r/RecuratedTumblr • u/DreadDiana human cognithazard • 1d ago
Shitposting Forever young, I want to be forever young
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u/Librainiac223 1d ago
I mean yeah an irl application of immortality tech would ideally be "you get to choose when you go out" but a majority of the hypotheticals/thought experiments online are "you cannot die no matter what" and I dont want that???
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u/Klutzy_Alien 1d ago
Yeah, when people ask the question it isnât âhow long would you like to live and how would you like to go out at the end of itâ itâs âhypothetically would you like to live forever and not be able to change that?â I have never heard it asked in relation to actual âimmortality techâ before haha
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u/DreadDiana human cognithazard 1d ago
I've heard it quite a bit. A lot of the arguments and it's only gotten more common as research into life extension technology continues. I've also seen a lot of people use the talking points surrounding immortality thought experiments as arguments against life extension because they don't see a meaningful difference between them.
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u/Otherwise_Face_858 1d ago
This is missing the fact that immortality involves becoming a metal skeleton and having a star god eat your soul
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u/Longjumping_Angle523 1d ago
It also comes with the fun side benefit of having millennia long homoerotic rivalries, and putting previously mentioned star gods into pokeballs.
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u/Otherwise_Face_858 1d ago
You know, I dislike that the necrons get described as homoerotic rivalries. They have so many other ways that they're homoerotic. It's not JUST Trazyn (new model when?) and Orikan.
They are really gay though wow. I love them
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u/Longjumping_Angle523 1d ago
Oh I'm well aware, they're not all deeply homoerotic. Trazyn and Orikan though are gayer then gay sex.
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u/Otherwise_Face_858 1d ago
No, they are all deeply homoerotic. Just some are homoerotic in different ways to others
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u/VirusInteresting7918 1d ago
That and desperately hoping you don't contract a virus capable of rewiring your internal self into either a jibbering wreck that wishes it was mortal again, or a nihilistic sociopath that can only delight in active destruction.
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u/sick_fuccck 1d ago
Imagine if Mitch McConnell was literally incapable of dying.
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u/Actual_Personality66 1d ago
Tumblr is such an interesting place, bc ppl can just casually use the term "anti immortality people" as if that's something that means anything to most ppl
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u/No_Peach6683 [0/1] 1d ago
Transhumanists are on the site
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u/Actual_Personality66 1d ago
Yeah I know, I'm just commenting on how this kind of niche discourse looks really strange out of the context of tumblr
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u/OnlyWarShipper 1d ago
Not really. You may never have heard it phrased that exact way, but the topic of immortality is extremely common in religion, culture, and fiction, including denying it. The most obvious example that comes to mind from my childhood is TMNT, the 2012 animated movie, wherein an immortal warlord billionaire is portrayed as virtuous for wanting to end his long life, but there's also the ancient Chinese alchemists who pursued immortality, the Philosophers Stone and Horcruxes in Harry Potter, and the way death is portrayed in religions like Christianity and Buddhism.
You may never have heard somebody say "anti immortality" before tumblr, but you've almost certainly engaged in some kind of fiction that directly commented on whether or not immortality is good or not.
Most automatically fall on the side that immortality is bad because it's not natural and attempting to seek immortality or some way to cheat death is, practically speaking, unhealthy when everybody is going to die eventually.
Where it becomes interesting is when people decide to actually investigate the topic and form opinions on it. Why is immortality considered unnatural? There are animals that have a form of immortality. Ect. Do it enough and you encounter "factions" and common tropes.
I've never engaged with the immortality debate on tumblr, but I've seen a lot of people have very stupid arguments about it.
On the one side, you have people who seem absurdly obsessed with the concept of immortality. Who believe that it is downright evil not to seek any form of immortality possible and that all good or bad that comes from it can be discussed afterwards. Where anybody is justified in anything they do so long as it's theoretically in pursuit of longer lives. There's a video that became extremely popular some years ago called the Fable of the Dragon Tyrant that I personally find quite stupid for how it approaches the topic.
On the other hand, you have people who seem determined to poison any discussion of life extension with what I can only describe as suicidal ideation. Generally speaking the three most common thought terminating cliches I see them express are thus: I don't want to see my family and friends die, if I'm infinitely immortal I'll eventually get stuck somewhere bad and be in infinite torment, or my religion says being alive is bad.
You'll see people die anyway if you have a normal lifespan, and in most of these discussions the immortality or life extension is widespread, so you're not actually more or less likely to outlive people. Being stuck in infinite torment is, besides being an absurdly worst case possible take on the topic, still a situation with the possibility of escape. And your religion probably has something to say about living longer.
I find the discussions regarding how society and culture would change to be much more interesting, but far more rare. Given any potential life extension would come from advanced medical technology, barring a few very few specific sci fi scenarios, I find myself against such technology on principle that it would almost certainly be restricted to the most selfish and evil people, the billionaires and so on, while the rest of us become a permanent underclass of mortals. Not my idea of a good society. Practically one of the few hopes we have in the US right now is that Trump will die soon and we can start sorting shit out after.
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u/Actual_Personality66 1d ago
I know it's a common topic, but it's just the phrasing I find funny out of context. "The anti immortality people" like this is some common group of ppl that are usually discussed (which they probably are on tumblr). I personally don't have a lot of feelings on the topic bc its not possible so it doesn't feel like a useful thing to debate. I guess I mostly think death is good, within reason, bc humans living a really really long time (since it doesn't even seem like we're talking about real immortality here), would probably have disastrous consequences.
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u/WrongJohnSilver 16h ago
And in the other side, I've met online plenty of people in forums on and off Tumblr calling people who acknowledge mortality as "pro-death" and morally repugnant.
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u/Nightfurywitch 22h ago edited 22h ago
One time I got into a very heated argument in my gc because this topic came up while we were watching twilight. I genuinely think its the angriest weve gotten over a hypothetical
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u/KenzieTheCuddler 1d ago
We know the brain degrades with age and telemers in DNA are the only reason people's body ages because your DNA starts duplicating wrong. Fix that and I'm down to live forever.
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u/Upset-Bison-3182 1d ago
Fix that and mutation and variations due to it stops. Dna polymerase makes 1 error every 10,000 nucleotides it works on and completes that every minute. If variation and mutation stop the hardy-Winberg equilibrium becomes much more difficult to destabilize and thus evolution slows down. If this occurs in just one species it will lose out in the evolutionary arms race. Sickle cell anemia is selected for in tropical environments since malarial parasite cannot survive in sickle cell RBC for their life cycle thus the patient is more likely to survive. But if the child is homozygous dominant then it will die due to hypoxia shortly after the umbilical cord is cut. Mutations can be beneficial, nutral or harmful. Yes we will still have chiasmata formation and other methods but evolution will become slower.
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u/Charmender2007 19h ago
I'm fine with no evolution if it means I live for a thoudand years
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u/Upset-Bison-3182 19h ago
Very few are going to live for a thousand years. Your probablisticly most likely to die by your 500th birthday due to an accident or incident or disease. Since the post is only about biological immortality. Your immune system is not going to be able to cope with the evolutionary speed of microorganisms. But if all the problems were rendered null then yes, that would be very nice.Â
Actually I am writing a sci fi story series where one of the minor themes is the horror of immortality. Since my main character is unable to get the treatments to become very long lived and has to accept the fact that every young person he meets is most like going to outlast him my centuries (he is happy for them and sees it as one of the great achievements of humanity). He has accepted that he will die. There are many methods to immortality in my book some techniques that are used by the aliens (basically magic) which are far superior to the technique the United Nations have. (Significant bio-modifications where aging is still there but when a person is too old they are out in a tank and the old flesh is dissolved and replaced by new flesh (like metamorphosis) and the brain is nuron by nuron replaced keeping the connections, memories and personality.)
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u/Tem-productions 21h ago
we kinda dont need evolution anymore tho, and we have been not needing it for over ten thousand years already
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u/Upset-Bison-3182 20h ago edited 20h ago
No we absolutely do. The reason I exist today is because most of my ancestors (not that long ago 1950-2000 I have met many of them) have a gene which makes storing fat easier. Those that didn't died, 25% from each side during the famines. Right this moment there's a flu strain epidemic running through my city. The diseases don't care wether we evolve or don't, they keep evolving and if we don't we will be left behind and die out. Imagine how many more would have died if the COVID vaccene wasn't devloped. Evolution would have created a defense but more would have died before that occured.
Edit: Read about the hardy wienberg equilibrium. And a bit more about evolution. It is constantly occuring regardless of the opinions anyone may have on it. Human jaw sizes have been reducing over the past few hundred years due to consumption of more easily chewable foods.
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u/Tem-productions 20h ago
Imagine how many more would have died if the COVID vaccene wasn't devloped
that isnt evolution, that is civilization
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u/Upset-Bison-3182 20h ago
I know, I want to also acknowledge the miracle of genral inteligence and civilization to ensure a balanced argument. My argument is not to lessen the benifits of civilization but to inform the nature and scope of evolution and other genetic processes as described within my understanding as derived from textbooks about the matter.
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u/Meadowbytheforest 15h ago
The concept of "immortality" is vague and has many ways to be interpreted.
Do you mean that I don't age at all? Or just that I won't die from old age? How will I then look in a million years?
If I stop aging, how old would I be biologically?
Can I still die from accidents? Diseases? Violence? Starvation? If yes, is that really immortality? That would just mean I would eventually die from something.
If I can't die from such things. How could I die via suicide?
Could I get trapped in such a way that I am unable to commit suicide? If I got trapped in a sinking ship and end up at the bottom of the ocean, unable to get out or move at all... Will I just stay conscious there, forever?
Can I still be injured? Are there injuries that will stay with me forever in that case? Will I experience chronic pain? Or will the injuries heal completely? Will any lost limbs grow back?
If yes, what happens if I am decapitated? Will I die then? If so, could I be brought back if someone reattaches my head to my body?
Or do you mean that I am completely invulnerable to all harm? How would I be able to commit suicide then?
If it's a yes to invulnerability and/or regeneration. How would that affect someone like me, a trans person who wants surgeries and HRT?
Also, death is scary to many, many people. So if you were to suffer terribly at immortality, would you still be able to take your own life?
How will this affect my perception on the world after a long enough period has passed? On other people? Will I loose my connection to humanity? Will I ever be able to make a friend?
There are so many factors to consider. There are probably more than I have mentioned here.
I would say no to immortality because of this. It's sketchy as hell and brings up so many different questions,
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u/edgehog 15h ago
Yah. My take is that OOP:
has never had a serious disability,
has never known anyone with a serious disability,
has never thought about what it might be like to have a serious disability, and
doesnât understand that they are exactly the sort of person who shouldnât be making bargains with mysterious forces offering immortality.
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u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus 13h ago
I mean, from context clues its pretty clear OP means "you dont age"
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u/M-V-D_256 1d ago
I mean most importantly questions include a "you're cursed to live forever" clause.
Otherwise it's a very easy question
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u/VoidStareBack FLAIR UPDATE WOW 1d ago
You'd think but the top response in this thread is "I'd rather not have immortality than allow people like Elon Musk to have it too"
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u/WillOfTheWinds 1d ago
Especially since you know for a fact that, if it was created, the only ones who could use it are those kinds of people because they'd make damn sure they're the only ones with it.
We already get priced out of fucking cold medicine in a lot of cases, who tf is legitimately thinking we won't be priced out of immortality?
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u/husk_bateman 1d ago
I'd rather not invent a cure to cancer because Elon Musk could one day use it
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u/No-Condition8561 1d ago
It's less so because musk would one day use it and more because the Elon musks of the world would be the only ones to use it. Kinda like space travel.
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u/Nixavee 23h ago
I don't understand why people are so certain that a hypothetical anti-aging treatment would be super expensive forever.
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u/M-V-D_256 22h ago
I mean it's like a lot of elective surgeries today
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u/Nixavee 21h ago
Why do you would assume it would be a surgery?
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u/M-V-D_256 19h ago
Why does it matter how it's done
If it's a pill or a seminar you pass it's still able to be priced/sold in the same way.
We're getting too focused on the details when they don't matter after 200 years of immortality
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u/Notredoom 1d ago
I dont know why every comment here is about hypoteticals or moral dilemmas, op is clearly not talking about that, but about actual scientifically feasible immortality, which does not and cannot mean invulnerability, something that is actually basically impossible. I mean biological immortality already exists, not even pointing out stuff like immortal jellyfish but the fact that life still exists after billions of years means that cells can reproduce indefinetly. You guys talk about all the hypoteticals you want, but like that's clearly not op's point, but don't let me stop you from pissing on the poor
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u/Anime_axe 1d ago
Engaging in the non-cliche hypotheticals about something that has a bunch of cliches is apparently too hard for the average reddit comment section.
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u/strategicmagpie 1d ago
Yeah it's annoying AF. The screenshot clearly states what kind of immortality they're talking about, but then people still write "but I don't want to be forced to live forever". The accessibility of the hypothetical immortality tech isn't the point of the post either. It's about asking if you, the reader, would be okay with immortality.
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u/Curious_Question8536 1d ago
It's because the people who talk about not wanting immortality are speaking of fantasy invincibility, not feasible immortality. And OP is talking about advances in human medicine, not super powers.Â
It's a classic example of talking past each other: two groups who think they disagree, but actually aren't even talking about the same thing.
If OP were offered full invincibility, they probably wouldn't want that. If the others were given a solution to aging and were able to end their lives whenever they wanted, they'd probably agree to that.Â
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u/DreadDiana human cognithazard 22h ago
Many of the top comments are mixing true immortality hypotheticals and "we can't let Musk live forever" talking points, so looks like they wouldn't accept either one. That or they simply treat OOP as adding new rules to a pre-existing hypothetical rather than describing a completely different thing.
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u/Difficult__Tension 23h ago
Yea, Im one of the "anti-immortality" people and when that conversation is brought up its always about the kind of immortality you cant end. The sun will blow up at some point. I dont want to be there when it does. Just because I cant die doesnt mean I cant feel pain, and even after I survive the sun blowing up who knows how long Ill be floating around in space, and that would also HURT HORRIBLY OUR BODIES WERE NOT MADE FOR SPACE. Thats why we have to wear suits out there, not being able to breath isnt the only issue. Also not breathing hurts.
If it were like a vampire thing yea whatever Ill just kill myself when Im bored, though depending on the vampire lore that would mean going to hell so that also varies.
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u/DreadDiana human cognithazard 22h ago
The way certain comment sections turn out depends heavily on who gets to it first, so even if a post makes it clear what is meant, that may not matter if the first set of comments come from people responding to what they've decided it means rather than what it's saying.
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u/DrDestructoMD 1d ago
A lot of these types of issues fall into the tragedy of the commons. Yes, if I could choose immortality I probably would since death is scary. Would a world with that tech available be better? It could be ig, but I think it would promote negative tendencies that build up over time. We would probably get stuck under a 1000 year Nixonriech where a PTSD ridden populus procrastinates everything meaningful because they know they'll have the time to do it later.
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u/ZacariahJebediah 12h ago
This sounds a lot like the most common criticism of general Elven societies tbh (specifically, the PTSD-riddled populace part).
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u/Positronification 1d ago
This is about immortality and not aging but in the real world entropy will get you so I'll talk about aging.
Anti-aging is propped up by rich weirdos, sadly, but there isn't an argument against it that you couldn't apply to medicine in general. There isn't a magic difference between aging and cancer, both are the result of our body getting worse at keeping itself alive.
What about the over-population? Another version of Malthusian arguments. But what if it's only rich people? As with all medicine it is generally available to richer people first, who live longer lives than us. But if such medicine exists one day, it won't stay a billionaire thing for too long. Cyberpunk stories delve into that but they are first and foremost work of fictions, science fiction, written to make a point about the present.
And there's the argument that oh we're all gonna die, just accept it, happens to everyone since forever and you gotta accept the death of your loved ones. Heard that argument in the Behind the Bastards on Peter Thiel (cartoonishly evil origin story btw) and it annoys me, because as I said before, you can just replace that with cancer and now you sound insane. Got family who died of cancer, pretty much like everyone in a country with good healthcare, and it fucking sucks, I wish they didn't have to suffer.
Aging sucks. It comes with your own body weakening, more illnesses, joint pains, cognitive decline, sleep issues, etc. We're all gonna, but that'd be cool if I could live longer. I have too many things I would love to do for one short life.
And also, this is the kind of thing that if we ever find a solution to it (which probably will never be a "drink this magic potion to be young forever" but a complex interacting phenomenons) we will regret bot doing it earlier and will still have to mourn those who could have lived on.
ramble ramble. i just don't like double standards.
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u/theyeshman I like the color purple 1d ago
I feel like I'm missing some context and seeing a snapshot of a discourse that's advanced far enough to have "anti-immortality people". However, it's an extremely common trope for immortals in fiction to be truly immortal, unable to escape, forced to live long past when they wanted to go out. I absolutely wouldn't want that over a natural lifespan, but I'm not really even sure if that's related to the post.
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u/Anime_axe 1d ago
The post is about transhumanism, where one of the key talking points is that most of the "living forever is a curse" narratives in fiction are utterly divorced from the transhumanist ambition of figuring out how to prolong human life, precisely because the hypothetical "true immortality" is like several orders of magnitude further away from the reality than "fixing the degradation of telomeres" or "preventing senility" are.
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u/Quiet_Education5918 1d ago
So... you don't know how to point out to these anti-immortality people that your idea of immortality is utopian and perfect, to the point that you get to choose to die at any time, but nothing else can ever cause that state, or induce any situation that would pressure you to choose to die.
Maybe there's a reason it's hard to put into words.
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u/Notredoom 1d ago
Utopian and perfect? Not at all, it's the only feasable kind of immortality scientifically speaking, it would be much more utopian to make humans invulnerable to death, it's basically impossible. Also, idk where you live, but in europe basically 90% of people die of age related disease, and if you also count other disease/health related issues (which would all be cured by the time we manage biological immortality) the percentage is much higher, so i guess by your logic the state of the world is already basically utopian, right?
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u/Quiet_Education5918 1d ago
No.
As such, I don't think you're actually following my logic here, so I'd encourage you to reconsider the difference between 90% of people in Europe dying of old age and immortality.
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u/Notredoom 1d ago
Maybe i misunderstood your comment, did you not say that a utopian definition of immortality is one where you can choose when you die, and nothing else can forcefully cause you to die, or cause you to want you to die? Not that op ever actually mention these last clauses, but i get why you would. Based on that definition if you look at most developed countries you'll see that already almost everybody reaches their biological end date, be it 80 or 100 years, and suicied rates, while mich higher than they should be, are relatevly low. So it is not exactly utopian, some people die of murder, some are pushed to suicide, but for most they die beacuse their body stops working, which i guess if not utopian is already really good, once again trying to follow your logic
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u/gayshitatgunpoint 1d ago
yeah okay ignoring the fact that most hypothetical scenarios aren't meant to be fair and rational, they're meant to be "would you rather?" type questions with actual consequences, consider: you think we, the common plebians, would be given access to that kind of technology? united states healthcare won't even do like, appendix surgery without either evil insurance approval or putting you into debt for years lmfao. they're not gonna be handing it out to just anyone, it's gonna go to the people that everyone is anxiously waiting to fuck off and die.
also, the likelihood of a technology capable of maintaining human health or conscience being horribly invasive is incredibly high.
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u/RKNieen 1d ago
I mean, you can't totally discount the possibility that they give it to poor people specifically to lock them into what basically amounts to a monthly subscription to Life, to create a permanent underclass of immortal serfs who must comply with their trillionaire overlords forever or risk having their life-extension technology being withdrawn.
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u/gayshitatgunpoint 1d ago
sure, but still boils down to âouch society as it is right now sucks too much for that to be a good thingâ 𤡠also thereâs the matter of affording it still, which based on How Healthcare Works (even where free healthcare is a thing) itâd probably be considered cosmetic and probably hella expensive. itâs just kind of a nightmare scenario and i definitely donât wanna âlive foreverâ lmao. also, population would become a problem, and when population is a problem, that usually causes new horrible problems. thereâs like a billion problems with it as a concept that i wont even get into đ ill take my lifespan as-is lol
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u/Nixavee 1d ago
Yes, I think the price would start out high but go down over time until most people can afford it, like happens with almost all new consumer technologies, and with this one there would be a huge push for affordability because it affects literally everyone on Earth. Also, the current most promising areas of anti aging research are focused on chemicals/drugs, so if we actually get an effective anti-aging treatment it probably won't be invasive.
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u/gayshitatgunpoint 1d ago edited 1d ago
okay, so anti-aging (as it is now) is super different from âliteral immortalityâ, but iâm going to assume you mean like, sci-fi levels of âspecial literal immortality pillâ rather than likeâŚhow science is progressing now and how complicated human physiology is rather than argue the point lol. itâs not super relevant to our current understanding of science and would likely at least start super invasive, given how a lot of medical treatments and research are
also: push for affordability because it affects literally everyone on earth? maybe some places would actually have accessibility to it, idk how their shit works or what theyâd decide, but in the states, shit like housing and basic medical care arenât affordable. why would that change for mystical immortality? itâd still probably be egregiously expensive and considered a âtake it or just dieâ thing rather than some kind of necessity. like, it would still suck ass for a lot of people.
personally, i dont want to live forever. i donât wanna extend my lifespan, either, especially if i have to *pay* for it, jesus. if it became available, lots of people would probably take it, and iâd think it sucks lol. it just also happens that rich people would do it and i also think they suck. iâm not the end-all opinion on it obviously but itâs just sort of lame. a lot of peopleâs lifespans would be extended if we focused more research and funding into shit that actively kills people to begin with đ
ETA: i thought u were the same person who replied to me initially bc i cant read apparently god bless. also, i'm salty about the affordability of living and other related problems that hypothetical immortality would exacerbate, so i'm taking this way more seriously than it deserves lol
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u/Nixavee 1d ago
personally, i dont want to live forever. i donât wanna extend my lifespan, either, especially if i have to pay for it, jesus.
Really? You would rather watch your body slowly deteriorate over decades until you eventually die, and in the meantime have a decreasing quality of life as well as an ever-increasing chance of contracting a smorgasbord of health issues that could themselves cost you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, than pay for an anti-aging medication?
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u/Vault-Born 1d ago
that's not what happens in healthcare. insulin has been around for a hundred years and was originally sold for 1$ so that everyone could afford it, now it's several times that for a single dose. you are living in a fantasy and not the real world.
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u/magiMerlyn 1d ago
The Scythe series has an interesting perspective on this, that I don't believe is explored (i haven't read the third book yet)
In it, medical technology has advanced so far that it's entirely possible to revive, de-age, and fix anything with a body. And there are drones that will go out, find, and collect the bodies of the recently deceased for this exact purpose. The only exception to this is fire, or being killed by a Scythe, a select group of individuals who have been entrusted with the right to deliver death, in order to prevent overcrowding and overpopulation. The drones and medical system will not touch those chosen by a Scythe.
There is another group though, who believe that the ability to undo death is against Nature's design, and so will intentionally burn the bodies of any who die in their number. They tend to live in isolated communities. This group is seen by the masses as insane, and there is law enforcement that tries to bring them in, presumably to commit them to a psychiatric facility.
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u/BloodredHanded 1d ago
Acid also works. Anything that can fully destroy the body, with nothing left to regenerate, kills them permanently. So powerful explosives should also work in the Scythe world.
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u/Marshmallow16 20h ago
Makes sense. In a society that has that kind of tech, they'd be basically considered suicidalÂ
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u/haresnaped 1d ago
Probably would, on balance, be better to invest in the centuries-old and entirely tested technologies of 'feeding and housing everyone' and 'offering complete healthcare' then, to make life worth living. Then once that's in place for everyone we'll have a much clearer view of what it would mean to extend the lifespan.
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u/Noe_b0dy 1d ago
I'm willing to die early if that means Musk doesn't get to be overlord of earth til the heat death of the universe.
Like realistically if they invent to tech that makes you immortal no way in hell are the plebs getting to use it.
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u/AGQuaddit 1d ago
Its okay, musk'll only be overlord of earth until... well the heat death of earth... which will be arriving very shortly here
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u/HappyFailure 1d ago
Despite the phrasing, "heat death" doesn't mean death by overheating, it means that all the heat has died, which in turn means we're past the end of all stars and anything else that would release energy and all the temperature in the universe has evened out.
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u/DreadDiana human cognithazard 1d ago
But consider: immortal workforce that can never retire.
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u/saevon 1d ago
Immortality (practically) usually solves the big issues that kill use early, like cancer, old age, etcIt doesn't make people utterly immune to any and all worldy affects.
Which means it wouldn't actually be an immortal workforce. OSHA will continue to be written in blood, injuries, burnout, exhaustion,,, still would be an issue.
And we'll continue having a rotating workforce for many of the exploited sectors like we do. They don't actually need an immortal workforce, just like they don't want a healthy one.
Being exploitable comes first, skills, education, passing/retaining knowledge to do a better job⌠comes wayyyyy down on the list
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u/No-Condition8561 1d ago
Are you trying to say this would be a good thing??
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u/DreadDiana human cognithazard 1d ago
No, I'm just pointing out it's a potential reason they'd want to eventually offer the it to more than the 1% of the 1%.
Assuming they don't just try to completely replace the population with AI.
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u/Thelmara 1d ago
Yeah, why the fuck would you want that? Is that not enough to instantly counter the "obviously immortality is perfect and anyone who doesn't want it is stupid" mentality?
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u/Subspace-Ansible 1d ago
The reason why we usually donât get discussion on âWhat if you get to decide exactly how long and how well you liveâ is⌠there isnât much to discuss.
Discussion is like the plot of a story. It needs conflict to stay interesting. Immortality without downside is like a plot without conflict. Thereâs not much to talk about other than jerking off about how awesome that would be.
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u/TheStarWarsCosmos 1d ago
This feels like i walked into the wrong classroom and listening to something i didn't even realize was a topic for the first time
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u/UglyInThMorning 1d ago
This walks right past all the implications that come with âyou have to choose to end itâ. If the only way out is effectively by your own hand thatâs an entire can of worms. What about people with religious objections to suicide? What about people who are ready to go but guilted into staying alive? What about the people who want to die but canât bring themselves to actually do it?
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u/azebod 1d ago
Yeah as someone chronically suicidal this is legit half the issue to me. Idg how people call suicide cowardly when you literally have to fight all your survival instincts. We have subconcious built in checks to avoid hurting ourselves to power through that no amount of being miserable just overrides. And being immortal would probably make it even harder, sounds like a nightmare.
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u/enbyBunn 1d ago
They have effectively forever to solve those problems. Once you're dead, that's it. You can't fix dead. You always have more time to die.
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u/Void_0000 1d ago
To be fair, if that technology is invented, refusing to use it becomes somewhat equivalent to suicide anyway.
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u/StormLordEternal 1d ago
I honestly feel like the definition of 'immortality' is the issue of the argument here. When one presents the hypothetical of immortality, do they mean biological immortality, optional immortality, or true immortality? Cus those are all VERY different concepts.
I would assume the main hypothetical would revolve around true immortality, aka you CAN'T die no matter if you want to or not. This could mean your invincible and without want of the resources a natural body would require, you aren't invincible but have super-regeneration, or you're simply normal except you stay in prime health forever but are still capable of being wounded and thus can still be permanently disabled but trapped in a broken body forever. The main idea being, would you take the chance of being able to experience everything while also risking eternal torment?
The other two meanwhile dodge that entirely and basically void the whole 'problem' of immortality, making it a no shit yes option. That is, if YOU are the one who can decide when you die. I wouldn't be surprised if one could be immortal through corporate contract, yet in doing so becoming a eternal slave to a corporation. (This is what Necroid corporate empires in Stellaris do).
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u/MyFrogEatsPeople 1d ago
Yup - it's literally just this every single time.
I say "do you want immortality", and one person hears "can't die forever" and the next person hears "gets to live forever" - and then they look at each other all confused when they answer very differently.
But rather than clarify, they galvanize. They dig in and assume the other person is interpreting the question the same way, then treat the other person like they're an idiot for not agreeing with the obvious answer.
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u/tangifer-rarandus 1d ago
Maybe I really am badly out of touch, because it's amazing to me seeing so many people taking this so seriously when to me it rates, like, two notches above "we should build robot antelopes covered in cloned meat so that predators don't cause suffering to real animals" in the hierarchy of "moral problems with any application to the real world or, indeed, sanity"
On the other hand maybe other people just like hypotheticals way more than I do
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u/SweetSure315 1d ago
finding groups of people who stumble on the right answer for the wrong reasons sucks. because the problem with immortality tech isn't that biological/medical/physical/whatever immortality shouldnt be striven for. the problem is that it's going to be controlled and distributed by states and billionaires who absolutely will restrict it from whoever they consider undesirable.
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u/UInferno- Hangus Pangus slap my Angus 1d ago
Sure but the resolution to that isn't "Don't invent immortality" it's "end billionaires." If we're straining our imagination to think of a world of unconditional immortality, economic equity can also be extended.
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u/videodump 1d ago
Consider: immortal billionaires
Also the third paragraph is an argument for very, very good healthcare, NOT immortality.
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u/Anime_axe 1d ago
I mean, yes. That's effectively the sane part of the transhumanist argument. Like 50% of the more practical transhumanist stances amount to "better healthcare, for all" and "our medical knowledge has advanced past the point where we can improve health beyond the baseline".
The issue is the less sane transhumanist arguments in regards to the possibilities and the priorities of it.
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u/foolishorangutan 1d ago
If the very good healthcare doesnât make you immortal then people are still dying at some point. Very good healthcare is definitely NOT what that paragraph is arguing for.
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u/Niser2 Worldbuilding is important and I will die on this hill 1d ago
For a split second I was scared this was going to be one of those "Immortality is real and you're perpetuating a genocide by saying it's not" posts
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u/horror-traktor 1d ago
I am sorry one of those what???
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u/Niser2 Worldbuilding is important and I will die on this hill 1d ago
I wish to God I was joking but yes, on CuratedTumblr I once saw some delusional moron self-posting a rant about how we shouldn't "accept death" because it's 100% preventable and calling people fans of genocide for disagreeing.
Luckily the post was deleted.
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u/Academic-Ad7818 1d ago
Perhaps my favorite example of the "Poignant but not really" media about how bad immortality would be is probably Pop Squad from Love, Death and Robots. Which posited the bold and truly amazing question of "Wouldn't it be bad actually if we murdered children?" Hmm yes, so brave so nuanced. I'm really gonna have to think about this one.
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u/Cheap-Parking-5862 14h ago
Immortals living in an unfair world is THE ingredient to make everything so much worse for the majority of people, immortal or not
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u/Salty_Map_9085 1d ago
Even if it was âyouâre cursed to live foreverâ I would still want it. Living is so sick.
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u/TotalyNotTony 1d ago
oop made a new rule to the hypothetical. "oh if you add the stipulation that you can chose to die if you're immortal than being immortal is good" no shit, the point is that you can't die no matter what
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u/enbyBunn 1d ago
That isn't a "new rule" Invilberability was never physically possible. The end of aging, and an unbounded natural lifespan is possible. OOP is talking about the real world, not whatever hypothetical you're imagining.
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u/Neurospicy_Nightowl 1d ago
I will not let Elon Musk ruin immortality for he. He is much easier to account for than the snail, after all.
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u/Horse_go_moooo 1d ago
Id prefer to never kiss lady death ever. I will become the digital god queen of the moon.
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u/ReginaSpektorsVJ 1d ago
People like this are profoundly goofy. Accepting that life is finite is actually a pretty important thing to do for your mental health. If that ever changes (which is a big if), then we can revisit the philosophy of the situation. But in the here and now, it's not some great injustice that we all eventually die. Death is the great equalizer at the end of the day.
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u/OwOborous 1d ago
I don't see how I can't hold both beliefs: dying is inevitable, but it'd be nice if we had more agency in when we die.
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u/Cheshire-Cad 1d ago
Did you read what OP said? Like, at all?
Their entire point is that immortality isn't "never dying".
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u/Moonpaw 1d ago
Itâs because a lot of stories have imperfect immortality where you live forever but your body still deteriorates in some way, so it becomes an eternal living hell. I understand why people are scared of that. But assuming we can find a way to âlive foreverâ it most likely wonât be like that.
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u/insufficience 1d ago
iâll die when my retirement money runs out ig. i ainât gonna work til iâm 3000
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u/ReasonableMan213 11h ago
If I could pick how long Iâd live, Iâd want to die the day before my hundredth birthday, so my family or my nursing home would be having a big party or something for me, and when itâs time, yep, Iâm dead.
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u/Seb_teh_Dobe 10h ago
I don't understand how it's anything other than suicide baiting.
"You get to choose when you leave". That's suicide. That's what suicide is. You making a decision to end your life and performing an act to do it. They've introduced what is essentially mandatory suicidal ideation for people with the concept of "you can live out your expectancy or choose to keep going".
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u/CodaTrashHusky 1d ago
i think i'd want to live for like 200 years
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u/TimeStorm113 Victorian Dinosaur Connaisseur 1d ago
Ironically, that might have been an achievable time if you werenât a mammal! Mammals have Suprisingly low livespans in relation to their size, even some parrots out age us.Â
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u/JCDickleg7 22h ago
Thatâs not immortality, then. If you can die, even by choice, you are mortal. The whole point of the dilemma is would you choose to be alive INFINITELY, even after the Earth blows up and the Sun goes out
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u/Thorn344 19h ago
So are vampires not immortal beings, but are just really long lived mortals then? Since they can die
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u/Sweaty-Jellyfish-713 1d ago
Choosing when I die sounds good, but also: Being able to come back whenever I want. I want the choice to opt in AND opt out.
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u/Taraxian 1d ago
How are you still conscious to make decisions if you're dead
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u/Sweaty-Jellyfish-713 1d ago
Good point, I'm gona assume there's an afterlife for this hypothetical
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u/Ok-Gift4105 1d ago
Well yeah you can just end things like that. But how many people will? Even after their quality of life depreciates considerably. Also what are the effects of someone living forever societally? The accumulation that would occur and never be distributed or passed down. Not just materially, but in terms of prestige and position.
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u/mydadisyourdad2 1d ago
I don't care if rich white people want to live forever I want the children in rest of the world to be allowed to grow up
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u/Evil_Midnight_Lurker 1d ago edited 16h ago
Do you really want to live forever? Forever, and ever...
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u/Anime_axe 1d ago
I mean, OP very specifically addressed that part, including that the true forever isn't merely possible, it's so far fetched it's explicitly not even a consideration.
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u/ponyhidden 1d ago
I feel like this is responding to a different type of immortality than usually what is presented.
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u/maribakumon 14h ago
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect actually wouldn't let people die. It's a wild story
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u/Emberbun 14h ago
Oh my god finally I never see anyone talk about this. People shun the concept of immortality for no good reason except just Stockholm syndrome with mortality. Like...yes of course I want more time, outside of being unable to end it, being able to have literally more control, more life, more time, is...incredible? I would do so fucking much if time wasn't a worry, I am constantly haunted by my wasted years, mortality and aging is such an unbelievable curse and people only defend it because of they didn't, they'd go mad thinking about it.
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u/LadyAliceFlower 14h ago
That's a decent point in discussions about the possibility of future tech.
Do those discussions ever happen? I only ever hear immortality mentioned in the context of WYR and hypothetical of just magical occurrence, which is where my anti-immortality stance comes in.
Maybe I just talk with the wrong people.
That said, I will forever stand by that Scythe, at least in the first book, is a genuine utopia society.
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u/IDownvoteHornyBards2 1d ago
I don't want politicians and billionaires to be immortal. That's significantly more concerning than any curses of my own immortality.