[XorNot]

Articles and discussions like this seem mostly like trying to comfort ourselves on the fact that in our lifetimes we probably won't clinically cure death.

It'll matter a lot more when we've actually done it, and we're asking people to stop living voluntarily.

[CmonDev]

Some people "bet" on concept of accelerating progress. Also the ageing population issue has to be solved somehow. Making people immortal and work forever sounds like good option.

[mattmanser]

Yes, I've come to think this too. It's a sobering thought given that we're probably going to be one of the last generations that's actually true for.

[PavlovsCat]

> asking people to stop living voluntarily.

Haha, I would love to. Here's my argument: For any single living person "hogging" the universe, there are an infite number of possible persons waiting to get a shot at life. After a while of living, most people experience diminishing returns and get jaded. New people do not have that problem. So if you're really about life, and not just for your own tiny little sliver and interpretation of it, the choice is clear. The extreme of that would be "Logan's Run", so I guess the optimimum is somewhere in between that, and a bunch of people living forever just because they're either scared or selfish.

[summerdown2]

> After a while of living, most people experience diminishing returns and get jaded.

What do you suggest should happen to the people who don't get jaded?

Also, what if it turns out that it's only pain, sickness and death that makes people unsatisfied. There is, after all, quite a body of research that suggests people get more satisfied the older they get:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_satisfaction#Life_satisfa...

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2012/08/30/get...

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2009/06/29/growing-old-in-ame...

[CmonDev]

Next step would be genetic engineering to make sure that "shots at life" are more successful. And of course all the people with low chance of success (e.g. < 80 IQ) should be put out of misery ASAP.

[PavlovsCat]

Right. Because getting more joy from the "tapestry of life" (to quote Asimov) than from purely concentrating on one's own, means you're not only into eugenics, but you're also a snob about sentience and intelligence. Speak for yourself there, I personally don't see what intelligence or even health has to do with it. I don't think we can tell others what quality of life they have, even people in pain enjoy the few nice moments they have, and want to live.

But if you think this through, then everybody living forever would mean hardly any newborns, unless you propose we all cover everything in concrete 10 miles high until we figured the whole swarming over the galaxy thing out. OR not everybody would be immortal, and it would likely devolve into a two-tiered society straight out of dystopia; take your pick, but don't fucking blame me for you not thinking this through, and don't project the Frankenstein/Mengele possibilities of rushing into immortality headlong on me, either. Just nope.

[XorNot]

Well if you consider the effect progress has on birthrates (they drop - below replacement rate in fact) then it seems likely that we have effectively unlimited time to delay having children, it's likely birth rates would get even lower.

However, clinical immortality isn't absolute - an on average we would survive about 250 years between fatal accidents.

One of the conclusions I've always thought we can draw from this is that it's a decent explanation of the apparent paucity of life zipping around the galaxy: civilizations discover immortality before they get warp travel or whatever, their birthrate drops to near zero and the population stabilizes so you get no exponential growth across the stars, and so relatively few of them are actually out exploring.

[CmonDev]

Can you explain what you meant by "shot at life" and "diminishing returns"?

The solution is very clear: a personal choice between 2 kids or immortality for everyone.