Immortality - are you ready for it?

[Pingfah]

Yes, but that's very hard. What if the world ends next year?

 

[dave_R_treker]

I would love to live a long time. How long? I'm not sure. I would love to be able to see us travel to the nearest inhabitable world.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Yes, but that's very hard. What if the world ends next year?

There are too many variables to consider, the most important one being how the Earth would end. Also by the time there's a drug for immortality wouldn't there be more advanced technology?

 

[Goliath]

I picked "400 to 800 years."

Life is too short. But, immortality? No.

Mortality is the source of all value. We never truly appreciate anything until we lose it. When we think something will be around forever, we just take it for granted.

I can't prove it, but my gut instinct tells me that a society of immortals would almost surely degenerate into cruelty and depravity beyond the wildest fantasies of De Sade

 

[Pingfah]

Yes, but that's very hard. What if the world ends next year?

There are too many variables to consider, the most important one being how the Earth would end. Also by the time there's a drug for immortality wouldn't there be more advanced technology?

Yes, but maybe not faster than light technology or something similar which is what you'll need to have a ship worth using.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Yes, but that's very hard. What if the world ends next year?

There are too many variables to consider, the most important one being how the Earth would end. Also by the time there's a drug for immortality wouldn't there be more advanced technology?

Yes, but maybe not faster than light technology or something similar which is what you'll need to have a ship worth using.

But if you're completely unable to die and you don't have to eat or anything then it's better to spend your time flying through space in a ship at sublight speeds aiming in a direction of your choice than just floating through space unable to change direction. You could always pass wind but I don't think it would be as efficient as ship propulsion.

 

[trekkiedane]

If you live forever you won't need FTL travel, you can take your good time getting whereever it is you're going.

______
Edit:
This immortality thought experiment isn't fantasy as in unable to die, but SciFi as in medical technology. At least that's how I thought when posting it.

 

[RoJoHen]

If you live forever you won't need FTL travel, you can take your good time getting whereever it is you're going.

You might need a good book...or a million...to keep you occupied.

 

[Pingfah]

There are too many variables to consider, the most important one being how the Earth would end. Also by the time there's a drug for immortality wouldn't there be more advanced technology?

Yes, but maybe not faster than light technology or something similar which is what you'll need to have a ship worth using.

But if you're completely unable to die and you don't have to eat or anything then it's better to spend your time flying through space in a ship at sublight speeds aiming in a direction of your choice than just floating through space unable to change direction. You could always pass wind but I don't think it would be as efficient as ship propulsion.

Yeah sure, but you could be talking about 100s of thousands of years before you get anywhere worth going. I suppose the fact that you still have an infinity to live is some comfort though.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Yes, but maybe not faster than light technology or something similar which is what you'll need to have a ship worth using.

But if you're completely unable to die and you don't have to eat or anything then it's better to spend your time flying through space in a ship at sublight speeds aiming in a direction of your choice than just floating through space unable to change direction. You could always pass wind but I don't think it would be as efficient as ship propulsion.

Yeah sure, but you could be talking about 100s of thousands of years before you get anywhere worth going. I suppose the fact that you still have an infinity to live is some comfort though.

Build plenty of solar panels and take plenty of music Cd's. Oh and some kind of pedal dynamo might help as a backup.

 

[trekkiedane]

If you live forever you won't need FTL travel, you can take your good time getting whereever it is you're going.

You might need a good book...or a million...to keep you occupied.

That is eerie; my first thought for that post was "you don't need FTL, just a ship with a good library".

 

[captcalhoun]

yes, i wanna live for ever. i foresee nano-bot repair machines being able to extend our lifespans until we can have either cybernetic or cloned replacements.

count me in for going out to explore strange new worlds and seek out new life-forms and new civilisations in my extended life-span.

that and watching James Bond 9000

 

[trekkiedane]

I picked "400 to 800 years."

Life is too short. But, immortality? No.

Mortality is the source of all value. We never truly appreciate anything until we lose it. When we think something will be around forever, we just take it for granted.

I can't prove it, but my gut instinct tells me that a society of immortals would almost surely degenerate into cruelty and depravity beyond the wildest fantasies of De Sade

I would think the opposite to be true: If you have this extremely long life you'd be extra careful not to lose it.

 

[blaXXer]

And at the end, if you're really bored, you could do a Wowbagger and attempt to insult every single being in the Universe - individually, personally, and in alphabetical order.

you know, I would do that first

 

[Miss Chicken]

I think if we were all immortal than society would stagnant. Also we wouldn't be able to have too many more new people so eventually we would stop having children. We would probably run out of ideas and eventually technology with cease to advance.

If only some were immortal they would probably become an elite class and treat the mortals like shit.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

I think if we were all immortal than society would stagnant. Also we wouldn't be able to have too many more new people so eventually we would stop having children. We would probably run out of ideas and eventually technology with cease to advance.

If only some were immortal they would probably become an elite class and treat the mortals like shit.

Actually technology would advance exponentially. It wouldn't be long before we were building underground citys and enormous skyscrapers. GM foods would be grown inside multi levelled warehouses and the race would be on to colonise the moon. In the meantime there probably would indeed be a limit put on how many kids you could have, probably one per couple.

 

[TGTheodore]

Fast forward to 4523 A.D.

Hey! I just got my 12 billionth post on TrekBBS!

Hello? Hello? Bueller?

--Ted

 

[Goliath]

Michael Moorcock wrote about a society of immortals in his Dancers at the End of Time trilogy.

 

[CaptainWacky]

I wouldn't mind living forever. Might as well.

 

[Hermiod]

I had to vote "Untill I choose to not live any longer" simply because I would find immortality intolerable. People live long enough. Listen to Lorien from Babylon 5, he was wise.