Saying death makes life meaningful is a cope. If we could get rid of aging, almost everyone would do it. Us being programmed to die is just bad. It doesn't make life meaningful, as everything is temporary even if you ignore death. Gratitude is what makes life meaningful, not inevitable death.
I'd live for billions of years if humans were capable of it. I want to live in a world filled with immortal people in peak physical condition. People would regrow limbs, heal brain damage, and be able to fully recover from any non lethal injury. I'm not convinced any of that will never be possible. Someday, death from old age won't be an inevitability, but a choice people are free to make.
A choice for the rich people to make.
Yeah... Things would get worse before they got better if cure for aging were found overnight.
Yeah like mobile phones, and lots of other stuff.
First they are expensive and work badly, like the mobile phones in 1980-90.
Then they become withspread and are affordable, like mobile phones in the 1995-2005 (take a bit, give a bit depending where you live ofc).
Then they work perfectly and costs almost nothing, like mobile phones today.
Smartphones will go the same way, rejuvenation therapies too.
Also, any government would prefer people live longer instead of hogging up the retirement and hospital budget, and instead continue to contribute to society, so any sane legislator would pay upfront for the treatments.
For a time, but not forever. There are too many benefits to having immortal workers, too many drawbacks to having new people outnumbering the old, and too much danger from long term exploitation. They'll be motivated to find the most stable system in the long run, and eventually they'll realize that exploiting people is dangerous on large time scales.
The rich people of today create a worse world for the children that inherent their wealth at best, or for themselves at worst. Capitalism creates suffering, which then creates instability, which then creates conflict, either with the ruling class directly or with other nations. They might support fascism because they think it's better for them than socialism, but fascists create conflict with each other. The devastation of modern war is horrific, and no amount of wealth can fully protect you from the worst of it. Even if you stay on top, you'll be constantly looking over your shoulder and always be in danger of someone else taking everything from you.
The rich people who want to live forever will look to minimize these terrible conflicts, which will require minimizing unhappiness, which will likely mean not monopolizing immortality. If most people are older and happy with their lives, they won't threaten the system as much as most people being young, mortal, and miserable. In the short run, the rich will be foolish and terrible with immortality, but not in the long run. The ones who realize the futility in trying to get a free lunch for their own selfish interests will be the ones that live the longest. Selfish assholes will eventually go extinct amongst the immortal rulers, even if it's for a cynical reason.
I see no downside to living forever because if the heat death of the universe is truly the eternity I'm doomed to, then I'll eventually become so deprived of sensory input that there would be no difference between life and death.
Immortality doesn't imply invulnerability. Statistically you'll turn into a meat sack filled with shattered bones at some point. Pain eternal.
/> pain eternal
ah, just like life
I mean, true heat death would also imply that even your body is spent. No neurons will be able to fire. No brain activity. You won't be any different than dead.
Being unable to die even though he wished for it, Wilzax eventually stopped thinking.
JOJOOOOOOOO
... wait a second that's fucking mercury.
I think you me...
It's even in a beaker, from a lab.
I didn't catch that at first.
Read a sentence about immortality in a shadowrun book decades ago.
Was something like: "Immortality would be hell for most people, since they dont even know what to do with themselves on a boring sunday afternoon."
i saw this and said "is that mercury"
yes.
Is not getting any older the same as being immortal?
As long as it's turn offable
I am sure there are levels of immortality. Like first you don't age. Higher levels you can regrow your head. At some high level one has a body only if they want it.
Just keep
soaking itdrinking mercury.
Presumably flinging oneself into the nearest star would be an option, that's pretty complete obliteration.
I'm all for it as long as I have an out, like, I dunno, a snail that follows me forever.
When the universe faces its inevitable crunch from heat death, we will be there, together. At the end of all things.
Or you know like more realistically we would get biological immortality I.e you could still get run over by a truck and die. People always talk about immortality as if you’re godlike being.
Decoy snail
I feel like it's gone in the opposite direction for me...
Well us dergs have very long life-spans naturally and the problem with this idea of everlasting life or even very long life that no one ever really thinks about is that the probabilities that misfortune will befall you don't go away or even really go down once you have it. That means that even though it seems unlikely to be crushed by an air-conditioner falling out of a window, or fall down the stairs, or choke to death on your food, the probability of these things happening when given enough time approaches 100%, even the very unlikely ones.
So while you might think something like this is awesome unless it also grants you the invulnerability to survive the catastrophes you will encounter in the future or cancels out their probability, it's basically useless, because those will get you likely in a comparable amount of time as old age would.
