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[Jackrabbit]

I have to agree with DJ and Aqizzar here, I haven't seen anything that doesn't suggest that the people in charge and the people who have been around for a long time are very resistant to change. Dying does have an important function and I don't really want to start on advancing life expectancy into the thousands until our ability to deal with overpopulation is more than just someone going 'well, we could do it if we tried.' It works in Samurai Jack, but you don't always suddenly get more competent at something if you believe in yourself more.

Besides, yeah, dying looks like it might suck, but does it really bother you that much? What freaks the hell outta me is early death, before I'm even 60. But death at 80 from old age? I'll cross that bridge when I come to it and I'll do it with no regrets and that, I think, is a better and more realistic goal to strive for than clinical immortality, which just sounds like waaaay more trouble than it's worth.

[Eagleon]

Besides, yeah, dying looks like it might suck, but does it really bother you that much? What freaks the hell outta me is early death, before I'm even 60. But death at 80 from old age? I'll cross that bridge when I come to it and I'll do it with no regrets and that, I think, is a better and more realistic goal to strive for than clinical immortality, which just sounds like waaaay more trouble than it's worth.

No you won't. The old adage of a peaceful contented death is a cultural delusion. We can't deal with old people wailing against the inevitable so we shut them up and make them think that's how they're supposed to be facing death. It gets us thinking about it too if we don't. You're going to be upset you're dying, unless you're upset by living, you're deluded enough to believe in an afterlife with any certainty, or you haven't thought about it at all. Which becomes ever less likely as you mature.

Knowing many older people that are still pushing brilliant new ideas and art into the world, I object to the very notion that losing them is any kind of beneficial. My grandfather was a master carpenter. I never knew him for long enough to learn any of his skills, and that bothers me.

And I'm not a furry. (or have furry tendencies)

Just so we're clear.   

Lol angry face.

Yeah I've noticed a decent amount of furries are transhumanists, but not any more than any other internet subculture. It's a popular concept. The only real difference is they might want a tail or something with their immortality.

[Vactor]

Lots of stuff

While ideologically a lot of transhuman ideas are founded in a desire for good in the world, it realistically is unlikely to work out as theorized.  The world and its resources are finite, and looking simply at standard medical treatment we see that it is the wealthy that benefit first and foremost from any advancements, it is foolish to think that transhumanism would pan out any differently. 

There are also rather severe ethical problems with this, as with your proposed breeding programs.  The state/organization preventing a person from having children because they don't fit the mold would be considered tyrannical by most.  Modern governments are based upon the freedom of the individual, and the equality of man.  And while we can all get together and understand that after a few generations of weeding out genetic diseases and such humanity might be better off, many would not be ok with the cost of liberty.   There are also issues of any eugenic effort getting tied up with other value assessments, such as heritage, societal worth, aesthetics.

I would be fond of transhuman technology, I would love to be able to extend my life and get to experience the future, but the question has to be asked, is me avoiding death truly benefiting society, or is it simply satisfying my inborn desires for self preservation and my own enjoyment of being alive.  It seems like the societal benefits argument is a disingenuous altruism mask of a completely understandable selfish desire.

I'm a little confused as to how this is turning into a discussion about furries as to me that is something completely unrelated.

[Soadreqm]

It's a question of aggregate, not specifics, and more importantly a question of politics.  One need only look at the U.S. Senate and its gerontocracy of thirty-year members to extrapolate what an undying legislature would look like.  The same thing appears across rulership throughout the world - nine times out of ten, if a person is making the rules, and they're significantly older than the population, it turns into a conservative anchor, as they consciously or not ground their policy decisions in the wisdom and nostalgia of their own glory days, instead of a rational appreciation of the present and future challenges.

Well, half the point of stagnating is that there won't be any challenges left. Which could be bad, I guess. :/ I think that humanity can kick up enough internal strife to avoid that, though, even if no aliens or giant space rocks turn up to wreck our shit. The future equivalent of those damn reds, forcing the millenia-old liches to either pour more money into the arms race and advance further, or die. And if none turn up, well, I think that would be an achievement all by itself. Living happily ever after until the stars die might not be ideal, but I'd say it's an okay consolation prize.

This is starting to raise some alarming questions of what, ultimately, is the point of advancing. Once mankind shrugs off death, what is there left to do? Where should the millenia-old liches turn their undead gazes? I'm expecting some new frontier to present itself. No matter how far mankind advances, there will always be something else to do, some new threat to endure, some new annoyance to remove.

How much do you think Mandelbrot would accomplish if he had to live in Pythagoras' shadow? Sometimes radical new ideas just can't get off the ground till the old guard dies. Old people tend to be conservative, and with immortality 99.9% of people would be old (or 100%, if we have to give up children for it).

So, if Pythagoras was still alive, and had been studying the secrets of mathematics for the last 2500 years, the field would be significantly less advanced than it is now? Doubt it. Can you actually name any single radical new idea that only got off the ground because people opposing it died of old age? Preferably one that wouldn't be obsoleted by clinical immortality. If Pythagoras had clung on to his outdated ideas about the nature of numbers, he would have simply passed away to obsolescence when someone who didn't surpassed him. Happens all the time to living people.

Well, assuming that there is any benefit to being right. I'm hoping there is.

AUGH new posts! Not reading them now. This is long enough as it is.

[DJ]

Democracy. Let me tell you, if old king Louie was still kicking the French wouldn't dare to build guillotines.

[Jackrabbit]

Besides, yeah, dying looks like it might suck, but does it really bother you that much? What freaks the hell outta me is early death, before I'm even 60. But death at 80 from old age? I'll cross that bridge when I come to it and I'll do it with no regrets and that, I think, is a better and more realistic goal to strive for than clinical immortality, which just sounds like waaaay more trouble than it's worth.

No you won't. The old adage of a peaceful contented death is a cultural delusion. We can't deal with old people wailing against the inevitable so we shut them up and make them think that's how they're supposed to be facing death. It gets us thinking about it too if we don't. You're going to be upset you're dying, unless you're upset by living, you're deluded enough to believe in an afterlife with any certainty, or you haven't thought about it at all. Which becomes ever less likely as you mature.

I'm not sure how to really argue this point, having not grown old and died yet. Let's just say I'll try and, since I'm not sold on this transhumanism thing (although cyborgs sound cool if they fall under the definition), it's really the best thing for me to strive for.

[Miggy]

How much do you think Mandelbrot would accomplish if he had to live in Pythagoras' shadow? Sometimes radical new ideas just can't get off the ground till the old guard dies. Old people tend to be conservative, and with immortality 99.9% of people would be old (or 100%, if we have to give up children for it).

There's a reason why you don't see any immortal species. It's not technically impossible, but any such specie would be pushed out of it's niche by ones with a limited lifespan, since they'd leave them in the dust in the evolutionary race. Cultural evolution is kinda similar.

I think this is a generalisation that is not necessarily valid. Most older people are conservative, but that doe snot mean all are. I do not think this is something that cannot be changed by habit. A multitude of companies thrive on the idea that "New is better!", yet it's the same people who make the new every time. They're simply forcing themselves to re-invent the wheel time and time again. I think in a society of immortality, conservatives would very quickly learn how obsolete conservatism can be sometimes. A hypothetical scientist who has lived to see the past 300 years worth of advancements would have seen a total overhaul of the way everything is created over half a dozen times. So many times it has been "The old" repressing "The new" idea. However, do you think the old will be hostile towards new ideas constantly, even after having been proven wrong several times over and over? Won't a society of immortal humans learn to be more open, if not to force, the new?

[DJ]

Yes, and then the whole humanity will smoke a peace pipe filled with pot, hold eachother's hands and sing Kumbaya, and peace and prosperity shall reign forever and nobody will ever want for anything.

[Jackrabbit]

You should probably reinforce your point with some actual discussion instead of meaningless sarcasm.

[DJ]

How can you respond seriously to fairy tales?

[Jackrabbit]

You mean, someone else's belief?

Explain why you believe that belief is wrong? I'm not going to instruct you on how to have a reasonable debate, work it out.

[DJ]

If human nature was really like that, communism would've worked out. I don't see how immortality changes anything, it just gives you more time to get even more bitter and jaded.

[Eagleon]

There will always be scarcity in a finite universe. I question the sense of limiting our advancement (especially in the face of the possibility of future digitization actually decreasing our needs) due to possible suffering when it already happens on a massive scale in the present day. Right now, though, it's a little premature to blame overpopulation for our scarcity when it's really an issue of logistics and overconsumption. There's a tremendous amount of resources untapped, wasted, and underdeveloped, and that's just on Earth. We're capable of supporting much more than the old panicked predictions of the mid-20th realized. It's just not something we're willing to do. Unless it's in people's faces, a person about to starve to death might as well be saying "Oh I could go for a snack today" for all the good it does them.

I don't think anyone in their right mind would say transhumanism is a solution for this, but it doesn't really claim to be. It doesn't preclude other solutions either, nor, fundamentally, does it say there are solutions. It's about improving humanity physically, sometimes mentally, to provide alternatives to the status-quo. There are optimists that think it will solve all our problems forever, but I'm not one of them. And yet I still am one. You can have more than one opinion and ideology comingled. Funny, that.

[Soadreqm]

Besides, yeah, dying looks like it might suck, but does it really bother you that much? What freaks the hell outta me is early death, before I'm even 60. But death at 80 from old age? I'll cross that bridge when I come to it and I'll do it with no regrets and that, I think, is a better and more realistic goal to strive for than clinical immortality, which just sounds like waaaay more trouble than it's worth.

Do you actually know any 80-year-olds who are healthy and not really showing the physical signs of old age, but still want to die? I certainly don't. I would venture that there are none. Everyone wants some more time. Does early death scare you because there is something inherently abhorrent about the earliness, or because it is CLOSER?

I would argue that dying at 80 because your body has degenerated beyond its ability to repair itself is no more "natural" than dying at 20 of some completely mundane disease that was left untreated. Or starving to death at 4. Or any other way to die at any other age, really. Extending the human lifespan has always been the goal of medicine. The goal of society as a whole, really. Every human wants to live, and has striven for life for all of history. To go quietly in the face of something you can avoid would be to deny everything you are.

What kind of emotionless abomination would NOT fear death?

[Jackrabbit]

I guess you're right. I suppose the reason I don't fear death by old age is the assumption I'll be 'done' by then, which I guess I won't be. That is, incidentally, the reason I fear an early death, because I don't want to die before I have sex, before I graduate, before I see Europe, before ect.

So I guess you have a point. I'm still wary about this transhumanism thing though, but Aqizzar and DJ seem to be the big ol' powerhouse debaters against it, I'll just watch, listen and learn.