Would you like to be immortal?

[ClintMemo]

If you were careful, you'd only ever have to retire once.  You might have to work 50 or 60 years instead of 40 but you could amass enough wealth that you would never have to work again.  You could spend the rest of your time doing whatever you liked. For lots of people that might mean getting paid a small amount for doing what they loved to do.  And if they got bored or tired of it and wanted to start again, they could.

[gelee]

If you were careful, you'd only ever have to retire once.  You might have to work 50 or 60 years instead of 40 but you could amass enough wealth that you would never have to work again.  You could spend the rest of your time doing whatever you liked. For lots of people that might mean getting paid a small amount for doing what they loved to do.  And if they got bored or tired of it and wanted to start again, they could.

I agree.  Example:
I did the math the other day.  I'll probably only read 1000-1500 novels in the entire remainder of my life.  I'm certain there are many others I'd love to read, but won't be able to.  That's just one small aspect of my life where I simply won't have time to do everything I want to do.  I'm certain that If I could eek out a few eons, I would find a way to stay busy and interested in life.  There are so many things to do and see, and news ones being created all the time.

[Thaurismunths]

If you were careful, you'd only ever have to retire once.  You might have to work 50 or 60 years instead of 40 but you could amass enough wealth that you would never have to work again.  You could spend the rest of your time doing whatever you liked. For lots of people that might mean getting paid a small amount for doing what they loved to do.  And if they got bored or tired of it and wanted to start again, they could.

But that only works if a very, very small number of people are immortal.
Stocks are, and will always be, based on the labor of the working class. Unfortunately as mortals die off only immortals will be left and they all had the same plan: Invest for eternity.

edit: spelling

[eytanz]

Stocks are, and will always be, based on the labor of the working class. Unfortunately as mortals die off only immortals will be left and they all had the same plan: Invest for eternity.

Not necessarily. The whole concept of a stock "bubble" is when people start over-investing in stocks, making the value of the stock depend on investments, rather than on any independent value.

Of course, that won't change the problem - it's possible that a large amount of immortals will invest in something, thus maintaining a constant high value and keeping all of them rich on paper. But that will only last as long as the number of them actually selling the stock and using this wealth for anything is very small. Otherwise the bubble collapses and everyone loses everything. So you'll either end up with a lot of immortals living in poverty, unable to use the money they theoretically own, or a lot of immortals living in poverty because they lost everything.

[wakela]

Next 500 years will be spent dating, continuing education, starting a career/family.

See the problem?

I don't see the problem. I enjoyed doing all those things, and I wish I had the chance to go back and do them again. Plus at some point you get to add "go to other planets" to the list.

I voted for yes until I read that you purposed it as coming from a tech solution. 

Does that mean that you would choose a "magical" solution where only you would get to be immortal?

It means that I don't see any of the pie-in-the-sky solutions to the population problem working out in the short term.  I think, as it is now, we're heading towards massive problems.  The fight over drinking water alone will take huge numbers of lives in the next twenty years.  If the numbers go the way I showed, mass exterminations and culling would be inevitable.  As much as I hate the idea of death (devout atheist here (I love oxymorons)), I don't think I could handle living if it meant butchery of other people. (more so than we already have)

You mentioned the drinking water problem before.  Do you have a link about this you could post.  Desalination technology exists now.  If drinking water becomes scarce enough to spark wars then it becomes scarce enough to desalinate it. 

I think you have an overly pessimistic view of humanity.  There more people on the planet now than ever before, but fewer of them are hungry and fewer of them are dying in wars.

Although I am an optimist, I am aware that are bad guys who will be happy to employ immortality technology.  Do you want to leave the world to them? 

I'm iffy on being able to save up enough to retire forever, though.  If everyone is super wealthy then you'll have super inflation.  So I think we'll have to keep working.  But there will not be as much pressure to hurry up and grab a job and start saving before you die.  There will be more incentive to stick it out and work towards your dream job no matter how long it takes.   The whole idea of getting and education, and then starting your career will be turned on its head.  People will be working and going to school as they please and as they can afford it.  Maybe we'll go through cycles of working then taking a long break then working again.  Or maybe you could work and go to school at the same time. 

With no more biological deadline - especially for women - people will be waiting longer to have families, too. 

Also, much is made over only the rich being able to afford the treatment.  But even in the process is expensive, you have a million years to pay it off.  Wouldn't there be super long-term payment plans? 

[Thaurismunths]

In the future you've lain out:
First 10 years will be spent in school learning basics.
Next 10 will be spent reaching physical maturity and continuing education
-Stop Aging-
Next 500 years will be spent dating, continuing education, starting a career/family.
Next 500 years will be spent dating, continuing education, starting a career/family.
Next 500 years will be spent dating, continuing education, starting a career/family.
Next 500 years will be spent dating, continuing education, starting a career/family.

See the problem?

I am not sure I get exactly what you are driving at. Why would everything you'd do after your 20th birthday be dating, continuing education or starting a career/family?
Or do you mean that after a while everything would get dull?
Sorry, I just don't understand what you mean.

Sorry, I don't seem to be doing very well at making myself clear.
A friend of mine ran an RPG with elves in it. Elves are an immortal race. What seems to escape everyone about immortality is that time slows down for them. For humans there are stages of development, social, psychological, and emotional, that we go through as we age. No matter how smart a 12 year old is she'll never be allowed a driver's license because society believes she's too young. No matter how gifted an 17 year old is he'll never be a surgeon because he isn't legally mature enough to handle the risks and responsibilities. If you were to spend 30 years as a college student everyone would say "wow, that's a lot." In the middle ages marriage age was, by today's standards, disgracefully young. Take Romeo and Juliet for example, Shakespeare's legendary star-crossed lovers were about 14.
All of these are based on our perception of time relative to how long we expect to live. The younger you are when you're going to die the sooner you will be planning to get married, have job, etc. The opposite is true too. If our lives were extended to 500 years then 30 years in school would be short, 16 would be ludicrously young to let children drive on their own, and 18 isn't any better when it comes to handling the affairs of adult hood.
At the other end of this is that there is no end of life. There is no getting too old to work. No watching your children become adults. No 'time to grow up and be an adult'. The whole immortal society would either be stuck in their mid twenties, or life would go on as it does now, but with a great exaggeration of the stages of development

[Thaurismunths]

Next 500 years will be spent dating, continuing education, starting a career/family.

See the problem?

I don't see the problem. I enjoyed doing all those things, and I wish I had the chance to go back and do them again. Plus at some point you get to add "go to other planets" to the list.

Ok. That's a really good point.


Moderator: Fixed quoting

[Ocicat]

Okay, so time "slows down".  We spend a long time doing education and such.  Life cycles become very different...

I still don't actually see the problem. 

Let's go back to your elves.  What's so very bad about their lifestyle?

[sirana]

At the other end of this is that there is no end of life. There is no getting too old to work. No watching your children become adults. No 'time to grow up and be an adult'. The whole immortal society would either be stuck in their mid twenties, or life would go on as it does now, but with a great exaggeration of the stages of development

I agree that there would be a exaggeration of the stages of developement, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Going to school longer for example could result in a completely different learning environment where you can go deeper into different subjects and experiment more.
Also I believe that the more or less linear structure of our current lives (school, starting career, working,retire) would be broken up.

You go to school for a longer time, start a career, work for 30 years, get bored with your job, spend 10 years hitchhiking across the solar system and doing some small jobs, go back to school for 5 years, start a new career, get bored with it, spend a year reading books, go back to school some more, start a career etc...) Because you don't have to make the most efficient use of your time you can do more of the things you like to do, but don't have the time for when you have a finite livespan.

[eytanz]

I think you have an overly pessimistic view of humanity.  There more people on the planet now than ever before, but fewer of them are hungry and fewer of them are dying in wars.

I think that's only true if you look at percentages, not actual numbers (at least as far as hunger goes). According to Wikipedia's entry on malnutrition, the estimated number of hungry people in the world is around 500 million. That's more than the entire population of the world in 1600. And this statistic does not include the large number of people in the Western world who do not consider themselves hungry but have food-related health problems because their live on diets that are designed to be cheap to produce rather than healthy.

And besides, our currently lifestyle is generally agreed to be non-sustainable. Even if populations remain constant, hunger is expected to increase. Most of these problems are going to get a lot worse within our lifetimes even if we don't become immortal. They might be solvable, and they might indeed be solved, but if offered the chance for immortality, I'd only do it if I'm in a position where I think they're going to be certainly solved, immortals or not. Optimism is not enough, I'd like solid evidence for that certainty before being willing to change my position on this.

Although I am an optimist, I am aware that are bad guys who will be happy to employ immortality technology.  Do you want to leave the world to them? 

Huh? Immortality used to be a personal choice and now it's becoming a moral obligation? Screw that.

Also, much is made over only the rich being able to afford the treatment.  But even in the process is expensive, you have a million years to pay it off.  Wouldn't there be super long-term payment plans? 

I don't think anyone said that only the rich will be able to afford the treatment. In fact, I think the opposite was posited several times above. I think the point was that only the rich may have a chance of becoming immortal and not coming to really hate that choice soon enough.

[Russell Nash]

I voted for yes until I read that you purposed it as coming from a tech solution. 

Does that mean that you would choose a "magical" solution where only you would get to be immortal?

It means that I don't see any of the pie-in-the-sky solutions to the population problem working out in the short term.  I think, as it is now, we're heading towards massive problems.  The fight over drinking water alone will take huge numbers of lives in the next twenty years.  If the numbers go the way I showed, mass exterminations and culling would be inevitable.  As much as I hate the idea of death (devout atheist here (I love oxymorons)), I don't think I could handle living if it meant butchery of other people. (more so than we already have)

You mentioned the drinking water problem before.  Do you have a link about this you could post.  Desalination technology exists now.  If drinking water becomes scarce enough to spark wars then it becomes scarce enough to desalinate it. 

I think you have an overly pessimistic view of humanity.  There more people on the planet now than ever before, but fewer of them are hungry and fewer of them are dying in wars.

The thing is that nobody really ever gets moving on solutions until it is far too late and then they try to play catch up.  Also much of the ocean is too poluted to desalinize and fish stocks are crashing as it is.  We're losing more sources of food then we're gaining.

This is from the UNESCO web site.

UNESCO DIRECTOR-GENERAL WARNS OF LOOMING WATER CRISIS
Today, about 20 percent of the world's population lack access to safe and reliable water supplies, and more than 50 percent are without basic sanitation. At any given time, about half the people living in developing countries suffer from water-related illnesses such as diarrhoea, parasitic infections, river blindness and malaria. These diseases kill about five million people each year, especially children under the age of five.

I didn't have the chance to really look for stuff.  I gotta get moving, but this makes some of my points.  The big thing is that under our current immortality scenario we'd have massive time compression of the problems.

[ClintMemo]

Immortality from technology would never be available to everyone.  Whatever provided it, being nano-bots, genetic manipulation or whatever else, it would still be based on limited resources. They would still be available to the rich first.  It would lead to even bigger class differences than we have now.  People motivated to accumulate wealth and given a much longer time to do it would simply amass that many more resources under their control.

[Russell Nash]

Immortality from technology would never be available to everyone.  Whatever provided it, being nano-bots, genetic manipulation or whatever else, it would still be based on limited resources. They would still be available to the rich first.  It would lead to even bigger class differences than we have now.  People motivated to accumulate wealth and given a much longer time to do it would simply amass that many more resources under their control.

And then as more and more of the rich folks become immortal and take over these resources including food, water, and land; the poor get pushed out.  The poor then try to rise up and they get culled.

Now if the immortality treatment made people sterile, that might make things interesting.  Are you willing to wait until after you have kids to take the treatment?  Would the population come under control that way?

[sirana]

Immortality from technology would never be available to everyone.  Whatever provided it, being nano-bots, genetic manipulation or whatever else, it would still be based on limited resources. They would still be available to the rich first.  It would lead to even bigger class differences than we have now.  People motivated to accumulate wealth and given a much longer time to do it would simply amass that many more resources under their control.

Something like nano-bots would not necessarily be based on limited resources, at least not so limited that it couldn't be possible to give it to everybody someday. Look at personal computers. First they were only for gouvernments and military purposes. Then they became available for the very rich. Then for the rich. Then for (nearly) everybody in the developed world. Now we are giving them to school children in (some) developing countries. I'd be surprised if in 20 years a significant portion of people on this planet still doesn't own personal computers.

Something similar could happen with immortality technology. Probably much slower, but I don't think you can say that that it would never be available to everyone.

[DDog]

There are a couple things that may have been overlooked so far.

- It is possible to reverse the aging process (so you can go back to the physical age that you like most)

But if everyone after the initial crop of adopters is becoming immortal at, say, ages 20-35 (depending on children if there is a sterilization policy), that radically decreases the range of physical ages available to them. Is physical age-changing a one-way procedure or can you increase your physical age as well? Think about all the child vampire stories you've read. Think about all the child soldiers that actually exist in the world today--if the immortality procedure could be induced involuntarily, there are plenty of corrupt governments and insurgent groups/freedom fighters that would jump at the chance for eternally childlike armies or fleets of childlike secret agents, or master thieves, or whatever. They would be young, limber, and small forever, which is a huge training window for those precise tasks for which children's physical structures are ideal. And if the immortality 'bots can replicate on their own, you would only need to raise the funds for one treatment and then systematically spread them throughout your chosen population. Etc.

- You can die by accidents or diseases that are normal for your age

But in scenarios that have been discussed already, what is considered "normal" in a world where tech immortality is not yet possible is not an accurate gauge for what will be "normal" after a couple of years of availability and adoption. Depending on whether the nanomachines could communicate wirelessly (but this would still work if they couple together or send bloodstream packets or what-have-you), someone could set up a virus that would destroy the nanobots or give them faulty instructions to attack their host--a problem that is definitely not normal for any age at the moment.

- You won't age (and therefore not die of age)

What exactly is meant by "dying of age"? Isn't "dying of old age" not of a disease common in the elderly currently a function of cells not being able to repair themselves and organs wearing out and so forth? If that problem is solved by some technical procedure, cf my response to the previous point, in that in a world where cells and organs are more robust it is conceivable that, even if no specific advancements were made toward curing or vaccinating against things like cancer and infectious diseases, "normal" diseases for an age group could also be rendered ineffective. Until a mutated strain successfully infected the world, of course, depending on the tech solution for the immortality...

[ClintMemo]

I'd be surprised if in 20 years a significant portion of people on this planet still doesn't own personal computers.

Something similar could happen with immortality technology. Probably much slower, but I don't think you can say that that it would never be available to everyone.

2/3 of the earth's surface is covered with water yet half the people in the world don't have constant access to clean
water.  How long have we been able to purify water?  In order for immortality to be available for everyone it would have to be free and limitless.   The closest thing we have to that is air.  We tax people for polluting it.   

[Darwinist]

2/3 of the earth's surface is covered with water yet half the people in the world don't have constant access to clean
water.  How long have we been able to purify water?  In order for immortality to be available for everyone it would have to be free and limitless.   The closest thing we have to that is air.  We tax people for polluting it.   

I suppose a lot of these people live in impoverished nations where transport and/or purification of water is too expensive.  How much of the 2/3 is salt water?  What does a desalination plant cost? 

[ClintMemo]

How much of the 2/3 is salt water?  What does a desalination plant cost? 

greater than zero

That's my point.  If the cost is greater than zero then there will be scarcity and it will not be available to everyone.

[Thaurismunths]

At the other end of this is that there is no end of life. There is no getting too old to work. No watching your children become adults. No 'time to grow up and be an adult'. The whole immortal society would either be stuck in their mid twenties, or life would go on as it does now, but with a great exaggeration of the stages of development

I agree that there would be a exaggeration of the stages of developement, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Going to school longer for example could result in a completely different learning environment where you can go deeper into different subjects and experiment more.
Also I believe that the more or less linear structure of our current lives (school, starting career, working,retire) would be broken up.

You go to school for a longer time, start a career, work for 30 years, get bored with your job, spend 10 years hitchhiking across the solar system and doing some small jobs, go back to school for 5 years, start a new career, get bored with it, spend a year reading books, go back to school some more, start a career etc...) Because you don't have to make the most efficient use of your time you can do more of the things you like to do, but don't have the time for when you have a finite livespan.

Very true. But there's nothing stopping you from doing that right now. You still have every opportunity do do those things, and some people do just that. The only difference is that you'd have more years to do it, and over everyone would have more years to do it and it wouldn't be special any more.

[gelee]

At the other end of this is that there is no end of life. There is no getting too old to work. No watching your children become adults. No 'time to grow up and be an adult'. The whole immortal society would either be stuck in their mid twenties, or life would go on as it does now, but with a great exaggeration of the stages of development

I agree that there would be a exaggeration of the stages of developement, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Going to school longer for example could result in a completely different learning environment where you can go deeper into different subjects and experiment more.
Also I believe that the more or less linear structure of our current lives (school, starting career, working,retire) would be broken up.

You go to school for a longer time, start a career, work for 30 years, get bored with your job, spend 10 years hitchhiking across the solar system and doing some small jobs, go back to school for 5 years, start a new career, get bored with it, spend a year reading books, go back to school some more, start a career etc...) Because you don't have to make the most efficient use of your time you can do more of the things you like to do, but don't have the time for when you have a finite livespan.

Very true. But there's nothing stopping you from doing that right now. You still have every opportunity do do those things, and some people do just that. The only difference is that you'd have more years to do it, and over everyone would have more years to do it and it wouldn't be special any more.

Um, I think there is something to stop me from doing that now:  Death.  I can run the cycle once.  Twice if I had a bunch of resources that I don't have, but that's it.  Then you're dead.  Poof.  Game over, man.  Game over.

[Thaurismunths]

At the other end of this is that there is no end of life. There is no getting too old to work. No watching your children become adults. No 'time to grow up and be an adult'. The whole immortal society would either be stuck in their mid twenties, or life would go on as it does now, but with a great exaggeration of the stages of development

I agree that there would be a exaggeration of the stages of developement, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Going to school longer for example could result in a completely different learning environment where you can go deeper into different subjects and experiment more.
Also I believe that the more or less linear structure of our current lives (school, starting career, working,retire) would be broken up.

You go to school for a longer time, start a career, work for 30 years, get bored with your job, spend 10 years hitchhiking across the solar system and doing some small jobs, go back to school for 5 years, start a new career, get bored with it, spend a year reading books, go back to school some more, start a career etc...) Because you don't have to make the most efficient use of your time you can do more of the things you like to do, but don't have the time for when you have a finite livespan.

Very true. But there's nothing stopping you from doing that right now. You still have every opportunity do do those things, and some people do just that. The only difference is that you'd have more years to do it, and over everyone would have more years to do it and it wouldn't be special any more.

Um, I think there is something to stop me from doing that now:  Death.  I can run the cycle once.  Twice if I had a bunch of resources that I don't have, but that's it.  Then you're dead.  Poof.  Game over, man.  Game over.

But this brand of immortality doesn't change that, it only elongates the circle.
There is nothing keep you from getting hit by a car, getting mugged, shot, stabbed, or crushed in a snow cave. You have only added years to your life, and you have years enough as it is. If anything this immortality will only let you put it off longer and longer until you end up just another million-to-one anecdote.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

There is nothing keep you from getting hit by a car, getting mugged, shot, stabbed, or crushed in a snow cave. You have only added years to your life, and you have years enough as it is. If anything this immortality will only let you put it off longer and longer until you end up just another million-to-one anecdote.

You're right.  We should ban snow caves, at least.

[ClintMemo]

If anything this immortality will only let you put it off longer and longer until you end up just another million-to-one anecdote.

I foresee an entire population of paranoid agoraphobics afraid to leave their house.

[sirana]

But this brand of immortality doesn't change that, it only elongates the circle.
There is nothing keep you from getting hit by a car, getting mugged, shot, stabbed, or crushed in a snow cave. You have only added years to your life, and you have years enough as it is. If anything this immortality will only let you put it off longer and longer until you end up just another million-to-one anecdote.

agreed. but running the circle 100 times instead of two times would be a definite improvement to me.

[Russell Nash]

But this brand of immortality doesn't change that, it only elongates the circle.
There is nothing keep you from getting hit by a car, getting mugged, shot, stabbed, or crushed in a snow cave. You have only added years to your life, and you have years enough as it is. If anything this immortality will only let you put it off longer and longer until you end up just another million-to-one anecdote.

agreed. but running the circle 100 times instead of two times would be a definite improvement to me.

Everyone will be trying to do everything.  It seems to me everywhere would be packed full of people trying to do stuff and only really driving up the prices and cheapening the experience.  Absolutely everywhere will become so commercial that every place will look just like the last.

 It's already happening if you go to eastern Europe.  Everyone thought western Europe was too commercial, so they started going to Prague.  Prague became too commercial they moved on to Budapest.  I was there this summer and it's no different than Prague. 

The entire world will just look like a french shopping street or Disney World.