Live forever without children or live a normal life with children?

I would choose a third option- expansion. Expansion is usually driven by overpopulation or over use.

Plenty of universe out there. I am pretty sure at least some of it would be open for a little decorating!

reply to post by crazyewok


What about new ideas, without new people being born where's the infinite diversity in infinite combinations?

In choosing the first option we may very well prevent the person or persons responsible for the invention of FTL travel, anti gravity or over unity devices from ever being born!

reply to post by OpinionatedB

...perhaps that is the man in you who does not realize, most woman have a marked increase in sexual drive once they are unable to have children - .....perhaps you are working on very old information which has since been shown false.

lol. I am a woman, now pushing 62, who always had a strong sex drive especially when young and fertile. My info is not old - it's just a fact of life.

reply to post by soficrow


lol... I suppose I did think you were a man! I do apologize!

But do read those articles, economics has little to do with it when easy access to, and accurate information concerning, birth control is available. Iran and Ethiopia are prime examples.

Easy access and affordability of birth control is simply something seen more readily in wealthy areas than poorer.

If we are forced between those two choices I would choose to have children and live a normal life.
I may be biased cause I have three children I adore, but even if I didn't I would never choose to be immortal........immortality is too long.........who wants to live forever?

reply to post by Agartha


What I would wonder is how the mind would handle it? I think it would be a serious mental strain to be honest. People may end up going a bit crazy from such a long life.

OpinionatedB
reply to post by Agartha

 

What I would wonder is how the mind would handle it? I think it would be a serious mental strain to be honest. People may end up going a bit crazy from such a long life.

Of course it would be, I work with the elderly and all those in their 90s tell me all the time they are tired now and want to go meet their maker.....I couldn't go on forever.

There is only so much you can do before life would begin to become tedious without real change. Why would you want to live forever? To me, that's the height of selfishness. Live forever and only really for yourself.

The other way, you are living for others - your children - and passing on the joys of life and the world to them. You are sharing everything and getting to see things through new eyes, their eyes. Life somehow becomes new again, and when they grow up and your grow old ... well, you pass on.

Living forever doesn't sound appealing. I'm in my mid forties and have pretty much had enough at this point. Not saying I want to die, who does, but I don't think I could handle more than about a hundred years of people stupider than me, which is most I meet. One has to be really dumb to be stupider than me and as I serve no useful function right now, who's to say I'll be useful when I'm older.

I wouldn't trade my 3 kids for anything. I agree with Montana - expansion is the key. Populate the galaxy. Every generation brings something new - we are still evolving (my opinion, anyway) both physically and mentally. We would die as a species. Also, there is no way in he!! that I want to live forever in this broken body! I'd have to have a full body transplant!

reply to post by olaru12


It makes absolute sense to me. Being a parent of teenagers is enough to drive you insane and if you know, just know you shouldn't do it, then good for you for sayin' no thanks! Honesty with oneself is something to be respected.

crazyewok
With the huge strides lately in gene therapy and reverse aging techniques we may be faced with a dilemma.

Population.

Of course even now we are over populated.

But if the methods become available to extent the human life span a hundred or even thousand years? Then what?

Until we find a method to spread into the solar system how can he keep up the current birth rates AND increase life expectancy.

So we may have to face a choice. Forced sterilization in exchange for living many times past the 70 or 80 years we normally would or scrapping the current research and banning further developments in life extension.

We cant have both as it just unsustainable pure and simple.

So what would you all prefer?

Well - your Wrong and of course we Can have it Both ways. We have NO shortage of resources - NONE and we have No shortage of land or food for more people.. we have 7 billion here now, we can Easily sustain another 7 or even 14 billion people.

How do i know this? We haven't used hardly any land to live on on this planet. Most of the worlds populations are clustered together tightly in small areas ( even large cities or states are tiny compared to the sheer volume of livable surface area on the planet.).

Most food is thrown away not eaten. We have no shortage of food for the starving masses. The need for GMO's to feed the people is a LIE

it's ALL a LIE - perpetuated by those who seek to control Human behavior so they can Make Money. It's easier to control people tightly packed into population centers (called cities).

It's a Greed and a Resource Management Problem. Because of Greed they hold back and or restrict access to resources like land and other forms of energy, farming, etc. It's never that we don't have enough resources to go around - Never that.

Prove me wrong - can't do it.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


The world population currently doubles every 35 years-in 100 years at the present rate it will be 56 billion-200 years 450 billion and so on-when do you think we'll need population control? Isaac Asimov calculated that we would fill the entire known universe (not just planets, but every inch of it) shoulder to shoulder in less than 6000 years-will we need it then?

reply to post by lawman27


There is good reason to believe that the global human population was in fact stabilized by environmental factors throughout the course of human history, and every reason to believe that nature itself would stop any such explosion of population in the due process of time in our future. History does repeat itself.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


Not over populated as it stands NOW

But if humans live 200 or 400 or hell 1000 years we will be hitting that 14 Billion mark very fast.

Just look at the population boom we experienced in the last 100 years.

The earth does not have infinite space and resources. Its a finite space. No we are not using it all now. But if life expectancy doubles or quadruple then its going reach its limit.

reply to post by crazyewok


We really only utilise the land surface of our world right now, i guess we will need to exploit the rest rather soon. We could start to build down the way as well as up, and also colonize the ocean floors. Maybe even build orbital cities to accommodate our future populations.

Then again i strongly suspect "They" will simply cull humanity with another world war or just released the future version of the black death to sort out the numbers problem.

I am not afraid of dying, only the pain and long suffering that may or may not be associated with it for me...I just hope it's quick. I don't want to die right now or anything but, am truly okay with seeing what's on the "other side".
To live 1000 years and see my children, grand children, great grand children etc. would be nice but, perhaps I will see that anyway.
I was 29 when I had my first child. I have 5. It is a struggle sometimes and it is (for me) a happier life than when I didn't have them. There are three generations in my house and like a poster above stated about the elderly being tired...the eldest of my household says she is tired often and seems like she is just ready to rest sometimes. I mean permanent rest...
Just my two cents...not worth much...

Peace!

demus
reply to post by crazyewok

 

I prefer people who shout: "overpopulation" learn how many percent of our Earth is actually inhabited...

we can start from there.

It's not so much overpopulation..more the adverse affect humanity has on our planet by the growth of industrialization

reply to post by crazyewok


Have children, of course. Having children is itself a form of immortality - you live forever through your bloodline.

Besides, there's sex involved in having children, and that right there is a bonus and incentive!

Who wants to live forever anyhow? Really - who does? Has anyone besides myself thought that through?

reply to post by crazyewok


As someone who can not have children, living forever without children would be my choice. However this might be emotionally difficult as my best friends and family all have children. There is only one other person in our circle of friends who does not have children, yet. Eventually everyone I know and love would die, the cycle stuck on repeat as more family is born and friends I do not yet know of who will eventually die.

My preference would be to have children but the cards drawn for me did not include babies. To tell you the honest truth, my husband and I are ok with that. He knew before we were engaged that I was "infertile" and he chose us over children. I am such a lucky lady because he is my best friend the most amazing man. Spending eternity with him would not be bad, at all.

Can my cats come too???!!