An immortal society: What would it look like?

let's assume a society slightly in the future where they've found a way to become immortal. this cure is so easy to produce and administer that the entire world can get the cure within a year of it's discovery. So we now have an immortal planet. What would happen to society?

One of the first things I can see is a ban on having children without a permit. With the death rate dropping so quickly we'd have to counter it with an even lower birth rate.

Next is an increase in the number of people going to post-secondary. If you literally have all the time in the world to pay back a student loan, why wouldn't you go back to school?

What else would change?

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

Entire Industries would change and I think that this society would be so unbelievably conservative it would be like the 7th circle of Hell.

Dutch Lesbian

Rapid overpopulation leading to forced sterilization, cessation of evolutionary progress (though immortality really renders that pointless), population culling... and it will all be worth it, since nobody will ever have to die again.

Are we talking about full immortality, or the "immortal unless killed" variety?

edited 17th Sep '11 1:31:22 PM by tropetown

War would still be a reality of life. I can't imagine that it would be functional, "you can't be killed" immortality, so people would still be dying...

We'd never get used to the "long-view" type thinking necessary for such a thing. The human body was designed for about 50 years of life, not 1000s of years...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Any industries in particular?

Hmm, I didn't think of forced sterilization. I guess that could happen, to enforce a low birth rate.

Of course, conflict is part of humanity. We might eventually grow out of it, but certainly not while we're just on earth.

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

Everyone would have to be sterile.

Think of how many people are on this planet.

And then they never go away.

The undertaker's business would collapse...

Religion would explode, as the "you can't fuck with human nature!" crowd backlashes against the idea that to reach heaven they must commit suicide. So, there's a good chunk of humanity that might not even take immortality...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Religion would probably survive just fine — even flourish, perhaps. Its tone would probably change, more than a little, but I see no reason why it would cease: if anything, being possibly able to survive for hundreds of thousands of years would make people more interested in taking the long view and consider the ultimate questions.

In principle, there is no reason why religious thought should have to be incompatible with biological immortality. Taoism, for example, would be all over that, definitely. Christianity would probably waver a little, but at the end of the day the existence of a technology for stopping the aging process does not pose any particular problem to Christian dogma. The same holds for the other Abrahamic religions, I think. Not sure about the other religions, but I am reasonably confident that they would manage in some way.

Then... I think that death would actually become less of an issue. After a while, people would start taking daredevil risks, and eventually die in some spectacular way — and this would be considered usual, and perhaps even somewhat expected. Not everyone would go for this, though, of course.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

The religious issue here would primarily concern religions with an afterlife. How do you seek an eternal reward in heaven if you live indefinitely on Earth?

Buddhism switches over to finding out how to make suffering in reality suck less now that we've found a way to cheat death. Our purpose has always been to deal with the problem of suffering. If death is now a non-issue we just change our tactics to fit the situation.

Of course there will be those fighting the idea tooth and claw. Probably a good deal of suicides.

edited 17th Sep '11 2:01:01 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

I immediately thought of Gallifrey as I read this. People terrified of change, unused to struggling for survival (or what have you), and eventually creativity stagnating into nothingness...Apathy at its most extreme, I should think.

Because you don't, not really. Assuming that no accident happens to you, you live until the end of the world — either the cosmological one, or, possibly, until the Second Coming or its equivalent.

And, since people would have enormous lifespans, they might grow even more interested in the problem of "what happens next" after the end of life as we (they?) know it...

edited 17th Sep '11 2:02:55 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

• Entertainment
• The Food industry
• Undertaking
• Marriage
• Baptisms
• Stuff to do with children and child care

Dutch Lesbian

Perhaps living for enormous lifespans might be even considered useful for reaching Enlightenment before dying of old age and having to try again?

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Religion would be very hard to predict, but I'll put my vote towards it surviving. They survived the idea of the earth being the center of the world, among other things. They'll survive this.

What about space exploration? While many people shrug it off now because they've got all the resources they'll ever need, we will now most definitely not have all the resources we'll ever need. So do colonies on mars come to the forefront?

EDIT @Whale: why entertainment? we'll need something to keep us from killing ourselves. Also, we'll still need food. Conservation of energy and all that stuff. The other ones though, yeah. Not nearly as much money to be made.

edited 17th Sep '11 2:10:20 PM by thatguythere47

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

Indeed it could. You don't have to start over from a new life then. One less complication in the kamma system.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Depends on the variety of immortality; if it's "immortal unless killed" that we're talking about, then a possible concern would be wanting to avoid the expansion of the Sun. We would try our very best to spread as far throughout the universe as possible in order to ensure our own survival, basically turning our species into space nomads. In fact, I think we would also see scientists attempting to predict the potential lifespan of each star we visited, in order to assess just how long we could afford to remain in the solar system.

edited 17th Sep '11 2:12:39 PM by tropetown

Huh? Who ever talked about changing human nature? What distinguishes humans from other animals is their ability to change their environment to suit them, including their own body (from the moment you take a tool, you could be said to be a cyborg). When Adam and Eve put those leaves on, they were adding to their body stuff that wasn't there. And it was good. This is just part of God's Plan to have Humanity reconquer its place in Eden though the sweat of our brow.

Yeah, I'm kind of a heterodox. I really think if Humanity outgrows its violence and brutality and flawedness, if humans learn to think clearly and rationally, having the actual mental capacity to do so without all the hindrances our moderm, unaugmented brains have to face, the Original Sin, that is, human brains being basically a big bundle of mistakes and flawed thinking that only miraculously comes together to form somewhat rational thought, will be overcome, and God will forgive us all.

(this is not a troll post, so please don't be mad at me just because of my wishful thinking, which I recognize for what it is)

An action is not virtuous merely because it is unpleasant to do.

I'd argue that Christianity is partly about how humans can't do that without God's help. That's why it was necessary for Jesus to come and show people the way; as the gate between humans and God, he could help sinful man find its way back home.

By the way, while I'm not one now, I was raised as a Christian for much of my life, so I won't get mad at your "wishful thinking".

That sounds a little bit like Pelagianism — not in the details, but the part in which we should win the Original Sin through our own forces.

But even from a more common perspective, I do not think that biological immortality would be all that incompatible. After all, death is the single most "unnatural" thing that may happen to a human being. It was never meant to be, and only exists as a consequence of the Fall. To remove it entirely from the world, just as to remove entirely Sin from the world, is way beyond our forces, and will only happen at the end of the times; but still, if we were able to cure the process of aging, we would not be doing anything wrong.

It would just mean to cure yet another disease, a nasty if slow-moving one all of humankind has been affected by so far.

edited 17th Sep '11 2:31:53 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

[up]Oh, come on, can't do as in "shouldn't do" or "actualy is incapable of doing?" Because the latter we'll only know if we try, and since there's nothing specific about the former, same deal. If God thinks Man Grew Proud, he'll pull a Babel trick as usual. Though I wonder what could be as cool and awesome as all those languages appearing!

Why was that guy branded a heretic? Seems like common sense to me. I don't agree with him, I still think the Original Sin is sort of built in, not because of Adam's actions but even before as the source of them, and is the obstacle God put in our way so we could earn freedom. I think God loves stories, wouldn't you agree?

edited 17th Sep '11 2:36:55 PM by JesusSaves

An action is not virtuous merely because it is unpleasant to do.

Incapable of doing. As the Good Book says: "All men have sinned, and fall short of God". Even King David, who The Bible says was "a man after God's own heart", was not immune to this.

Getting back to the immortality debate, since death is the ultimate condition that life flees from, any religion that was directly opposed to biological immortality would be going against nature.

edited 17th Sep '11 2:36:34 PM by tropetown

I'd be more concerned about men unwittingly making things worse through their attempt of fixing human nature with their own forces.

That'd be really kind of like a mental patient operating on his own brain in order to cure himself from his psychosis, after all...

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Yeah, but the doctor is watching over us. I'm sure everything will be fine, since even a disaster would be a part of His Plan. Though if we can anticipate the lesson he'd try to teach us and skip the incident entirely it'd be nice too, unless he's determined to make an actual example for the sake of future generations...

Anyway, I'm not sure what immortality and Nigh-Invulnerability and incredibly increased mind capacity would do to human faith. I hope it's like in Allstar Superman and it makes us really aware of how beautiful the world is and how much it's worth it...

Though now that I think of it, isn't that a plot hole? I mean, why was Lex Luthor so impressed and emotionally shaken while the invading Kryptonians, who supposedly have the same powers as superman, went on a domination spree instead?

edited 17th Sep '11 2:41:37 PM by JesusSaves

An action is not virtuous merely because it is unpleasant to do.

Mostly, because he rejected the necessity of Grace. As he saw it, there was no need whatsoever for Divine favor in order to lead a pure, absolutely sinless and just life (and he had a very strict and ascetic idea of what that meant). While the most common interpretation is that such a thing — actually, even far less than that, up to the smallest act of Love, Trust or Hope — is literally impossible for us without a direct divine intervention.

All right, but are we sure that the doctor would appreciate us — with our poor understanding of what our deal even is — grabbing a scalpel and start hacking away?

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.