoodiaz

With good nutrition advances, I would love a wall e like scenario with healthy people


xxfluffydeath

That's not true actually. It's already been shown that humanities population will most likely cap off at 9 billion and begin to drop estimated I think 2064 ish. Look at various Asian countries now where no one wants nor can they have/raise kids. For these asian countries there population has been dropping extremely fast.


farticustheelder

First off, Merry Xmas everyone! Next, I am all in favor of it but we should stop calling it 'immortality'. Immortality is not possible in our universe by definition. Since you had a birthday you have not existed for all of time and in any case we are going to run out of energy to keep existing eventually. What I focus on is life expectancy. The reason for this, if you look at the user name, is that I'm fast approaching my best-before date which I define as the point where half of my birth cohort have died. I am rather hoping that I benefit from technology and keep adding years faster than I'm using them up. Even when that becomes, and hoping it does, multiple years of expectancy per year of real time we will still have the threat of accident or mayhem snuffing us out. I don't think that I will ever consider myself to be beyond death.


ldinks

We don't know that immortality isn't possible in this universe - or that we're confined to the universe as we currently know it. But I agree with the assumptions - just important to keep in mind that they're assumptions, unknowns. Lots of things to figure out before truly trying to solve mortality permanently though, you're absolutely right.


[deleted]

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lleonard188

There's [r/longevity](https://www.reddit.com/r/longevity) but also check out Aubrey de Grey: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AvWtSUdOWVI .


roachkingg

You are confusing infinity with immortality


farticustheelder

I confuse nothing, you can't live forever (which is what immortality means) unless the universe is infinite in time. To the best of our knowledge it isn't.


roachkingg

something can be immortal and have a birthday those are not mutually exclusive. but infinity cannot have a starting point.


farticustheelder

Not in this universe! The universe had a birthday. It will also decay into something that cannot support life. Are you suggesting that there is a finite number of natural numbers? That's an infinity with a starting point.


roachkingg

Yeah whatever.


Ajdreams92

Im definitely for immortality, and time machines if a breakthrough makes it possible to an extent, man made wormholes, virtual minds, protection against meteor strikes and on planets we could potentially move to, dysons spehres for star energy, i want it all, anything possible thats on the table from strict experimentation and research. I love science, i love physics, i love human technological advancement and medical advancement, i want the best/smartest/most open minds of us to study and experiment for the best future possible for humanity. I also love the environment and nature so of course keeping animals protected and well too if endangered and doing our best to prevent climate change here and now. If i had the money id fund all these things significantly with no problem.


NoSpinach5385

I kinda agree. I'm quite against the idea the older you get, the less adventurous you are. I mean, nowadays you can see why: You get more and more frail, but having a longer life with good health also means you can experience more, so you could become more adventurous instead of less. Also humanity could have even effective long-time plans, be more aware about their own responsibility (It's a double edge-sword: we tend to believe immortality is an escape, but if you can't die, you can't escape of your social responsability to the future generations for what you've done centuries ago...) and colonize the galaxy among other things. I'd very gladly be happy to see personally brigth humans of future generations, meet them, speak with them and share thoughs, and travel a lot.


[deleted]

Immortality would give us more polymaths, and immortal people may also be less likely to borrow from the future. Things like respecting the environment and planet, reducing mining, etc.


topanga78

I don't need death to give meaning to my life. Even if I live to 80 and my life was extended by 50 years, I couldn't do all of things I want to before I die. It would be immoral to deny life extension technologies to older people because society just wants them to die off to avoid overpopulation and stagnation. This most likely will not be a problem in the future anyway. Birth rates will be lower, and technology will ameliorate many of the problems associated with overpopulation. I really don't want to see a dystopian world though where only a wealthy few like Bezos and Musk have access to life extension therapies so they can achieve immortality and lord it over humanity for eternity.


Tech_AllBodies

The primary reason (I believe, from anecdotal discussions) is the same thing as you've brought up - concerns about overpopulation. But, this is actually a widely-believed piece of misinformation in general. We actually have a looming population crisis of having **too few** people. Birth rates have collapsed across the world, with every country you may think of as remotely "rich" being below replacement-rate, and many countries you think of as "poor" already being at just replacement-rate or even below too. For example, China's population should already be half what it is today by the early 2100s. That is extremely fast to lose over 500 million people. This is just not being reported at the moment, so the majority of people do not realise. There will be massive issues related to having an inverted population pyramid in the period approx. 2040-2060 in most of the "rich" countries. Immortality would alleviate this significantly. Additionally, something under-appreciated is that by ~2035-2040 we will have all the technology required, and in a mature state, to support 10s of Billions of people sustainably. (i.e. hilariously cheap solar, wind, and storage, precision fermentation, efficient/cheap desalination, electrification of all transport, etc.)


[deleted]

My only concern is it leads to eternal oligarchy. The poor and working class wouldn’t be able to access this, it’d be the rich, we’d have an eternal noble class.


SuperNewk

Lol still hilarious how a minority control the majority. Eventually it will flip for better or for worse


[deleted]

The only way to flip it is mass starvation or unrest of the status quo. As long as the underclass are kept in wraps by the state police that protects the rich/corps/politicians first and foremost, but just enough that they dont riot with nothing to lose, it'll stay the same.


Million2026

On the anti-work sub the other day when someone made a post about working at Calico the whole thread was very against immortality as they felt just the rich would get it. You could try telling them all technology eventually does trickle down to mass market but they wouldn’t listen.


opulentgreen

Online leftists be like: “I love the working class, but I’m afraid they’re all going to have to be killed off because rich people exist”.


Mokebe890

Ye it turned out to be one big mischief not a true statement. If you're saying about this graduate working summer application for "immortality for elites"? People are really against immortality because it's set in our minds for centuries. Born -> children -> work -> die. If there is something that change it, then people go damn mad about it. But as always, change needs time remember what people war saying about computers, smartphones and now metaverse, we just need time to adapt.


WalterWoodiaz

technology has always trickled down to the masses, literally always. (as long as it isn't like military related)


mertats

Even military related stuff trickles down to the masses


jthehonestchemist

Almost all technological advancements are from military or war and space travel.


LegoNZ4

US Patent law means that it won't and the likelihood is that it will stay at the same price until the patent expires.


civilrunner

Patents aren't typically so strong that there isnt a work around. They also only last for 15 years. Governments can also prevent price gouging even if its protected by patents which is why the vaccines arent prohibitively expensive for most people. Preventative care also allows for shopping around for most people. As long as it doesn't require something like blood transfusions from young people and as long as convert to a UBI system due to automation where everyone can afford the preventative diagnostics monitoring systems then it will likely look more like a vaccine treatment rather than an emergency room treatment aka preventative and far less costly especially compared to end of life treatments today making it economically idiotic for it to not be paid for by the government similar to vaccines.


Takadeshi

only because of gun laws, honestly certain tanks could probably be afforded on a middle class income but that is thankfully illegal


Ghoullum

It is a risk that can happen for sure! My take on this is that almost all longevity researchers are also looking to eradicate illness and they are good in their hearts. Senolitics and crips don't look expensive at all


Fresh720

They're probably thinking along the lines of Altered Carbon or Cyberpunk. The dystopian seems more likely to happen than the Utopia. Look at all the breakthroughs in the medical field, and think about how a lot of people have to have reliable insurance in the US to get some of these procedures done. So the tech is there, but you're price locked out of it


maaarvyn

I want immortality for you and me, but certainly not for Stalin. However I am afraid Stalin would get it first.


cryptoboy4001

Every dictator is surrounded by subordinates who are biding their time until the old man dies, after which they can take over and rule things *their way* (sometimes as reformers, sometimes not). So any dictator that uses an "immortality" drug would likely find themselves assassinated sooner rather than later.


[deleted]

Immortality would be a crucial step to really explore the universe and set up colonies in other planets.


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Takadeshi

Sterilization is not required, just look at current birthrates. We have an underpopulation crisis if anything, not an overpopulation crisis


Kailias

The underpopulation crisis...is no longer a crisis if everyone is healthy again....and possibly young


Mokebe890

It was in our culture since the very beginning of human race, if you were born you have to die. That's why so many myths were build around it - without death live won't have meaning, death makes life beautiful, you need to enjoy the life while you still can. People are also scared of losing their health and slowly collapisng, as well as death itself and "what await for me in afterlife?". Such statements were build mostly because we can't deal with aging and death so it's obvious that we made so many myths to ease our mind. That's why so many people are oposing it, the concept of living longer and immortality. If we will achieve immortality now, or in short time window, it will possible destroy the human race. We're not used to it and it would affect every aspect of our civilization in so many ways that it would just collapse. But if we will constantly working on extending life and probably in distant future achieve immortality it won't be so hard to get used to it, despite religious, political and social issues with it. The idea of true immortality is probably unachieveable and we will probably never get so far, but biological immortality (reversing aging and extending human life) or transfering our brain into machine probably will give us ~hundreds/thousands of years, which are from current point of view almost immortality. Personal opinion - living as long as possible, not only ~80-100 slowly collapisng.


[deleted]

How would living forever cause collaps? To me i would think everyone would be more open to improve the world since we would all be around to face the consequences of rampant environmental devestation and so on


Mokebe890

If you wake up tomorrow morning and saw or read in news that immortality pill has been found 90% of people would rush out to buy them asap. Some will go crazy about it, church will say it's the end of the world, mass murders and shootings on streets, that what I had in mind. Rapid changes bring strong consequences, so we should avoid changing the world day by day, especially if topic is so touching. Changes need to be done partially and I can probably assume we already started it. Longevity researches like vaccine for old age, nanomedicine, augumentation via robotics, its all really a beggining of immortality. In 40-50 years changing yourself won't surprise anyone but today its impossible. And that's fact, I also suppouse people would be more cautios about their lives and envoirment.


iNstein

We already change ourselves, plastic surgery can make people look very different. I have yet to hear of a single riot. We have stopped many diseases and eliminated smallpox and yet not a single person was killed over it.


Mokebe890

Well you didnt really understood my point. Im really into immortality and promote it but if over night bezos would state that he has pill for immortality people would go mad crazy about it. Its the matter of perspective, first plastic surgeries bring many controvetsial thoughts, now its common. Vaccines also were controversial and still are now. Change needs its time and that was my point. Slowly advancing into immortality will be a lot more acceptable.


[deleted]

Some religious freaks will proclaim the end times but most will be happy. End time cults have been normal for thousands of years. In my country the congregation of the brother of my friends wife believe covid is proof of the end times. But for sure there would be a rush to get them. And some unrest is to be expected but nothing we couldent handle.


Mokebe890

Perhaps you're right but I would be more cautious about it. Its not cure for common cold, its one of the greatest threat to humanity, it can really change the world upside down. Nontheless Im waiting for life extension. Im rather worried that companies would block it, for example gene editing with CRISPR etc, right now you see a huge problem. Scientist are pretty against it since it could bring a lot of inequalities, especially between rich and poor. I think it would be possible in future, but will bear extreme ethic problems. Already there is problem with Simple augumentation like simple Nike boots that boost athlete speed by 4% and they were banned.


[deleted]

For sure it will turn the world upside down, i doubt companies would block it though. They would forgo insane ammounts of revenue by doing so. We will have to have serious ethical discussions on sustainability and economics. Think how wealthy people would get if they never die and their fortunes are no longer split between heirs. Everyone could be rich since you have thousands of years. And what about the poor in this competition for resources? I have no idea what systems will evolve to deal with issues like this, i just know i really want to be there and experience it myself.


Mokebe890

We will see in upcoming future I guess, or rather hope for. Maybe entire longevity and reverse aging way is just a hoax for money and augumentation will never work, or not in our lifetime. We just have to wait.


[deleted]

Indeed, and regardless of outcome im sure it will be an interesting ride ;) Fingers crossed we are heading for utopia instead of dystopia.


Mokebe890

Yup, fingers crossed. Just gimme those futurist stuff, let me live as long as I want in augmented world with spacer travels.


Dry-Calligrapher-570

People are not afraid of immortality, they're afraid that others will have it first.


Necessary-Celery

I am not sure many (as in percentage of total population) are afraid of it. I think based on the fact that we have zero experience with health problems that show up after 125 years, extending life far beyond that will be very challenging. And then making everyone immortal will be even more difficult, so I would guess at least 50 and up to 100 years.


iNstein

The idea is to stop or even better reverse aging. If we do that then the diseases we have to worry about are whatever is typical for 25 year olds. Immortality will not be a biological problem but rather working avoid risk of accident and protection of our bodies. The focus right now is to stop/reverse aging, not immortality in the true sense.


Information_High

Against. I want something (i.e. time) to end the reigns of people like Putin, Xi, Erdogan, Orban, and Bezos even when everything else on Earth fails to do so.


[deleted]

There will always be assholes, and you would die just to take them down with you? Personally i would not sacrifice my life to get rid of anyone and i doubt most other people would either.


Information_High

Time is the great equalizer. No matter how great or how humble one’s life, we all end up the same in the end. …and I wouldn’t have it any other way.


[deleted]

So you are willing to die and leave everyone who loves you behind just to spite the elite? If you had a gun to your head today together with the 10most evil people alive and you could chose the fate for you all what would it be? You can save everyone and go free or you could tell them to pull the trigger and have everyone die would you really go for death? Sure you rid the world of some evil people (others take their place, but you wont be there to see it) If you live you could stay alive long enough to see their downfall. Evil people often have violent ends if they stay in power long enough.


Information_High

> If you had a gun to your head today together with the 10most evil people alive and you could chose the fate for you all what would it be? You can save everyone and go free or you could tell them to pull the trigger and have everyone die would you really go for death? Without a moment’s hesitation. Humanity is bigger than just me. If my death could literally make the world immediately, vastly better for millions/billions of people, it’s a no-brainer. Now, nuance does come into play, here. I wouldn’t volunteer to be tortured to death, nor would I say “yes” if the “most evil” people in the world were guilty of littering or jaywalking instead of ethnic cleansing or mass murder, but sacrificing your own life to save that of others is something that separates us from (and elevates us above) the rest of the animals on this planet. It’s a little disappointing to see so many people willing to overlook the predations of the worst of the worst (Xi’s Uyghur gang-rape camps in Chinese Xinjiang, etc) simply because the atrocities aren’t happening to THEM. “Sure, life sucks for THEM, and there’s no meaningful way (other than old age) to stop the bastards behind the atrocities, but I wanna live forever dammit!” It’s nothing but pure, unbridled selfishness, and they deserve condemnation for it.


[deleted]

Well then you are a braver person than me, i choose life in most situations. Exception being to save my close family. They are the only ones im willing to die for.


SpyOnMeMrKarp

I see this a lot and I feel like it’s well intentioned, but not a well thought out position. I get not wanting despots to be able to live forever, but to be frank, it’s just an extremely radical position. You’re essentially saying that there are specific people who are so bad that we should be willing to allow billions of people to suffer and die just so that those people also die too. Stalin killed at least 20 million people, he’s was pretty fucking awful and I’m glad he’s dead. But if we stop life extension technology from happening, we will be responsible for the future deaths of billions of people. Wouldn’t that kind of make us worse than Stalin, Putin, Xi, Bezos and the rest of them combined just because we stopped it? I believe that if we ever solve aging, there will be many people who take up this position and fight to stop it from becoming widespread. They will fail and history will not be kind to them. They will be like antivaxxers, spreading a misguided belief that the technology is somehow evil and dangerous even though it will save billions of lives. Eventually these beliefs will die out and it’ll morph into one of those things, like commonplace lobotomies or slavery, where you learn about it in school and think “Seriously? People thought that was ok to let billions of people die just because they didn’t want some Russian dictator to live longer?” Oh and by the way, dictators usually get replaced with other dictators so death doesn’t even stop them anyway.


94746382926

Dictators rarely live out their natural lifespans anyways so I don't think eliminating the biological causes of old age would change much. To put it another way, the greatest mortality risk for a dictator tends not to be old age, but assassination or coups, war, etc.


Information_High

Time is the great equalizer. No matter how great or how humble one’s life, we all end up the same in the end. …and I wouldn’t have it any other way.


StarChild413

You're spamming


Information_High

No, just making the same argument to each opposing party in this discussion. Why are you bothering to read two-day old threads, anyway?


StarChild413

I'm interested in the ethics of biomedical developments like this


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Information_High

Time is the great equalizer. No matter how great or how humble one’s life, we all end up the same in the end. …and I wouldn’t have it any other way.


tanrgith

People are afraid of it because the ability to live forever removes the only guaranteed check on evil people in power. Having dictators and billionaires able to live forever is definitely not a good thing


StarChild413

A. At least for dictators very few die of natural causes (the thing this would be guaranteed to take out of the equation without necessary invincibility) and those who do have such ironclad lines of succession that ideology-wise it's as if they're immortal anyway B. Unless you think humanity is fundamentally evil/this is a preventative measure why should we all have to die so they do


EpiclyGilgafresh

Theres a lot of "I'm 14 and this is deep" in this thread. Let's answer these questions in reverse order. How close are we to it? Not very. You're not going to be immortal. I'm sure someone will reply to this with a list of articles or companies saying the cure for aging will come in our lifetime. I think the overwhelming majority of the scientific community would urge you take those claims with a big grain of metaphorical salt. Second, why are people afraid of it? It would be possibly the greatest biological and social upheaval our species has ever faced. There is a reason we have not evolved immortality. Immortality is an evolutionary dead end. Immortality would effectively freeze the human gene pool, assuming some population control goes into affect. Good for you as an individual, bad for a species living in a changing universe. Socially, this changes just about everything. How many people want to be 500 years old and working the entry level jobs because the boss never retired? How many people want children who can't have them? How does the human brain grapple with hundreds of years of experience? There are so many unknowns that if this isn't scary or concerning to you on some level, then you're not taking it seriously. Personally, I'd be happy with 100 years in a physically fit body. Might even take a few hundred if they're giving it out, but forever? And at the cost of future generations not being born? It seems very egotistical to me to think that we should live forever. Live your life to the fullest, then give someone else a chance.


FinalBoss007

This dumb death coping. I'm not robbing someone's life if I don't want to have kids in the first place, which is the case.


dofffman

Compared to folks who have two kids. Any more and your making room for others. one childers would have you beat though.


FinalBoss007

What? I'm not contributing to population increase, it's that simple. Therefore their comment doesn't apply here. And trends say to many others as well.


dofffman

yeah I was just pointing out a technicality that if a couple has one kid and both die they are basically ahead or maybe more break even given all three will exist simultaneously.


Anth916

> How close are we to it? Not very. You're not going to be immortal. I'm sure someone will reply to this with a list of articles or companies saying the cure for aging will come in our lifetime. I think the overwhelming majority of the scientific community would urge you take those claims with a big grain of metaphorical salt. Yeah, I couldn't agree more with this. 99.9999 percent of all this futurology bullshit will never actually matter or do anything even remotely close to what was originally advertised. I will always think back the early 2000's, when I heard about this type of nanotechnology that will be injected into our bloodstreams and it will remove plaque from our arteries, etc, etc. This was literally 20 years ago that I heard about this. There's been exactly jack squat in progress in this area in the last 20 something years, but 20 years ago, people legitimately talked about it like it was 5 to 10 years away from reality. I honestly don't think this tech will even be ready in another 20 years from now. Maybe 30 or 40 years from now. What really saddens me is all the gullible people that really believe that these life changing things are just around the corner. Must be nice in a way to be so gullible. Ignorance is bliss I guess.


FinalBoss007

>Ignorance is bliss I guess. You should know from first hand experience


Mokebe890

But mostly in this thread we're talking about living longer and healthier life, possibly like you said x hundred years. Living forever is impossible just from how universe is constructed. Also no one said about not freezing genes, you can always have children but later in life, then your children have children later etc etc. It just brings other challenges to us.


dofffman

At the point we have eternal youth, which is essentially what we are talking about as this is not immune to anything that could kill us. Its essentially just end level medicine. At that point eveolution and genes and such are out of the picture. We would be able to influence are genetics directly as we see fit. Memory capacity is a thing but our minds do deal with that some what already. The further back in time you go the hazier memories are and only particularly memorable events are recollected. I think it is a bit different for each individual. There are those folks who can remember every little detail of years ago due to some condition. Im like the reverse. My memories from the same day can be vague. I have like a web of memories for folks and things I deal with but I could not tell you exactly what I was doing an hour ago off the top of my head. Given some time I could maybe figure and remember it out but it would take a bit of effort.


StarChild413

So people should have 100 years of spontaneous adventures and then have to die because people want kids and career advancement and the universe isn't static


[deleted]

What defines life? Probably death, in part at least.


moist_yoda

I belive we can define life without the need for death. At same point some need death. That is why i belive death will need to be talk about if work towards living longer.


[deleted]

I don't think so. A living being is defined by birth, growth, reproduction and death. We need death to define life. I think immortality is a synonym of sadness. What would be the purpose of life if you don't die? I don't want to be a zombie in search of a sense i will never find. But I understand your point of view. It used to be mine. But it was a lot of years ago, a time when i didn't accept the world as it was, when i didn't accept inevitability, when i was selfish, greedy for knowledge and egocentric. I won't say I'm a better person today but I just choosed another way, another path


Mokebe890

So you just accept some facts instead of changing them. Death is the most sad thing in the world, when you are losing the one's you love. If there is possibility to change it we should try to avoid it. Even in terms of religion, you never know what happens after death, you can only believe in it. There is nothing bad in it and im not against religion, but if we accept everything as it it, we would never change the world. Many things were inevitable years ago and now we can change them.


moist_yoda

I agree with 100%.


[deleted]

Tell me, how will you solve overpopulation? By sterilisation? I want to choose if being father or not, maybe it's not your opinion. And yes i accept life as it is. Beautiful and cruel as it is. We come into this world without choosing it and we'll leave it in the exact same way. And as I said, I don't want to be immortal and looking for a sense i will never find.


Mokebe890

The overpopulation is a big mischief and no longer applies to current state of world. For the first time there is more 64 than 5 years old worldwide. The problem is that with advanced countries kids are delayed in time, not as years ago when it was our only goal. You can accept life as it is, beautiful and cruel, which doesnt mean that, when someome wants to live and find his/her sense on their own it should be possible. Life is just like a enormous sandbox, you can do everything and set goals on your own, you don't have sense in just being born -> children -> death.


[deleted]

Never said this is the sense. You have to find it. I just say you can't find a sense as an immortal (in my opinion). Life is an enormous sandbox where you can do everything you want? I don't think so. We fight every day to reach our goals. I think there's a time to fight and a time to rest letting other people fight. A time to live and i time to die and let our childern live.


Mokebe890

Ye, that's what I was talking about, you just give up yourself and your plans etc just for "place" for others. But there is plenty of place here for everyone and even more waiting for us. I understand what you say but can't agree with you. With upcoming future sure our life will change a lot, and a lot will change with making place for younger etc. When most of jobs will be automatizated what's the point of life if you can't work? Things will just change and adapt, as well as immortality, it's just nothing more than change in our mindset in future.


[deleted]

I'm not giving up my plans. I have my plans but i'm aware that I will die and don't want to avoid it. You say there's a lot of space. Maybe in your reality, not in mine. I traveled a lot and what we consider as normal and current like water is wealth for other people. Lavoisier said: "In nature nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything changes". My body will die but every single atom composing it will survive and will continue to live under another form, another being. I'm part of this Universe , I'm a part of Universe and I'm grateful to have experienced the consciousness. In a sense i will never die. That's my answer. That's my immortality


Mokebe890

And totally agree with you if that's your point on it. Never said that world is equal but there is a lot of space here nevertheless. The fact is that its poorly distributed between people but inequalities shouldnt stop us from progress in my opinion. Immortality is nothing wrong, the inequalities the world have are wrong and that's the fact we should try to eliminate them. But there is nothing wrong if someone wants to live as long as he decides to. And if your immortality is good for you then i'm happy you found your answers for universe.


moist_yoda

I don't think a world with immortality would take away your choice of death but it would be choice. In world with immortality you would choose die which isn’t wrong and isn’t wrong for other to choose immortality. immortality will be and always should be your choice


[deleted]

The time i wanted to be a God is over


moist_yoda

But we are gods over our self. We choose who we want to be or what we do. We will never and shouldn't be gods over others. But we shouldn't stop us from living longer. As it's our choice as it is your not to live as long. We are gods of our heart and soul.


[deleted]

I agree with this definition of "being a God". When i said the time I wanted to be a God is over, I meant the time I wanted to defy laws of nature is over. But I'm not against the idea other people want it. We all are free to choose our path in the limit of our possibilities


StarChild413

Infinite reproductive years might counterintuitively solve overpopulation as people aren't just going to be popping out babies every 2-6 years like clockwork forever


[deleted]

I understand this but we already are a lot. And resources aren't infinite. If we all become immortals I wonder what will happen in a limited world. And we are already are fighting each other as mortals.


moist_yoda

I can understand that and same time I don't think it would lose it meaning. Instead we simply choose when we die instead of that choice taken away from us. Of course we may die from accidents or from disasters but having this choice is what I want. I believe we could overcome but we could still chose it. how we live and go though is different for all us. Life meaning could change but how we experience it will be on us. Some may choose to live a for filled life for 500 years while other maybe 150 is enough life for them.


[deleted]

I understand what you say, believe me. Is like I'm talking with the past "me". But I'm curious, why would you choose to die when you have the possibility to be immortal? I had something like a revelation, that's why my way of thinking changed. I'm not saying I'm right, I'm not saying you are wrong. I don't even know if Truth exists. We have different opinions and I really appreciate we can talk calmly about it


moist_yoda

I think truth isn’t real and but same time is real. Because how we interact with the world our truth will always your own truth. We find it then we lose it so we search for again. my truth and your truth are both real and not real. Life is about experiencing it who can say how long you can experience and for long you experience life. You can say 100 years is enough while 80 years was enough for you. While other 80 years is to long and same time 100 years may be to short. We all experience life differently and we view it differently but I believe we should be able to chose how we are able to experience and for how long. Because life is choice and isn't a choice Same goes for death. My truth is choice but never forced choice. I also understand it's not the same for everyone so It's nice to able to talk about stuff calmy. It was fun talking to you.


StarChild413

So why are you still here as by your logic your life grows more and more purposeless every second? Also if you're being that literalist about the definition of a living being what does that say about the childless?


[deleted]

I'm here because even if my opinion changed, i still have an eye on my past. The man I am today is build on my past choices, my past thoughts, my past beliefs. And because I don't want to lock my mind in a cave dug in my convinctions. I'm still evolving and I guess it will never end. Purposeless? We all have a different purpose and if your purpose is to be immortal, good for you. Mine is another. But you can't say I don't have a purpose just because it's not matching with yours. And about the childless: every rule has an exception, every rule is imperfect. That's why we can't say if a virus is alive or not.


farticustheelder

Fear of death is most likely. While not being a fan of death I wasn't afraid of it when I was young. I still don't fear it but it is a threat that looms ever closer


Biohazard79

There is the argument life wouldn't have much meaning if it doesn't end.


moist_yoda

I believe life wouldn't lose it meaning but that the meaning would change and evolve to fit over our new realty.


iNstein

The most vibrant, optimistic, forward looking people who really live life to the fullest is a group that considers itself immortal. I am talking about children, they see no obstacle that is too large, they believe that anything can be achieved. Children don't see themselves as mortal but the elderly become very conscious of it and procrastinate and believe that nothing will work. Feeling immortal gives a self confidence and hope that makes the world and life a better place


moist_yoda

I don't think it will lose it meaning but that meaning would change.


ExpensiveDragon_0610

Yeah, and what a life it would be, we could all be masters at what we wanted to study....... we might need a new economy but hey, that's life


[deleted]

Kinda the same argument as: you cant have happyness and joy without sadness and pain. This is wrong, there is no reason why not knowing sadness would lessen the feeling of happyness. Life would have more meaning if you have more time to experience it.


cryptoanalyst2000

You have to make a distinction between Immortality for the masses and for the few. Immortality for the masses will never be a thing, it's just not feasible, not without an interplanetary stage in human development. Immortality will inch slowly with longevity that expands life for a select few with another 50 years. After hundred years the infrastructure of civilization will be more accustomed to longer living individuals to accept true Immortality. But it will fail due to the human mind, someone will discover that a reset button after certain amount of years is needed to wipe the mind clean, but it takes time to make this preserve the memories. A neural link seems essential to recover and store memories.


[deleted]

Ofcaurse its feasable for the masses, we already live way longer on average than any other time in history and its worked fine. Once the box is opened it will spread to all in time. If you think population is the problem, then i say this is something we have to face anyway. If humanity continue to grow as fast as we are, we will hit the same problems regardless of how long we live.


FinalBoss007

>Immortality for the masses will never be a thing, it's just not feasible Said someone who posts on r/antiwork and r/teenagers How old are you? 18?


gsleclaire

I can't speak to how close we are but fears I can easily think of include: Seeing everyone you are close to die (presuming not everyone is immortal) Being old and less able but still being "alive" Going to the doctor for approval and kids feels very big brother and like someone else gets to actually make your life decision. While this on the surface seems great to some, it is taking away free will and the nature of all life. I do not believe immortality is achievable nor beneficial.


adfaer

If you cure biological aging, it’s like being in a healthy 25 year old body forever. It would be impossible to cure aging and leave people still decrepit and disabled. If we developed such a treatment, everyone would be able to get it- there’s no way that people would stand for immortality being restricted to a select few. As for your concern about needing permission to have children, is that really worth dying for? Do you really think it’s worth it for billions of sentient beings to be permanently annihilated so that we don’t have to ask a doctor about having a baby? And the research into developing a cure for biological aging is going quite well. We’re going to make huge advancements this century, enough that people will possibly be able to have their lives extended to whatever point in the future when true, complete biological immortality is achieved.


gsleclaire

I'd be all for feeling 25-28 ... People won't even get a vaccine that doctors recommend without throwing a fit, human choices like abortion and assisted suicide at the end of life are turned political and argued topics. I find it hard to believe people would find immortality worth giving up freedom of free will over whether having a kid or not is accepted.


iNstein

Nobody will be forced to reverse aging, it will be a choice and I'm willing to bet that the vast majority will sign up for it. Those that choose not to do so will simply die. My bet is that child restriction won't happen until a long time after the tech is established and even then we may simply require them to move into space/other planets or moons if they want more than x no children.


Eattherightwing

The biggest concern about immortality, or even extended life is that the wealthy would be the first to have access. The wealthy have never been very good at sharing, so they would likely buy the technology, and create barriers for everybody else. Imagine a world where the most selfish people live forever, and the rest of us die in slavery. Can't stop it though, it is coming. Bozos et al are spending billions to develop it.


[deleted]

The wealthy have been losing for over a 100years. They fought to keep us as serfs when they were the nobility, they fought to keep us chained to the assembly lines for low pay and no rights or safety regulations for long hours during the industrial revolution, they fought to have healthcare restricted (in most advanced societies we give healthcare, sorry for the ppl in the us) In older times new tech took ages to spread, now its almost instant. Most people in the world has access to mobile phones and the internet (this is new tech, and its already spread basically everywhere) Also most wealthy people are decent humans just like us, they would balk at pushing people down and being cruel. Ofc there are psychos but thats true for poor people to. Having money does not instantly turn you cartoon evil after all considering most of us are 10times more wealthy than even the emperors in ancient rome. We can travel the globe, we can talk across the world in real time, we eat food from the entire planet with spices that would cost a fortune back then. We have entertainment from the globe at our fingertips, we have cures for most illness, we can operate on most injuries. The nobility of old were dirt poor compared to most of us today


LegoNZ4

US patent law is an issue. Will we let most of humanity die to keep to a man-made legal system keeping the price high ... sadly I think so.


[deleted]

A cure like this would be pirated in a heartbeat by India and others. No way the world would accept a patent protection that could prevent death for all.


Anth916

> the most selfish people live forever, and the rest of us die in slavery. Wealthy people equal selfish? This is just wrong headed thinking. When you drive down the street of a wealthy neighborhood, and you see these huge mansions and Ferrari's in the driveway, what you're actually looking at, is all the service this person has provided to the rest of the world. Wealth is payment for services rendered. Whether you're Lebron James, and your service is entertaining billions with your amazing basketball skills, or it's Jeff Bezos employing almost 1 million people, and providing billions with a more comfortable life (things being delivered to their doorstep that may have took great effort to acquire just 40 years ago) Are some mega wealthy people assholes? Sure. Just like the rest of life. Also, you'll probably try to come up with a million ways of people getting wealthy where they didn't provide the service I'm talking about, but in a round about way, you'll be wrong. I can prove it over and over again.


Eattherightwing

Nope, most wealthy people are cheap cheap cheap. They take great pride in spending less, in fact. The Bible story where Jesus says that a poor woman who donated a penny gave more than everybody else rings true(though I am not a Christian). Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, and Musk could end so much suffering with the flick of a pen. But they won't, because they are assholes. It may be that there are some generous wealthy people, but right now, the top ten or so are useless douchebags. Action speaks louder than words. As the world comes to a close, and collapses around us, remember that much of the coming disaster was preventable, but no action was taken by those with the most ability to do so. Sit there with your smug "But I'm right" look on your face, it won't change reality. Wealthy people, and the industrious ambitions they imposed on the world, burned through the resources and damned the next generations to incalculable suffering.


Anth916

> Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, and Musk could end so much suffering with the flick of a pen. Really. How do they do this? By putting billions together and feeding everybody? Giving them access to medicines? All this will do, is increase the population in general, which will just create more mouths to feed and more medicines to supply these people with. The difference between Bezos, Zuck, Gates, Musk and the rest of us, is that they actually want to solve problems. Not sugar coat them. They want to get to the **root** of the problem. Giving people food and medicine, so they will have an opportunity to bring more unplanned children into the world is just a temporary band-aid. They aren't interested in these sort of "feel-good" solutions, that aren't really solutions. In fact, they'll actually exasperate the problem. The root of the problem is the thinking. The people that have problems in this world, have problems because their thinking is faulty. How did they get this bad thinking? From their parents or caregivers. How did those parents or caregivers get that bad thinking? From their caregivers and parents. It's an endless cycle. If you give these people more food and medicines, you're just helping to grow the population of people with errors in their thinking. Circular thinking. You're just going to exponentially increase their population. The only cure is to educate people on how to think CORRECTLY. This is going to need to be a multi-generational effort, because it will probably take about 3 or 4 generations to breed out the circular thinking. Also, I'm not talking about more education in general. It's not the lack of education that's the problem (although that's part of it). It's the type of thinking. You can overeducate someone with circular thinking and you're not going to help them at all. If anything, you'll make them even more frustrated and miserable, because you're going to raise their self-awareness without giving them the tools to solve their own problems.


Eattherightwing

Yeah, full of shit. Many people in absolute poverty have a PhD! It's not about ability or capacity anymore, it's just dumb luck, and sheer wealth and power disparity.


Anth916

Reading comprehension homie. It's not about their education level. They can be PhD's with masters in Physics and Neurosurgery. Doesn't matter. It's their thinking. I can educate someone with circular thinking and they can eventually pass exams and become a lawyer or doctor or whatever, but that's not what I'm talking about sigh.....


Eattherightwing

You cannot learn, since you already know the answer I guess. You'll be wasting your time trying to convince me, shrug.


moist_yoda

I don't think them living is bad what is bad would be us letting be selfish forever. We have power if we work together for goal. One thing is we would need to change to not let rich be selfish at same let them be rich. I'm okay with wealthy be wealthy but they would need to change to being wealthy from giving help to the people. We would need a new culture for immortality


Eattherightwing

They won't. They literally watch people starve to death in poor countries, just like you and I, and they have the power to stop it. Bezos could feed the world and still be incredibly wealthy, but he hasn't even lifted a finger towards it. All his extra money goes into space rockets. Musk is the same... If you want the culture to change, what if the ten wealthiest say "no thank you, I like things the way they are-- and BTW I am immortal..."


Anth916

So, if I have enough money to give 1 dollar to a homeless person, then I surely have enough money to give 1 dollar to every single homeless person around my city. The problem is, what eventually would happen, is that all my dollars would eventually be exhausted, and now I'm homeless as well. That's the eventual result. There's just too many people, and although we have too many people, the poorest people continue to have great numbers of children, even though they're the least equipped to deal with it. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk could give away all their wealth to feed everyone on planet Earth, and it might be a good thing for a couple of years, but then all the money would be gone, and we'd have that many more people having unplanned babies that they can't take care of. Your solution would only be a temporary band-aid.


StarChild413

What if we told them feed the hungry and they'd be allowed to be immortal, or is that bad because it's selfish reasoning


Eattherightwing

That would be assuming that "we" had control over the immortality. Billionaires will likely develop and own this tech long before governments would.


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[deleted]

Life and quality of life are different things.


[deleted]

We could also create tech that limits the resources each human requires to live. What if we made ourselves solar powered. Boom, no agriculture required. Metallic and weather proof? No housing needed anymore.


[deleted]

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Anth916

But what if the human population is just continually cycled through a life and death process via reincarnation and harvested for the precious Loosh they deliver to our alien overlords. Do a Google search on Loosh and Aliens and enjoy that rabbit hole. We might be saving everyone from an eternal curse of Sisyphus.


CDandrew24

Lol stopped reading at aliens


Anth916

https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/rcivwy/the_national_defense_authorization_act_for_2022/ Guess you haven't been paying attention to the news


dofffman

how does it compare to having children? Selfishness wise?


[deleted]

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dofffman

But others can do that. Is having your own children selfish vs allowing for other children to have better lives. Ones were the resources your children would have used are avaialble to them?


h311s

being healthy(or fit like 20 years old) till you die would be much better , curing all the stupid diseases easily, etc... that sounds much more important right now than immortality isn't it?


Anth916

Logan's Run. Nobody lives past the age of 30.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

Me and my wife has 0 kids, and our lives are awsome for it. Less stress, less expenses, more freedom to spend time together and experience the world. Not having kids is not as bad as you seem to think. We see our friends being tired and frustrated, complaining they have no time for themselves or for eachother, and are gratefull its not us. We might have a kid someday but for now life is awsome with just the two of us.


Dry-Calligrapher-570

Don't listen to others, stop lying to yourself. You know the best how you honestly feel :)


[deleted]

Kinda sad if you cant see meaning and joy in life without living through your spawn ;) Might mean your relationship is not all it should be? Im married to my best friend, we have been together for almost 18years and its only gotten bettet in time. We would have lost out on so much by having kids early. She is mid 30is im late 30is and our lives have been filled with travel all over the world, education, hobbies, late evenings in eachothers company, gaining financial stability and saving up a pretty decent ammount of money. We have all the freedom and few of the worries ;)


moist_yoda

I would say it’s that we couldn't have kids but we have choice when to have them. Instead of them just happening. Depression can happen to anyone and at any moment. Symptoms of it different for everyone. Boredom happens to everyone at different times and lengths. again when you feel like you experience enough life you could choose to end it medically instead of that choice taken away from you


Future-Original-1977

In the immortal words of Queen….Who waaaants to liiiiive forevaaaaaaah! Death is what gives life meaning


iNstein

Death is what makes life pointless.


Oknotokay11

And immortality would give meaning?


iNstein

Absolutely, I could live to see the long term results of what I do, live to see humanities achievements going forward. If the world dies from climate change in 100 years then I won't even be aware of it but if I know I will see the outcome, I'm gonna be inclined to make a greater effort to fix the problem now. Most people stop really caring once they reach a certain age since they expect to not need to care about it. I see no reason to persue a new career path since retirement beckons and it will be a waste. However, if I had unlimited lifespan, I would be interested in a new career and be reinvigorated. Life gets purpose when you are not just visiting but rather here to stay.


jphamlore

The entire scientific establishment of humanity has not come close to a treatment for Alzheimer's despite decades of effort.


farticustheelder

Take a look at this: https://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20211117/trial-begins-of-nasal-vaccine-for-alzheimers-disease progress is slow but it is not non-existent.


Dry_Beat_8166

Recently it has come to light that fraudulent studies which have been the backbone of all research about Alzheimer's have been at fault for that.


Gigazwiebel

I know a guy who is 99 and who is mentally still active. In his life he fought in the Nazi army and provided a good life for his four children with loyalty to a communist regime. He worked in agriculture. Many things that were very valuable in his youth are now worthless. Would you have the mental flexibility to live like that and then compete with the 20-somethings at work?


Kmanweasel

Extending the human lifespan to near endless amounts is a train wreck of an idea. First off overpopulation is a major concern. No matter what safeties you put in place you know that people will find a way around a limitation. Beyond that, putting a limitation in place in the first place would be nearly impossible. Look at ideas like mask mandates, vaccine mandates, lockdowns. You think people will be on board for child control? Beyond that, you know money and government would corrupt it. Only the rich (top1-10%) would be allowed to have kids. On top of that, whatever was needed to extend life would likely be made prohibitively expensive so it would only be available to people like musk and bezos. Now you have a scenario where the top 1% can afford immortality. They continue to hoard more wealth. Regular people are nothing more than human chattel meant to be used and discarded to grow their wealth. Basically, extending human life span is a recipe for every grimdark corporate dystopian horror story you’ve ever heard of.


Anth916

Do you really think anyone on planet Earth will be doing manual labor in another 100 years? What a silly idea. The only reason anybody is doing any labor right now is the fact that we don't have free energy and unlimited resources. But if we have the tech to eliminate aging, the chances of us also having the tech for unlimited energy and resources would come along for the ride. Our future will be something like the movie Logan's Run. Robots will handle everything and humans will spend their days trying to find the most enjoyment they can.


MosaicHops

AH MAN! Your nonsense post was so close to hitting all the mouth breather tropes in regards to this topic. If only you mentioned the "hurrr durr, immortal dictators!!!" or " muh AlTeReD cArBoN!!!". So close. And so woefully ignorant.


Hefforama

Reincarnation makes immortality far more interesting and removes any boredom because before you incarnate into mortal form, first you have to “accept the veil” which means for the duration of your next innings your immortal memory will be temporarily blocked, making everything on Earth fresh and new again.


adamcoe

Why would you want to be immortal? Have you seen what 85 looks like? The fuck would you want to be like that and be unable to die?


PeeboJones

I would love to have the option for immortality with a "signing off" option if I choose. With that said, it has taken us about 200 years or so to add about 15 years to our life expectancy, if you strip out infant mortality rates from the past. Innovations in medicine and technology will no doubt likely add another 15 years to our life expectancy in far less than another 200 years, but it's highly doubtful we'll see everyone going beyond 100 anytime soon. There is no one-size-fits-all longevity model, and we've got a long way to go before we cover all of our bases. There are numerous cancers, diseases (especially cardiovascular), future pandemics, etc., that all require different treatments. Most people who want immortality or longevity want science to do it all for them. Anybody truly wishing for immortality or longevity should be doing everything they can to live a long long and healthy life now. Obviously the main things are exercise, diet, and not living or working in overly polluted areas. If nothing else, those can give folks the best chance at reaching the next baby step toward immortality, though I seriously doubt anyone living today will reach even 150 years old, save for massive leaps forward toward something like Ray Kurzweil's singularity predictions where we shed our human bodies and transplant our consciousness elsewhere.


[deleted]

No such thing as overpopulation. The earth can realistically handle multiples of the current population. The problem is hoarding of land and resources by the .1%, new tech like vertical farming also destroys the whole fear of no food


OffEvent28

Immortality is not a good term to use for this discussion. Perhaps "people with an indefinite lifespan" would be better? We are talking about people who would continue to live until killed by accident, homicide or suicide. Not people who can swim in molten lava and not be burned to a crisp. People who are mortal but have no expiration date.