While I agree that the "God is against it" argument is exceedingly irrational, I would caution against throwing away our mortality on a whim. Isn't "Death is bad" just as simplistic? One must recognize, Dean (as I'm sure you do) that most people are not atheists. Thus, a never-ending mortal life would be akin to being locked in Purgatory forever, never ascending to whatever life lies beyond death.
And what about our mortality? Do you really think nothing of value comes from it? Being among the only animals that have a sense of death, I would say that it has spurred some of our greatest artistic works. If we did not die would our Great Thinkers really be moved to paint, write, sculpt, or compose their works? I'm skeptical.
Then, of course, there is the issue of creating a gerontocracy. If we become essentially immortal than the 'first generation' of immortals would become the ad hoc rulers of society. Our birth rate would slow down considerably, and the young would be in no place to challenge the rule of the well-connected, very wealthy rich 'First Generation.' I mean, if I was going to live for 500+ years I would start investing my money wisely and by the time I was, say, 200 I would almost certainly be a millionaire. What of the poor sap who is born then?
I'm not saying, of course, that we should just die. I'm just saying that there ARE some real negative aspects that I don't think should be overlooked.
If God is against it He's more than capable of taking action to stop it. And since I see no sin in seeking to extend one's life, and quality thereof, I say leave this one up to God to deal with.
Isn't the Bible full of stories of extremely long-lived folks? Isn't our quest to greatly extend our life spans just another way we're trying to get back in the Garden, so to speak?
The best argument I've seen as to the downside of immortality is the suggestion that--assuming that it was accompanied with a lessening or near halt to new births to prevent rapid overpopulation--it would stifle new innovation, as there would be few or no new individuals coming into the technological arena with fresh ideas and a lack of aversion to upsetting the status quo. Whether this would happen or not is unknowable--but the suggestion is interesting. One useful hypothetical would be to ask: If some higher power had granted the human race immortality in 1850, would our level of technological development be the same today as it is in our reality(assuming the higher power did not otherwise interfere with its development)?
i think if we ever cured aging, we'd have to start getting into the business of enforcing zero population growth eventually. though i don't think there's anything wrong with not dying, i agree with jesse that there's a host of concomitant moral and logistical quandries that living indefinitely would inevitably bring about. not that they aren't solvable, of course, but that doesn't stop them from existing at present.
500 plus years is about right. At current mortality rates for 25-44 year olds, life expectancy would be a permanent 562 years.
My understanding(not being one) is that great thinkers tend to be motivated by some inner-drive, not mortality. If mortality drove such things, we would see far more people taking up serious art in their declining years. Instead, becoming an artist is a disease of the young, grandma moses excepted. It also doesn't seem to be fully curable, except through suicide. Artists who can succeed as artists don't tend to quit, unless they've exhausted their supply of creativity. The great ones never do. Mathematics has worries - most great mathematicians produce their magnum opus by age 30.
Don't worry about the immortal non-workers. Let's say you save until you are 200, and live on the proceeds. Someone has to produce what you consume. That person will demand a wage. If you and your like accumulate massive amounts of capital, you will all lose. Economic Theory says that when the supply of something rises, its price falls. Capital and savings will become far less valuable. Rags to Rags in 3 generations will become rags to rags in 100 years. The difference between 'first generation' and later comers will probably be small a sufficiently long viewpoint.
It's more likely people will become something, rise to the top, get bored, retire, burn through money, study something new, repeat ad nauseum. (At some point of nauseation, they off themselves.)
One possible exception is in tenured professions like college faculty or member of the House of Representatives. Prince Harry could get frustrated waiting for his throne, but alas, I'm not so worried about his problems.
Anyone who quits creating is likely to die of suicide, either intentional or through repeated risk-taking behavior. (The risks of skydiving are negligible. The risks of doing it 10,000 times are not. Same with the risks of fast driving, scuba diving, boating, surfing, or taking a bath. Bored people take foolish risks.)
Serious risk - society will come to be dominated by the most conservative, risk-averse people, who will, after all, have the longest life-expectancy. Not something this conservative, risk-averse person finds particularly horrid, but it is a side-effect.
One question I've always had about immortality (or close to it) is at what "stAGE" of life would the aging process (not a disease) be slowed down to permit this? Could one be an infant for 50 years? Everybody stop aging at 20? 30?
Well, there certainly would be social ramifications to eliminating aging, as many people here point out. Which would make life-extension not at all unique among technologies. For instance, in the last 100 years or so, cars, TV, reliable contraception, and the internet have all wrought substantial social change relatively quickly after their introduction. Some was good change, some was bad change, some was just change, but, on balance, I think, each of these technologies is a net benefit to humanity. The bare fact that a technology would necessitate societal change doesn't strike me as a particuarly convincing reason to avoid that technology. There would be ramifications, but I've not heard of any that couldn't be dealt with.
Jesse, excuse me for the rudeness of a "fisking" style response, but you need to be fisked here:
Isn't "Death is bad" just as simplistic?
No.
Thus, a never-ending mortal life would be akin to being locked in Purgatory forever, never ascending to whatever life lies beyond death.
Go ahead and commit suicide whenever you're ready then.
And what about our mortality? Do you really think nothing of value comes from it?
Yes, I really think nothing of value comes from it whatsoever.
Being among the only animals that have a sense of death, I would say that it has spurred some of our greatest artistic works.
Except for great works of tragedy--and tragedy will be with us always--I can't think of a single one.
If we did not die would our Great Thinkers really be moved to paint, write, sculpt, or compose their works? I'm skeptical.
Your admiration for death is your business. I'm more than skeptical of the "creativity comes from our fear of death" notion, however. I find it sick and perverted.
I can quite assure you that I'd be quite happy to continue writing for the next 500 years if given the chance. I have little doubt that Picasso or Rembrandt or Van Gogh or Shakespeare or Frank Lloyd Wright or Mozart or Beethoven or Bach or Einstein would have continued creating for centuries if they could have. And if they decided after a while to put their art away and do something else, would that be anybody's business but theirs?
What kind of sick view of humanity do you have to have to believe that death is what motivates people to creativity?
If we become essentially immortal than the 'first generation' of immortals would become the ad hoc rulers of society.
And you base this bizarre view on what? The fact that there are no members of Congress under 60 and no Presidents elected under the age of 70? That all corporate CEOs are at least 80 years old?
Has it occurred to you that most people choose to retire not because they're old and frail, but because they get tired of what they're doing and decide they'd rather do something else? Or that the easy solution to your fantasy of "gerontocacy," if it comes to that, is called democracy?
Our birth rate would slow down considerably...
News flash: it already has. Indeed, if we don't do something to extend human lifespan soon, the world population will begin imploding by 2050 or so.
I mean, if I was going to live for 500+ years I would start investing my money wisely and by the time I was, say, 200 I would almost certainly be a millionaire. What of the poor sap who is born then?
I used to program computers. I didn't start that because I was afraid to die. I've been writing since I was 8 or 9 years old, and I didn't start that because I was aware of my impending mortality either. While some artists undoubtedly create some of their works because they want something to survive past their death, why should we view that as anything but tragic? I have yet to meet an artist or writer or musician who started doing those things because they were afraid to die.
"Overpopulation" is a myth in a free society. In a free society, people are resources, not liabilities.
You want the Shakespeares and the Einsteins to live to be a thousand. But not the Hitlers or the Jack the Rippers.
Everyone thinks of themselves as being of benefit to society. Perhaps they are not. How can you determine that? If longevity treatments are extremely expensive, subject to rationing, who will decide how to apportion the benefits?
A world full of long-lived criminals, of whatever intelligence, is not a happy world. Not unless there is a nearby world full of rich suckers waiting to be plucked, defenseless against crime.
Let me be the first to assure you that whatever you assume the future to be like, given any particular innovation, you will be wrong.
Hm, as a reformed Christian this attitude makes no sense to me whatever. God doesn't want us to live longer? Is forever longer? The very promise in which Christians have hope is the promise of everlasting life in fellowship with God.
Doesn't much of medical science "artificially extend the number of years wherein we live robust, healthy, active lives"? After all, without antibiotics, if I got pneumonia, I would likely die. I wonder how many people think God doesn't want us to have antibiotics?
I am all for defeating death and producing endless lifespans.
I think it disengenuous to argue that such technology won't present immense social challenges though. For one thing, I think the 'gerontocracy' will be a significant issue. Sure, most people retire because they are tired of doing what they are doing, but most people arn't in positions of power either.
Would academics with tenure retire or would they still control academic thought? I have heard it postulated that new theories seldon get accepted before the proponents of the theories they are displacing die out, if this is true, what effect will the long lived have on science. Or consider people such as Fidel Castro. People living 'forever' or even a very long time will change a lot of social structure, and like all change there will be pain involved.
I think we can overcome those challenges, and the benefits will far outweigh the detriments, but to cavalierly say that there is no downside or that people that worry about the downsides are luddites seems foolish to me.
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Physicist Max Planck, from Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. Frank Gaynor, pp. 33–34 (1950).
I completely understand your point, Dean. However, the number of things that would need to change in our society is simply gargantuan. Even worse is that the abolition of death would cause even greater entrenchment of those who would prevent the needed changes.
Death is fundamental to every human society and, frankly, I'm at a loss to imagine how a society without death would function.
Not one of these misgivings does a thing to contradict your points, however. And I see nothing wrong with exerting our efforts to expanding the human lifespan and ensuring that lifespan is healthy.
Speaking personally, however, an indefinite lifespan has no charm for me. It would be torture.
You want the Shakespeares and the Einsteins to live to be a thousand. But not the Hitlers or the Jack the Rippers.
I do? Personally, I think the hangman's noose is a perfectly lovely solution to the problem of people like Jack the Ripper and Adolph Hitler. I also think the hangman's noose will work just as well whether we have the technology to extend lifespans or not.
Everyone thinks of themselves as being of benefit to society. Perhaps they are not.
In a free society, people are resources, not liabilities. Except for destructive people, the people we put in prison or execute for their crimes, all people are of value.
Your contempt for your fellow humans notwithstanding, if you desire to off yourself it's your business. Telling the rest of us we shouldn't live longer because perhaps we are not valuable says a whole lot of things about you, none of them good.
And I'm not aware of anything which says that practical immortality will cause prisons to cease to function or firing squads to be unable to shoot.
Let me be the first to assure you that whatever you assume the future to be like, given any particular innovation, you will be wrong.
Let me be the first to assure you that preventing people from living however long they want is better phrased as mass murder.
All correct in theory, Dean, but in practice those who are in power will go to very great lengths to preserve it. In every area those in charge will hold onto their jobs and their power for as long as possible.
The very concept of retirement, of course, would vanish. But seniority and tenure would remain.
Forgive me, Dean, but as you are normally rather balanced when it comes to these sorts of issues. I would simply like to see you speak a little of the sorts of problems that would be associated with an immortal human race. I can assure you there are many, and pointing them out doesn't make any of us have a "sick view of humanity" I don't think. We're just being pragmatic.
Kevin D. wrote:
"If God is against it He's more than capable of taking action to stop it. And since I see no sin in seeking to extend one's life, and quality thereof, I say leave this one up to God to deal with."
Wow! That is the best response to that argument that I have yet seen. Thank you.
What is pragmatic about suggesting that we're only creative or virtuous because we die?
What will people be like if they can talk to each other over long distances and don't have to write letters anymore? What if they can watch entertaining plays in the comfort of their own homes and are no longer forced to go to theaters? What will they be like if they can listen to music without having to hire musicians? What if they can create light without having to burn wood? What if they can go through winters without being afraid of freezing to death, or through summers in cool comfort?
What, horror of horrors, will happen if more of them are given access to computers?
Yes, I'm horrified at the notion that my grandparents might still be around for me to spend time with. I can't imagine the horrors that might bring to humanity, but they would surely be unimaginable.
What will people be like if they can talk to each other over long distances and don't have to write letters anymore? What if they can watch entertaining plays in the comfort of their own homes and are no longer forced to go to theaters? What will they be like if they can listen to music without having to hire musicians? What if they can create light without having to burn wood? What if they can go through winters without being afraid of freezing to death, or through summers in cool comfort?
What, horror of horrors, will happen if more of them are given access to computers?
I think, Dean, that comparing immortality to telephones or television is pretty damned spurious. We're not talking about just another technology here. We're talking about fundamentally altering the human condition to a degree which has never been attempted before.
Does that mean we absolutely should not do it? Of course not. But it does mean we should put a great deal of thought into what the ramifications -- both positive AND negative -- would be. While you might disagree with my specific 'negatives' I would ask that you concede that they do exist. Further, I'd like to you to explore them. Right now you sound entirely too enthusiastic, I think, when you should be -- at best -- cautiously optimistic.
You spend all the time you want contemplating the horrors of people not dying. In the meantime, I'd like to put every resource possible into saving lives.
They better hurry up with this stuff because I'm rapidly getting to the age where I'd like to spend these long years. I don't mind living a long, long life but I don't want to do it in a frail old body!
Seriously: while you debate, people die. Do you find that acceptable?
Dean,
I thought I made it clear in my first post that I support this sort of research?
I'm not asking to stall our efforts. I think we're a long ways off from 'immortality' anyway. Will we achieve it in my lifetime? I sure hope so!
My objection is to jumping in with both feet without realizing the sort of consequences it will bring about. This event -- if achieved -- will reshape human thinking. Will the end result be a better world? We can certainly hope so, but it certainly isn't guaranteed.
And, ultimately, that's my point: not that we shouldn't do it, but that in doing it we have to accept that some bad things might come as a result. We have to be weight the costs with the benefits.
Cardeblu says: "One question I've always had about immortality (or close to it) is at what "stAGE" of life would the aging process (not a disease) be slowed down to permit this? Could one be an infant for 50 years? Everybody stop aging at 20? 30?"
Personally, I would choose 11 years old.
It's the perfect age for an overgrown kid like me. At 11 you're old enough that you can take care of your simple needs, and yet you are not quite old enough for serious responsibilities. (And those horrible teen years won't even be a distant memory.)
I look back on that time of my life fondly. Indeed, one of the things I remember my dad telling me back then was: "Boy - you've got the world by the ass and don't even know it!"
"Stopping aging" and "immortality" are not the same thing at all. If a hangman's noose is a fitting end for a long-lived criminal, then obviously he isn't immortal.
And I think that many people would be okay with the idea of not living much longer than they already will— but remaining "young and healthy" while they age. The worst part about getting old is the things you can't do any more; I'm sure any number of grandparents would love to be able to piggyback grandchildren for years and years, and to be able to keep up with them.
At any rate, I think that we are not likely to become truly immortal. After all, death is the fairest thing out there— everybody dies, sooner or later. (Neil Gaiman had his version of Death tell a 15,000+ year-old man something very wise. He'd just said he did pretty well, and Death replied that he got what everyone gets— a lifetime.)
Another thing to consider is that the rich tend to be able to afford nifty things like life-extending therapies before the rest of us can. I personally have no problem with this--one could logically consider it as having the rich pay for the beta testing of the procedures before they are released to the masses--but if a therapy is discovered that increases the human lifespan by a massive amount, and it is only affordable for the top 1% of the population at first, it will definitely be a cause celebre for the moonbats or their ideological successors at least, and quite probably for many, many others--perhaps even a substantial majority that can use government to work its will. Economies could be wrecked, and societies destroyed by hysterical demands that the procedures be made available to all NOW NOW NOW!!! without care for the impossibility of the demands. It will be a real test of our civilization unless the therapies quickly transition into readily affordable forms.
My view is that longetivity would be wonderful. Its also that even if we get up to a thousand or ten thousand years of life, that eventually we all die, unless the Rapture comes first. So, your life is whether ten or ten thousand but a flicker of a candle in the winds of infinity.
There will be significant problems to be overcome. The possibility, the strong possibility of fixing them will exist. However, humans often end up choosing stupidity (See France post-WW1, beginning WW2, present day, and any number of other examples of gross stupidity), and it is entirely possible that some sort of horrific civilization ending disaster could come from a Longetivity Serum.
Recently read Old Twentieth by Haldeman, as I've said. It starts with a war between the Immortals and the Poor who cannot afford the pill, and are distrustful of the Immortals (in my opinion with justification). The end result is that the richest 200 million humans wipe out the rest of us.
I do suspect that Haldeman does have some issues with liking humanity, or at least the hoi polloi.
One of the key issues in this situation is acting morally on a long-term basis. When you have a transnational elite basically saying 'snot you' to the patriots who uphold the civilization the elite depends on for survival, then you create through the immorality of that elite the possibility of such a situation as Haldeman outlines in his book.
And term limits are one likely solution. I had an optimistic extrapolation, my Starsong Systems version of the future, which had Supreme Court justices retiring in good health because the Founders had not meant 'life' to be hundreds of years, adn this was causing social discontent, and so they accepted this, and stood down, thus smoothing the waters.
Another point made in that setting is that the multi-centuried play games far more complicated and subtle than the youngsters could even begin to imagine. And that the oldsters are wise enough to leave many of the most obvious levers of power in teh hands of the youngsters.
And as to population, I speculate that people would go in cycles of work, study, raise children, and back to work (because most people would be motivated by creative desires, or by the desire to make their mark, or by a less common desire to know), and that thus most people would be 1)wealthy 2)highly educated in a wide array of fields 3)have potentially dozens of children of all different ages whom they had lavished love on since while they were raising their kids both parents were not working.
As a necessity, this suggests that humanity moves off Earth. But you can pack a surprising amount of people on a planet, and have them live very nicely. And even more in a solar system. Starsong's most populous and richest planet is Strauss with a hundred billion people who live in wealth, luxury, and have plenty of space. The System itself holds about a trillion people. And thats only one system in all of Settled Space.
But my Starsong Setting assumes that the American Success continues. Not perfection, and not utopia because there are great faults and deadly dangers, like now, but that overall things improve like America has, and that challenges are generally surmounted. However, if this doesn't happen...I don't know. A Chinese dominated future would be a far less pleasant place.
According to this parable (Matthew 25:14-30), we're supposed to use the talents that God gave us.
(this is, literally, the only parable I remember from Catholic school - it's a very capitalist parable.)
We should use the talents that God gave us to discover the secrets of immortality, travel to Mars and to develop nanotechnology. I'd guess that not using these talents is 'against God's plan'.
To reverse the old cliche: If God had wanted us to go on living in caves, He would have zapped us with lightning every time we tried to build anything. If He had not wanted us to fly, He would not have given us the brains with which to build airplanes and rockets.
What kind of sick view of humanity do you have to have to believe that death is what motivates people to creativity?
Playing Devil's advocate for a minute, I'd like to suggest that that position is not sick at all, but rather a fairly good insight into what makes a fair number of people- not all- tick.
If you're saving money for retirement, but you didn't start saving until you've reached the age of 40, you are forced to make some hard choices if you're serious about putting enough money aside so that you won't be forced to depend on the kindness of others.
Suppose you're a research scientist who is on the verge of a breakthrough that will cure a terminal disease that you, ironically, suffer from. The image of the Grim Reaper drawing ever closer would likely make you push even harder than normal to find the cure.
Look at the themes in literature. Death and life figure prominently. You can use the motto "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die" as an excuse for any type of excess. However, I don't believe that anyone would deny that the end of life also ends all earthly pleasures. Certainly, to a person such as myself who believes in the afterlife, it's not as troublesome, but I spend as much time as I can with my wife and children. Mainly because I treasure them, of course, but also because I have no idea how much time I will have with them. A cousin of mine buried her oldest child when he was the ripe old age of 4; he suffered from terminal leukemia. I believe that she stopped working for the last two years of her son's life to spend as much of their limited time together. You don't believe that the thought of death and/or dying didn't affect her behavior in any way?
Granted, the examples above don't really go to your point about the creative instinct, except possibly the medical research example. However, if you'll grant that the thought of death can affect behavior in general, is it so hard to imagine that if help drive some artistic people to greater and greater achievments?
And what about our mortality? Do you really think nothing of value comes from it? Being among the only animals that have a sense of death, I would say that it has spurred some of our greatest artistic works. If we did not die would our Great Thinkers really be moved to paint, write, sculpt, or compose their works? I'm skeptical.
Then, of course, there is the issue of creating a gerontocracy. If we become essentially immortal than the 'first generation' of immortals would become the ad hoc rulers of society. Our birth rate would slow down considerably, and the young would be in no place to challenge the rule of the well-connected, very wealthy rich 'First Generation.' I mean, if I was going to live for 500+ years I would start investing my money wisely and by the time I was, say, 200 I would almost certainly be a millionaire. What of the poor sap who is born then?
I'm not saying, of course, that we should just die. I'm just saying that there ARE some real negative aspects that I don't think should be overlooked.
My understanding(not being one) is that great thinkers tend to be motivated by some inner-drive, not mortality. If mortality drove such things, we would see far more people taking up serious art in their declining years. Instead, becoming an artist is a disease of the young, grandma moses excepted. It also doesn't seem to be fully curable, except through suicide. Artists who can succeed as artists don't tend to quit, unless they've exhausted their supply of creativity. The great ones never do. Mathematics has worries - most great mathematicians produce their magnum opus by age 30.
Don't worry about the immortal non-workers. Let's say you save until you are 200, and live on the proceeds. Someone has to produce what you consume. That person will demand a wage. If you and your like accumulate massive amounts of capital, you will all lose. Economic Theory says that when the supply of something rises, its price falls. Capital and savings will become far less valuable. Rags to Rags in 3 generations will become rags to rags in 100 years. The difference between 'first generation' and later comers will probably be small a sufficiently long viewpoint.
It's more likely people will become something, rise to the top, get bored, retire, burn through money, study something new, repeat ad nauseum. (At some point of nauseation, they off themselves.)
One possible exception is in tenured professions like college faculty or member of the House of Representatives. Prince Harry could get frustrated waiting for his throne, but alas, I'm not so worried about his problems.
Anyone who quits creating is likely to die of suicide, either intentional or through repeated risk-taking behavior. (The risks of skydiving are negligible. The risks of doing it 10,000 times are not. Same with the risks of fast driving, scuba diving, boating, surfing, or taking a bath. Bored people take foolish risks.)
Serious risk - society will come to be dominated by the most conservative, risk-averse people, who will, after all, have the longest life-expectancy. Not something this conservative, risk-averse person finds particularly horrid, but it is a side-effect.
Isn't "Death is bad" just as simplistic?
No.
Thus, a never-ending mortal life would be akin to being locked in Purgatory forever, never ascending to whatever life lies beyond death.
Go ahead and commit suicide whenever you're ready then.
And what about our mortality? Do you really think nothing of value comes from it?
Yes, I really think nothing of value comes from it whatsoever.
Being among the only animals that have a sense of death, I would say that it has spurred some of our greatest artistic works.
Except for great works of tragedy--and tragedy will be with us always--I can't think of a single one.
If we did not die would our Great Thinkers really be moved to paint, write, sculpt, or compose their works? I'm skeptical.
Your admiration for death is your business. I'm more than skeptical of the "creativity comes from our fear of death" notion, however. I find it sick and perverted.
I can quite assure you that I'd be quite happy to continue writing for the next 500 years if given the chance. I have little doubt that Picasso or Rembrandt or Van Gogh or Shakespeare or Frank Lloyd Wright or Mozart or Beethoven or Bach or Einstein would have continued creating for centuries if they could have. And if they decided after a while to put their art away and do something else, would that be anybody's business but theirs?
What kind of sick view of humanity do you have to have to believe that death is what motivates people to creativity?
If we become essentially immortal than the 'first generation' of immortals would become the ad hoc rulers of society.
And you base this bizarre view on what? The fact that there are no members of Congress under 60 and no Presidents elected under the age of 70? That all corporate CEOs are at least 80 years old?
Has it occurred to you that most people choose to retire not because they're old and frail, but because they get tired of what they're doing and decide they'd rather do something else? Or that the easy solution to your fantasy of "gerontocacy," if it comes to that, is called democracy?
Our birth rate would slow down considerably...
News flash: it already has. Indeed, if we don't do something to extend human lifespan soon, the world population will begin imploding by 2050 or so.
I mean, if I was going to live for 500+ years I would start investing my money wisely and by the time I was, say, 200 I would almost certainly be a millionaire. What of the poor sap who is born then?
Tell him to start investing.
"Overpopulation" is a myth in a free society. In a free society, people are resources, not liabilities.
Everyone thinks of themselves as being of benefit to society. Perhaps they are not. How can you determine that? If longevity treatments are extremely expensive, subject to rationing, who will decide how to apportion the benefits?
A world full of long-lived criminals, of whatever intelligence, is not a happy world. Not unless there is a nearby world full of rich suckers waiting to be plucked, defenseless against crime.
Let me be the first to assure you that whatever you assume the future to be like, given any particular innovation, you will be wrong.
Hm, as a reformed Christian this attitude makes no sense to me whatever. God doesn't want us to live longer? Is forever longer? The very promise in which Christians have hope is the promise of everlasting life in fellowship with God.
Doesn't much of medical science "artificially extend the number of years wherein we live robust, healthy, active lives"? After all, without antibiotics, if I got pneumonia, I would likely die. I wonder how many people think God doesn't want us to have antibiotics?
I think it disengenuous to argue that such technology won't present immense social challenges though. For one thing, I think the 'gerontocracy' will be a significant issue. Sure, most people retire because they are tired of doing what they are doing, but most people arn't in positions of power either.
Would academics with tenure retire or would they still control academic thought? I have heard it postulated that new theories seldon get accepted before the proponents of the theories they are displacing die out, if this is true, what effect will the long lived have on science. Or consider people such as Fidel Castro. People living 'forever' or even a very long time will change a lot of social structure, and like all change there will be pain involved.
I think we can overcome those challenges, and the benefits will far outweigh the detriments, but to cavalierly say that there is no downside or that people that worry about the downsides are luddites seems foolish to me.
Physicist Max Planck, from Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. Frank Gaynor, pp. 33–34 (1950).
I completely understand your point, Dean. However, the number of things that would need to change in our society is simply gargantuan. Even worse is that the abolition of death would cause even greater entrenchment of those who would prevent the needed changes.
Death is fundamental to every human society and, frankly, I'm at a loss to imagine how a society without death would function.
Not one of these misgivings does a thing to contradict your points, however. And I see nothing wrong with exerting our efforts to expanding the human lifespan and ensuring that lifespan is healthy.
Speaking personally, however, an indefinite lifespan has no charm for me. It would be torture.
I do? Personally, I think the hangman's noose is a perfectly lovely solution to the problem of people like Jack the Ripper and Adolph Hitler. I also think the hangman's noose will work just as well whether we have the technology to extend lifespans or not.
Everyone thinks of themselves as being of benefit to society. Perhaps they are not.
In a free society, people are resources, not liabilities. Except for destructive people, the people we put in prison or execute for their crimes, all people are of value.
Your contempt for your fellow humans notwithstanding, if you desire to off yourself it's your business. Telling the rest of us we shouldn't live longer because perhaps we are not valuable says a whole lot of things about you, none of them good.
And I'm not aware of anything which says that practical immortality will cause prisons to cease to function or firing squads to be unable to shoot.
Let me be the first to assure you that whatever you assume the future to be like, given any particular innovation, you will be wrong.
Let me be the first to assure you that preventing people from living however long they want is better phrased as mass murder.
Other solutions go by the names "term limits" and "forced retirement."
All these arguments about how awful it will be strike me as much akin to the arguments for how horrible life will be once computers are ubiquitous.
The very concept of retirement, of course, would vanish. But seniority and tenure would remain.
Kevin D. wrote:
"If God is against it He's more than capable of taking action to stop it. And since I see no sin in seeking to extend one's life, and quality thereof, I say leave this one up to God to deal with."
Wow! That is the best response to that argument that I have yet seen. Thank you.
What will people be like if they can talk to each other over long distances and don't have to write letters anymore? What if they can watch entertaining plays in the comfort of their own homes and are no longer forced to go to theaters? What will they be like if they can listen to music without having to hire musicians? What if they can create light without having to burn wood? What if they can go through winters without being afraid of freezing to death, or through summers in cool comfort?
What, horror of horrors, will happen if more of them are given access to computers?
Yes, I'm horrified at the notion that my grandparents might still be around for me to spend time with. I can't imagine the horrors that might bring to humanity, but they would surely be unimaginable.
I think, Dean, that comparing immortality to telephones or television is pretty damned spurious. We're not talking about just another technology here. We're talking about fundamentally altering the human condition to a degree which has never been attempted before.
Does that mean we absolutely should not do it? Of course not. But it does mean we should put a great deal of thought into what the ramifications -- both positive AND negative -- would be. While you might disagree with my specific 'negatives' I would ask that you concede that they do exist. Further, I'd like to you to explore them. Right now you sound entirely too enthusiastic, I think, when you should be -- at best -- cautiously optimistic.
Best,
Jesse
Seriously: while you debate, people die. Do you find that acceptable?
Dean,
I thought I made it clear in my first post that I support this sort of research?
I'm not asking to stall our efforts. I think we're a long ways off from 'immortality' anyway. Will we achieve it in my lifetime? I sure hope so!
My objection is to jumping in with both feet without realizing the sort of consequences it will bring about. This event -- if achieved -- will reshape human thinking. Will the end result be a better world? We can certainly hope so, but it certainly isn't guaranteed.
And, ultimately, that's my point: not that we shouldn't do it, but that in doing it we have to accept that some bad things might come as a result. We have to be weight the costs with the benefits.
Personally, I would choose 11 years old.
It's the perfect age for an overgrown kid like me. At 11 you're old enough that you can take care of your simple needs, and yet you are not quite old enough for serious responsibilities. (And those horrible teen years won't even be a distant memory.)
I look back on that time of my life fondly. Indeed, one of the things I remember my dad telling me back then was: "Boy - you've got the world by the ass and don't even know it!"
Boy was he right!
And I think that many people would be okay with the idea of not living much longer than they already will— but remaining "young and healthy" while they age. The worst part about getting old is the things you can't do any more; I'm sure any number of grandparents would love to be able to piggyback grandchildren for years and years, and to be able to keep up with them.
At any rate, I think that we are not likely to become truly immortal. After all, death is the fairest thing out there— everybody dies, sooner or later. (Neil Gaiman had his version of Death tell a 15,000+ year-old man something very wise. He'd just said he did pretty well, and Death replied that he got what everyone gets— a lifetime.)
There will be significant problems to be overcome. The possibility, the strong possibility of fixing them will exist. However, humans often end up choosing stupidity (See France post-WW1, beginning WW2, present day, and any number of other examples of gross stupidity), and it is entirely possible that some sort of horrific civilization ending disaster could come from a Longetivity Serum.
Recently read Old Twentieth by Haldeman, as I've said. It starts with a war between the Immortals and the Poor who cannot afford the pill, and are distrustful of the Immortals (in my opinion with justification). The end result is that the richest 200 million humans wipe out the rest of us.
I do suspect that Haldeman does have some issues with liking humanity, or at least the hoi polloi.
One of the key issues in this situation is acting morally on a long-term basis. When you have a transnational elite basically saying 'snot you' to the patriots who uphold the civilization the elite depends on for survival, then you create through the immorality of that elite the possibility of such a situation as Haldeman outlines in his book.
And term limits are one likely solution. I had an optimistic extrapolation, my Starsong Systems version of the future, which had Supreme Court justices retiring in good health because the Founders had not meant 'life' to be hundreds of years, adn this was causing social discontent, and so they accepted this, and stood down, thus smoothing the waters.
Another point made in that setting is that the multi-centuried play games far more complicated and subtle than the youngsters could even begin to imagine. And that the oldsters are wise enough to leave many of the most obvious levers of power in teh hands of the youngsters.
And as to population, I speculate that people would go in cycles of work, study, raise children, and back to work (because most people would be motivated by creative desires, or by the desire to make their mark, or by a less common desire to know), and that thus most people would be 1)wealthy 2)highly educated in a wide array of fields 3)have potentially dozens of children of all different ages whom they had lavished love on since while they were raising their kids both parents were not working.
As a necessity, this suggests that humanity moves off Earth. But you can pack a surprising amount of people on a planet, and have them live very nicely. And even more in a solar system. Starsong's most populous and richest planet is Strauss with a hundred billion people who live in wealth, luxury, and have plenty of space. The System itself holds about a trillion people. And thats only one system in all of Settled Space.
But my Starsong Setting assumes that the American Success continues. Not perfection, and not utopia because there are great faults and deadly dangers, like now, but that overall things improve like America has, and that challenges are generally surmounted. However, if this doesn't happen...I don't know. A Chinese dominated future would be a far less pleasant place.
(this is, literally, the only parable I remember from Catholic school - it's a very capitalist parable.)
We should use the talents that God gave us to discover the secrets of immortality, travel to Mars and to develop nanotechnology. I'd guess that not using these talents is 'against God's plan'.
Excellent.
To reverse the old cliche: If God had wanted us to go on living in caves, He would have zapped us with lightning every time we tried to build anything. If He had not wanted us to fly, He would not have given us the brains with which to build airplanes and rockets.
Playing Devil's advocate for a minute, I'd like to suggest that that position is not sick at all, but rather a fairly good insight into what makes a fair number of people- not all- tick.
If you're saving money for retirement, but you didn't start saving until you've reached the age of 40, you are forced to make some hard choices if you're serious about putting enough money aside so that you won't be forced to depend on the kindness of others.
Suppose you're a research scientist who is on the verge of a breakthrough that will cure a terminal disease that you, ironically, suffer from. The image of the Grim Reaper drawing ever closer would likely make you push even harder than normal to find the cure.
Look at the themes in literature. Death and life figure prominently. You can use the motto "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die" as an excuse for any type of excess. However, I don't believe that anyone would deny that the end of life also ends all earthly pleasures. Certainly, to a person such as myself who believes in the afterlife, it's not as troublesome, but I spend as much time as I can with my wife and children. Mainly because I treasure them, of course, but also because I have no idea how much time I will have with them. A cousin of mine buried her oldest child when he was the ripe old age of 4; he suffered from terminal leukemia. I believe that she stopped working for the last two years of her son's life to spend as much of their limited time together. You don't believe that the thought of death and/or dying didn't affect her behavior in any way?
Granted, the examples above don't really go to your point about the creative instinct, except possibly the medical research example. However, if you'll grant that the thought of death can affect behavior in general, is it so hard to imagine that if help drive some artistic people to greater and greater achievments?
Just my two cents worth.