Two problems with Transhumanist immortality

1. Even if transhumanism does extend our lives by millions of years, the stars will eventually go out, and matter and energy will become dilute and dissolve. It's not immortality, just a really long postponement of the inevitable

2. Even if it happens within, let's say, the next thirty years, a lot of people will die before then, and they aren't going to come back. I don't see the point of immortality if it just means extra years without many of the people I love.

Yes.

And? There are tons of other, much more important issues with it. I.e. class warfare...

1. No, you don't say that entropy effects EVERYTHING and that eventually anything breaks down. Do you consider that if you die tomorrow you will have had "enough time", its simply an extension of that.

2. Good for you, when everyone else is wandering around in robo-brain suits I hope you don't mind.

1: That's assuming we can't find a way to reverse entropy. Which might be true, but a few million/billion/trillion years is still better then 100.

2: So?

About the second point: some people speculate that it might eventually become possible to "see the past" in some way with such accuracy to be able to analyze and simulate loved people's brains, even long after their deaths.

Whether this is even theoretically possible is doubtful; and whether these simulations would really be the people that they think they are is a philosophical problem with no trivial answer.

That's not even the deepest implication of being able to "see the past," actually. Being able to see your dead lover again is nice. Being able to, say, look back in time at some important historical period is even more powerful a tool. And crime-solving could be made much easier, too...

1. Billions of years of life are better than 70-80.

2. You can always meet new people, and the good news is, because of the fact that you will all be immortal, you won't have to lose any of them barring some sort of violent injury.

The biggest possible problem I see with this (though I love the idea), is that the technology won't be available to everybody. No company ever made a dollar giving people good things for free.

Exactly

Class warfare. The rich get better, the poor stay the same.

The only outcomes are that the rich give up something so that poor can come up to their level—or revolution.

There was an amusing short story by Asimov on this topic, if I remember correctly.

edited 17th Sep '11 12:29:41 PM by Carciofus

That Super-Intelligence thing that presumably comes with transhumanism will probably help make that whole upper/lower class divide on who gets it a non-issue. The first people who get it would probably figure out a way to make it extremely easy for the rest of mankind to become transhumans as well.

No one would ever use that in a story due to Rule of Drama, but yeah, that's how it will probably go down in Real Life.

I think Minority Report was based on it.

edited 17th Sep '11 12:37:19 PM by Ekuran

Nah, because there's a difference between "knowing" how to fix a problem and getting people to agree with you.

Why would they necessarily want to do that? It would make more sense to use the technology to benefit themselves rather than the rest of humanity; I'd see the first people who found out how to do this selling their skills to the highest bidder, or more likely, forming a corporation and marketing their innovation. Such an innovation would be highly desirable, therefore, it would be very expensive. Expensive means that those with less money will be unable to access this. This translates into a divide between immortals with money, and naturals without. At the very least, this will be a source of tension; at the worst, it will lead to all out class warfare.

Like I said, I love the idea, but I'm not going to pretend it won't come with its own problems, because it will.

edited 17th Sep '11 12:39:25 PM by tropetown

'It would make more sense to use the technology to benefit themselves rather than the rest of humanity; I'd see the first people who found out how to do this selling their skills to the highest bidder, or more likely, forming a corporation and marketing their innovation"

They wouldn't have a choice. Something that causes immortality would have to be given to everyone, not doing so will cause a war.

There's no guarantee that it would be freely shared, actually; proper healthcare isn't available to everyone in the world, after all. There's just too much of a personal gain to be made from immortality; people are generally more concerned with what works out best for themsleves, not everyone else. Think of it like this; how much would you be willing to pay to become immortal? Especially if we're talking about a gradual upgrade to a fully immortal body over the years (which would be easier to create a business around), plus replacement parts in case the old ones get damaged.

edited 17th Sep '11 12:49:47 PM by tropetown

Oh, sure, but it would lead to war.

And we won't ever have functional immortality (i.e. you can't be killed). Only immortality in the sense that you won't die of disease or old age...

Wealth would soon mean nothing to them. Post-scarcity and all that jazz that comes with having superhuman intelligence. Restrictions and limitations are for those who think they actually exist.

edited 17th Sep '11 12:50:58 PM by Ekuran

You're putting far too much faith in the human capacity for empathy and compassion.

Make no mistake, such a thing would go to the highest bidder, not the benefit of all humanity. And we would suffer untold amounts of war for it.

Explain. Intelligence doesn't cure human flaws; if anything, it tends to magnify them.

Increasing intelligence increases understanding of the world. Sentient beings are part of the world. Therefore, Super-Intelligence = Super Empathy/Compassion.

When you're intelligent enough to know you're superior, you'll act superior.

Frankly, for every compassionate one there will be a jackass, and it takes two compassionate people to drown out one jackass...

Understanding the world doesn't mean you won't want to exploit it for your own benefit; being intelligent just means that you can see more possibilities for doing so. Smart doesn't necessarily mean nice, it just means you'll be better at being bad.

edited 17th Sep '11 12:56:10 PM by tropetown

Transhumanism is all about removing flaws like being a jackass or that whole death thing.

That would require destroying human free will.

So long as we can choose, there will be evil.

Removing human flaws is fundamentally impossible (so is immortality, but it's at least concrete enough to talk about); immortal, super-smart humans are not necessarily going to be any less flawed.

Your right, there will be flaws, but there will be no reason not to help others.