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Originally Posted by WanderingOak  I wouldn't want to live forever. If it were just me, I would get lonely right quick, with everybody else dropping dead from old age etc. If EVERYBODY could live 'forever', then unless we could figure a cheap, non-polluting way off of this rock, we would be heading down the road towards environmental disaster as we exceeded the carrying capacity of our home planet. What would be the point of living forever if you and everybody you knew was starving to death, or dying from thirst? I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I don't want to live in the Monkey House. |
Resources or a place to live wouldn't be a problem. Loneliness would for some people. But just remember that when they find a way to cheat death, it's not only you that will benefit but people close to you, too. And if all people close to you, after some millenia, die because of some disaster/accident, you can always meet new people.
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Originally Posted by WanderingOak Besides, I'm not afraid to die someday. I figure those who are must have lived a bad life... |
Or maybe they're having an awesome time and don't want this gift called life to end...
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Originally Posted by JimOfferman I can understand that my line of thinking on this matter may be hard to grasp. Humanity, in particularly our (?) Western culture, has a deeply embedded desire for eternal life. All major religions "lure" you in with some sort of promise of a life eternal. Immortality appears to be a de facto obsession for many of us. |
Actually, it is exactly the opposite. Eternal life in the way that we mean it (physically) is not embedded in our culture at all, to the point that if one shows this point of view that in some decades we will start to be able to fight death, the person listening will call him freak or something and have the same reaction you did: "What the hell, death is a natural part of life, what are you talking about!? Living forever? Come on...."
And religion plays a big role in this; again, it does the exact opposite effect of what you're saying. Every religion i know considers living forever after we die, instead of living forever in our lifetime.
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Originally Posted by JimOfferman I used to have a mortal fear of death and it has taken me quite some time to accept death as a natural part of life - mine as well as others. Death is the one certainty I have in this life and I've adopted the stance that I better not regret any of it, when death finally arrives. I suppose you could also say that nature is my religion - I see the force of nature (including the super natural) in everything. Nature means life. Nature means death. |
As i said before and explained in the links i previously put on the thread, death is not as certain as you may think it is.
You think that living physically forever is "unnatural", don't you? So we could say the same about medicine, that extends our lifespans from around 30 to around 80 years. Hell, let's destroy all the medicine technology so we can't
unnaturaly extend our human lifespan anymore and let's all only live for as much time as nature wants us to live
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Originally Posted by JimOfferman That is precisely what I meant when I said that choice looses its power and meaning. If you had unlimited time, you would not have to choose to spend your time wisely. You could waste millennia playing silly games, since there will always be more time to do the stuff that matters... |
Sounds good to me. I still don't get where's the problem in having unlimited time and being able to choose whatever you want to do for how long you want to do it.
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Originally Posted by JimOfferman If you desire to live forever, or just for an extended period of time, by all means do everything you can to realize that desire. I prefer to enjoy the precious little time I have and make the best use of it - even if that means I'll some times have to skip on a good game, so I can spend some time with my girlfriend instead. |
I never said that i'm going to spend my entire life trying to live more, that would indeed be senseless. I'm just trying to change some mindsets here.
The more people who believe that death can be beaten, the faster we will make it (since more people will donate/contribute to life-extending researches, technology, and stuff like that).