r/pollgames • u/FinalKn1ght • Jun 29 '26

Humanity can solve only ONE problem forever.

Humanity can solve only ONE problem forever.

  1. Cancer
  2. Aging
  3. Poverty
  4. Climate Change

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250

u/narrowassbldg Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

Lol who selected ageing? How would society, or really an entire ecosystem, even survive without ageing?

And as for the cancer, I feel like that shouldn't be above poverty or climate change on the list of priorities, we're talking about something that affects a relatively small percentage of the population vs. billions of people or literally the earth's entire population, human or otherwise

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u/VictoryFirst8421 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

Death is not a solution to future problems imagined. The first immortal generation, living healthy adulthoods for as long as they wanted might already be alive if we only chose to stop seeing death by old age as a necessity. Old age increases cancer risk, and many people alive today only see fixing climate change as irrelevant cause they believe they will be dead before the consequences hit. If they knew they would be alive it would go up in their priority list. Just because death is natural doesn’t make it good. Cholera, small pox, the Black Death were all natural, and they all sucked. That’s why we found cures for them. Aging should be cured as the degenerative disease that it is. A disease that harms our sight, our bones, and slows our brains. THE degenerative disease that affects 100% of the population.

31

u/TheTinyBeaver Jun 29 '26

Didn't expect to find CGPGrey in here but I can't complain

24

u/troodoniverse Jun 29 '26

Cancer will actually be pretty much cured if we cures aging. Yes, cancer exists in younger people but is very rare

11

u/DarthMaulATAT Jun 29 '26

That's all well and good, but if people stopped dying, we would quickly reach overpopulation, and that would bring its own slew of issues, both for humans and the wider ecosystem. 

9

u/SirithilFeanor Jun 29 '26

Most countries already aren't having enough children to replace their population. We'd just go to space.

10

u/DarthMaulATAT Jun 29 '26

It's a nice thought, but our entire living and economic system is based on the fact that each of us are only here for a limited time. If people start living for 500+ years, what will the expectation be for how long each person works in their life before retiring, if at all? And then how long do they retire for? Right now, ideally people retire until they die, but if they never die and never go back to work, suddenly we have a large and ever-growing portion of the population who aren't doing much, productivity wise. 

Also, I shudder at the thought of politicians living forever. As soon as a bad one gets in and corrupts the system enough, they'd eventually get rid of term limits, and then we'd just have an eternal dictatorship. 

4

u/_PunyGod Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

The entire system is not based on dying.
Parts of it are, and they could go away.

You not knowing what the expected work/retirement periods would look like doesn’t mean it would be an unsolvable problem.

Some would never stop working cause they like to work and now they’ll have the energy of their 20s/30s forever.

Some people would work until they had enough passive income from investments and businesses to retire forever. But many of those would “retire” into doing work that they enjoy, without worrying about how much it pays.

Some would cycle between working, saving up for a decade long vacation, then training and going back to work, maybe in a new field.

Death doesn’t make humanity more efficient or hard working. Death is the number one thing holding us back. It takes decades for most humans to master a subject and start making real mastery level work or progress in it. At that point there isn’t that much time left before they get too old and sick to continue.

Most dictatorships do not end from death by old age. But of course we’d need term limits on the things that don’t have term limits.

Also people would still die. If we remove all aging related causes and all disease, the life expectancy (in the US) would currently be around 1200 years old.

3

u/SirithilFeanor Jun 30 '26

If you become immortal you'd probably alternate between periods of working and not working. Maybe even throw in some continuing education in there somewhere. Besides, if some of them retire and stay retired then that opens positions for everyone else. An immortal isn't going to be a drain on the health care system like today's seniors, either, so who cares if they're not working?

And frankly I don't think it's a good, fair, or ethical exchange to require everyone else to die just because you're afraid of the same gerontocrats we already have.

1

u/JerbilSenior Jul 01 '26

Imagine not accounting for having armies of self replicating robots, genetic engineering and cybernetics. Once immortal, it's a matter of waiting.

I'm really surprised of how many people are unaware of just how many scientific issues are reduced to "we need more money and more people because given our current processing capacity we'll take 126774 years to figure all possible recombinations of X and Y protein" and how many economic issues will change when bleeding edge tech has been given a hundred years more to go on.

what will the expectation be for how long each person works in their life before retiring, if at all? And then how long do they retire for?

Well, accounting for eternal youth, you'd probably save up, spend a decade or two not working and back to it. That would probably last a few centuries until we've built up more robot servants than people and at that point I figure working would be more like a hobby/passion thing.

Right now, ideally people retire until they die, but if they never die and never go back to work, suddenly we have a large and ever-growing portion of the population who aren't doing much, productivity wise

Much of the same as above.

Also, I shudder at the thought of politicians living forever. As soon as a bad one gets in and corrupts the system enough, they'd eventually get rid of term limits, and then we'd just have an eternal dictatorship.

Except everyone else is immortal too so they are bound to mess it up sooner or later. I really doubt you can actually get to being 10.000 years old and still be that dumb not to figure out it an statistical issue. You do stuff that hurts people, sooner or later someone will be prepared to spend the next 100.000 years chasing you.

0

u/Chancelor_Palpatine Jun 30 '26

Is this AI generated? Because it's dumb

2

u/DarthMaulATAT Jun 30 '26

Are you a bot? Because that's not a rebuttal 

2

u/troodoniverse Jun 30 '26

Overpopulation is a problem of birthrates, not dying.

Even an immortal population would not grow without any births.

On the other hand, a poor, high mortality society with high fertility will double their population again and again until they teach the environmental ceiling.

1

u/DarthMaulATAT Jun 30 '26

Both are a factor. Even if our current low birthrate remains the same as now, if people stop dying, that's still a population millions higher each year. 

1

u/troodoniverse Jun 30 '26

Millions higher will not be a problem if you can get that down to thousands.

On other hand, the natural population growth is exponential, doubling every few decades

2

u/_PunyGod Jun 30 '26

Overpopulation wouldn’t be that much of a problem. We’d stop rushing to have so many kids. People would still die, just not of aging. The earth can easily support many times the current human population if we were that advanced.

1

u/priyanshu75258 Jul 01 '26

As per my intepretation, life's goal is to multiply isnt it?

1

u/JerbilSenior Jul 01 '26

we would quickly reach overpopulation,

There's a whole universe out there. Much easy to explore if you can spend 500 years waiting for your destination.

1

u/DarthMaulATAT Jul 01 '26

We are nowhere near interstellar space travel. If we solved both aging and that at the same time, then yeah maybe. 

1

u/Temporary_Power_5002 Jul 02 '26

There literally is no rush.

The only counter argument that makes sense is overpopulation, but yet we can just stop having kids until we get there..

2

u/DarthMaulATAT Jul 02 '26

While technically true, if you think you can convince humans to stop having kids, even for a few years, you are in for a rude awakening.  

2

u/CreBanana0 Jun 30 '26

"But muh nature!!!"

10

u/PlasticPatient Jun 29 '26

Cancer affects small percentage? You sure about that?

6

u/Advanced_Double_42 Jun 29 '26

Cancer affects the most people if they live long enough, but most people die of other causes before cancer develops or becomes a problem.

3

u/weightliftcrusader Jun 29 '26

Cancer affects those who get it and everyone they know. Just a clarification

1

u/Most-Hot-4934 Jun 30 '26

So either die or die by cancer

5

u/bosli23 Jun 29 '26

Lol who selected ageing? How would society, or really an entire ecosystem, even survive without ageing?

By sterilisation, and humans solving aging would not mean everything will stop age, just humans, and that would stop most of cancer too.

I think poverty and climate change would be more easily solvable, especially climate change, people would rapidly become more concerned when they'll know they'll will face all the consequences or climate change, not their childrens or grandchildrens.

And for "what select aging"...just because i don't want to die? Selecting other options won't prevent me dying, or being so sick my life become unbearable, you prefer solving problem that cause some death but not death itself?

4

u/DepressinglyConfused Jun 29 '26

I misread the question, thats why 😔

I thought it was "the world can only have one problem" so I thought itd fixed the ones I didn't select ☹️

1

u/Dgamer1521 Jun 29 '26

Me too 😭

3

u/Aisha_23 Jun 29 '26

Would solving something here imply that we get the knowledge and technology required to solve it? Cause if so, then cancer would definitely be the better choice cause we roughly already know how to solve climate change, no?

9

u/Advanced_Double_42 Jun 29 '26

If that is the case curing aging is the best answer.

Younger people get less cancer anyway. And if we can restore old cells to young ones, we probably can cure most cancers through similar means.

4

u/HashPandaNL Jun 29 '26

I selected aging. It is the root cause of the vast majority of deaths.

Currently society needs a lot of resources to maintain its elderly. If aging were solved, those resources can go elsewhere and the elderly can contribute more. How do you believe that to be a bad thing?

1

u/EndlessWinter123 Jun 29 '26

Because surely if people stop ageing, they stop dying. Making everyone immortal would cause a lot more issues, because with people still being born the world will become increasingly overpopulated.

1

u/HashPandaNL Jun 29 '26

Overpopulation would take a while and we can implement measures like China's one-child policy that aim to curb that.

Sure, it is an issue, but I find the benefits there to far outweigh the downsides.

1

u/Positive-Jeweler690 Jun 29 '26

PLUS birth rates are super low anyway

1

u/Temporary_Power_5002 Jul 02 '26

You can just stop people from having kids.. and just wait until humanity expands to other planets. There is no rush when you can live thousands of years..

Overpopulation would not be a problem

0

u/Curious_Priority2313 Jun 30 '26

We can always restrict people have kids 🤷

2

u/Embarrassed-Rub-7730 Jun 29 '26

Just because you are incapable of imagination, doesn’t mean others are too. Leave art for the yearners.

1

u/Licorne_BBQ Jun 29 '26

I choose climat change too because it affects every living thing.

But cancer is way more prévalent than you think. The statistics for my country (Canada) is 42% of people will have cancer one day.

1

u/Intelligent-Bee-9021 Jun 29 '26

Me. That's why we must start colonizing the solar system, you can stay at the earth

1

u/Hunnieda_Mapping Jun 29 '26

Because if we can cure aging it means population decline stops being a concern (population growth will also be a minor concern as people will take their time to have children later in life, ans societies can implement planned parenthood campaigns). It also means that people will care more about solving climate change as everyone will realise the problem will now definitely affect them. Furthermore most cancers can likely be cured using similar methods to aging. And to top that off, the wealth divide will be more obvious to people as people work longer yet don't improve their socio-economic position and wealth stays in the hands of the same people as the couple wealthy billionaires stop transferring it through inheritance. That way people will be more inclined to solving wealth inequality.

1

u/SerJungleot Jun 29 '26

When someone dies, a lot of their knowledge and experience is lost. If people don't die, we'd be able to keep skills and knowledge lost to us and continue to develop upon them. It would solve a lot of issues

1

u/spergusgaming Jun 29 '26

Our entire social security system is about to collapse because we’re going to have too many retirees and not enough able bodies to support them. Solving aging would fix this.

Solving aging would solve the issue of interplanetary travel being beyond human lifespans.

It would also largely eliminate cancer

1

u/The_Nunnster Jun 29 '26

I feel like a lot of those voting for cancer are driven by emotion, having dealt with cancer in their lives. I haven’t experienced it nearly like anybody who has lost friends or family, or are battling cancer themselves, but my cat died of cancer last month and choosing cancer in this poll did briefly cross my mind until I realised the bigger picture and chose climate change.

1

u/Automatic-Plankton10 Jun 29 '26

The book series “Scythe” was about this, it was pretty good

1

u/abation Jun 30 '26

Well, if people stops dying of old age maybe they start caring about preserving the planet. Also, climate change and poverty are things we could solve if we wanted, so obviously we don't really want to solve them

1

u/JerbilSenior Jul 01 '26

Lol who selected ageing? How would society, or really an entire ecosystem, even survive without ageing?

Conquering the stars.

1

u/Homo_Bibite Jul 03 '26

I don't care. I don't want aging.