NationStates Jolt Archive

Clicky (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4003063.stm)

For those who are too lazy to read, basically this article claims that a group of scientists are on their way to making it so that people will not age and will only die from unnatural causes (accidents, disease, attacks, etc.).

Personally I think this could have several good effects on society, such as a boost to the economy due to more consumers, less people dieing(obvious, but worth mentioning since death can be considered bad) and also retention of important people who could make great contributions to society with more time (scientists and politicians most notably).

The bad side is that this increases the risk of overpopulation, if less people die and the birth rate keeps constant then we will eventually not have enough room for everyone on the planet and I don't think our current space travel is capable of building enough room on other planets/space stations for people to stay. Another downside is that people who you really want to die might not (such as Bush, Clinton, etc, etc.).

So what do you all think of the possiblity of living forever?

Umm Im up for it, but I am also what I guess you could a religious person so Im really not sure what Id want. But ya I guess everyone would want to live forever lol.

hell yeah, if that's true, i'd want to live forever. why not?
sure as hell would take the stress out of life - maybe even society?
if everyone lived till 1000, what's the rush? the world would be a better place.

personally id love to travel a lot - and if i lived that long i would leave tomorrow :)

Count me in. I would like to live for a thousand years, if I don't get all gross looking.

Clicky (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4003063.stm)

For those who are too lazy to read, basically this article claims that a group of scientists are on their way to making it so that people will not age and will only die from unnatural causes (accidents, disease, attacks, etc.).

Personally I think this could have several good effects on society, such as a boost to the economy due to more consumers, less people dieing(obvious, but worth mentioning since death can be considered bad) and also retention of important people who could make great contributions to society with more time (scientists and politicians most notably).

The bad side is that this increases the risk of overpopulation, if less people die and the birth rate keeps constant then we will eventually not have enough room for everyone on the planet and I don't think our current space travel is capable of building enough room on other planets/space stations for people to stay. Another downside is that people who you really want to die might not (such as Bush, Clinton, etc, etc.).

So what do you all think of the possiblity of living forever?



good article

Well I would like for the moment to resume living, like I have done centuries before this..........

I think the possibility of eternal (or greatly extended) life would exacerbate many of the current problems we face today, and create new ones we haven't even guessed at.

One of the most obvious side-effects would be the establishment of a de facto Gerontocracy. I cannot imagine the troubles we'd face with that - moneyed, powerful individuals who continue, on, and on, and on...with no end to the power they wield over others.

It's quite a chilling prospect. Count me out.

What would all the lethal injection administers do for a job? :p

My guess is that after this is released, everyone will want to stay in their mid-twenties. Not me! I'm going to wait until I'm 107 to take this stuff. That way I can get away with a lot of crap, and people will be like, "Meh, he's really old."

*Starts smacking cane around*

I'd stop ageing at 25 and stay like that for 100 years, by which point I would have probably loved and lost enough times to be pissed at the world and not want to live in it anymore...

Either that, or my enemies would be sick of waiting.

I'd have to go out in a special way, though, after helping mankind in some way or another. So I'll invent a perfect method of treating cancer with a 100% success rate, then die in a space-ship hit by a bolt of that megalightning thats on telly at the moment. In 2112.

Wow. I didn't know I'd thought so much about this :D

Question: would we trust this scientist...

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40586000/jpg/_40586145_adg203_300.jpg

...more if he looked like this?

http://www.csiro.au/csiro/75thann/aasdslo.jpg

What would all the lethal injection administers do for a job?
Well you can still be killed. You just won't die of old age or get age related diseases/disablitlities since your cells won't degenerate at all.

It could be a good thing people being less rushed as said before and people would have more work for the good of all mankind since they will be part of it for longer.

This would ruin the economy. Not only would supply and demand chains become topsy-turvy, the youthful elderly will have been around long enough to accumulate enormous amounts of power and money. Not to mention the fact that the funeral property and cemetary businesses - which employ millions - would collapse.

This would ruin the economy. Not only would supply and demand chains become topsy-turvy, the youthful elderly will have been around long enough to accumulate enormous amounts of power and money. Not to mention the fact that the funeral property and cemetary businesses - which employ millions - would collapse.

So? Wouldn't you want to live forever? I know I would...

So? Wouldn't you want to live forever? I know I would...
Not with me hunting you
*stalks in the long grass*

Living for a long while would be nice. But if everyone else is doing it, things would go to hell.

"I'm going to live forever or die trying!" - Vila Restel, Blake's 7

Science fiction. We're a long way off from coming close to living forever. Besides, after a while wouldn't you get bored? Imagine trying to collect social security....for 200 years.

Other than political reasons, think about us religous folk. Pursuing perfection by trying to be more like God is one thing, but to try to live forever? That's a stretch. I think most people would live to about 500 (if that long), then stop taking whatever drug it is that's keeping them alive.

*shrug* I'd add on a hundred years or so just to see what happens to society and the world as a whole. Maybe we could actually see if global warming/cooling is real and make evolution more than a theory! WOW! *yawns*

My guess is that after this is released, everyone will want to stay in their mid-twenties. Not me! I'm going to wait until I'm 107 to take this stuff. That way I can get away with a lot of crap, and people will be like, "Meh, he's really old."

*Starts smacking cane around*

LOL

Wow, imagine the implications for the children born later. You won't be able to retire until you're 800, you're competing for promotions against guys with 250 years of experience with the company, and Joe down the hall goes back to college every 50 years or so and is now sitting on a dozen PHd's.

That would suck for the 24 year old, fresh out of college types.

I should like to live a good long time. Long enough to see how the world turns out in the long run. I fear that such technologies will simply create an overclass of virtually immortal aristocrates. Most people would stand no chance at anything like this or even more basic amenities that are already in short supply. IE: housing, standard medical care, college education.

I fear that such technologies will simply create an overclass of virtually immortal aristocrates. Most people would stand no chance at anything like this or even more basic amenities that are already in short supply. IE: housing, standard medical care, college education.
That is another thing I was kind of thinking about. How much would something like this cost? Or, more importantly, how much would you be willing to pay for this? All though in the long run the cost won't really matter since you will live long enough to make enough money to pay it off, but it will be hard to afford it probably unless you can get deffered payments or something like that.

The last thing I would want is to live forever.... I would get bored... and the last thing I can stand is getting bored.. so I would live a goodish span and choose to terminate at like 150 or so....

Wow, imagine the implications for the children born later. You won't be able to retire until you're 800, you're competing for promotions against guys with 250 years of experience with the company, and Joe down the hall goes back to college every 50 years or so and is now sitting on a dozen PHd's.

That would suck for the 24 year old, fresh out of college types.

Heh, yeah. Us young folk would be griping about "the Ancients" and how we can't compete with that much experience.

Clicky (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4003063.stm)

For those who are too lazy to read, basically this article claims that a group of scientists are on their way to making it so that people will not age and will only die from unnatural causes (accidents, disease, attacks, etc.).

Personally I think this could have several good effects on society, such as a boost to the economy due to more consumers, less people dieing(obvious, but worth mentioning since death can be considered bad) and also retention of important people who could make great contributions to society with more time (scientists and politicians most notably).

The bad side is that this increases the risk of overpopulation, if less people die and the birth rate keeps constant then we will eventually not have enough room for everyone on the planet and I don't think our current space travel is capable of building enough room on other planets/space stations for people to stay. Another downside is that people who you really want to die might not (such as Bush, Clinton, etc, etc.).

So what do you all think of the possiblity of living forever?


Crap so all we would have to do is take some pills.

I wanted to drain the life from some nubile hot 16 year old girl. With 1000 years behind me i would be a demi - god and would enjoy building a unholy army to do my bidding. WHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHA. :mad:

tis twill go awfully wrong. and RESIDENT EVIL: REGENERATION shall become a reality. great going.

however, twould be awesome! at least for me. i mean, i dont know about the ugly people of this world...would suck to just never get laid eh...

another thing. for geeks like us, would it also prevent deterioration of the iris or catahract of the eye? you know, staring at computer all day long isnt a good thing for you =p

Science fiction. We're a long way off from coming close to living forever. Besides, after a while wouldn't you get bored? Imagine trying to collect social security....for 200 years.

Other than political reasons, think about us religous folk. Pursuing perfection by trying to be more like God is one thing, but to try to live forever? That's a stretch. I think most people would live to about 500 (if that long), then stop taking whatever drug it is that's keeping them alive.

*shrug* I'd add on a hundred years or so just to see what happens to society and the world as a whole. Maybe we could actually see if global warming/cooling is real and make evolution more than a theory! WOW! *yawns*

Vila said it in a context when someone asked "how long do you want to live?".
It was a flippant answer. :)

This was posted before. In the: Who wants to live forever? thread.

The last thing this miserable planet needs is more people living longer.

This was posted before. In the: Who wants to live forever? thread.
Created by yours truly

Such longevity is an interesting, but somewhat frightening prospect. One great experience of life is death and finding out what happens afterwards (assuming you belief something does – I personally do). Therefore, I would never want to live forever, but I would love to be in charge of my own mortality. Perhaps at the ripe old age of 200 I’ll say goodbye to my friends of over 150 years and stop taking whatever medication this stuff is.

Just a thought: Would the strain on the “elderly” population possibly cause governments to set an age at which this treatment is no longer legal? Certainly the Earth’s carrying capacity would be reached very quickly (if it already hasn’t been).

this happened in a science fiction story i read.

it got to the point where if you wanted to reproduce, you'd have to find someone willing to die so that you could have your kid.

the story involved a man whose wife was about to have triplets. they only found one volunteer who would die for the kids so they would have to kill two of the triplets after birth.

the man ends up killing the doctor and himself.

combined with the grandfather who was willing to die for new grandkids, that made three.

plus the custodian who witnessed it contemplated stopping off at a suicide booth.

Is this a book? What's it called?

I intend to be 1000^Infinity^Infinity

God: "We really fucked that up, didn't we?"
Me: "Dude. I hate to be childish, but.... I told you so"

Hmm ... I've collected three broken bones (which don't heal perfectly) and about a dozen visible scars in 45 years. Multiply that by a factor 10 or 100 or whatever, and I would make an interesting sight.

Seems to me that if this came off, the wheelchair and cosmetics industry could take up the slack in the burials and undertaking business, so that's one less thing to worry about.

Is this a book? What's it called?
it may have been a short story by kurt vonnegut. he's the only science fiction author i read a lot of anymore. or wells. i can't remember. it may have been in a book i had to read for class (though not one of the stories i have to read)

it was a short story though, not a full out book. and it was in a collection of short stories. and i'm really inclined to say that kurt vonnegut wrote it.

old enough to know better, young enough to still do it

I want to live forever! ~

I think living until I'm 7,000 isn't too much to ask.

Clicky (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4003063.stm)
So what do you all think of the possiblity of living forever?

I'm sure that there will some day be a way to prolong life to an extreme extent, HOWEVER, it is imparative that those who choose to live for an extended period of time do NOT, under any circumstance, have children.
If they happen to concieve children, whether by accident, or on purpose, the children (or the parent[s]) must be killed.

Immortality leads to overpopulation. Immortality is also impossible, our bodies detereorate do to radiation of our genes and the fact that our bodies are not meant to last forever. I don't like the idea for a species which breeds like mice to be given immortality or even increased longevity. That and the fact that death is another experience in life, I want to have that experience, living forever would get boring.

Hmmmm there's one really obvious thing you're all forgetting...

Even if immortality were possible (by restoring tissue decay or whatever), YOUR MEMORY. By the time you were like say... 300, you would have little to no recollection of most of the first 100 years of your life. Human memory is not infinite, there is only so much information that your brain can store.

Over the course of hundreds of years, you would be constantly losing memory from previous parts of your life....

Realistically speaking immortality is not remotely feasible with the technology we have today, although extended life is. Extended by maybe a few decades, definitely. Extended by a century? Perhaps... Extended by 1000 years? You wish.

Now reality aside... I would love to live forever (assuming I could live forever at 25 and have perfect memory and such)... Imagine what you could learn, what you could do, the things you could experience...

Hmmmm there's one really obvious thing you're all forgetting...

Even if immortality were possible (by restoring tissue decay or whatever), YOUR MEMORY. By the time you were like say... 300, you would have little to no recollection of most of the first 100 years of your life. Human memory is not infinite, there is only so much information that your brain can store.

Over the course of hundreds of years, you would be constantly losing memory from previous parts of your life....

You only actually use a small part of your brain. The article said that your mental alertness would cease to deteriorate, just as your body would, so allegedly you wouldn’t go through any mental decay, unless of course you got Alzheimer’s or something. All that free space in your brain could probably go towards storing memories your natural life would not have been long enough to have. When you can’t remember something, it’s not because your mind erased it for something else, but because something else, either a past or more recent event, is blocking your recollection of this memory.

Ahhh that's a very commonly held rumor, actually I myself believed that we only used a very small portion of our brains until shown otherwise.

In fact we actually use MOST of our brain, about 90% ish at last check. I could probably find the source again for you if you wanted (although it won't be the same.... I saw it a while ago)

Sure I'd like immortality. There are so many things to see and do. Of course, if this was possible it would mean a radical change in our societies, economies and human nature itself. Would people take as many risks knowing that they still have hundreds of years to live? Would people be willing to give up parenthood to avoid overpopulation? Still, I hope I get to have my life extended by at least several decades.

I really don't see the point of living forever. For one thing, I think it would take away a lot of the point of life. If you could live forever, would you appreciate life as much? Would you get bored? I think death makes life valuable. Without death, life doesn't stand out. It's easy to want to cheat death, but in the end, you're trying to have your cake and eat it, too.