Ethics of Immortality

How would slowing the aging process not help? If puberty starts at say 40 instead of 14, well that's a big extension.

And eggs are just another part of the body, so I don't see how they wouldn't be altered along with internal organs, bones, etc.

In fact, I find it very suspect if we could create biological longevity without it affecting the reproductive system as well.

Hell, just genetically change the durability of eggs while you're programming against ovarian cancer, cysts, etc.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

If 'immortality' in this context is the results preserving cell division then ovum wouldn't be protected. The human body cant make new ovum to replace decaying existing one. You'll need to reactivate its original embryonic state to grow new ones.

Same goes for nerve cells actually. Dementias is going to be serious problem.

edited 9th Jan '13 1:46:54 AM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

Again, I don't see how we can't plan for that and work on reprogramming it from the beginning.

Call me an idealist but if scientists can figure out how to get everyone past 100 years and make them quality years, I would figure preserving or modifying our cellular structure to be more durable, change it's aging process, etc. would be part of the deal.

What good is living to 400 if you get dementia at 75? None. As well as any other disorders or just normal age.

I don't see why we couldn't work on just making women born with better eggs. Hell, it'd be a short cut to preventing birth defects and other problems.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

Lets hope so or otherwise yes if would be kind of pointless living to 200.

edited 9th Jan '13 2:01:46 AM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

Childhoods would stay the same length. It takes about 20 years for a human to physically mature. Extending that time would serve no practical purpose, it would just mean it takes even longer to produce functional adults. Aging is a completely separate issue.

Hell, if anything we'd want to reduce the amount of time it takes to reach adulthood. Means you're a productive member of society for longer. There's a few logistical problems there, obviously, but if we invent Matrix-style information uploading technology or something even that might be overcome.

On the topic of resources: does it really matter if they are limited or not? The way I see it with true immortality/Type I immortality we would not be able to feel pain so hunger would not be a problem and we would be able to survive any condition so we could live on any planet.

That being the case the only reason it is a moral issue is because of how society works and to be honest I think society would adapt if we were to obtain immortality.

Such extreme immortality runs into issues concerning conservation of energy. The fact is it is impossible for anything to run indefinitely on no fuel. Starving into non-functionality is not something that could ever be reasonably overcome.

This discussion is branched off the Trans-humanity discussion, which is basically asking what would happen if, in the far future, we discover an immortality treatment for humans. The thing about Bacanno-like immortality, where you just do not die, period, is that it kinda violates just about everything we have learnt about physics. Biological immortality, while non-trivial, is at least theoretically possible. If we start assuming that the immortality is "perpetual motion" immortality, the whole discussion stops being about possible future technology and more about wish fulfillment, which is not bad by itself, it just not really conducive to having meaningful discussion.

*Polarbear On delaying puberty:

So, in return for living to 400years old, you get to spend 10 years in diapers, 20 years living the whole "I want to grow up faster/ the adult world is so cool", and 30 years doing typical teenager stuff.

Suddenly, immortality starts to sound alot less appealing.

edited 9th Jan '13 7:18:53 AM by CannonGerbil

ALL HAIL THE WARGERBIL!

Never said you would be a baby that long. Just program us women to not start menstrating or loosing eggs until later.

I would have loved to not start that nonsense until later.

And childhood doesn't mean just staying under 4 feet or whatever for a certain time. If humans live to see hundreds of years, I don't see why we should magically keep 18 as the age of adulthood regardless of their physical development.

The reason why we have it at 18 is because our lives are average to 60 years roughly. So we have to hurry up and cram all the shit that person is supposed to know to be a decent citizen in those first available moments.

Like I said with education, we can spread it out and even include basic college level studies. Even if we space it out to where the person graduates at 25, we haven't consumed too much of their life. We have made a higher quality citizen by improving their education and helped them actually retain their education. They can still go to college or specialized training if wanted which actually equals out because since they already have a Bachelor's basic down in their high school, they get straight to their field.

Nothing is lost. Things are only improved. There isn't the pressure to hurry up and be something. Kids will be given the time and training to make better decisions on what career they want. That makes more productive adults.

And it's not hard to think that cultural values would evolve with this. If I'm 158, I'm most likely not going to see anyone around 18 an adult. We would have to change to reflect our longer lives.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

Complete Immortality only works through transhumanism, if you accept Brain Uploading as a form of continuing life. In that case, you can use a Body Backup Drive, either with a series of clones, or a synthetic body and brain that would indeed be hardder to destroy and wouldn't need to eat to begin with. or live entirely Inside a Computer System.

For these, as long as there is a crew doing basic upkeep, the only scientifically forseable barrier is the heat death of the universe, but we have a googol years to figure out how to avoid that.

edited 9th Jan '13 9:41:29 AM by Ever9

On reproduction:

The fertility rate among countries with good access to physical needs and medicine have a very low reproduction rate, my understanding being that this is due to lowered stress levels. As such, I believe that we would see the fertility rate plummet if immortality became a common thing.

Fight smart, not fair.

Assuming we actually did cure aging, catastrophe didn't result, and it's available to everyone, how would people come to view this extreme longevity, you think?

I vowed, and so did you: Beyond this wall- we would make it through.

After a few generations it'll probably be normalized. But initially it'll be a medical marvel.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

I think people would have plenty of time to adjust. I mean, bear in mind that from a world full of 100-year-olds to a world full of 120-year-olds, it takes 20 years. If you think about how much technology has improved (and changed society) in the past 20 years, the adjustment to immortality is very gradual by comparison.

Join my forum game!

At any given time, only a very small fragment of society is threatened by imminent death through aging-associated diseases. Everyone else already has a future vision that doesn't really involve dying. For them, the only real change would be, that this vision wouldn't need to be fixed later.

If immortality would be announced to have been invented today, do you know what would I do tomorrow?

Go back to these same forums, and proceed to chat about sexism in anime, and about the public stigma against fanfics. Because as a 22 years old man, the fear that once I will die, didn't significantly influence my actions to begin with.

Most people would be pretty similar to that, I think. Sure, there would be celebrations on the streets, and there would be a huge loud public discourse about the morality of immortality, but generally, people would just go on with their lives as they always did, except that decades later, they wouldn't get to the point that their body starts to fall apart, that they are treated by society as feeble and unecessary, and getting dumped into a nursing home, but go in with their lives without change, with death still appearing as a distant, unlikely thing.

Even if suicide would occasionaly happen, people probably wouldn't see it as "living too long and getting bored with life", just as an occasional tragedy caused by depression or emotional pain. Just as right now, suicide rates are a lot higher than 100 years ago, yet no one is writing it off as "people living too long", there is no reason that trespassing the previous maximum life expectancy should trigger a specifc self-terminating instinct.

edited 9th Jan '13 5:41:20 PM by Ever9

x8

Well if it is not Type I/ true immortality then I see it as kind of pointless and question why you would even want it.

Because people like the idea of living longer even with the imperfections of pain? Seriously, I don't think any of us before you were talking about "survive anything" kind of immortality, even when brain uploading came into the picture. Life in general is too unpredictable for us to be completely indestructible no matter what we do.

Plus, taking away the pain of starvation does not take away the starvation factor, which you seemed to have missed in your example. Even if you're not in pain, your body is still starving and you will die from that if you don't get help. Part of the reason for pain is it lets us know something is wrong. Pain does serve a purpose in our general survival.

The trouble with these discussions is we're having trouble defining to what level and extent regarding Immortality we are talking about.

hashtagsarestupid

I define immortality as a life expectancy of x as x approaches infinity.

I was defining it as "live forever" without any qualifiers. Which I think most of us were, and everything else was considering different methods and whether we should.

So does anyone here support the right to die?

I vowed, and so did you: Beyond this wall- we would make it through.

x5

No? Type I/true immortality would solve the problem of starvation as you would not feel pain/hunger or be able to die.

Eh, I'm kind on the fence about right to die, given that a lot of people go through depressive or suicidal episodes, and some of those people recover. It's different when it's someone at the end of their life and has signed a DNR and all that. But yeah. On the fence, personally.

And you would end up being weak forever. I think that sort of immortality would definitely lead to a Who Wants to Live Forever kind of scenario. Hell, if you can't feel pain that means you can't feel much of anything else because your sensory system is completely shot.

I'm not sure if our minds are actually equipped to handle "Forever" any differently than it handles "a few thousand years." Which isn't to say we shouldn't strive for longevity, but something that keeps us in our current forms for longer than we've existed as a species*

, is that something we can attempt? Personally, of course, I wouldn't mind sticking around for a few hundred years, but stretching that out to a few hundred thousand would probably be pushing it.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

Right to die in the case of an incurable/ degenerative disease or physical trauma that induces a situation that's similar? Sure.

Anything else? Call back later, when you can think straighter. For immortals though... if you do actually get so bored of life, that you wish to end it... perhaps having that option would be attractive. Dunno.