Who wants to live forever?

[flexagon]

An article in Technology Review pissed me off on Friday night, so yesterday I wrote them an editorial.

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Sherwin Nuland ("Do You Want to Live Forever?", February '05) may have reason to conclude that Aubrey de Grey is "nuts", but in his concluding speculations about de Grey and "the end of days" he does not come across as convincingly sane himself. In addition, his assumption that society at large would not desire immortality treatments is just as unexamined as de Grey's assumption that it would.

Some of the space given to Nuland's philosophy of dying at the end of a "natural" lifespan should have been spent describing his reasons for holding that philosophy. The article as written simply illuminates the unsupported opinions of two men--and in the absence of good reasons not to, yes, I still want to live forever.

--flexagon, MIT '9x

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The author of the article was sanctimonious in the extreme about his willingness to be shoved off the island when his cells tell him to: I should declare here that I have no desire to live beyond the life span that nature has granted to our species. For reasons that are pragmatic, scientific, demographic, economic, political, social, emotional, and secularly spiritual, I am committed to the notion that both individual fulfillment and... life on this planet are best served by dying when our inherent biology decrees that we do.

Er... that's nice, but what if I'm not impressed by your listing of big words? What if I want to know your actual reasons? What if, just maybe, I have no particular idea what you're talking about, and at this point just think you sound like an insufferable prig?

I've already given away that I want to live forever, selfish little flexagon that I am. Yes, It's obvious that there would be trouble associated with the development of immortality/longevity treatments, the first being the possibility of huge global unrest during the period when these treatments are available to some people but not others. After that we get into population problems--all quite solvable by trimming the birth rate, but yes, that does mean not as many people wouldn't get the admittedly valuable experience of being parents, or at least not as often. After that we get into the strange social situation of most adults being the same biological age more-or-less forever. And the possibility of people being even more afraid of death, because death would be taking away an even longer lifespan. The idea of marriage being until death would get a lot more difficult (and a lot more stifling). Et cetera.

On the other hand we'd have brilliant careers not cut off in mid-stroke by a stroke. We'd have people with plenty of time to explore several careers, people with hundreds of years worth of wisdom to bring to bear on problems. And as long as people expect to be alive to see the results of their actions, there would be more long-term thinking on the part of corporations, governments and individuals... which is where I see benefits to the environment, etc, as well as just to people. Defeating death would also mean overcoming cancer and lots of other diseases that currently cause a great deal of human suffering. And then of course there's you and me not dying for a long time... it has a certain appeal, does it not? :)

In the end I do think we'll research this into the ground and make use of it, simply because humanity = curiosity. For good or evil, that is what I think we are. Heck, we've already increased the human lifespan a good deal, with changes occurring in society accordingly. I just hope we're wise enough to turn the whole thing to good--and hope people don't just get crankier and crankier as they get older.


What do you think? Discuss.

Comments

[artana.livejournal.com]

I would not want to live forever.

I think this life would get tiresome at some point. I think it would be really sad to see the end of commitments between individuals because no matter how much you love each other, we have proven time and time again that it is not something that is truly forever.

Sounding a bit righteous myself I guess, but erm, not meaning disrespect just my opinion. I think that living forever is a poor way to deal with the fear of dying, the fear of nothing we do lasting past our lifetimes, and, in some ways, the egotism to think that somehow we, with more time, can make more of a contribution that those who follow after and deserve their own personal shot and doing so. The whole point is that our view points do eventually become less and less elastic and we need the younger generation to come up with new solutions because infinite life does not = infinite creativeness. Careers would be, to me, the least of my thoughts on something like this, and perhaps a poor reason to live forever altogether...because considering that a career is by nature just someone's personal obsession with a job (once again, being a bit blunt) I think that in the long term, it would be harder and harder to tell one's self that a career was what mattered and, more than likely, it would cause major regrets that would live with one, literally, forever. But, then again, I am a bit of a spiritualist. Once again, I see the problem of those who have nothing but careers to hold onto becoming dictators or holding power over everything, because that is, in the end, the highest levels of career attainment.

I think living forever would not preclude certain diseases from occuring. Just like we have natural death now, and we also have diseases, we'd still have that and years and years more to fall prey to the ones that weren't aging related. To be honest, living somewhat longer does have an appeal, but living "forever" or even a thousand years does not appeal at all. But, that is the egoism of humans right, to want to live forever because we can accomplish so much? I believe we'd all see the myth soon enough, and we'd be left floating around without direction and perhaps even wanting to die and not being able to.

[artana.livejournal.com]

BTW: I know its egotism. But, erm, in spanish egoista is selfish...I guess that's more what I meant.

A few points that I hope are more eloquent:

1> I can't imagine wanting to do the same thing with my life for thirty years, let alone 50, 100 or a 1000. I'd be bored stiff or have to completely rebuild my career every so often.

2> Retirement would go out the window in a society where savings went on forever, so you'd have to work forever to account for the inflation. And I hate the idea of working forever.

3> There would be a lot of stagnation as I said before, since people's beliefs only change a bit.

I honestly think that maybe, if over thousands and thousands of years we evolved into having 5000 year life spans, our society would evolve also. I think that if it happened in the next 25 years we would be ill-prepared and mentally unequipped to deal with the change, but people wouldn't figure that out until long after they went through the treatments.

[apfelsingail.livejournal.com]

Wow, I was actually just talking to a friend of mine about this...

First, population control would be a HUGE issue and need to be dealt with.

Second- yes, we would have multiple careers, but if the higher-ranked people (I'm thinking in a hierarchical business or military setting) never grew old, retired or died, it would drastically slow down and perhaps stop development and promotion at the lower levels. What would happen if you were essentially an adolescent with no responsibilities until you are in your fifties? Sixties? The younger people might never gain equivalent experience, or really grow up.

Third- I wouldn't mind living for 300-500 years, just to see what happens, but forever? I think I would get tired.

You ever read Neil Gaiman's Sandman series?

[flexagon]

Yeah, I have, and I was thinking of Hobbs... "Death's a mug's game." Maybe and maybe not. I've read a lot of SF in which a lot of this is addressed, as well--heck, even Anne Rice's vampires get into the issue somewhat.

I actually don't think a lot of people would be willing to make the tradeoff of drastically trimming birth rates to keep the population stable--I think it would force us more into getting off this ball of rock and onto other planets so we could keep spawning, instead (which would also be pretty cool). But then, I don't think actual immortality is especially eminent anyway. I think they'll figure out a way to lengthen the lifespan and then double it and then multiply it by X, but for an awfully long time there'll always be some kind of degeneration they didn't see coming.

Really protracted "adolescence" would indeed be a problem. Reference Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee... I can lend it to you. Good book.

[flexagon]

No worries, I was hoping to provoke some disagreement so we could get discussion going. I knew you wouldn't fail me. :)

Mental stagnation of older people would indeed be a problem--the question is really how much of that is physically based in the brain. Some kind of brain cell regeneration would have to be part of any really good longevity treatment, so would that help prevent some of the fossilization that happens? Who knows? It doesn't happen to all old people even now. Some old people keep getting more tolerant, and learning more and such until they die. But if that started happening to everyone it would be a real problem.

I'm gonna have to fight back on the "selfish" point though, not to mention the "nothing to hold onto but their careers" bit. I never said that people would cling to them, in fact the opposite... I just suggested there would be time to try a few instead of clinging. And... isn't it weird to think that the next generation would necessarily do better than us at running things? People are people.

As for finances, longer-lived people would be able to retire at a much earlier point relative to their lifespan. Interest on most investments outstrips inflation by a fair amount. We've already seen this happening in the last century, where retirement is now commonplace as people live longer.

The "floating about without direction" thing is addressed pretty well in Dennis Danvers' book End of Days, if you happen to be in search of some decent SF. Writing's a bit clunky but the thinking is really good. :)

[artana.livejournal.com]

Ah see, but looking at fantasy...you have to start looking at the elves then, since that is the race we would most resemble. It was a race of beauty and mysticism, but it was a stagnant race, one that was slowly dying out.

I didn't say the next generation would do better necessarily, but going with the stagnation thing, they will be creative while we are becoming set in our ways. That is why they need a chance to be in charge.

Just like I think Gen X needs a chance to be in charge if the baby boomers would ever give up their stranglehold on everything.;)

[flexagon]

*laughs* Very good point. Die, boomers, would you? But fund a lot of medical research on your way out.