Immortality

[Rezwan]

Concentration of biomass, concentration of capital.

[vansig]

To those who say, “move over, old man. The world belongs to the young,”
I say, “I am not ready to go, yet, thanks. I want to Live a long time and travel to the stars.”

Who cares if that’s selfish?

[JimmyT]

vansig wrote: To those who say, “move over, old man. The world belongs to the young,”
I say, “I am not ready to go, yet, thanks. I want to Live a long time and travel to the stars.”

Who cares if that’s selfish?

To which I say: BRAVO! There is nothing quite as refreshing as a bit of enlightened self interest.

[wolfram]

If we’re still using some form of democracy after we’ve developed functional immortality, we could consider having the power of an indivuals vote decay assymptotically to zero with time, to off set the fact that they’ll have had more time to accrue other kinds of influence. This way we still give the next generation space to breathe. Also, if we reproduce at replacement levels (each person only making 1 more person in the course of their life times) the population will only grow linearly with time (assuming death rate=0, laughable, really), which is much more manageable than the exponential malthusian cluster fluff that would happen eventually at reproduction above replacement.

[JimmyT]

wolfram wrote: If we’re still using some form of democracy after we’ve developed functional immortality, we could consider having the power of an indivuals vote decay assymptotically to zero with time, to off set the fact that they’ll have had more time to accrue other kinds of influence. This way we still give the next generation space to breathe. Also, if we reproduce at replacement levels (each person only making 1 more person in the course of their life times) the population will only grow linearly with time (assuming death rate=0, laughable, really), which is much more manageable than the exponential malthusian cluster fluff that would happen eventually at reproduction above replacement.

How about having their vote increase to one only after a couple of centuries to reflect their accumulated wisdom. And thus lessen the detrimental effect of their relative youth.

[wolfram]

Both are things that could be done, and both reflect different stances on what you’re trying to accomplish. If the concern is that immortality oppresses the new comers then take steps to level the playing field for new ideas, if the concern is that society attains perfection at the discovery of immortality than clearly we should make sure that the status quo never gets upset.

[Lerner]

Actually, a constantly growing population will remain young on average no matter what the death rate. With fusion we won’t have to worry about energy supplies, so the only question is physical space. So once we solve the aging propblem, interstellar travel would obviously be next!

[wolfram]

Is the heat dissapation problem also magically solved? the amount of energy used by an exponentially growing populace is also exponential, I did some back of the envelope calculations to try and figure what rate the radius of populated space would have to grow if power were growing exponentially, given that temperature would be the fourth root of power. if you have exponentially growing power, and surface area can grow at most with the square of your radius growth, eventually your frontier will have to grow at faster than the speed of light. I’m still advocating the population pyramid had better be a rod.

[Lerner]

Energy use could grow much faster than energy dissipation. Energy can be re-used as it degrades. Right now, most of our energy is used only once, which is very wasteful. Thermodynamics dictates that energy cannot be re-used infiintely but there are no theoretical limits short of that.

[wolfram]

Some things I was taught about the Carnot cycle make me want to call shenanigans on that statement, but the fact that my statistical physics is pretty weak and you’ve been doing physics longer than me is giving me pause.

[Glenn Millam]

I’m sure someone has said this already, but this subject is one of my pet peeves. Immortality is the WORST thing that could happen to us.

First, the tech will be very expensive and exclusive. It will create the ultimate have/have-not economic crisis. Think the US healthcare debate got ugly? Wait until we debate why only the hyper-rich get to live indefinitely. Think civil war and revolution.

Next, what happens when dictators live indefinitely, and keep power by granting indefinite life status to key people who prop up their regime? Seriously… what if Dear Leader in North Korea didn’t die? What if [em]Stalin[/em] never died? Humanity stagnates, nothing ever passes on to someone else, and everything becomes like some ridged hindu caste system with the untouchables being the ones who die regularly. Think thats impossible? That is what it will look like if humanity survives the wars that will be fought over the privilege of immortality. The winners will be the ones who get to be immortal.

And immortality will be a drag. Think of never getting a promotion, never retiring, never hoping anymore because it will always be the same. The economy will change only according to the suicide/accident rate and the death rate of the underclasses who can’t afford the treatments. And forget having children, unless you want to eat soylent green.

The best we could hope for is a scenario like in Michael Moorcock’s [em]Dancers at the End of Time[/em] series, where humans are extremely low in population but immense in power, so much so that anything they do to the planet doesn’t really matter anymore. The Earth is merely a substrate for their artistic whims. Personally, I don’t want that future.

People like Kurtzweil who want immortality drive me crazy.

[JimmyT]

Like I said: When you get sick do YOU seek medical attention?

[Rezwan]

JimmyT wrote: Like I said: When you get sick do YOU seek medical attention?

I tend to wait it out. Haven’t been to a doctor in ages.

Studies have shown that most people will not take action to save their lives, if that action is exercise, eating right, quitting smoking, etc. I don’t think most people will have to face the prospect of immortality. Some will try for a while, but fall off the wagon.

For every vampire (supernatural immortal) there’s a stake. For every immortal wanna be, lots of steak.

The Christian path of waiting for the resurrection for immortality seems a lot simpler, and you get to go to church on Sundays and sing with other believers.

I guess the yearning for immortality is pretty widespread. The long lifers, the Christians, even Bhuddist Nirvana (which, although it’s about the annihilation of want/desire/delusion, still has an echo of ego – why not just kick the bucket? Why consciously exist in a state of non-desire and transcendence?)

I hope you all find your bliss.

A great sitcom! There’s this long-lifer who succeeds in being immortal, and this Christian who’s been resurrected, and they become roomates on a spaceship headed everywhere! All around them is their Bhuddist roomate in a state of nonbeing. Everywhere they land, the Long Lifer checks off his scavenger hunt list about things to see and do and experience and master and tweet about, the Christian praises the lord, and the Bhuddist is not tempted to rematerialize. And then there’s their resurrected Muslim roomate with the virgins. Who are really annoying because they persist in being virgins the whole time (72 lovely beings always saying “NO!” Very important for the series, because you have to keep the sexual tension going without consummation to keep the viewers coming back. Look at the success of “Twilight”.)

Hours of fun!

[wolfram]

I think people who despise immortality mostly don’t do things that take time. Try being an experimental arborealist when you only live to be 80, you’ll get through maybe 2 generations of black walnut trees! Why do you fiat that this yet undiscovered longevity treatment will /have/ to cost absurd amounts? Computers used to cost so much it was assumed only 5 would exist, now the raspberry pi came out and it costs prox 20 bucks and the distribution companies servers collapsed under the load of demand. The consensus was that fusion research took vast quantities of resources, Dr. Lerner is making legitimate headway for a pittance in comparison to some of the other groups. And I can’t speak for other disciplines, but I know at least in physics they are becoming more relaxed about “crazy” theorists. Not a century ago Boltzmann was ridiculed to the point that he committed suicide just because he used atoms in his theory of statistical mechanics even though they wouldn’t be proven to exist for another few decades. Now we string theorists and people who assert the big bang didn’t exist and the community is [em]fine[/em] with that. If they can come up with experiments that would only be explainable by their theories then bam, they’re the next physics rockstar. I look forward to a future of 7 billion patient and free hobbyists.

[Rezwan]

Experimental arborealists are a powerful voting bloc. I wouldn’t stand in their way. Like the trees, we’ll have to walk carefully around them.

The cost…”Kurzweil ingests “250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea” every day and drinks several glasses of red wine a week in an effort to “reprogram” his biochemistry.[45] Lately, he has cut down the number of supplement pills to 150.[46]” I want PIE! Do or die! The red wine sounds OK.

You guys keep working on that immortality thing – I’m going to shop around the movie idea, get a three picture deal, crank it out. The “Singularity Resurrection” film project.

The clock is ticking.

[Author]

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