If You Could Achieve Immortality Through Technology Would You Do It?

I would want to live a very long time, but not forever. I wouldn't want to live so long that I would be the last human on the planet before the sun devoured it.

25,000 to 50,000 years ought to be enough.

 

no i wouldn't.

this is low life "el hayati-d dunya", the closest life,
or the house of delusions if you will.

accepting that notion is accepting $10,000 in cash,
because you are not willing to get 10 billion later.

 

Turn the question around. Who wants to die, NOW?

Because any now you postulate will be here soon enough. Anyone over the age of 13 knows that.

I've noticed that although many religions believe in an afterlife and use it to console the grieving not one I've ever heard of has the obligation of suicide at a certain age, like the one on a Star Trek episode.

 

Medically-induced immortality sounds delightfully attractive to me on account of my belief in there being no afterlife. Not that I actually would live forever. At some point I would almost inevitably fall victim to a fatal accident, get murdered, or become so dissatisfied with life to opt for suicide. It really depends on what kind of physical condition one would be able to sustain over the centuries, how much information a person is able to hang onto, how many years it'd take for many character-defining experiences to fade from memory, to what extent personality changes should be expected, how often one would have to go through school all over again to acquire new skill-sets, replace forgotten lessons, and qualify for more work, and so forth. I do not think I will live to see my eighties, and suspect I will never have children - though others' may enjoy much longer life-expectancies - but hopefully there will come a time when future generations will be liberated from the chains of bodily decay due to aging.

 

The question is, would one remain the same effective age when they embark on immortality? It would be a cruel joke to live 'forever' while shriveling up into a mummy-like figure and being nothing more than a bag of bones incapable of doing anything but thinking about how long forever is?

 

I doubt if Twinkies will last thousands of years, even in space.

 

There would be consequences to this well beyond the individual's desires. If everyone lived forever, there could be no children, which would be rather depressing. There would also be virtually no change or evolution in human society, as the new generation would never replace the old. Furthermore, the immortal people would likely be extremely risk averse to avoid dying by accident, since you'd stand to lose much more life--millions rather than tens of years--from accidental death.

Therefore, the society would stagnant, becoming unable to adapt to changes. Quickly, I think the immortal society would be conquered by a much younger and more dynamic and adaptable society of those peoples who had chosen to remain mortal.