Submitted by MeronDC t3_10l96j0 in Futurology
Evipicc t1_j5y4fsc wrote
Reply to comment by Tronith87 in Which medical specialty will deal with immortality? by MeronDC
No. We don't have to die, we just do right now.
I'd love to hear an explanation though. Are you concerned about our economic systems supporting immortality? Are you concerned about resources and the math behind potentially infinite people in a finite space?
Your comment of "Everything must die so that new things can live" just isn't scientifically based. New things live around undying redwood trees all the time. While one redwood lives there's no restriction on another seed starting life.
Tronith87 t1_j5yig0e wrote
Eventually all things die. That is the natural order. And my concerns are many. Look who’s running the show into the ground right now, old men for the most part. Imagine having policies set by a 300-year-old who never bothered to change their mind about anything for centuries.
I’m not going to go on with all the hundreds of problems with humanity becoming immortal and instead say that it’s likely just a pipe dream anyway.
Evipicc t1_j5zqlaa wrote
If I have option to no longer be beholden to this 'natural order' I'm going to take it. There is no overarching and controlling morality. Your ideals do not dictate what is possible.
That said your mention of current societal limits are valid, the ruling party having immortality right now, with our current systems, would be really bad. Hopefully in the next century we resolve those issues.
Tronith87 t1_j5zr1sk wrote
You're more optimistic than I am about solving our issues that are likely to kill off most of us in the next century. So do you think that all 8 billion and counting of us should be immortal? How about the children of those immortal adults? We're going to literally run out of room in less than a century if that's the case. Unless you believe we're going to somehow colonise mars or the moon.
Evipicc t1_j604tuf wrote
Immortality invalidates the concerns for how long it takes to get places in the universe.
Tronith87 t1_j607k59 wrote
No it doesn't. Immortality does not mean you don't have to eat and drink and rest. We don't have the resources to care for billions of immortal humans. We will still freeze and starve to death in the harshness of space even though our cells are replacing themselves as quickly as they die.
If this plan does come to fruition, we already know that the richest and most powerful people will use the technology and regular people will not be able to afford access to it. It will become the most extreme form of inequality. A small number of the population will dominant not only finances but time itself. Their offspring will of course also be afforded immortality and there will be ruling dynasties for eternity of the same family unless they are killed.
It's a horrible, horrible plan and I truly pray that we kill ourselves off or reduce in population to the point where this will never become reality.
adfaer t1_j61rcdc wrote
How is this meme so popular? Why do people turn off their brains and forget about how all technologies start expensive and then get cheaper over time?
Tronith87 t1_j627ymi wrote
Right, because medical related procedures and specialized medication is super cheap and affordable.
adfaer t1_j62dd62 wrote
They’re not cheap, but we cover the payment with group spending like taxes or insurance because we agree that it’s right for people to have access to them. Sure the system for doing that is pretty fucked up in America right now, but that’s only in comparison to other advanced nations we could easily emulate. From a historical perspective, the access that even the poorest citizens have to lifesaving medicine is crazy good.
There’s absolutely not a chance in hell, at all, even a little bit, that the majority of citizens would permit rich people to hoard literal immortality. It would be completely politically impossible to prevent ordinary people from seizing the reins and distributing the immortality treatment, even if it were really expensive. And I don’t think it will be inherently all that expensive. It will probably be a genetic mod, which has all sorts of theoretical low expense delivery options.
As for all the problems with overpopulation and feeding people etc, immortality affords us the time and opportunity to solve those problems. If you could have the opportunity to either get yourself out of a tight situation through some challenge, or just choose to die, the choice is obvious. Your “solution” to feeding billions of people in the future is to let billions of people die now. That’s not a solution. That’s just a total abdication of any sense of agency or self-preservation or love of humanity.
DrImNotFukingSelling t1_j5yp4m8 wrote
Term limits = state sponsored suicide so they don’t come back
Tronith87 t1_j5ypion wrote
Lol yeah, like the oldest and richest and most powerful humans will definitely legislate that for themselves.
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