Poll: Immortality

[Crazy Zaul]

If people were immortal they'd have to ban babies and infertilise the entire human race to stop overpopulation but some people would still manage to have them anyway so there would need to be an agency that goes round killing babies and those people would destroy their souls and become totally evil and start destroying everything.

so no.

 

[Olas]

It seems that since you can always just kill yourself, granting immortality simply gives people the option to live eternally. People can choose for themselves how long they want to live.

Not giving people immortality essentially takes this freedom away and decides how long they will live for them. Does that sound fair to you?

Also, being immortal would mean you'd be young until you die. You wouldn't spend the last 25 years of your life as an old person with a dramatically reduced quality of life.

 

[Hazzard]

I think that if immortality became an option for everyone, the rule would come that you can't have children. Or not rule, it makes you sterile, or an enuch.
That way, the super rich would bankrupt themselves, leaving us mortals to create new rich people, and because they won't have been around as long, they won't be as rich as the super rich.

 

[EclipseoftheDarkSun]

I'd be in favour of non-ageing type immortality, so long as its cheap and readily available - if you're mentally and physically constantly renewed, I don't see the downside, particularly since you could still off yourself. Sure, if you just continued to age mentally there could be problems.

I'm not in favour of rich-people-only immortality, unless it's just the initial stages, before economies of scale made it available to everyone.

If we've developed sufficiently efficient/sophisticated robots, that could make immortality quite desirable - you could stop exploiting each other as much and educate each other instead, working together towards bigger goals for humanity.

 

[Aprilgold]

Can't we just put my mind into a machine's body? That way i could benefit society in so many other ways, like space exploration, no need to send up oxygen or water. Just me, and some other robot pals.

Whenever someone brings this up, this is the answer I want. You can still die by will, so thats awesome.

And if your wondering, a cute like robot, just not going to do the Uncanny Valley bullshit. Also, everyone gets put into a robot body when they are 20 year old, this would allow for the fixing of things like overpopulation and for great minds to stay great forever. Also, wars would no longer be neccessary. Still, I'm into people having their own kill switch that only they can press.

 

[Blobpie]

Can't we just put my mind into a machine's body? That way i could benefit society in so many other ways, like space exploration, no need to send up oxygen or water. Just me, and some other robot pals.

That would be awesome
If when you die, or before you die, you could have that happen
As a robot you still felt emotions and could think, but didn't feel pain, nor hunger, nor become sick, etc...
Yeah, I'd have that done

Would you be an uncanny valley robot or one of those weird cutesy ones like WALL-E?

And who says i have to be limited to humanoid forms?

 

[Esotera]

People are going to kill themselves after living for a couple of hundred years, or maybe a couple of thousand. They'll mostly get bored of existence.

As for getting immortality, if overpopulation is an issue (which I don't think it would be, massive increases in population generally tend to arrive at an equilibrium) then maybe it'd be a good idea for it to be conditional on not having children, or becoming mortal again when you want children.

That sort of assumes a lot about what type of immortality this is though.

 

[NightHawk21]

Yes, and hell give it to everyone. While you're at it of course everyone whose getting it should be made sterile, with the condition that until everyone is immortal you can't get the pill until you are say early to mid 20's (minimum age), and you have to donate sperm/eggs before you undergo sterilization.

I always refer to this Cracked article whenever some brings this up.
http://www.cracked.com/article_18708_5-reasons-immortality-would-be-worse-than-death.html

And I'm just too tired at the moment to write anything substantial, I need some sleep.

No joke, but I hate that article. I love cracked, but that article is so inherently flawed it isn't even funny (it makes me mad every time I see it).

Here's what the author failed to consider (ignoring the fact that the article is written from the perspective of only you having immortality):

Spoiler: Why that article is wrong and stupid

1) There is no guarantee evolution will proceed to that extent. 1 million years is not that long from an evolutionary point of view (I personally would say that humans in the future will still largely be similar enough to us now in all fundamental aspects). Lets look at the reason they give: food, entertainment, and language.
I don't think I'd be wrong saying that every or almost every animal gets its energy in the same way on the molecular level. Unless literally everything that contains digestable compounds (amino acids, fats, sugars, etc.) that we can eat disappears, and we somehow lose the ability to synthesize these compounds (highly unlikely), you won't go hungry.

Entertainment is subjective. Shit some people get entertainment from exploring new areas. You can go explore the cosmos or if your more an indoors person, read a book.
Language is a tricky scenario and perhaps the only valid one, because it is hard to predict where that will go. I'm sure that even if you lose the ability to speak though you can still write or print. It not like not being able to speak is unheard of.

2)This point only makes sense assuming you're the only one with immortality, and then assuming my immortality wasn't from magic, but science, I'd give the scientists the secret.

3)I can't vouch for the brain functions of this part, but it sounds highly suspect and based on a misunderstand of science to me. That said, its no longer relevant, cause scientists have already developed/are perfecting ways to essentially make you forget information.

4)Even though time apparently appears to speed up as you age (mind you we haven't had a study with someone living for anywhere close the scale we're talking on), it is flawed to think that because a minute will feel like 6 seconds (to use the words of an article), you'll only get 6 seconds of "life" from a minute. You'll still be able to do everything you ever wanted to in a minute, its just a minute loses its significance since you aren't really constrained by time. Its a stupid point that has almost no scientific backing and is just plain speculation on the author's part.

5)A point that always gets brought up in these discussions. Here's the thing, any accident that would leave you trapped on a planet with humans is irrelevant since you could just get a small gps implant that would send you vital signs and location to your computer and if you indicate in someway (to the implant), to the police or any other authority. As for space, well sooner or later you're bound to hit something or enter something's gravitational field.

 

[Fallere825]

If its the eternal Youth you described in the original Post then I would go for it, that means i can still die if I dont eat or end up getting trapped or hit by a car or something, Eternal youth isn't really immortality, if it were Immortality were as I cannot Die then in no way would I ever choose that over a normal life.

 

[NightHawk21]

Can't we just put my mind into a machine's body? That way i could benefit society in so many other ways, like space exploration, no need to send up oxygen or water. Just me, and some other robot pals.

That would be awesome
If when you die, or before you die, you could have that happen
As a robot you still felt emotions and could think, but didn't feel pain, nor hunger, nor become sick, etc...
Yeah, I'd have that done

Would you be an uncanny valley robot or one of those weird cutesy ones like WALL-E?

And who says i have to be limited to humanoid forms?

Spoiler: images

Or you could become one of these:

Spoiler

sorry couldn't resist

 

[Evilpigeon]

Being in complete control of when I die sounds nice. Not a viable option for us as a species right now but if we ever manage to get the whole space travel thing going then population ceases to be so much of a problem. Under those circumstances it'd probably work quite well.

 

[tobi the good boy]

Hmnm. wouldn't need it. I already know I'm never going to die.

 

[Captain Anon]

how about a promise from God/Death/whatevs that you will ONLY die of old age, with no interference from disease?

But that would be pretty broing. I'd rather die early than from old age.

ah but dying young is a pain and is unintended however dying of old age is natural and means that you have lived your life to fullest and when comes sadly it will be time to go. so i would take that promise given the chance.

 

[Wintermoot]

only with the option to die at will after 100-200 or so years with a encoded kill switch to prevent over population and to attach value to life.
I personally don,t plan to live forever death gives meaning to life.

 

[Rowan93]

The pill is probably only expensive because the company behind it has intellectual property over it.

Exploiting this dramatic stroke of luck, the pirate party becomes the only party that matters in every democracy in the world. Then, everyone gets the immortality pill.