[Tipzntrix]

"Increasing human longevity has no meaning, it is ecological nonsense."

This is an interesting quote from the article given by another biologist Stefano Piraino, not the main focus of the article. If we did find the secret to immortality, it would be stupid to give it to everyone. In that case, who gets it?

[anonymous]

You are somehow imagining that this will be administered in a strictly controlled manner. It won't. In fact, I will be very sad if it's not part of the regular capitalist marketplace.

Will it lead to overpopulation? Yes. Bloody wars? Yes. Almost completely stagnant population? Suicides left and right by 200-y.o. people? Perverse class imbalance? Complete overhaul of society as we know it? Yesyesyesnotreally.

Because once you institutionalise and put such and such rules in place (a bureaucracy), people stop thinking. They stop thinking and become not people, but things - and they do it to themselves, willingly.

And that is the greatest crime of all.

[Tipzntrix]

This is what I was thinking myself. What's to stop people from going after such immortality? They might very well give an arm and a leg, those on the outside are going to feel maltreated, and might even start a revolution.

As far as the "immortality" for these jellyfish go though, they are rather easy to kill. They can't even eat a whole prawn egg, and their water temperature has to be just right.

[nsxwolf]

The elite - most intelligent, most beautiful, most valued members of a ruling political party. It would be a 1970s dystopian sci fi movie come to life.

[JVIDEL]

Easy: if you want to be immortal you have to be sterilized too.

And you can't adopt nor rent a womb.

There, no overpopulation problem.

[maaku]

Ridiculous. There's a lot more space in this universe than just planet Earth.

[Unfortune]

Unfortunately, there is only a small push for extra-planetary life. The fat cats on top would much rather sit back, and wait for an extinction level event.

Also, if humans do go extra/multiplanetary, most religious apocalypse' are MOOT.

[emiliobumachar]

Doesn't solve the problem. Suppose I have three kids, then get immortalized and sterilized. Each of my kids does the same...

[JVIDEL]

If you already have kids then you can't qualify.

[doktrin]

Taking but a moment to take a peek down the sci-fi fantasy rabbit hole :

It might potentially be fair to administer "longevity" to those willing to colonize another planet. This would solve the problem of distribution while creating a bit of an incentive to expand human civilization (which might well be an eventual necessity).

[stcredzero]

The wealthy.

[indiecore]

People who have no kids and are sterilized permanently.