Part One
This is a continuation of the first part of my series concerning real-life examples of immortality and how we can implement these things to possibly
create immortal humans.
Part two mostly consists of my speculation on the subject based on my research, so it might not be everyone's cup of tea.
If you aren't convinced immortality is possible, I'd highly suggest reading the first thread. If you've just stumbled upon this series but are
already convinced human immortality is possible, read on ...
"My Opinion of Human Immortality"
Life is precious. That's the basic saying many remind themselves of when they want to live the limited life they have to the fullest. But
what if we didn't have to fear death? What if that life
never ended from natural causes? That's the question I'd like you to ponder as we
journey into the exciting and troubling moral implications of human immortality.
Basically, the moral debate behind humanoid
negligible senescence (biological immortality) boils down to a simple question: "Is it a good or a
bad thing?" While I don't purport myself to have the correct answer, I'll hopefully shed some light on why many agree and disagree on a way to make
humans immortal.
First let's begin with the "Pros" of immortality ...
The first thing that people would find advantageous after becoming immortal is the fact you have a potentially infinite amount of time on your hands
to accomplish what you always dreamed. Those who gave up some of their more ambitious dreams because they lacked time to prepare enough initial
resources can now wait as long as they need until they're ready to launch a company, or start a movement.
Politicians can also afford to be patient in forwarding their policies, potentially eliminating the backlash and anxiety when rolling-out
comprehensive reforms.
Government spending on healthcare would go significantly down, assuming everyone has access to immortality, due to the fact that the ill-effects of
old age no longer exist.
Also, there's the obvious fact that becoming immortal means you'll never die. This would alleviate many of those who have particularly strong fears
of death.
Then there are the "Cons" accompanying any significant change such as this ...
The means to cause immortality may be unequally distributed. In other words, the rich may have access to this miracle while the poor don't. This
would cause tension between classes, and potentially exacerbate the wealth gap due to the rich having unlimited time to accumulate money.
But if immortality
can be equally distributed, there would still be problems.
For example, competitiveness would take a big hit, affecting the profitability of individuals and companies. Companies won't feel the need to
constantly invest into projects to stay on top because they have as much time as possible to become successful.
Perhaps the biggest problem of all would be overpopulation. Safely assuming people will keep getting born, the population will skyrocket. Resources
would run dry, and planet Earth will be completely unable to sustain us.
This isn't even mentioning the rife boredom in a population having lived the same things a hundred times before, and the possible imperfections in the
means to achieve immortality such as health problems.
So, from weighing the pros and the cons, you'd think immortality isn't worth it. But what you might not realize is that
these cons can all be
fixed quite easily, assuming humanity keeps innovating and people are accepting of seemingly fascist reforms.
Immortality would have to be distributed equally by building up supplies until the means to immortality become cheap. Laws will have to be made to
make companies fulfill a minimum amount of investments before a certain amount of time. The population, however evil it may sound, would have to be
temporarily sterilized by the government after receiving immortality, preventing conception. The sterilization could be lifted when the population
decreases noticeably from reasons unrelated to aging. People could store unneeded memories into a sort of "consciousness-database" so as to prevent
life becoming too familiar. Finally, imperfections in the immortality administration would have to be sorted-out long before people willingly became
subjects.
None of this matters, though, if the people disagree with becoming immortal. Sure, many fantasize about it now, but when you actually get the choice
you'll be surprised how many people actually want to pass-away of their own volition. So,
is it even worth it?
The answer is: It entirely depends on how much other un-related technologies and moral reasoning's of the populace innovate from the present till
whenever immortality is achieved in the future.
If immortality is achieved today, I'd be highly against releasing it to any of the public or even our leaders/representatives. But, if it occurs far
enough in the future when we hopefully evolve morally and technologically as a species, only then would I seriously consider it.
In conclusion, I just want to make it evidentalky clear that
These are mostly all my own theories as to the future of this technology, which is
based on my logic and research into the subject.
If you'd like to learn more about the subject, and reach your own conclusions, visit the sources linked at the bottom of my post.
I hope you all enjoyed this series! As always, don't forget to star, flag, and comment. I'll be posting profound threads such as these on a daily
basis, so don't miss out!
Links
Newsweek
Berkeley
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
edit on 7-12-2015 by Passerby1996 because: no reason given