This isn't about whether or not you'd take immortality if it was offered to you. We did that before, and lots of people lied. This is about a hypothetical future where scientists have figured out how to prevent ageing. Everyone grows up to physically around 21 and stays like that forever. Cures for all diseases too. The only death is by accident or murder.

How would the planet cope with the logistics of people never dying off? There are limited resources in the world, so we couldn't cope with an unbridled population explosion. Would it be best to ban childbirth, kill people at random, kill people who were unworthy, or simply not give out the anti-ageing treatment? Or should we desperately try to colonise the moon before we run out of space?

I don't know what I think at this point. So come up with a contingency plan and convince me.

Withhold it until there's a feasible way of allowing rapid expansion of human society, to places like the moon, Mars, etc. Considering the idea of a near panacea actually existing in human technology, it seems likely to me that these things would not be very far apart. Population control would probably not be an issue by the time something like this was achieved because it would be so easy to just spread to other places, and people probably wouldn't have as many kids anyway.

I'd say that anyone who opts for the thing should also be given an injection which prevents them from having children for a set period of time. After the set period of time if they decide to have children anyway, they should be made to sign a contract where after 70 years, they must commit suicide(Method is entirely up to them so long as they have a witness from some official group that takes care of these cases. Freedom of choice, huh?)

Killing random people, I think, is an unnecessary measure.

I'm pretty sure that if a way to make someone immortal came about, it would be un-affordable by the general public. On top of that, a lot of the worlds population would be above the age where this procedure is viable. So there, you're already rid of probably 8/9th of the world's population.

The whole space colonisation sounds good but it would take quite a while to even get to the nearest habitable planet(about 60000 years from earth) and then some more time to set up shelters for people to live in. Not to mention the sheer amount of fuel such a journey would require, unless we learnt how to manipulate some other form of energy efficiently, but that might be pushing human progress a bit.

Quote from Fusion

Withhold it until there's a feasible way of allowing rapid expansion of human society,

Withholding the treatment seems kind of wrong to me. If someone's about to die then you try to treat them if you can. An individual's drain on the pension system doesn't come into medical decisions.

Quote from raynmetal

I'd say that anyone who opts for the thing should also be given an injection which prevents them from having children for a set period of time. After the set period of time if they decide to have children anyway, they should be made to sign a contract where after 70 years, they must commit suicide(Method is entirely up to them so long as they have a witness from some official group that takes care of these cases. Freedom of choice, huh?)

I like this idea. At least the bit about forced sterilisation of those who take it. Not sure you could ask someone to decide for their 70-year-future-self whether or not to commit suicide though.

If this were to occur, there would need to be massive changes in society besides the need to control the population. For example retirement ages, schooling, crime, etc.

The benefit to having extended age is that it may enable greater advancement in various fields. Imagine what it would be like to have a mind like Einstein in this day and age. Potentially this may increase our chances of space colonisation.

I propose that the life expectancy of a person should depend on how valuable their life is.The more they benefit and contribute to society, the longer they would live until they have expended their use. Say every 20 years after they reach the age of 90, people will be required to undertake various assessments which determines their overall value which is compared with the scores of others. Those who are not essential to society will be weeded out leaving more space for the rest of the population. Prisoners for example, will be unsuitable to have the privilege immortality and will be terminated when they reach a set age. -Inspired by Gatacca

In all seriousness I'm also unsure. It's probably easier not to boost peoples life expectancy in the first place.

@zed: The alternative would be to deny the child immortality(which would be quite unfair, not his/her fault that s/he was born). Or have the person perma-sterilized(but that's closing the person's options right from the start).
If you choose to give both immortality, and this is allowed to everyone, then sooner or later juggling resources and giving the population what it wants/needs becomes a major hassle.

@envoy: Perhaps it shouldn't be so competitive. I think it should be more of a minimum criteria kind of thing where eligibility for immortality is a)Means to sustain oneself b) Having fewer than 10 minor crimes(parking tickets not included) and 1 major crime.
Making it competitive will make a lot of people feel that they're being treated more like slaves rather than like people.

Quote from Zed

Withholding the treatment seems kind of wrong to me. If someone's about to die then you try to treat them if you can. An individual's drain on the pension system doesn't come into medical decisions.

I'm talking about withholding the specific pill/chemical/whatever that has an 'anti-aging' effect. That doesn't involve any of the other cures that you mentioned in the first post.

The thing you said is quite possible to happen: cancer cells, as long as they have nourishments, can live forever. So, if someone finds a way to control them (or, at least, to extract the anti-aging characteristic), this kind of future is possible.

Now, let's talk about your question.

Of course, one of the most important laws of science is "nothing is created, nothing is destroyed". This means that there is a stablished limit to resources. A no-limit growth of population will surely put the entire world in a critical situation. To all this, I guess the only normal reaction will be a world war: it will be the most destructive one, since man, by nature, is egoistic and greedy and the thing they fight for is food, not anymore territories or ideas. I would call it "Natural War" (one for survival). The result of this war will be years of poverty lived by the very few people still alive: from this, there are two possibilities
-the world returns to a certain state of civilization
-humans won't survive (or, if they can, it will be to animal state)

Quote from DiPi

The thing you said is quite possible to happen: cancer cells, as long as they have nourishments, can live forever. So, if someone finds a way to control them (or, at least, to extract the anti-aging characteristic), this kind of future is possible.

Cancer is defined as uncontrolled cell growth. What you said doesn't really make any sense at all. They're not even useful cells anyway, that's why it's a disease.

Quote from Fusion

Cancer is defined as uncontrolled cell growth. What you said doesn't really make any sense at all. They're not even useful cells anyway, that's why it's a disease.

Mine is only a supposition: maybe, in a remote future, something will be made to extract positive characteristics from cancer cells, but who knows what will happen

Quote from DiPi

The thing you said is quite possible to happen: cancer cells, as long as they have nourishments, can live forever. So, if someone finds a way to control them (or, at least, to extract the anti-aging characteristic), this kind of future is possible.

sigh. can we all agree to stop using "evidence" to support our arguments if we have absolutely no idea what we're talking about? correcting stuff like this is starting to wear me down.

When healthy cells divide, the furthest ends of their DNA strands can't be duplicated, and they're lost. That's why they're "capped" with telomeres, which contain no genetic information. Each duplication slowly strips the telomere away until it's lost, at which point the cell stops dividing and dies off.

Cancer cells overexcite an enzyme called telomerase which constantly replenishes its telomeres, allowing it to duplicate infinitely. This isn't a process that can beneficially be used for healthy cells. Cellular duplication isn't a perfect process, small errors in the genetic material accumulate after so many divisions, and they start to accumulate. So preventing cell death with the same process that causes cancer's "immortality" will just lead to other serious problems as the genome continues to accumulate errors.



This debate is going to be difficult for that reason. Immortality is something the human body is inherently incompatible with. It actively discourages cells from living too long, otherwise they starting causing damage.

By the time medical science actually finds a way to prevent this, we'll have advanced technologically to a point we can't even conceptualize yet. If it ever happens, the way we'll handle immortality on a social level will be completely different from how we'd do it today. Maybe we'll have other colonies in space, maybe we'll have the means to prevent damage to the earth from overpopulation. Who knows how it'll happen.

Quote from Exilement

sigh. can we all agree to stop using "evidence" to support our arguments if we have absolutely no idea what we're talking about? correcting stuff like this is starting to wear me down.

When healthy cells divide, the furthest ends of their DNA strands can't be duplicated, and they're lost. That's why they're "capped" with telomeres, which contain no genetic information. Each duplication slowly strips the telomere away until it's lost, at which point the cell stops dividing and dies off.

Cancer cells overexcite an enzyme called telomerase which constantly replenishes its telomeres, allowing it to duplicate infinitely. This isn't a process that can beneficially be used for healthy cells. Cellular duplication isn't a perfect process, small errors in the genetic material accumulate after so many divisions, and they start to accumulate. So preventing cell death with the same process that causes cancer's "immortality" will just lead to other serious problems as the genome continues to accumulate errors.

well, something like that :3

Sounds like the movie In Time

Quote from Zed

or simply not give out the anti-ageing treatment?

Yeah, I'll say this is the best option until we can find a way to get enough resources for everyone.

^^ +

Quote from Fusion

I'm talking about withholding the specific pill/chemical/whatever that has an 'anti-aging' effect. That doesn't involve any of the other cures that you mentioned in the first post.

But isn't old age just like any other disease?

As stupid as it sounds , i believe that immortality is too complex for any human to perceive it's something that would honestly cause nothing nothing but destruction. The idea of living forever would seem like a dream for many but i could bet most people would become obsessed with preserving their body as it slowly ferments from other causes such as disease. It would never compensate for the realization that you have lived soo far only to die. I know alot of people could have felt this way at old age but the longer you stay alive the more you appreciate life. My viewpoint is honestly on thin ice so please don't beat down every sentence to death.