Would You Choose Immortality to Experience Future Innovations?

[Another God]

If there was a medically possible way to allow people to never die from natural deterioration and old age in general, would you be interested in taking it?

 

[Cyrus]

You can live forever by making a major positive impact on society. You don't have to be living to live forever.

 

[Another God]

I would say that there is a major experiential difference between those two takes on 'living forever'.

 

[Pengwuino]

You don't have to be living to live forever.

I think you're missing the point of living forever

 

[Cyrus]

No, I think your missing my point.

 

[JasonRox]

I think a normal lifespan is good. I picked other because that option wasn't allowed.

As long as there is no real suffering, I'm all good.

 

[Another God]

The second last option was a normal lifespan...

 

[JasonRox]

No, it doesn't.

It says...

No, but I would like to live longer than current expected lifespan

That's longer than expected.

 

[Another God]

thats the third last option. The second last option says

No, I want to live out my natural lifespan and then die

 

[Lisa!]

Never! I'm more interested in dying sooner.(and I think commiting a suicide is more exciting!)

 

[Serpo]

You can live forever by making a major positive impact on society. You don't have to be living to live forever.

Couldn't agree more :!)

 

[Astronuc]

You can live forever by making a major positive impact on society. You don't have to be living to live forever.

I concur with this statement. 100 years or so is long enough.

 

[JasonRox]

thats the third last option. The second last option says

Yes, but my natural lifespan might be short.

So, I said a normal lifespan, which is like 80 years or so.

 

[zoobyshoe]

If there was a medically possible way to allow people to never die from natural deterioration and old age in general, would you be interested in taking it?

No one has ever lived to be a hundred years old without suffering a great deal of physical deterioration. I have to wonder what the psychological results of being able to live to even just that age in the body of a 25 year old would be. I can't even imagine if it would be good or bad, just that there would be a totally different dynamic to people's emotional development. As a 50 year old I can tell you that aging forces a more conservative attitude about everything on you. How would non-deteriortive aging be different? It would have to be, but I can't imagine the details of it, and there's no one who's been through it to ask.

 

[fourier jr]

anyone remember this?

"I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever." -- Miss Alabama 1994

 

[moose]

I would like to live as long as I would wish to...

 

[Lisa!]

Partly kidding, I don't think it would be importat how long you live. In fact the quality is much more important and you know why I think of people who's done something great during their life (a great invention, theory) I feel they're still alive.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

Never! I'm more interested in dying sooner.(and I think commiting a suicide is more exciting!)

my how existential, but I like it.

Much of my extended family has developed cancer within the last 5 years (6 of my great aunts and uncles), and they are all in their 80's. The way I see it right now is that if you're going to live that long, you're kinda cheating the system, and something bad has to happen . They're all in good cheer though which is nice. I kinda wouldn't want to end up like that personally. Like Frank Drebbin says in The Naked Gun, "getting caught in the gears of a combine. Now that's the way I want to go" ... --so true

 

[madphysics]

Sorry to pull this out of the dark corners, but mutations in worms (C. elegans) say that it is possible to live half again as long as normal. Any takers?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I voted for other: I wish I was already dead.

Actually, it's just a joke, I don't really wish I was dead. I tend to follow through on my wishes, and that's how I differentiate between real wishes and random firings of the synapses. What I do wish is that my subscription to the NYT won't expire when I do. It would be enough if I could continue to read up on the foibles of my fellows after I cease to make my own mistakes.

 

[Evo]

Sorry to pull this out of the dark corners, but mutations in worms (C. elegans) say that it is possible to live half again as long as normal. Any takers?

You're referring to studies done on telomeres?

 

[Kurdt]

You're referring to studies done on telomeres?

Thats what I was thinking. I had heard a few months back about research on the lifespan of worms where they lived longer if their diet was restricted to about 60% (I think) of their normal calorie intake, yet the overall balance was still good. As with many of these things I can't remember where I read it.

 

[ice109]

You can live forever by making a major positive impact on society. You don't have to be living to live forever.

dumbest gestalt bs I've ever heard.

 

[Evo]

Thats what I was thinking. I had heard a few months back about research on the lifespan of worms where they lived longer if their diet was restricted to about 60% (I think) of their normal calorie intake, yet the overall balance was still good. As with many of these things I can't remember where I read it.

I had first seen this several years ago in this documentary on Scientific American Frontiers. http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript1003.htm

Wikipedia has a brief summary.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere#Extending_telomeres

 

[Math Jeans]

I would love to live forever at 25 mainly because I would like to see where technology goes...and enjoy it without thinking of how good 2010 was.

Also, if you lived long enough to be alive during the apocolypse, even after the world was destroyed, would you still be alive even then? That would be disturbing.

 

[Colin1]

Only a matter of time before religion showed its face

The Elohim were reckoned to be capable of living for about 800-900 years, I'd call that a useful spell in which to do some research that would have a major positive impact on society.

I read somewhere that by altering one or two genetic sequences in our DNA, we could ourselves live for substantially longer than we currently do - I'd like to be able to find that article.

No-one and nothing should live forever. Everything has it's time and progress is underpinned by many things, one of them is birth and the new ideas that it brings; I can only envisage immortality fostering stagnation.

I'm not religious by the way, however I do believe that religion and science are rapidly converging and will eventually be indistinguishable from one another.

 

[Gale]

I'd just like to know my death-date ahead of time. If its a few hundred years in the future... great. If its only like 5, sure. Knowing when I end would empower me now, and I think that'd be pretty sweet. Then again, I'm the sort of person who'll read the last page of a book to see who makes it to the end.

 

[NeoDevin]

In the words of Woody Allen

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying.

 

[glondor]

I would like to see the future. I would like to live.

 

[Huckleberry]

In this case does 'live forever' mean never aging, or does it mean never able to be killed? That would drastically change my answer.

There are consequences to being immortal. If everyone were immortal then we would quickly become overpopulated. I could see a lottery being created to decide who lives or is killed. Who gets to use the resources and who doesn't? Do they feel hunger when they can't eat? Does their throat parch when they can't drink? Does the sun burn their skin or the cold freeze their fluids? Can they carry diseases? Imagine a world with suffering with no end.

If only one individual were immortal then how would they function in society? After a few decades friends and family would wonder why that person isn't getting any older. Then one day they would go into get a driver's license or passport or some other legislation and would realize that you have to hide their age. All their friends and family die and they can't see their relatives without freaking them out. They could never draw public attention to themselves and would have to live a mediocre, anonymous, transient life. It would be a very lonely existence.

If society ever knew about someone that was immortal how would they react? Someone would try to kill them. If they couldn't be killed then some people would worship you. People would study them intensively. There would be no private life and possibly no public life either if the effect on society was too disturbing for the government. It could become a life of captivity and torture and insanity.

Or people might say, "Hey, there's my great great great grandfather. He's immortal." Then they go on about their business as if nothing happened, but I don't find that very likely. No thanks, I'll pass on immortality. I'm content to die.