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Living for ever good or bad?


spartan max2

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Well, personally I'd take the opportunity. There's always a way to die and only one chance to live. This is assuming the idea of never ageing, being constantly reborn doesn't sound quite as good.

But this is strictly speaking it was a one on one thing, not something available to everyone, quite frankly that would lead to many of the so far mentioned disasters and annual genocides planned and scheduled by governments turned dictatorships to keep population from instantly getting to the point where we live in apartments two meters square to make sure everyone has enough room. Not that it wont get to that.

Anyways, as for the cliche 'It'll get boring' and 'living forever is a curse' stuff; people will always invent a new console or video game to entertain you, heck, we're still waiting on the smellevision. You'll have plenty of time to go through phazes, try new trends and make your own, perfect skills and whatever. However, the one thing you'll never achieve is this 'perfect master of everything' people seem to think will happen, aside from new things coming around all the time you'll forget the last one as soon as you finish the next. That aside, if you wait long enough you'll forget what happened before and can relive what you already did and still find it fun. I wouldn't mind waiting to see what evolution turns out; maybe a second age of dinosaurs? There are plenty of things to unearth, by the time you've gone through a small fraction of them they'll have changed.

So I'd take the offer if some stranger or whatever gave it to me specifically, or some small and sparse group of individuals. Though I'm not sure I'd like waiting around for my name to be drawn for a genocide lottery.

The Turritopsis Nutricula jellyfish are immortal - http://en.wikipedia....opsis_nutricula

During adulthood they reverse back to childhood and start their life cycle all over again. How they destroy their scenescent cells to achieve this is not currently known. However in mammals (including humans) scenescent cells express their p16Ink4a gene.

Mouse antibodies that target the p16Ink4a gene have been developed which kill their scenescent cells. Heres the stunning thing, the antibodies work in humans - http://www.abcam.com...12-ab54210.html

You'll need to wait 20 years until it hits the market however you are able to buy this off that site right now lol. Would you try it if you were 80? I would.

Edited by Mr Right Wing
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thats an awful lot of years!!

looking back it seems that Moses lived for 900 years, it seems many from the Bible lived for a few hundred years. maybe their years were a lot shorter than ours at the time, because as time goes on, those in the bible start living shorter and shorter lives.

Bless her, I'd end up under the patio if I made her hoover for 43,200 years! (i'm only joking I'm totally hen pecked really lol)

Yes, I've noticed that in the Bible too. Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese historical records have people living incredible lifespans too.

Edited by Mr Right Wing
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You seem to not know a lot about history.

There were far more wars in history, through the ages more cooperations came to existence, look at Europe for example. More unities are being formed..try and use that in your -warfare forever- logic. We're slowly moving away from those things.

Agreed there is still a lot of warfare, but not to the same degree as before, surely you must understand is.

You`d have thought by now we would not have wars, but just because there were far more in history, much down to the fact of gaining power, we still have the same thing going on today....instead of concentrating on stopping wars for good, man has been concentrating on building better killing machines...because of this the "caution" is there.

What has happened over the years, is the power men have realised it is much more beneficial to gain power by making themselves as rich as possible, and we live in a world today where you do not have to kill people to achieve this anymore, you just have to run a bank, a country or an oil field.

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probly should of made this a poll

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Yes quality of life is getting better...no doubt about that, but the wars around the world are not!

As a matter of fact they're getting worse, unless you judge the high quality of wars by the amount of firepower and 'drama' factor involved. If you judge the low quality by death count and various conditions, then I personally have the belief you are right, so would everyone who has suffered in a war; trigger happy, most likely dead, 'tough guys' aside.

Although I must say, maybe the quality of life is getting 'too good' where it is getting good, keeping in mind poverty still exists. As for 'too good' I mean the likes of far to readily available food and a huge population; the latter of which leads to a higher demand for food, a higher amount of waste products and basically a higher everything bar space, jobs and a fair amount of necessary things. And our high population also gives all forms of diseases a steady platform of testing and development, as well as a steady steam of hosts and test subjects which very commonly do various activities which can allow all number of viruses or diseases etc. to spread. That's just my theory, don't quote me because you'll look stupid using it given my age. However the ready availability of food which is a result of 'better living conditions' is also, in my opinion, an example of living conditions becoming 'too good' given the higher percentages of obesity today; but then again, there are also lower percentages of malnutrition, I think.

Just a double warning, don't quote me on any of that given its a patchwork of what I know-or think I do-, and quoting a person my age would be considered a laughable unreliable source by many.

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Ok Trakkia, will not quote you, but what is your age, seeing you have mention about it twice?

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Ok Trakkia, will not quote you, but what is your age, seeing you have mention about it twice?

A jealously guarded and often mistaken-for someone younger- secret.

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You'll need to wait 20 years until it hits the market however you are able to buy this off that site right now lol. Would you try it if you were 80? I would.

I love it when youngsters say things like, "Oh, I wouldn't want to live beyond 90." Wait till you get there and then see what you think.

We die for evolutionary reasons. In nature it is essentially impossible for an animal to live indefinitely. Sooner or later a predator or a disease or an accident gets it. Therefore there is no gain to be had for genes to evolve that keep us young, nor to prevent the diseases of age, and so on. The genes gain only by maximizing the chances of perpetuation into the next generation. Therefore, get them grown up, get them reproducing, get me (a gene) into the next generation. After that let the animal die. It has done what I want. It might be better if it lived longer and produced even more of me, but that is not possible, so don't waste energy evolving such genes.

I think eventually humanity will find ways to interfere with this and enable us to stay young indefinitely, which will not end death (there still will be accidents) but will nevertheless eagerly be adopted.

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I love it when youngsters say things like, "Oh, I wouldn't want to live beyond 90." Wait till you get there and then see what you think.

We die for evolutionary reasons. In nature it is essentially impossible for an animal to live indefinitely. Sooner or later a predator or a disease or an accident gets it. Therefore there is no gain to be had for genes to evolve that keep us young, nor to prevent the diseases of age, and so on. The genes gain only by maximizing the chances of perpetuation into the next generation. Therefore, get them grown up, get them reproducing, get me (a gene) into the next generation. After that let the animal die. It has done what I want. It might be better if it lived longer and produced even more of me, but that is not possible, so don't waste energy evolving such genes.

I think eventually humanity will find ways to interfere with this and enable us to stay young indefinitely, which will not end death (there still will be accidents) but will nevertheless eagerly be adopted.

what you're saying strictly applies to a specie as whole, cycle of life enables evolution and improvement of species over time. But if you look at individual standpoint, for a member of specie it is better to be immortal, or better say, ageless, because as you said, sickness and accidents could always kill you. So the main issue remains that humans as specie would lose if one day dicovery of Fountain of Youth is made available for everyone. But individuals would greatly benefit from such discovery as long as they keep it to themselves.

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A jealously guarded and often mistaken-for someone younger- secret.

Hey Trakkia, as long as your reasoning is as good as your spelling, your standpoints are as good as any others :)

Point is that life isn't getting better for all people, only for selected few, most of the population still fights day by day for their piece of bread. I think in average, quality is increasing, but this is just temporary state, because as in any systems, it will eventually come into equilibrium.

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We weren't meant to live forever, not even this long. Medicines and higher standards of living have allowed us to live longer than normal. Our world has more people in it than it ever had.

People talking about increasing their age a bit through physical changes as a result of taking some drug. But you're forgetting the mind. What if you hypothetically just extended your life as a vegetable? Hardly desirable.

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We weren't meant to live forever, not even this long. Medicines and higher standards of living have allowed us to live longer than normal. Our world has more people in it than it ever had.

How long we were meant to live is a hard question to answer; we don't want to die, so it would seem we were meant to live forever, but something got in the way. That the world has lots of people is to my mind a good thing, provided they are fed and so on, which is not the case, but not because we couldn't do it but because of our cultural and political barriers. It's hard to say what the carrying capacity of the earth might be, and it's probably best that we not test it too hard, but population growth is stabilizing everywhere so I'm not too concerned.
People talking about increasing their age a bit through physical changes as a result of taking some drug. But you're forgetting the mind. What if you hypothetically just extended your life as a vegetable? Hardly desirable.
Why do you think extending youth would not also extend the mind's youth? The mind is not separate from the body. I suppose there is a limit to how much memory can be stored in our brains, but I suspect we don't even begin to approach it in our lifetimes -- and by the time that became a problem we would find ways to enlarge our memory capacity.
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Point is that life isn't getting better for all people, only for selected few, most of the population still fights day by day for their piece of bread. I think in average, quality is increasing, but this is just temporary state, because as in any systems, it will eventually come into equilibrium.

I think the "selected few" that you speak of is the vast majority of us, and your description of people fighting day by day for sustenance is not accurate; this is now a marked minority.

Not that most people are wealthy, or even comfortable, but that most people get on well and that the definition of poverty keeps improving.

The physical principle that all systems have limits will bite us someday, but I think rank pessimism, considering the progress of the last couple of centuries, is completely misplaced.

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We weren't meant to live forever, not even this long. Medicines and higher standards of living have allowed us to live longer than normal. Our world has more people in it than it ever had.

And you know this how?

that's the same logic that was used back in the day where ppl were afraid to let a train go faster than 20miles an hour ..because man was not meant to go that fast. Glib!

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How long we were meant to live is a hard question to answer; we don't want to die, so it would seem we were meant to live forever, but something got in the way. That the world has lots of people is to my mind a good thing, provided they are fed and so on, which is not the case, but not because we couldn't do it but because of our cultural and political barriers. It's hard to say what the carrying capacity of the earth might be, and it's probably best that we not test it too hard, but population growth is stabilizing everywhere so I'm not too concerned.

Well we are driven by survival. We have surpassed what nature intended. Joe Rogan described us as mould on the sandwich, the big cities, a cancer. Elongating our lives and going at this rate could only mean the mould growing larger and the cancerous lumps on the world growing bigger.

Why do you think extending youth would not also extend the mind's youth? The mind is not separate from the body. I suppose there is a limit to how much memory can be stored in our brains, but I suspect we don't even begin to approach it in our lifetimes -- and by the time that became a problem we would find ways to enlarge our memory capacity.

Sorry, yes you are right. Healthy body means a healthy mind and vice versa. But I believe there is a time when you need to accept you've had your time and it's time up. To accept such a thing is coupled with a healthy mind. Maybe memory might be similar to that of a computer hard drive. If there is no space or the memory is no longer in use, the memories are forgotten and replaced with the newly acquired memories.

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Well we are driven by survival. We have surpassed what nature intended. Joe Rogan described us as mould on the sandwich, the big cities, a cancer. Elongating our lives and going at this rate could only mean the mould growing larger and the cancerous lumps on the world growing bigger.

We do lots of things that nature never intended. I think describing us as a cancer is just silly. sorry 'bout that.

Sorry, yes you are right. Healthy body means a healthy mind and vice versa. But I believe there is a time when you need to accept you've had your time and it's time up. To accept such a thing is coupled with a healthy mind.

Of course we accept it; we accept lots of things we don't like and would change if we could.

Maybe memory might be similar to that of a computer hard drive. If there is no space or the memory is no longer in use, the memories are forgotten and replaced with the newly acquired memories.
Memory is stored in brain matter and brain matter is finite, so this has to be the way you describe it. All I say is it is entirely possible that artificial means of expanding memory will be found.
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We do lots of things that nature never intended. I think describing us as a cancer is just silly. sorry 'bout that.

Well our cities are described as cancers, as Joe Rogan put it. They keep growing, they're a brown spot on the world, hit it with a hurricane or an earthquake and they will rebuild back up. Likening the Earth to a living entity and the cities possessing similar characteristics to cancers. It isn't all too absurd to think of them as such.

Memory is stored in brain matter and brain matter is finite, so this has to be the way you describe it. All I say is it is entirely possible that artificial means of expanding memory will be found.

The ways of storing memory artificially would be a huge step. Essentially it would mean memories would be able to be broadcasted as well and shared.

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I think of our cities as places where a sufficient mass of people can be together to make high culture and all sorts of services economical, while rural life is just plain tiresome. Walks in the country and horseback rides take you only so far.

If you want to stop urban sprawl -- not a bad idea at all -- push for a land use tax or a land use conversion tax. The best way to get less of something is to tax it.

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I think of our cities as places where a sufficient mass of people can be together to make high culture and all sorts of services economical, while rural life is just plain tiresome. Walks in the country and horseback rides take you only so far.

If you want to stop urban sprawl -- not a bad idea at all -- push for a land use tax or a land use conversion tax. The best way to get less of something is to tax it.

Yes, they can be used for that. But there are some cities which are very detached from community and culture. They can also be hubs of high pollution. High density population is more susceptible to super virus'. You could say that is natures way of evening things out.

City population is increasing where rural populations are decreasing all over the world. Is this entirely desirable?

Well you could tax that. But due to the high density of the population, infrastructure and property costs would have increased in the city area as well. In the end that sort of thing just becomes a money making scheme.

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the only way your going to stop urban sprall is to... 1) stop Breeding or 2) push the little red button that lets fly everything we have and start over again with whatever remains after everyone else does the same.. Humanity is never going to stop breeding.

I don't know if i should be asking "Shall we play a game?"

Or screaming "Soilent green is people."!

and that is another reason i would not want to live forever, who would want to live forever in a standing room only human society where our only companions are Lice, fleas, rats and cockroaches.

or in an irradiated world where whats left is mutated and not pleasent to be around.

Edited by mysticwerewolf
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Personally, I would love to see what happens way in future. To live to see more space exploration and to possibly go out there myself? That would be awesome. But looking at our psyches....I don't know if we would be able to handle it.

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Personally, I would love to see what happens way in future. To live to see more space exploration and to possibly go out there myself? That would be awesome. But looking at our psyches....I don't know if we would be able to handle it.

Sure we could handle it. Look at the hundreds of games, even MMOs that deal with exploration and conquest of universe. And looking at the progress of our tech, no sooner we will be able to experience full virtual reality entertainment, so what would be real and what will be not? Humans are quite adaptable for new experiences.

But basic question of the OP is: would eternal life be good or bad for men? And the answer is: it would be bad for humans as a whole specie, but extremely good for immortal individuals (as long as others don't know about and don't have immortality).

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The vampire myth contains the idea that even though they don't age and die they nevertheless tire of life, and yearn for the past and don't like the present culture.

I use to wonder why that idea got incorporated into the myth (we can learn from myths), and as I grew older came to realize that there is a truth there -- we do yearn for the culture of our youth -- and the world has gone and left us behind.

Of course nowadays we have all sorts of ways to keep the culture we had when we were young around us -- certainly that is why "oldies" disks and so on sell well. I suspect that if aging ended, the rate of cultural change would slow to a crawl, since older people would more and more dominate the population, so adaptation would not be so difficult.

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Sure we could handle it. Look at the hundreds of games, even MMOs that deal with exploration and conquest of universe. And looking at the progress of our tech, no sooner we will be able to experience full virtual reality entertainment, so what would be real and what will be not? Humans are quite adaptable for new experiences.

But basic question of the OP is: would eternal life be good or bad for men? And the answer is: it would be bad for humans as a whole specie, but extremely good for immortal individuals (as long as others don't know about and don't have immortality).

The impression I got from glorybebe's post is that our psyches wouldn't be able to handle living for such an extended period of time.

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The impression I got from glorybebe's post is that our psyches wouldn't be able to handle living for such an extended period of time.

I wouldn't mind trying.
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