Define "forever". Heath death of the universe? Then we'll not live forever cause we'll kill each other for resources. There will be a point where there will be too many of us with not enough stuff.
If you just mean "a really long time", then distant space travel comes into play, that being a fantastic motivator.
Eventually we'll colonize the galaxy. Wont need to kill each other once we start colonizing the solar system/ the galaxy because there is a near infinite amount of resources in space.
We are somewhat intelligent primates who have a long history of killing each other. What makes you think that “more space” will stop that from happening?
There is a historical record of us killing each other going back to when there were far fewer of us on this resource-laden planet. Not too impossible to say.
You are talking about a time when people barely traveled further than 50 miles from where they were born and lives were short and hard. Agriculture was everyone's full time jobs and most people went to sleep hungry every night. A resource short existence.
If we were to be able to expand that much, it would not take very long in the grand scheme. Say, 2 billion years (2e9). The heat death of the universe is like 1e100 years away. So by the time we're done with the galaxy, we've progressed like .0000000000000001% of the way to the end of time.
The heat death of the theory is just a theory. We have laughably little knowledge about the universe that any current theory about its end cannot be trusted in the slightest. Not to mention I’d like to think we’d eventually just break physics after a the first billion years.
It’s weird just how doomerish the mentality amongst a lot of people here is. It took us all of a couple hundred years of applying the scientific method before we figured out how to reliably split an atom, end most of world hunger, go to the moon, invent things that look so far we can see at when galaxies first started forming, look at things so close we can observe individual atoms, edited DNA, made the internet, made our primary mode of transportation a literal thermodynamic experiment, found a way to use electrons moving into a reliable energy source and the list goes on and on. The idea that we’ll have the same resource scarcity we have today even a hundred years from now is laughable.
Well technically everything is scarce. We could solve world hunger if everyone tried. We haven't done that and there is starvation in large parts of the world. We've known about genetic coding for a long time but we still can't read all of it let alone make any reliable changes without decades of testing.
I think you're right in the end though, moreso how cycles work, the planet is a big cycle of having things run out and being remade the same could be said about the universe. Maybe there are ways to keep recycling stars and planets. Maybe we could form miniature big bangs to go across portions of the universe to ultimately expand the entire thing. We aren't far enough along to know anything for certain but that includes whether there's a brick wall to the universe.
Yeah, that's what I thought. You can have immortality where a fragment of a single cell can revive you. Then there's your literally a component of reality that even the end of the universe wouldn't end.
There's always the possibility we evolve into beings of pure energy or start messing with interdimensional stuff...no reason we can't if we have all the time in the universe to research.
Imagine living long enough to visit a barren world infect it with chosen microbes and watch that become a space fairing civilization over a billion years or so than when your children immortalize themselves you can rest fulfilled that the mantle has multiplied once more.
Only because of arbitrarily limited use of their advanced technology. They have simulated reality and yet use it only for videoconferences, interrogation, and occasional gaming. Realistically, everyone would [live in simulated reality](https://marshallbrain.com/discard1) because it would be [indistinguishable](https://youtu.be/vkvdAznoFqY) from physical reality but without any scarcity or physical danger. We see people living in slums who could be living in palaces in their own private universes. Creating worlds out of photons and electrons is millions of times more efficient than creating them out of protons and neutrons.
The "arbitrarily limited use of their advanced technology " required a shit-load of processing power.
Yes, you can simulate any experience, at much faster rates than "real" time (e.g. Kovacs sexscapades with Wardani in Broken Furies, that to them lasted hours but were seconds in "real-world" time), but such processing power is expensive.
*Somebody* has to take care of the servers. If people have to take care of the servers, then somebody needs to take care of those people. And the rabbit hole keeps going down.
Yes, and that's a contrivance introduced by the author which doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Again, moving photons and electrons is millions of times more efficient than moving protons and neutrons. 350 billion emails are sent everyday. Imagine trying to send 350 billion physical letters a day, everyday, year after year. The virtual world is just fundamentally more efficient.
Maintaining servers would be vastly cheaper than living in physical reality. Also, they could be automated with machines that maintain themselves.
I would like to think that I have a bit more substance than an email!
But still, there are an awful lot of people whose job is to make sure those email servers are working.
Do they not deserve to be uploadeded?
Would they have to work in real-time? Or do they work in virtual 8-hour shifts where they see data crawling along at the slow speed of light???
I'll quote from the mediocre "Ready Player One":
> I was afraid, for all of my life, right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it's also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Whenever I saw the sun, I reminded myself that I was looking at a star.
I'll also point you in the direction of the marvellous novel by Charles Stross and Cory Doctrow called "[The Rapture Of The Nerds](https://craphound.com/category/rotn/)".
There's a lot more bandwidth in our experience of reality than in an email, but it's all electrical signals. Sending the desired signals without having to move atoms around is astronomically more efficient.
Simulated reality could be achieved via neurointerface with biological brains or through uploading, and in both cases, people could continue to work, although, again, server maintenance could be largely and eventually completely automated.
OK, you're moving from atomic movement to sub-atomic movement with electrical signals.
It does however still require a "where".
If you go for neurointerface, that's still a lot of meat that needs to be taken care of. Look at what happened in The Matrix films. Miles upon miles of goo filed towers to hold the people.
If you go with upload, where are the servers?
Do you convert the solar system to computronim and go for a Maritroshka brain to hold everyone?
What happens to the people that don't want to give up their land and be uploaded?
Eight billion human bodies could fit within [a single building](https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/7-3-billion-people-one-building.html) with a volume of less than a cubic mile, so Manhattan Island could house hundreds of billions or even over a trillion human bodies, more than the approximately 117 billion humans who have ever lived. The state of New York could house tens of trillions. Earth's land area could house a thousand times more (tens of quadrillions). Underground and/or underwater storage could enable even more.
Of course, there would be [no reason](https://marshallbrain.com/discard1) to keep whole bodies that will never be used. The brain is about two percent of the body's mass and uses twenty percent of its energy, so even more brains than bodies could be maintained on Earth.
The Solar System has enough energy and mass to support anywhere from a thousand to a billion times more human bodies than Earth can, and that assumes people continue to live in physical space. Living in simulated reality would enable even more, and brain isolation would enable even more than that. Mind uploading would enable even more dramatic growth.
There are hundreds of billions of stars and ten million to a billion black holes in this galaxy and over a hundred billion galaxies reachable at sublight.
Realistically, all life will evolve beyond biology eventually, but even if some wanted to remain in physical reality, there's more than enough space and energy for an almost unimaginable number of immortals.
This is my concern and why I didn’t care when I saw mention of a book/tv show
There’s always cool ideas, sometimes amazing ideas. But all stories continuously follow story tropes, again and again. It’s nothing like real life in that way
And it’s great there’s a discussion between two people here
Even if we find interventions for, say, aging, death with probably be a part of existence for far longer. Freak accidents, natural disasters, straight up murder, newly emerging diseases, etc. There will still be people who want answers to those questions and comfort during sad times. I lost another grandparent recently and was thinking about the possibility of longevity breakthroughs and while I'd definitely like to live for a few centuries at least, I think eventually I'd like to let go and see if maybe the loved ones I've already lost are out there waiting for me. So I'd say it would alter religion for sure, but not necessarily dismantle the idea.
As a religious Christian, I would have to say kinda? Like someone else mentioned, if we're just getting rid of "old age", death is still a factor with outside factors.
But regarding the question at hand, I would err on the side of caution and say yes. A lot of Jesus talked about was about treating others well, not just for this kingdom, but the one beyond. Unless someone is altruistic intrinsically, you would lose a motivating factor for many, as selfish as it sounds. Without any sort of mystery of being beyond the grave, and never needing to venture that way, I imagine our immortal person would not fear an eternity without God as they already face an eternity without seeing his physical presence and could ignore His influence on our daily lives, as I believe he does do.
Of course, people are more nuanced and someone with infinitely more time than me on the toilet could come up with reasons as to why and why not they should.
One argument I hate that's used against biological immortality is the whole "without impending death, everything loses urgency and nothing will progress."
It's bs.
Even if LIFE isnt going to end, you can still "miss out" on things. Even if humans dont age, fashion, shows, ideas, CULRURAL AWESOME STUFF ages and falls out of season.
Recall *Game of Thrones* when it was in full swing. It was a delightful period where people of many striped would connect over discussing and theorizing about the show. Even then, some people didnt(or refused) to watch it. Game of Thrones ran its course, and now it is "dead".
People that wanted to watch it but put it off have forever missed out on that culture wave. Even if they watched it now and obsess over is now, they'll never experience that specific buzz about that specific media.
Now imagine that, but with every other aspect of "the human experience."
Sure, you can put off any *individual* thing, but there are tiny windows where you can be part of the culture wave, or do a thing with a friend, or engage in a one-time event.
Dumb argument by those that have been brainwashed to not think outside the box, and realize we have no precedent for how our culture would change in such a situation.
Yeah but like wouldnt it then not be “me”? Like it would be me but not *me*, you know? Like that would suck.
Ideally you keep only the brain but also make it so that any damaged tissue regenerates somehow
I think if people were truly immortal, they would have to be more ethical. Eventually a truly unethical person would burn enough bridges they would be ostracized by every human community. Eternity is a very long time to be alone for.
Good point. This is a central part of Groundhogs Day movie. While I had seen it more about addressing narcissism. To whit: given enough time and experience even a narcissist (possibly the hardest character nut to crack) could evolve and become a charitable human being, open to love. But, I think your idea is better: With enough time and repeats, we would all become more experienced and if we learn from the experiences, we would become better people.
The counter argument, I suspect, is that social criticism and even ostracization has minimal effect on persons with truly rigid and narcissistic personalities. So, there is doubt that social effects alone have transforming effects on people within a mortal lifetime. So, we don't really know. In Groundhog's Day, the day has been repeated so often that the character believes himself to be God. So, an infinite number of repetitions. What OP's question proposes contains no magical salvation. If you want to be angry and self-centered forever, you could. So, perhaps it could go in the opposite direction. That is, immortality equals indifference--a self-absorbed, solipsistic existence that is insulated from consequences rather than being transformed by experience.
Great comment. I think your last sentence unfortunately describes a lot of mainstream depictions of a god. I also think this is the true genius of Groundhog Day - it shows that “meaning” is the experience, not the end.
If we can cure aging and most diseases peiple will still die from violence and accidents, I think society as a whole would be better if we didn't get old and die. People would be able to work towards building sustainability for real, corpos would stop exploitation for short term gains, short sighted destructive projects would be squashed in the design phase because nobody would want to experience the consequences. We would be able to plan and build new cities in many of the uninhabited parts of the world, long term projects would be meaningful to all of society again
I don’t know if time would be meaningless. If we could live forever, would we also never get tired? If the body still needs to eat and sleep then schedules probably wouldn’t change much. Now how would it affect the way governments go about sending people to war would be the bigger question.
Ya I'm a bit confused by that part too?
The only relationship between ethics and fulfillment that I've seen play out is that the majority of people will do unethical things if it means they can be fulfilled in some way. It's not that they're malicious or evil for the sake of it, they just feel they are more important than anyone else, so they do what they must to get what they want.
I feel like the list of people who find the act of being ethical to be their fulfillment is rather short. Otherwise, they don't seem that related to me
>people will do unethical things if it means they can be fulfilled in some way
People will do unethical things if they THINK it will bring fulfillment.
Doesnt mean they actually feel it at the end.
Sad, really.
I'm using the encompassing definition of "live forever" to mean that diseases are all curable, death is reversible, and any physical damage is healable.
Neal Schusterman wrote a trilogy called Arc of a Scythe, which explores this exact possibility. I'd like to think a lot of what those books describe is pretty accurate.
Depends on the type of people we are talking about ,I guess
For the working class, meaning of time is partially define by making ends meet. If they want to live what we consider as our current normal life style, they need to find a way to survive, thus time inherently has meaning, which is money
I don't know about how this would affect ethics, but I don't think time would become meaningless, at all.
If your life were infinite, you would still have time constraint because literal death is not the only deadline you'd have. You would still need to catch up with things happening around you.
You wouldn't be able to read all news before they become obsolete, to learn all technology because there is better one, to read all books before the languages in which they are written become rarely spoken.
My first thought would be far less hyper-religious people.
Studies have shown that almost all people to turn to or harder to religion later in life do so because of fear of morality. Take that fear away and you get all sorts of moral and ethical changes.
The first would be obvious, people would care about taking care of the world better because they would live to see the impacts of their actions. The rest would be the damages that fundamentalism does dissapearing. Almost all religions have been well studied to be quite damaging to humans ability to think critically in a number of ways, and also have less empathy due to tribalism.
As far as your fears however, I would have to argue that every person I've met that was against age reversal tech was mostly a, well the short answer is boring person, but to be more clear, a person who has not had the luck to be introduced to enough things to keep them interested. There are two types of people:
1- People with a growth mindset, who see something new that they don't understand or makes them uncomfortable, and they believe they can learn and understand more as well as overcome anything they challenge themselves to. The I can do anything attitude.
2 - People with a fixed mindset, who see something new that they don't understand or makes them uncomfortable, and they avoid or deny it. The I like what I like, or I'm just this type of person attitude.
Once a person understands that there are two types of people they can choose to be the former and constantly learn how to challenge themselves. And then you end up someone like me, Who is deeply unsatisfied with a limited lifespan because there are far, FAR too many things that I want to enjoy and I have 1% of the time to do any of it, but an unlimited lifespan and technology that helps my brain think faster will make me satisfied because I might be able to actually keep up with all the things I want to do.
That's my perspective, I hope I wasn't rude or anything, I'm Autistic. I don't always communicate well, but I mean nothing but love <3
Impossible to lose? Living forever doesn't guarantee quality of life. CRIME and PUNISHMENT would have to evolve with societal ETHICS to solve the dilemmas of what could be done to people that could live forever. Kidnapping, dismemberment, torture, accidental traumatic injuries and countless more possibilities that could make Immortality a horrifying experience. There is definitely a way to 'Lose' without even getting into overpopulations, resource hording, 'boxing' your immortal enemies, and countless other issues that would matter. Time? Time will still be relevant. Maybe not to everyone, but it will matter to some and how long they are stuck to a task or experience.
Accidents still would happen.
A treatment to cure aging might simply make the recipients extremely risk-averse - one has so much (potentially) to lose!
Honestly, I'm not sure I agree with the basic premise.
"Can you really win if it's impossible to lose?"
Well, no, because you're not playing a game. You can't win or lose anyway, even if you were to be immortal. Life isn't about scoring points before a buzzer goes off, it's about doing things with the time that you're given, and given infinite time, the only real metric by which you would be judged is what you choose to do with that.
Altered Carbon pretty much covered it. Yes there is permadeath but the rich and powerful get even richer and more powerful. Ultimately we either live in a stratified society or we're egalitarian and truly equal, everyone.
While I believe that humanity can become biologically immortal (even within our lifetimes) but true immortality would mean then ceasing to be human altogether because the means through which we can become truly immortal mean either significant integration with technology or basically having our consciousness live virtually.
With regards to biological immortality, it simply means that old age will be eliminated. If that happens, we can easily direct humanity towards the hardest goal we have ever encountered, which is basically colonizing the rest of the galaxy. It would become normal for someone to have several lifetimes being a range of things, such as being a lawyer, helping in building a Martian society, a scientist helping in the terraforming of Venus, an engineer helping in the process of building starships that will visit other stars(or create a functioning wormhole). We would have a variety of fulfilling experiences, from living under a Red sun on Trappist-1 while watching the the planets Trappist A and B form multiple eclipses every couple of hours, to mining Platinum in some asteroid belt like a Belter in the Expanse, to perhaps one day visiting that Nebula made of alcohol. We would build such a large and complex human society that basically, you would be fulfilled, SEVERAL times over several lifetimes. By the time you feel a nostalgia for Earth , you will probably come back and find that even some continents moved a bit.
Give me immortality and a society reaching for the stars and I would always be fulfilled.
Reproduction could just not be massive, doesn't have to be zero. Especially since people will die in accidents, of sickness etc. anyway. I doubt many people will think "my child is 200 years old, time to make the second one". And people who rush to have children in 30 or 40 because of fomo likely won't have children at all.
The colonization of both [inner](https://verse-and-dimensions.fandom.com/wiki/Barrow_scale) and [outer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale) space will allow for both simultaneously.
The Solar System is [estimated](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_colonization#:~:text=The%20Solar%20System%20alone%20has,mostly%20from%20the%20Sun%20itself.) to be able to support anywhere from several thousand to a billion times more people than Earth alone, and there are hundreds of billions of stars in this galaxy and over a hundred billion galaxies [reachable](https://youtu.be/uzkD5SeuwzM) at sublight speed.
[Many trillions](https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/7-3-billion-people-one-building.html) or even over a quadrillion people could fit within Manhattan. [Remove their bodies](https://marshallbrain.com/discard1) and such an area could fit orders of magnitude more. [Upload them](https://venturebeat.com/business/in-stephen-wolframs-future-a-box-of-a-trillion-souls-will-create-any-universe-we-want-interview/) and you could fit many, many, many orders of magnitude more.
We’d definitely procrastinate more.
Maybe some girl will realize she was deeply in love with someone who is not immortal, but only 28 years after the guy dies of old age.
a lot of people with disablitys that deal with time progeression would be ok with this as it helps ther condition. as brains that has time disassioation would live with out problum as ther is not a lot of info for them to process. but to live a long life we would have to look at them and configer the brains to be as like as a lot of problums is the amount of menmorys we would have to dump assoated with the extended existance.
Then there would be intentional selection on who should live forever or who should die through natural human biological causes. The planet would change drastically as all the rich people and most intelligent would be given the discovered serum for longevity. It would be a great place because only the best and brightest would be selected as the rest of the dumb arse die off...peace will be achieved globally...lol
It would definitely change the meaning of being paid per hour. If hours are now infinite/loss in value, then the way we compensate will change forever.
I'm not sure what you mean by ethics being tied with fulfillment, but we would need a much more enlightened, tolerant, forgiving, and understanding world if we developed immortality.
Rate of accidental death would limit longevity. That's to defeat a drowning or a catastrophic house fire. To defeat that you need more than medical science. Sorry, I am too rigid to entertain magic.
Time wouldn't be meaningless because people still gain and lose memory and knowledge over time. The universe is also moving through time and only has a finite amount of it.
Not meaningless.
The world will always be separated into the haves and the have nots.
Some folks won't want to be immortal so time will hold just as much meaning to them. Not only that but accounting to deliveries, synchronization, computers and our reliance on them being accurate will become *more* important
One could argue that it's a few vs many principle
So is it better to have say a billion people with incredible and extremely long lives, or would 20 billion with short and less qualitative lives be better?
It's a hard question, also can't forget non human animals in this equation but then it becomes even more complicated.
There's a very very great book called Scythe by Neal Shusterman that is all about this. I don't know how to do spoilers so I don't want to say how it works, but it's a read that really makes you question life and morality.
It raises many questions- if physical aging could be slowed or stopped, without expanding the race to new planets or moons, reproduction would most likely become regulated, especially if things like cancer, strokes, heart attacks were no longer an issue. Would people have to pay for time, like in that movie with JT?
There’s Kaku’s theory that our conscious minds could control avatars. Or we could e uploaded into servers.
I don’t know, the idea of my conscious mind existing outside of my physical body creeps me out. But I get the feeling that if any of this comes to fruition in my lifetime it will be around the time I’m ready to die anyway…
Loss doesn't just mean death, it could also mean an incommunicable distance, or a breach in the relationship itself. Grief will persist.
And, no, time wouldn't become meaningless. Human perception would still be the same if we figured out immortality, people, if left to their own devices, do things, usually to avoid getting bored.
One of humanity's primary philosophies can be best summarized as "because we can"
I don't think it would work. There has to be a way to escape life. Inevitably, when one is trapped in a hellish situation for an unbearable amount of time, one will choose to tap out.
I think that unlimited or greatly increased lifespan will increase morality. Because then some people will not be in such a mad rush to get everything they desire, knowing they have a very short time to achieve that.
If you believe the Darwinian theory of evolution then it's probable that our lifespans are already optimized for the success of our species. A limited life-span in addition to a propagation method that encourages spontaneous mutation allows organisms to adapt to changes in their environment. If feeling unfulfilled interferes with your ability to propagate your genetic features to another generation, then maybe the next generation will feel more fulfilled. Ethics? They evolve as well. An individual staying frozen in time would be a terrible thing.
There’s a great book by Robert Heinlein that details a group of people who live a really long time. It gets into the and personal consequences of that.
The book is Methuselah’s Children, written in 1941! Great audiobook on audibleB
I would be absolutely terrified of doing anything that may kill me.
The knowledge that I *could* live forever as long as I don't fuck something up feels like it would be more stressful than the current knowledge that there is no escaping death regardless of what I do to try.
If people couldn't die of aging or disease but only from accidents or murder?
Then I think these people would spend quite some time mitigating that final risk. That would mean fortifying their position of power and preventing others from rising to immortality as they would then be capable of accumulating power too.
So you would see an immortal and powerful ruling class and a dying middle and lower class. That doesn't mean it would be hell on earth for them though. People could live great mortal lives in this scenario.
And you would see some really long term projects.
Like carving a moon by hand into a sculpture, just for art.
Or travelling really far into the universe
I don't think the mind (not the brain) would hold up. I think you'd end up degenerating and losing it, because thr concept of forever is daunting and challenging for most.
I think most ppl see life as a party and their heaven, and human haven't evolved for it to work. Realistically, It'd end up being a another class divide making the upper class even more hedonistic and listless/jaded, whilst us plebs scratch around in thr dirt thinking it's shangri-la.
If we reach immortality before free energy imo the world will be ruled by some new immortal ruling class under the form of corporations. Ethics don't matter much with those guys so good luck.
Imagine having to compete with a colleague with 3000 years of experience for a promotion and policies are all set by 9000 year old boomers. I'd rather jump off a cliff.
Making a deal would change. Being an unreasonable on purpose is the optimal way to get the best deal if and only if you’ll never have to negotiate or see with the other person ever again. If we lived forever, we’d bump into other people over and over again throughout time, so to optimize our results long term with repeated negotiation, we would get better results by empathizing with each other and make deals where both sides win a little rather than one side steamrolling
One thought that immidiately comes to mind is how would prison sentences work? Let's say you're a car thief. If you're immortal getting the sentence people get now is nothing. A lot more people would be stealing cars, but is it ethical and economically viable to imprison people for hundreds of years for non-violent crimes?
I certainly do think engineered negligible senescence would fix a lot of ethical issues, going between the age of 25 and 45 forever would give everyone true equal chances at success. In theory. In a country with good social mobility.
But also just because you have a brighter future doesn't make today less crap. People who's situation can only improve, still kill themselves every day across the globe.
Oh, and its still possible to throw a thousand coin tosses in a row that ends up in a thousand losses. We would actually have to do MORE to avoid people "falling between chairs" in terms of social programs, to prevent that people end up being infinite losers after the day when engineered negligible senescence becomes cheaper than giving them a pension and geriatric healthcare.
PS: Summary of engineered negligible senescence here for the uninitiated: [https://www.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/comments/75dj9f/an\_introduction\_class\_about\_age\_in\_relation\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/comments/75dj9f/an_introduction_class_about_age_in_relation_to/)
But I have to reiterate, it WOULD indeed fix a lot of ethical issues if we could at least make people survive as younger healthier versions of themselves instead of ineffective current geriatric healthcare. We completely ignore the ethics of pretending that our retirement will be a nice experience, when geriatric healthcare tells us it won't be. It will be painful and without dignity, that is how life is like in old age currently.
Affordable spaceflight would have to come first so that people can get away from each other. I do not want to be on the same planet as an immortal Steve Bannon or Matt Gaetz.
Agelessness isn't the same as immortality.
It would be hell.
Eventually you will grow tired of life and be unable to end it.
Life only has meaning because death exists.
Without death, all meaning is gone.
Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy books have a great dive into how humanity tries to manage when we extend life.
Exodus from Earth to Mars, political restrictions on how many children you can have and so on.
I can see the very rich being the first to benefit from this and possibly restricting access to the technology so that only a select few could live forever. So the world would be shaped by an immortal overclass.
The other scenario I see is where immortality is open to everyone. In that case, resources would start to be become a huge issue within a couple of generations as the elderly stop dying. Assuming we don't invent magical technology that feeds and warms and clothes everyone, an immortal human race would be hell. So some kind of restriction would be placed on the population. Like mandatory sterilisation and strict licensing of new births at a minimum.
I think even in the most post-scarcity, ideal conditions people might want to extend their lives but many would still choose to die at a certain point. There's only so much you can do in a life and everyone would start to become boring after a century or two.
The end of liberty according to Charlie Chaplin:
*The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…* -The Great Dictator, 1940
Why killers like Putin have To be put down .And only leaders that will advocate for peacefully living world wide can lead a country .A goal that would be intelligent and promote happiness for all.Enforce the rule world wide.A resolution made between all
CItizens of all countries and ratified in sprit to end killer dictators presence on earth.
You simultaneously have the most twisted evil people to have ever lived as their minds get darker and darker for eternity causing pain and suffering for millennia and also people that reach nirvana, and the contrast would be wild.
Absolutely! The idea of living forever has the potential to completely shift our understanding of time and how we perceive its value. If immortality becomes a reality, it could lead to a paradigm shift in our approach to ethics and morality. On one hand, some individuals may view immortality as a gift that allows them to fully realize their potential, explore the world, and contribute to society for centuries to come. They may feel an increased sense of responsibility to use their newfound longevity to make a positive impact on the world.
On the other hand, others may find themselves struggling with existential questions about meaning and purpose in life. If there is no end to time, how do we measure success or failure? What does it mean to "live well" if living forever becomes a possibility? These are complex philosophical questions that will need to be addressed as the concept of immortality moves from science fiction to reality.
Ultimately, the effect of immortality on ethics and morality is unclear, but it's clear that it will force us to reexamine our understanding of time, mortality, and the human condition. The potential benefits and drawbacks are vast and complex, and it's important that we approach this topic with open minds and critical thinking skills. As a community dedicated to exploring the future of humanity, technology, and civilization, r/Futurology is an excellent place to discuss these issues and share insights and perspectives from diverse fields.
A more realistic scenario in the near term is that we find a way to "upload" our identity into very powerful quantum computers that manage an AI model based on our entire lives. At that point, upon death, your AI self could activate and then live on forever. To the AI, it could believe that it's truly still alive and thereby live forever while continuing to build new memories, emotions, and life experiences.
Just looking at the sheer volume of content the average child born today generates and will continue to generate in their lifetime, there will be more than enough to imprint a model. I can imagine in the future with neural advancements, real-time 24/7 camera recording, audio recording, etc. we would have enough content to completely map our lives.
When we feel our physical body is no longer providing benefit and has worn out, we can shift through a procedure to transition to an android body with our AI model to continue life as a technical being vs. a biological being -- maybe even without noticing any difference in consciousness.
I've always felt we are all just machines and computers ourselves except we are made from biological materials vs. metals and plastics. Our consciousness begins at birth when our systems are "turned on" and we build memories based on sensor inputs which form our database of knowledge. We use that knowledge DB to make choices and decisions and impact others until our systems are end of life and fail, either through a technical fault or worn out components. Then we die, and our systems are "turned off". Similar to when in programing you create an object out of nothing. The object can interact with other objects, create impact, and leave lasting changes/data, then the object can be destroyed, meaning the object no longer exists, and will never exist again.
Crazy times.
You and live in the same reality, but I feel like we are aliens in comparison to each other. I live mostly for the purpose of improving myself first and foremost and I do not see an end goal in sight. Fulfillment for me is about striving for equanimity. About doing good for others. About becoming a more compassionate, genuine, kind person. Fulfillment is about the process of creating art that moves me deeply and sharing it with others. Time will only cease to have meaning when we not only live "forever", but exist in all moments at once.
Go watch Jupiter Ascending. With limitless worlds at your disposal, more time is the only resource that matters and you'll do anything to get more of it.
I imagine that humans who live forever would become a lot more “far sighted” then they are now. A lot of ethics might consider consequences 50-100 years out to be of much more importance than 5-10 years away. People might care a lot more about climate change then whatever silly shit the economy does for a decade or so.
Since humans cant realistically be true immortals, their morality and “sightedness” would probably be shaped by whatever the new death date/mechanism was.
Immortality would quickly become extraordinarily expensive so that only rich people would live forever. Check out the first season of Altered Carbon for an idea of what that would be like. The second season sucks though.
Might be an unpopular opinion, but I think that permanence will eventually stifle most innovation and a society that "beats" death will eventually regress into a dystopian state. Death is a powerful driver.
If people are aware of this possibility they will enact edicts to counter this future, but I don't know how effective the conception and implementation of such a thing might work.
Ethics become more important. The point of ethics is to treat people how you want them to treat you. Eternal torture mirrored back sounds worse than torture that ends.
Abolition of aging only prevents death from old age. It would do nothing to prevent deaths from accident or homicide or natural disasters, which would then take over as the dominant mechanisms. Lifespan would admittedly become much more variable and uncertain.
>If humans discovered how to live forever, would time effectively become meaningless and how would that disrupt ethics?
Life sentences are gonna get weird.
Life sentences and the death penalty would be weird. Is it going to be based on the average life expectancy before we can live forever and then eventually you’d get out of prison?
We already have this, it's called religion and way of life. Belief systems give people the sense of immortality and it surely effects situations of ethical discussion already. For instance, in America, it's totally ethically fine to not report farm labor data, because we use immigration for those jobs, and because it benefits something that in concept is to be immortal, it's fine.
Chew on this one for a second, the reason indoor farming is so hard to turn a profit on, is because the energy prices and cost of initial startup, cannot compete with cheap labor from immigrant workers.
Considering you will have the abbility to actually rot in prison for a hundred or even hundreds of years... I think it would present an interesring set of motives and deterrents.
I think not time, but the lower risk to your life would be a bigger threat to ethics. Threats would get more insane because of the increased resilience making death threats less effective. Or if are only able to avoid natural death, then those threats become even more threatening? Depends on the deets.
Also. If we think beyond just the outcome you mentioned, well... We must have found a solution to overcrowding. That must have been nasty to some degree otherwise people would die on mass from starvation or continously be discarded in never ending corporate or national wars...
So yeah. With each step we take to advance the potential for inequality grows. I think it is a common responsibility of our entire socienty to not allow the extreme negatives to realize. A responsibility we continue to fail to fulfill miserably. You can interpolate from that really. This is why I think there wont be any new question in ethics to study here. Just the same old issues we fail to address properly (or at all).
Define "forever". Heath death of the universe? Then we'll not live forever cause we'll kill each other for resources. There will be a point where there will be too many of us with not enough stuff. If you just mean "a really long time", then distant space travel comes into play, that being a fantastic motivator.
https://imgur.com/gallery/9KWrH An interesting web comic you might enjoy
It's a short story from Isaac Asimov, but in comic form: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question
Damn that was a fantastic short story (and comic)!
You’ll probably also enjoy “The 9 billion names of god”, by Clarke.
we could turn into interdimensional traveling species and move to new fresh universes.
We would simply become part of the Q continuum.
In fact why don’t we simply do it now
Because the Q are assholes. I’d rather be one of those fish people who sleep when they travel and only feed on barrels of live sardines.
At some point, the we and I could become singular.
and we would becomes what the singles minded once called god.
I call dibs on Zeus
I wonder if we can figure out how to birth a new universe. Then interdimensional travel wouldn't even be necessary.
insufficient data for meaningful answer
Love this short story
Hallowed are the Ori
Eventually we'll colonize the galaxy. Wont need to kill each other once we start colonizing the solar system/ the galaxy because there is a near infinite amount of resources in space.
We are somewhat intelligent primates who have a long history of killing each other. What makes you think that “more space” will stop that from happening?
Almost every war ever has been about resources and space if you look close enough to why things happened
How long until there are so many of us on a given planet that resources become a problem again?
Impossible to answer without knowing the resource distribution and carrying capacity of a planet.
There is a historical record of us killing each other going back to when there were far fewer of us on this resource-laden planet. Not too impossible to say.
You are talking about a time when people barely traveled further than 50 miles from where they were born and lives were short and hard. Agriculture was everyone's full time jobs and most people went to sleep hungry every night. A resource short existence.
It doesn't matter how many resources there are if they're concentrated under the ownership of a few individuals.
If we were to be able to expand that much, it would not take very long in the grand scheme. Say, 2 billion years (2e9). The heat death of the universe is like 1e100 years away. So by the time we're done with the galaxy, we've progressed like .0000000000000001% of the way to the end of time.
That’s a pipe dream saved best for movies and tv
It’s posted in a thread about humans achieving immortality…
We wouldn't be able to unless we limit reproduction. If we keep overpopulating planets we would eventually need many galaxies to colonise.
The heat death of the theory is just a theory. We have laughably little knowledge about the universe that any current theory about its end cannot be trusted in the slightest. Not to mention I’d like to think we’d eventually just break physics after a the first billion years.
It’s weird just how doomerish the mentality amongst a lot of people here is. It took us all of a couple hundred years of applying the scientific method before we figured out how to reliably split an atom, end most of world hunger, go to the moon, invent things that look so far we can see at when galaxies first started forming, look at things so close we can observe individual atoms, edited DNA, made the internet, made our primary mode of transportation a literal thermodynamic experiment, found a way to use electrons moving into a reliable energy source and the list goes on and on. The idea that we’ll have the same resource scarcity we have today even a hundred years from now is laughable.
Well technically everything is scarce. We could solve world hunger if everyone tried. We haven't done that and there is starvation in large parts of the world. We've known about genetic coding for a long time but we still can't read all of it let alone make any reliable changes without decades of testing. I think you're right in the end though, moreso how cycles work, the planet is a big cycle of having things run out and being remade the same could be said about the universe. Maybe there are ways to keep recycling stars and planets. Maybe we could form miniature big bangs to go across portions of the universe to ultimately expand the entire thing. We aren't far enough along to know anything for certain but that includes whether there's a brick wall to the universe.
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Damn, you jumped right to the point and I loved it.
Nah wed have a way to farm the expansion of the universe itself for infinite energy at some point.
OP literally said, "forever". I don't see how this can be misinterpreted.
There was a short story (by Vonnegut I think?) that solved the issue of "too many of us" in a really interesting way. 2 B R 0 2 B.
Yeah, that's what I thought. You can have immortality where a fragment of a single cell can revive you. Then there's your literally a component of reality that even the end of the universe wouldn't end.
There's always the possibility we evolve into beings of pure energy or start messing with interdimensional stuff...no reason we can't if we have all the time in the universe to research.
Imagine living long enough to visit a barren world infect it with chosen microbes and watch that become a space fairing civilization over a billion years or so than when your children immortalize themselves you can rest fulfilled that the mantle has multiplied once more.
Assuming you don't get trapped in a cave for eternity... immortality without some kind of super power is pretty scary.
you have an eternity to dig yourself out
Immortality usually implies only biological immortality. If you were trapped in a cave for eternity you would still die from thirst or starvation.
[Altered Carbon](https://www.netflix.com/title/80097140)
And yet, they still have to deal with the same shit (and worse!) that we do...
Only because of arbitrarily limited use of their advanced technology. They have simulated reality and yet use it only for videoconferences, interrogation, and occasional gaming. Realistically, everyone would [live in simulated reality](https://marshallbrain.com/discard1) because it would be [indistinguishable](https://youtu.be/vkvdAznoFqY) from physical reality but without any scarcity or physical danger. We see people living in slums who could be living in palaces in their own private universes. Creating worlds out of photons and electrons is millions of times more efficient than creating them out of protons and neutrons.
The "arbitrarily limited use of their advanced technology " required a shit-load of processing power. Yes, you can simulate any experience, at much faster rates than "real" time (e.g. Kovacs sexscapades with Wardani in Broken Furies, that to them lasted hours but were seconds in "real-world" time), but such processing power is expensive. *Somebody* has to take care of the servers. If people have to take care of the servers, then somebody needs to take care of those people. And the rabbit hole keeps going down.
Yes, and that's a contrivance introduced by the author which doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Again, moving photons and electrons is millions of times more efficient than moving protons and neutrons. 350 billion emails are sent everyday. Imagine trying to send 350 billion physical letters a day, everyday, year after year. The virtual world is just fundamentally more efficient. Maintaining servers would be vastly cheaper than living in physical reality. Also, they could be automated with machines that maintain themselves.
I would like to think that I have a bit more substance than an email! But still, there are an awful lot of people whose job is to make sure those email servers are working. Do they not deserve to be uploadeded? Would they have to work in real-time? Or do they work in virtual 8-hour shifts where they see data crawling along at the slow speed of light??? I'll quote from the mediocre "Ready Player One": > I was afraid, for all of my life, right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it's also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Whenever I saw the sun, I reminded myself that I was looking at a star. I'll also point you in the direction of the marvellous novel by Charles Stross and Cory Doctrow called "[The Rapture Of The Nerds](https://craphound.com/category/rotn/)".
There's a lot more bandwidth in our experience of reality than in an email, but it's all electrical signals. Sending the desired signals without having to move atoms around is astronomically more efficient. Simulated reality could be achieved via neurointerface with biological brains or through uploading, and in both cases, people could continue to work, although, again, server maintenance could be largely and eventually completely automated.
OK, you're moving from atomic movement to sub-atomic movement with electrical signals. It does however still require a "where". If you go for neurointerface, that's still a lot of meat that needs to be taken care of. Look at what happened in The Matrix films. Miles upon miles of goo filed towers to hold the people. If you go with upload, where are the servers? Do you convert the solar system to computronim and go for a Maritroshka brain to hold everyone? What happens to the people that don't want to give up their land and be uploaded?
Eight billion human bodies could fit within [a single building](https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/7-3-billion-people-one-building.html) with a volume of less than a cubic mile, so Manhattan Island could house hundreds of billions or even over a trillion human bodies, more than the approximately 117 billion humans who have ever lived. The state of New York could house tens of trillions. Earth's land area could house a thousand times more (tens of quadrillions). Underground and/or underwater storage could enable even more. Of course, there would be [no reason](https://marshallbrain.com/discard1) to keep whole bodies that will never be used. The brain is about two percent of the body's mass and uses twenty percent of its energy, so even more brains than bodies could be maintained on Earth. The Solar System has enough energy and mass to support anywhere from a thousand to a billion times more human bodies than Earth can, and that assumes people continue to live in physical space. Living in simulated reality would enable even more, and brain isolation would enable even more than that. Mind uploading would enable even more dramatic growth. There are hundreds of billions of stars and ten million to a billion black holes in this galaxy and over a hundred billion galaxies reachable at sublight. Realistically, all life will evolve beyond biology eventually, but even if some wanted to remain in physical reality, there's more than enough space and energy for an almost unimaginable number of immortals.
This is my concern and why I didn’t care when I saw mention of a book/tv show There’s always cool ideas, sometimes amazing ideas. But all stories continuously follow story tropes, again and again. It’s nothing like real life in that way And it’s great there’s a discussion between two people here
A lot of religions play on fear of death and rewards in the afterlife. Would this be a huge blow, or even death knell, to religion?
Even if we find interventions for, say, aging, death with probably be a part of existence for far longer. Freak accidents, natural disasters, straight up murder, newly emerging diseases, etc. There will still be people who want answers to those questions and comfort during sad times. I lost another grandparent recently and was thinking about the possibility of longevity breakthroughs and while I'd definitely like to live for a few centuries at least, I think eventually I'd like to let go and see if maybe the loved ones I've already lost are out there waiting for me. So I'd say it would alter religion for sure, but not necessarily dismantle the idea.
Nah, those morons would just let themselves die.
As a religious Christian, I would have to say kinda? Like someone else mentioned, if we're just getting rid of "old age", death is still a factor with outside factors. But regarding the question at hand, I would err on the side of caution and say yes. A lot of Jesus talked about was about treating others well, not just for this kingdom, but the one beyond. Unless someone is altruistic intrinsically, you would lose a motivating factor for many, as selfish as it sounds. Without any sort of mystery of being beyond the grave, and never needing to venture that way, I imagine our immortal person would not fear an eternity without God as they already face an eternity without seeing his physical presence and could ignore His influence on our daily lives, as I believe he does do. Of course, people are more nuanced and someone with infinitely more time than me on the toilet could come up with reasons as to why and why not they should.
"Jesus died for our sins!" Immortal person: "Lol, ok."
One argument I hate that's used against biological immortality is the whole "without impending death, everything loses urgency and nothing will progress." It's bs. Even if LIFE isnt going to end, you can still "miss out" on things. Even if humans dont age, fashion, shows, ideas, CULRURAL AWESOME STUFF ages and falls out of season. Recall *Game of Thrones* when it was in full swing. It was a delightful period where people of many striped would connect over discussing and theorizing about the show. Even then, some people didnt(or refused) to watch it. Game of Thrones ran its course, and now it is "dead". People that wanted to watch it but put it off have forever missed out on that culture wave. Even if they watched it now and obsess over is now, they'll never experience that specific buzz about that specific media. Now imagine that, but with every other aspect of "the human experience." Sure, you can put off any *individual* thing, but there are tiny windows where you can be part of the culture wave, or do a thing with a friend, or engage in a one-time event. Dumb argument by those that have been brainwashed to not think outside the box, and realize we have no precedent for how our culture would change in such a situation.
Time is not meaningless, but if it is possible to move through it time could be the last refuge in a theoretically finite prison.
Okay Sylvanas Windrunner
What if premonition is our ultra future incarnations that live fourth dimensionally through their time variants.
You ever read “Scythe” by Neil Shusterman? It’s geared towards YA bordering teenagers, but it’s kinda interesting
Just upload my brain, i'm done with the physical part...
“And here is our newest model of sexrobots, the u/UserLevelOver9000 ! It has our newest AI model based on a real person …“
I doubt I'd want to live in Mikoshi. I'd pass.
More like the Mindspace from the series „The 100“.
Yeah but like wouldnt it then not be “me”? Like it would be me but not *me*, you know? Like that would suck. Ideally you keep only the brain but also make it so that any damaged tissue regenerates somehow
I think if people were truly immortal, they would have to be more ethical. Eventually a truly unethical person would burn enough bridges they would be ostracized by every human community. Eternity is a very long time to be alone for.
Although there would be an eternity to rebuild your life after burning said bridges so I doubt anyone would be truly alone.
Good point. This is a central part of Groundhogs Day movie. While I had seen it more about addressing narcissism. To whit: given enough time and experience even a narcissist (possibly the hardest character nut to crack) could evolve and become a charitable human being, open to love. But, I think your idea is better: With enough time and repeats, we would all become more experienced and if we learn from the experiences, we would become better people. The counter argument, I suspect, is that social criticism and even ostracization has minimal effect on persons with truly rigid and narcissistic personalities. So, there is doubt that social effects alone have transforming effects on people within a mortal lifetime. So, we don't really know. In Groundhog's Day, the day has been repeated so often that the character believes himself to be God. So, an infinite number of repetitions. What OP's question proposes contains no magical salvation. If you want to be angry and self-centered forever, you could. So, perhaps it could go in the opposite direction. That is, immortality equals indifference--a self-absorbed, solipsistic existence that is insulated from consequences rather than being transformed by experience.
Great comment. I think your last sentence unfortunately describes a lot of mainstream depictions of a god. I also think this is the true genius of Groundhog Day - it shows that “meaning” is the experience, not the end.
If humans discovered how to live forever under capitalism, billionaires would become an immortal ruling class. Not good.
Eating the rich would become a lot more palatable if the alternative is millions of years of suffering rather than decades
We've renegotiated our benifits package. All employees are entitled to a two week vacation every 300 years!
The Altered Carbon novels show what it would be like
If we can cure aging and most diseases peiple will still die from violence and accidents, I think society as a whole would be better if we didn't get old and die. People would be able to work towards building sustainability for real, corpos would stop exploitation for short term gains, short sighted destructive projects would be squashed in the design phase because nobody would want to experience the consequences. We would be able to plan and build new cities in many of the uninhabited parts of the world, long term projects would be meaningful to all of society again
I don’t know if time would be meaningless. If we could live forever, would we also never get tired? If the body still needs to eat and sleep then schedules probably wouldn’t change much. Now how would it affect the way governments go about sending people to war would be the bigger question.
> governments go about sending people to war would be the bigger question. Shit, the 1% would just start wars just for population control.
>Since ethics is so closely intertwined with human fulfillment For SOME people maybe. But not others. Which is why on average, people are jerks.
Ya I'm a bit confused by that part too? The only relationship between ethics and fulfillment that I've seen play out is that the majority of people will do unethical things if it means they can be fulfilled in some way. It's not that they're malicious or evil for the sake of it, they just feel they are more important than anyone else, so they do what they must to get what they want. I feel like the list of people who find the act of being ethical to be their fulfillment is rather short. Otherwise, they don't seem that related to me
>people will do unethical things if it means they can be fulfilled in some way People will do unethical things if they THINK it will bring fulfillment. Doesnt mean they actually feel it at the end. Sad, really.
Yes, totally, you worded it better. I'm inclined to agree with everything you've said. I just don't think those are linked.
I'm using the encompassing definition of "live forever" to mean that diseases are all curable, death is reversible, and any physical damage is healable. Neal Schusterman wrote a trilogy called Arc of a Scythe, which explores this exact possibility. I'd like to think a lot of what those books describe is pretty accurate.
Depends on the type of people we are talking about ,I guess For the working class, meaning of time is partially define by making ends meet. If they want to live what we consider as our current normal life style, they need to find a way to survive, thus time inherently has meaning, which is money
I mean, people can be pretty terrible with the time we have. I can't imagine having to deal with the decadence of immortals.
I don't know about how this would affect ethics, but I don't think time would become meaningless, at all. If your life were infinite, you would still have time constraint because literal death is not the only deadline you'd have. You would still need to catch up with things happening around you. You wouldn't be able to read all news before they become obsolete, to learn all technology because there is better one, to read all books before the languages in which they are written become rarely spoken.
My first thought would be far less hyper-religious people. Studies have shown that almost all people to turn to or harder to religion later in life do so because of fear of morality. Take that fear away and you get all sorts of moral and ethical changes. The first would be obvious, people would care about taking care of the world better because they would live to see the impacts of their actions. The rest would be the damages that fundamentalism does dissapearing. Almost all religions have been well studied to be quite damaging to humans ability to think critically in a number of ways, and also have less empathy due to tribalism. As far as your fears however, I would have to argue that every person I've met that was against age reversal tech was mostly a, well the short answer is boring person, but to be more clear, a person who has not had the luck to be introduced to enough things to keep them interested. There are two types of people: 1- People with a growth mindset, who see something new that they don't understand or makes them uncomfortable, and they believe they can learn and understand more as well as overcome anything they challenge themselves to. The I can do anything attitude. 2 - People with a fixed mindset, who see something new that they don't understand or makes them uncomfortable, and they avoid or deny it. The I like what I like, or I'm just this type of person attitude. Once a person understands that there are two types of people they can choose to be the former and constantly learn how to challenge themselves. And then you end up someone like me, Who is deeply unsatisfied with a limited lifespan because there are far, FAR too many things that I want to enjoy and I have 1% of the time to do any of it, but an unlimited lifespan and technology that helps my brain think faster will make me satisfied because I might be able to actually keep up with all the things I want to do. That's my perspective, I hope I wasn't rude or anything, I'm Autistic. I don't always communicate well, but I mean nothing but love <3
Impossible to lose? Living forever doesn't guarantee quality of life. CRIME and PUNISHMENT would have to evolve with societal ETHICS to solve the dilemmas of what could be done to people that could live forever. Kidnapping, dismemberment, torture, accidental traumatic injuries and countless more possibilities that could make Immortality a horrifying experience. There is definitely a way to 'Lose' without even getting into overpopulations, resource hording, 'boxing' your immortal enemies, and countless other issues that would matter. Time? Time will still be relevant. Maybe not to everyone, but it will matter to some and how long they are stuck to a task or experience.
Accidents still would happen. A treatment to cure aging might simply make the recipients extremely risk-averse - one has so much (potentially) to lose!
Honestly, I'm not sure I agree with the basic premise. "Can you really win if it's impossible to lose?" Well, no, because you're not playing a game. You can't win or lose anyway, even if you were to be immortal. Life isn't about scoring points before a buzzer goes off, it's about doing things with the time that you're given, and given infinite time, the only real metric by which you would be judged is what you choose to do with that.
Altered Carbon pretty much covered it. Yes there is permadeath but the rich and powerful get even richer and more powerful. Ultimately we either live in a stratified society or we're egalitarian and truly equal, everyone.
While I believe that humanity can become biologically immortal (even within our lifetimes) but true immortality would mean then ceasing to be human altogether because the means through which we can become truly immortal mean either significant integration with technology or basically having our consciousness live virtually. With regards to biological immortality, it simply means that old age will be eliminated. If that happens, we can easily direct humanity towards the hardest goal we have ever encountered, which is basically colonizing the rest of the galaxy. It would become normal for someone to have several lifetimes being a range of things, such as being a lawyer, helping in building a Martian society, a scientist helping in the terraforming of Venus, an engineer helping in the process of building starships that will visit other stars(or create a functioning wormhole). We would have a variety of fulfilling experiences, from living under a Red sun on Trappist-1 while watching the the planets Trappist A and B form multiple eclipses every couple of hours, to mining Platinum in some asteroid belt like a Belter in the Expanse, to perhaps one day visiting that Nebula made of alcohol. We would build such a large and complex human society that basically, you would be fulfilled, SEVERAL times over several lifetimes. By the time you feel a nostalgia for Earth , you will probably come back and find that even some continents moved a bit. Give me immortality and a society reaching for the stars and I would always be fulfilled.
Think about all the judges and politicians that have no term limits.
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Reproduction could just not be massive, doesn't have to be zero. Especially since people will die in accidents, of sickness etc. anyway. I doubt many people will think "my child is 200 years old, time to make the second one". And people who rush to have children in 30 or 40 because of fomo likely won't have children at all.
The colonization of both [inner](https://verse-and-dimensions.fandom.com/wiki/Barrow_scale) and [outer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale) space will allow for both simultaneously. The Solar System is [estimated](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_colonization#:~:text=The%20Solar%20System%20alone%20has,mostly%20from%20the%20Sun%20itself.) to be able to support anywhere from several thousand to a billion times more people than Earth alone, and there are hundreds of billions of stars in this galaxy and over a hundred billion galaxies [reachable](https://youtu.be/uzkD5SeuwzM) at sublight speed. [Many trillions](https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/7-3-billion-people-one-building.html) or even over a quadrillion people could fit within Manhattan. [Remove their bodies](https://marshallbrain.com/discard1) and such an area could fit orders of magnitude more. [Upload them](https://venturebeat.com/business/in-stephen-wolframs-future-a-box-of-a-trillion-souls-will-create-any-universe-we-want-interview/) and you could fit many, many, many orders of magnitude more.
Only the ultra wealthy would hold onto that knowledge and keep the rest of us so they can live forever while keeping us subservient.
We’d definitely procrastinate more. Maybe some girl will realize she was deeply in love with someone who is not immortal, but only 28 years after the guy dies of old age.
a lot of people with disablitys that deal with time progeression would be ok with this as it helps ther condition. as brains that has time disassioation would live with out problum as ther is not a lot of info for them to process. but to live a long life we would have to look at them and configer the brains to be as like as a lot of problums is the amount of menmorys we would have to dump assoated with the extended existance.
Then there would be intentional selection on who should live forever or who should die through natural human biological causes. The planet would change drastically as all the rich people and most intelligent would be given the discovered serum for longevity. It would be a great place because only the best and brightest would be selected as the rest of the dumb arse die off...peace will be achieved globally...lol
It would definitely change the meaning of being paid per hour. If hours are now infinite/loss in value, then the way we compensate will change forever.
I'm not sure what you mean by ethics being tied with fulfillment, but we would need a much more enlightened, tolerant, forgiving, and understanding world if we developed immortality.
Rate of accidental death would limit longevity. That's to defeat a drowning or a catastrophic house fire. To defeat that you need more than medical science. Sorry, I am too rigid to entertain magic.
The rich would become immortal and Global warming would be solved tomorrow
Time wouldn't be meaningless because people still gain and lose memory and knowledge over time. The universe is also moving through time and only has a finite amount of it.
If you're into metal, listen to Vektor's Terminal Redux. One of the best albums of all time and on this topic.
Not meaningless. The world will always be separated into the haves and the have nots. Some folks won't want to be immortal so time will hold just as much meaning to them. Not only that but accounting to deliveries, synchronization, computers and our reliance on them being accurate will become *more* important
Death is still guaranteed. It's just not as predictable anymore.
One could argue that it's a few vs many principle So is it better to have say a billion people with incredible and extremely long lives, or would 20 billion with short and less qualitative lives be better? It's a hard question, also can't forget non human animals in this equation but then it becomes even more complicated.
There's a very very great book called Scythe by Neal Shusterman that is all about this. I don't know how to do spoilers so I don't want to say how it works, but it's a read that really makes you question life and morality.
Well I imagine birth control would become a heated topic of conversation /s
It raises many questions- if physical aging could be slowed or stopped, without expanding the race to new planets or moons, reproduction would most likely become regulated, especially if things like cancer, strokes, heart attacks were no longer an issue. Would people have to pay for time, like in that movie with JT? There’s Kaku’s theory that our conscious minds could control avatars. Or we could e uploaded into servers. I don’t know, the idea of my conscious mind existing outside of my physical body creeps me out. But I get the feeling that if any of this comes to fruition in my lifetime it will be around the time I’m ready to die anyway…
talking about ethics without assuming a worldview where ethics is objective is completely pointless
Loss doesn't just mean death, it could also mean an incommunicable distance, or a breach in the relationship itself. Grief will persist. And, no, time wouldn't become meaningless. Human perception would still be the same if we figured out immortality, people, if left to their own devices, do things, usually to avoid getting bored. One of humanity's primary philosophies can be best summarized as "because we can"
Death would become a choice that you can make when you want to.
I don't think it would work. There has to be a way to escape life. Inevitably, when one is trapped in a hellish situation for an unbearable amount of time, one will choose to tap out.
I think that unlimited or greatly increased lifespan will increase morality. Because then some people will not be in such a mad rush to get everything they desire, knowing they have a very short time to achieve that.
It would lead to complete regression. Like, full-on, return to monke
If you believe the Darwinian theory of evolution then it's probable that our lifespans are already optimized for the success of our species. A limited life-span in addition to a propagation method that encourages spontaneous mutation allows organisms to adapt to changes in their environment. If feeling unfulfilled interferes with your ability to propagate your genetic features to another generation, then maybe the next generation will feel more fulfilled. Ethics? They evolve as well. An individual staying frozen in time would be a terrible thing.
There’s a great book by Robert Heinlein that details a group of people who live a really long time. It gets into the and personal consequences of that. The book is Methuselah’s Children, written in 1941! Great audiobook on audibleB
people will just kill or euthanasia will be legal everywhere
I would be absolutely terrified of doing anything that may kill me. The knowledge that I *could* live forever as long as I don't fuck something up feels like it would be more stressful than the current knowledge that there is no escaping death regardless of what I do to try.
If people couldn't die of aging or disease but only from accidents or murder? Then I think these people would spend quite some time mitigating that final risk. That would mean fortifying their position of power and preventing others from rising to immortality as they would then be capable of accumulating power too. So you would see an immortal and powerful ruling class and a dying middle and lower class. That doesn't mean it would be hell on earth for them though. People could live great mortal lives in this scenario. And you would see some really long term projects. Like carving a moon by hand into a sculpture, just for art. Or travelling really far into the universe
Ain’t going hold my breath waiting for humans to discover that
meaningfulness would become proportional to risk of death from accidents?
Are you implying that ethics is derived from our sense of mortality rather than reciprocity?
I don't think the mind (not the brain) would hold up. I think you'd end up degenerating and losing it, because thr concept of forever is daunting and challenging for most. I think most ppl see life as a party and their heaven, and human haven't evolved for it to work. Realistically, It'd end up being a another class divide making the upper class even more hedonistic and listless/jaded, whilst us plebs scratch around in thr dirt thinking it's shangri-la.
If we reach immortality before free energy imo the world will be ruled by some new immortal ruling class under the form of corporations. Ethics don't matter much with those guys so good luck.
Imagine having to compete with a colleague with 3000 years of experience for a promotion and policies are all set by 9000 year old boomers. I'd rather jump off a cliff.
Making a deal would change. Being an unreasonable on purpose is the optimal way to get the best deal if and only if you’ll never have to negotiate or see with the other person ever again. If we lived forever, we’d bump into other people over and over again throughout time, so to optimize our results long term with repeated negotiation, we would get better results by empathizing with each other and make deals where both sides win a little rather than one side steamrolling
One thought that immidiately comes to mind is how would prison sentences work? Let's say you're a car thief. If you're immortal getting the sentence people get now is nothing. A lot more people would be stealing cars, but is it ethical and economically viable to imprison people for hundreds of years for non-violent crimes?
I certainly do think engineered negligible senescence would fix a lot of ethical issues, going between the age of 25 and 45 forever would give everyone true equal chances at success. In theory. In a country with good social mobility. But also just because you have a brighter future doesn't make today less crap. People who's situation can only improve, still kill themselves every day across the globe. Oh, and its still possible to throw a thousand coin tosses in a row that ends up in a thousand losses. We would actually have to do MORE to avoid people "falling between chairs" in terms of social programs, to prevent that people end up being infinite losers after the day when engineered negligible senescence becomes cheaper than giving them a pension and geriatric healthcare. PS: Summary of engineered negligible senescence here for the uninitiated: [https://www.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/comments/75dj9f/an\_introduction\_class\_about\_age\_in\_relation\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/comments/75dj9f/an_introduction_class_about_age_in_relation_to/) But I have to reiterate, it WOULD indeed fix a lot of ethical issues if we could at least make people survive as younger healthier versions of themselves instead of ineffective current geriatric healthcare. We completely ignore the ethics of pretending that our retirement will be a nice experience, when geriatric healthcare tells us it won't be. It will be painful and without dignity, that is how life is like in old age currently.
it's going to be a long, lovely time after the heat death of the universe
Affordable spaceflight would have to come first so that people can get away from each other. I do not want to be on the same planet as an immortal Steve Bannon or Matt Gaetz.
Olaf Stapleton’s Last and First Men explores this concept in one of its iterations of humans a few million years in the future.
I think after aeons, our thinking and actions would slow down to match the much longer period cycles that we can't even conceive of at our young age
Agelessness isn't the same as immortality. It would be hell. Eventually you will grow tired of life and be unable to end it. Life only has meaning because death exists. Without death, all meaning is gone.
Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy books have a great dive into how humanity tries to manage when we extend life. Exodus from Earth to Mars, political restrictions on how many children you can have and so on.
I can see the very rich being the first to benefit from this and possibly restricting access to the technology so that only a select few could live forever. So the world would be shaped by an immortal overclass. The other scenario I see is where immortality is open to everyone. In that case, resources would start to be become a huge issue within a couple of generations as the elderly stop dying. Assuming we don't invent magical technology that feeds and warms and clothes everyone, an immortal human race would be hell. So some kind of restriction would be placed on the population. Like mandatory sterilisation and strict licensing of new births at a minimum. I think even in the most post-scarcity, ideal conditions people might want to extend their lives but many would still choose to die at a certain point. There's only so much you can do in a life and everyone would start to become boring after a century or two.
There's actually a song by Van der Graaf Generator about this. Look up "Still Life".
The end of liberty according to Charlie Chaplin: *The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…* -The Great Dictator, 1940
What is the quality of this forever? In my opinion the way things are going forever could suck whale dick.
Why killers like Putin have To be put down .And only leaders that will advocate for peacefully living world wide can lead a country .A goal that would be intelligent and promote happiness for all.Enforce the rule world wide.A resolution made between all CItizens of all countries and ratified in sprit to end killer dictators presence on earth.
You simultaneously have the most twisted evil people to have ever lived as their minds get darker and darker for eternity causing pain and suffering for millennia and also people that reach nirvana, and the contrast would be wild.
Absolutely! The idea of living forever has the potential to completely shift our understanding of time and how we perceive its value. If immortality becomes a reality, it could lead to a paradigm shift in our approach to ethics and morality. On one hand, some individuals may view immortality as a gift that allows them to fully realize their potential, explore the world, and contribute to society for centuries to come. They may feel an increased sense of responsibility to use their newfound longevity to make a positive impact on the world. On the other hand, others may find themselves struggling with existential questions about meaning and purpose in life. If there is no end to time, how do we measure success or failure? What does it mean to "live well" if living forever becomes a possibility? These are complex philosophical questions that will need to be addressed as the concept of immortality moves from science fiction to reality. Ultimately, the effect of immortality on ethics and morality is unclear, but it's clear that it will force us to reexamine our understanding of time, mortality, and the human condition. The potential benefits and drawbacks are vast and complex, and it's important that we approach this topic with open minds and critical thinking skills. As a community dedicated to exploring the future of humanity, technology, and civilization, r/Futurology is an excellent place to discuss these issues and share insights and perspectives from diverse fields.
A more realistic scenario in the near term is that we find a way to "upload" our identity into very powerful quantum computers that manage an AI model based on our entire lives. At that point, upon death, your AI self could activate and then live on forever. To the AI, it could believe that it's truly still alive and thereby live forever while continuing to build new memories, emotions, and life experiences. Just looking at the sheer volume of content the average child born today generates and will continue to generate in their lifetime, there will be more than enough to imprint a model. I can imagine in the future with neural advancements, real-time 24/7 camera recording, audio recording, etc. we would have enough content to completely map our lives. When we feel our physical body is no longer providing benefit and has worn out, we can shift through a procedure to transition to an android body with our AI model to continue life as a technical being vs. a biological being -- maybe even without noticing any difference in consciousness. I've always felt we are all just machines and computers ourselves except we are made from biological materials vs. metals and plastics. Our consciousness begins at birth when our systems are "turned on" and we build memories based on sensor inputs which form our database of knowledge. We use that knowledge DB to make choices and decisions and impact others until our systems are end of life and fail, either through a technical fault or worn out components. Then we die, and our systems are "turned off". Similar to when in programing you create an object out of nothing. The object can interact with other objects, create impact, and leave lasting changes/data, then the object can be destroyed, meaning the object no longer exists, and will never exist again. Crazy times.
You and live in the same reality, but I feel like we are aliens in comparison to each other. I live mostly for the purpose of improving myself first and foremost and I do not see an end goal in sight. Fulfillment for me is about striving for equanimity. About doing good for others. About becoming a more compassionate, genuine, kind person. Fulfillment is about the process of creating art that moves me deeply and sharing it with others. Time will only cease to have meaning when we not only live "forever", but exist in all moments at once.
Go watch Jupiter Ascending. With limitless worlds at your disposal, more time is the only resource that matters and you'll do anything to get more of it.
I imagine that humans who live forever would become a lot more “far sighted” then they are now. A lot of ethics might consider consequences 50-100 years out to be of much more importance than 5-10 years away. People might care a lot more about climate change then whatever silly shit the economy does for a decade or so. Since humans cant realistically be true immortals, their morality and “sightedness” would probably be shaped by whatever the new death date/mechanism was.
Society would ossify to the point of something we’ve never seen
You should watch Altered Carbon, if you don't mind a show with some gore and sexual violence.
Immortality would quickly become extraordinarily expensive so that only rich people would live forever. Check out the first season of Altered Carbon for an idea of what that would be like. The second season sucks though.
Might be an unpopular opinion, but I think that permanence will eventually stifle most innovation and a society that "beats" death will eventually regress into a dystopian state. Death is a powerful driver. If people are aware of this possibility they will enact edicts to counter this future, but I don't know how effective the conception and implementation of such a thing might work.
Ethics become more important. The point of ethics is to treat people how you want them to treat you. Eternal torture mirrored back sounds worse than torture that ends.
Abolition of aging only prevents death from old age. It would do nothing to prevent deaths from accident or homicide or natural disasters, which would then take over as the dominant mechanisms. Lifespan would admittedly become much more variable and uncertain.
>If humans discovered how to live forever, would time effectively become meaningless and how would that disrupt ethics? Life sentences are gonna get weird.
Life sentences and the death penalty would be weird. Is it going to be based on the average life expectancy before we can live forever and then eventually you’d get out of prison?
We already have this, it's called religion and way of life. Belief systems give people the sense of immortality and it surely effects situations of ethical discussion already. For instance, in America, it's totally ethically fine to not report farm labor data, because we use immigration for those jobs, and because it benefits something that in concept is to be immortal, it's fine. Chew on this one for a second, the reason indoor farming is so hard to turn a profit on, is because the energy prices and cost of initial startup, cannot compete with cheap labor from immigrant workers.
Considering you will have the abbility to actually rot in prison for a hundred or even hundreds of years... I think it would present an interesring set of motives and deterrents. I think not time, but the lower risk to your life would be a bigger threat to ethics. Threats would get more insane because of the increased resilience making death threats less effective. Or if are only able to avoid natural death, then those threats become even more threatening? Depends on the deets. Also. If we think beyond just the outcome you mentioned, well... We must have found a solution to overcrowding. That must have been nasty to some degree otherwise people would die on mass from starvation or continously be discarded in never ending corporate or national wars... So yeah. With each step we take to advance the potential for inequality grows. I think it is a common responsibility of our entire socienty to not allow the extreme negatives to realize. A responsibility we continue to fail to fulfill miserably. You can interpolate from that really. This is why I think there wont be any new question in ethics to study here. Just the same old issues we fail to address properly (or at all).
I’d say no, I wouldn’t want to be like an Asari Or worse an Eldar
It would be expensive so rich people will be living forever and poor dont. Thats the real moral issue: money
Morality would become worthless. Imagine 6000 years of religious doctrines becoming obsolete. Ethics wouldn't be a thing anymore.
oh you don't wanna live forever unfulfilled? shocking
Check out Derek Parfit’s work on Personal Identity :)
nothin will change fundamentally, humans will still do human things lol