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BBC UK
Apr Member 2011

BBC UK

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If i was forever physically in my late teens to 20s, i wouldn't mind living forever - healthy and able to do anything.

But immortality could become a political problem. The mightiest people in this world - leaders of countries - might get this immortality.

For example, Stalin reigned the Soviet Union until his death. What if he was immortal?
Mugabe (born in 1924), Dictator of Zimbabwe since 1987.. Zimbabwe is not in a good state at the moment to say it nicely. And he wants to reign until his death.

The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. ..... - Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator [Movie], 1940

I normally don't talk about politics too much but if immortality were to ever exist, it would have such a huge impact on everyones' life.

21-May-2016 10:39:48

Blasty
Feb Member 2017

Blasty

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R obin said :
As a 21 year old person, yes, I would like to live forever, in this condition and my current life. Growing up, getting worse and worse health, all while getting uglier, then no.
Death isn't something to be afraid of, sure we don't want to leave this world, but when you do, it's over, you don't feel the pain of leaving the world, it's actually a nice thought.

Whether you're an atheist, a monotheistic believer or something else, there's nothing wrong with dying. It's either the end game, a new beginning or a restart.

I think your point raises an interesting question about what point in peoples' lives they might decide that they'd rather not continue living forever. It could involve many factors such as health, mobility, brain function and appearance as you say. I also think there's something settling about knowing that the universe will continue after you leave it, but unless my health becomes poor enough that I can't appreciate the advances humanity is making, I think I would enjoy staying alive for as long as the resources allow.
Blasty
// @BlastytheBlue // Blasty#5167
| Co-owner of Mine Nation

21-May-2016 19:18:11

Singularity
Aug Member 2023

Singularity

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Blasty said :
One of the things I've thought about is what it would be like to live on a planet that wasn't fortunate enough to have the resources to send anything out of its atmosphere. It makes me wonder what kind of conditions would be required for a planet to get to a point where it has life intelligent enough to be aware of the possibility of space travel, but also that its available resources wouldn't allow it. What would the lifetime of that planet be like?

Sounds like the Planet of Hell for scientists. I'd feel sorry for any civilisation that lives on a planet that doesn't have the resources to send anything out of its atmosphere. Knowing that there's stuff out there waiting to be explored but being unable to do anything about it sounds torturous :D

Depending on their intelligence, maybe they'll develop something somehow that allows them to "hack" their atmosphere, allowing them to send stuff out safely? Who knows. But it's not a planet I'd want to live on that's for sure - it sounds so limited.

While our main mission is answering the fundamental questions about life and the universe, theirs would probably be discovering how to send stuff out to give them hope of space travel. We wish to colonise planets, visit them and all that jazz. They will hope that one day they'd be able to send just one rocket out into space. That would be their "OMFG" moment. It would be a life-long mission, and something that would take eons to achieve (if ever).

It's interesting to think about indeed.

I only want to live "forever" to see all advancements that go on. Of course, better technology and advancements doesn't necessarily mean a "good life". But that's why partial Immortality (immunity from diseases, ageing etc) is better because if technology gets to the point where life becomes unbearable, you can decide to end it there. .

21-May-2016 20:04:13

July

July

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Immortality is definitely a state that is possible to achieve. Especially since immortality already exists in nature. You have to think of aging as a disease. Your body breaks down, slowly. Why would we not be able to stop this process? While it might seem a little like science fiction, the stopping and reversal of the aging process has been gaining a lot more scientific interest lately.

Fairly recently, it was reported that scientists have successfully reversed the aging process in mice. Human trials have since begun and a month ago, it was announced that a gene therapy succeeded in reversing 20 years of telomere shortening in a female CEO who had volunteered for a trial. (Telomere length is directly proportional to biological age.)

We have this tendency to underestimate scientific progress because we tend to think linearly, while science progresses exponentially. If you consider the Kardashev scale, which is based on energy output, we will have needed 2 million years to reach a Type 1 civilization, which could control all the energy sources of our planet (we will reach this phase in a few centuries). A Type 2 civilization is able to control the power of the sun itself and it is estimated that it will take only a couple of thousand years to progress from Type 1 to Type 2, even though we will have needed 2 million years to go from Type 0 to Type 1. While this sounds counter-intuitive, this is because scientific progress is exponential.

Another way to exemplify this is: for about 99.99% of human's existence on this planet, our technological level was just one step above that of animals. In the last 100-400 years (the other .01%), we have been able to discover the four fundamental forces in nature (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force) and to manipulate them into our advantage. In just the last 50 years, the discovery of the nuclear force has increased the power available to a single person by a factor of a million.

21-May-2016 21:19:37

July

July

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Due to this exponential progress, we consistently underestimate where science will be in X years from now. For Example, futurology (this is actually a thing) is the study of predicting the future. At around the time of World War I, the prediction was made that the first transatlantic flight would take 20+ years. The first transatlantic flight took place in 1919. Another example: In the '50s, one of the pioneers of modern electronic computers predicted that only governments would be able to afford computers decades into the future. Look where we are now.

In the long run, science has no limits. It's all just a matter of time. Will we become immortal one day? The only thing preventing us from getting there is science itself. And then I don't mean scientific progress, but the darker side of science. If we don't abuse element 92 (uranium), we will get there. There is always a chance that we destroy ourselves.

21-May-2016 21:20:03

Baknoob

Baknoob

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Depends.

' Too far ' as a phrase comes with a sort of a priori meaning of bad. It doesn't make sense to say 'the boys took the practical joke too far' and mean what they did was value neutral, let alone good.

So, I guess insofar as 'too far' is pretty synonymous with 'bad', I guess it is bad to want it to go too far.

There's a distinction between wanting something to go 'far' and 'too far'. If I say I think someone's 'going to go far', in a certain field, e.g. I say a promising young footballer is going to 'go far', that's a good thing, more often than not.

So I'd like technology to 'go far', in the sense by going far it will carry the good connotations that come with the phrase. I'd like technology to go far and better people's lives, to develop ways that remove the need for the destruction of our environment to sustain our lives, and so on.

'Too far' in terms of technology is hard to define. There's no clear line as to when it has gone 'too far', it's a sort of opaque area. But I'd suggest when it begins developing things we currently view as morally questionable as if they're normal, perhaps that's when the line is beginning to be crossed.
José Mourinho's Red Army.

22-May-2016 11:04:38

R obin
Dec Member 2021

R obin

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July said :
Due to this exponential progress, we consistently underestimate where science will be in X years from now. For Example, futurology (this is actually a thing) is the study of predicting the future. At around the time of World War I, the prediction was made that the first transatlantic flight would take 20+ years. The first transatlantic flight took place in 1919. Another example: In the '50s, one of the pioneers of modern electronic computers predicted that only governments would be able to afford computers decades into the future. Look where we are now.

In the long run, science has no limits. It's all just a matter of time. Will we become immortal one day? The only thing preventing us from getting there is science itself. And then I don't mean scientific progress, but the darker side of science. If we don't abuse element 92 (uranium), we will get there. There is always a chance that we destroy ourselves.

This.

People seriously underestimate how much we've achieved in the last few years.
If you look at a graph for technological advances throughout the years, the line towards the end would be almost vertical, if not already, it surely will be in the next 50 years.

22-May-2016 11:36:26 - Last edited on 22-May-2016 11:36:40 by R obin

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