5 ms·

I feel like when we're able to put frozen brains in fresh bodies, refugees coming back from a different era will be lesser concern than the whole technological

by xyzzyz 11y ago

I feel like when we're able to put frozen brains in fresh bodies, refugees coming back from a different era will be lesser concern than the whole technological immortality thing. How do we ensure everyone has access to immortality (because this obviously needs to be a human right)? How then do we deal with population growth when people don't die of old age?

branchan 11y ago
How would immortality be a human right when most people around the world don't even have access to basic health services??
- iliis 11y ago
  Because having a right to something and actually getting said thing are sadly two quite different things.
- x3n0ph3n3 11y ago
  He doesn't understand the difference between a "right" and something that would be really nice if everyone had.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    Right; this is more like when the UN declared internet access a basic human right.
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    Most ethical theories of "rights" are sufficiently incoherent that there's very little difference.
oppositelock 11y ago
> How then do we deal with population growth when people don't die of old age? That's a great future problem to have, and it's the same problem that people brought up at the dawn of the age of antibiotics. Our lives have gotten better for it. Who knows, maybe by the time immortality is possible, Earth won't be our only home, so population will be less of a problem.
- stcredzero 11y ago
  That's a great future problem to have It always looks like that from the "before" side of things. Our lives have gotten better for it. That is the historical trend. But it's only a trend, so beware of inductive reasoning. It's not firmly anchored in any kind of mechanism or theory. There are reasons to believe that immortality overlaid on a capitalist free-market system might be horribly dystopian. More likely, horribly dystopian and utopian all at once. In fact, I'd say the Bay Area is already horribly dystopian and utopian all at once.
  - FeepingCreature 11y ago
    I for one am thankful that our present-day problems include "how do we keep our populations at a sustainable level" and not "how do we deal with all the corpses from all the pestilence we're having".
    - stcredzero 11y ago
      "how do we deal with all the corpses from all the pestilence we're having". There is still no guarantee we won't end up in that situation again.
reasonattlm 11y ago
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192186/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192186/ "A common objection against starting a large-scale biomedical war on aging is the fear of catastrophic population consequences (overpopulation). This fear is only exacerbated by the fact that no detailed demographic projections for radical life extension scenario have been conducted so far. This study explores different demographic scenarios and population projections, in order to clarify what could be the demographic consequences of a successful biomedical war on aging. A general conclusion of this study is that population changes are surprisingly slow in their response to a dramatic life extension. For example, we applied the cohort-component method of population projections to 2005 Swedish population for several scenarios of life extension and a fertility schedule observed in 2005. Even for very long 100-year projection horizon, with the most radical life extension scenario (assuming no aging at all after age 60), the total population increases by 22% only (from 9.1 to 11.0 million). Moreover, if some members of society reject to use new anti-aging technologies for some religious or any other reasons (inconvenience, non-compliance, fear of side effects, costs, etc.), then the total population size may even decrease over time. Thus, even in the case of the most radical life extension scenario, population growth could be relatively slow and may not necessarily lead to overpopulation. Therefore, the real concerns should be placed not on the threat of catastrophic population consequences (overpopulation), but rather on such potential obstacles to a success of biomedical war on aging, as scientific, organizational, and financial limitations."
- xyzzyz 11y ago
  Even for very long 100-year projection horizon, with the most radical life extension scenario (assuming no aging at all after age 60), the total population increases by 22% only. Only 22% per 100 years? That's, like, 7 times over 1000 years, and 50 times over 2000 years. Two millenia is really not that long period when we're talking about immortality.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    No 22% over where it would be without ageing.
cerebrum 11y ago
Digitalize humans and let them live in simulated worlds.
- lwhalen 11y ago
  Did that. Look at the mess you (we) have made already.
- CM30 11y ago
  So kind of like Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead from series 4 of Doctor Who? Or Dark Water/Death in Heaven from series 8? But the idea is definitely an interesting one. More so if humanity decides to avoid the science fiction cliche of the simulated worlds all being like modern day Earth and actually has them based on any wacky theme you can imagine. You could let people live in a simulated version of the time period they were originally frozen in. Or an historical period that'd just be interesting to experience. Or even a fictional world with fantasy elements, cause there's probably a certain amount of people that would love to live their main existence in the likes of World of Warcraft.
bryanlarsen 11y ago
1) countries in developed countries quite regularly spend $100K-$1M to treat illnesses in poor people. I think a larger concern would be that they would choose to spend $50K to freeze a severely ill poor person than $1M to treat that same person. 2) as long as immortals don't have more children than mortals, then immortality has a surprisingly small effect on population growth. The effects I'd be worried about would be the effects of having the majority of the world's wealth and power being held in the hands of immortals and cryogenic trusts.
- nine_k 11y ago
  Ever read 'Altered Carbon' by Richard Morgan? This SF novel (quite a page-turner, btw) is set exactly in the world like that: changing bodies extends life, and the powerful understandably have more access to that, accumulating wealth.
  - Aelinsaar 11y ago
    Absolutely fascinating way of looking at things, the concept of "Resleeving".
  - siquick 11y ago
    Soon to be released as a series on Netflix http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/netflix-altered-carbon-series-order-sci-fi-1201683629/ http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/netflix-altered-carbon-serie...
- wiredfool 11y ago
  That's part of the plot of Cyroburn, by Lois McMaster Bujold. (Come to think of it, Neuromancer as well)
x3n0ph3n3 11y ago
Easy: you either get immortality or you get to have children, but not both.
- tempestn 11y ago
  Even if extreme measures did become necessary, they wouldn't have to be that extreme. For example, if everyone were limited to a maximum of one child, even if no one ever died from any cause, the population would still be capped at double the starting level.
  - prodigal_erik 11y ago
    Do you mean every couple is limited to one child? Because if every person could have one, every couple could have two and they all live forever, that grows without limit. But if everyone gets half a child, that's basically Niven's birthright system.
    - tempestn 11y ago
      If a couple has two children, each person in that couple has two children as well, not one. IE, if you ask a father of two how many children he has, the answer is "two", not "one; the other one is my wife's". So saying each person gets one child is basically equivalent to saying each couple gets one child, except there's no need to include the concept of a "couple" in the equation.
zyxley 11y ago
> How then do we deal with population growth when people don't die of old age? That's not nearly as much of a problem as people think it would be. About 60 million people die per year, and about two-thirds of that comes from age-related causes. Something like 75 million babies are born each year, and that number is gradually but constantly shrinking as standards of living rise and people have fewer children. The most likely result in a world of reliable anti-aging treatments would be a gradual slowing of new births to a trickle long before the reduced death rate ever became a real logistical problem.
- xyzzyz 11y ago
  I don't see it the same way. Being immortal and fertile all the time could completely change the baby-making dynamics. What if people have fewer children because they can focus on their career earlier in their lives? Were they immortal, they could start making children while they're 100 years old and settled.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    I suspect that we would see a decline in the number of children born rather than an increase. If you could put off indefinitely having children many would do so until they died of some non-ageing related cause.
    - sooheon 11y ago
      I can also conjecture about the plausible couple who, having had their beloved son and daughter leave the nest, and with visits and calls growing less frequent, decide to go for round two.
foxyv 11y ago
A favorite author of mine is Wil McCarthy. He pretty much wrote an entire series on this subject. =D

by xyzzyz 11y ago

branchan 11y ago

How would immortality be a human right when most people around the world don't even have access to basic health services??

iliis 11y ago
Because having a right to something and actually getting said thing are sadly two quite different things.
x3n0ph3n3 11y ago
He doesn't understand the difference between a "right" and something that would be really nice if everyone had.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  Right; this is more like when the UN declared internet access a basic human right.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  Most ethical theories of "rights" are sufficiently incoherent that there's very little difference.

oppositelock 11y ago

> How then do we deal with population growth when people don't die of old age? That's a great future problem to have, and it's the same problem that people brought up at the dawn of the age of antibiotics. Our lives have gotten better for it. Who knows, maybe by the time immortality is possible, Earth won't be our only home, so population will be less of a problem.

stcredzero 11y ago
That's a great future problem to have It always looks like that from the "before" side of things. Our lives have gotten better for it. That is the historical trend. But it's only a trend, so beware of inductive reasoning. It's not firmly anchored in any kind of mechanism or theory. There are reasons to believe that immortality overlaid on a capitalist free-market system might be horribly dystopian. More likely, horribly dystopian and utopian all at once. In fact, I'd say the Bay Area is already horribly dystopian and utopian all at once.
- FeepingCreature 11y ago
  I for one am thankful that our present-day problems include "how do we keep our populations at a sustainable level" and not "how do we deal with all the corpses from all the pestilence we're having".
  - stcredzero 11y ago
    "how do we deal with all the corpses from all the pestilence we're having". There is still no guarantee we won't end up in that situation again.

reasonattlm 11y ago

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192186/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192186/ "A common objection against starting a large-scale biomedical war on aging is the fear of catastrophic population consequences (overpopulation). This fear is only exacerbated by the fact that no detailed demographic projections for radical life extension scenario have been conducted so far. This study explores different demographic scenarios and population projections, in order to clarify what could be the demographic consequences of a successful biomedical war on aging. A general conclusion of this study is that population changes are surprisingly slow in their response to a dramatic life extension. For example, we applied the cohort-component method of population projections to 2005 Swedish population for several scenarios of life extension and a fertility schedule observed in 2005. Even for very long 100-year projection horizon, with the most radical life extension scenario (assuming no aging at all after age 60), the total population increases by 22% only (from 9.1 to 11.0 million). Moreover, if some members of society reject to use new anti-aging technologies for some religious or any other reasons (inconvenience, non-compliance, fear of side effects, costs, etc.), then the total population size may even decrease over time. Thus, even in the case of the most radical life extension scenario, population growth could be relatively slow and may not necessarily lead to overpopulation. Therefore, the real concerns should be placed not on the threat of catastrophic population consequences (overpopulation), but rather on such potential obstacles to a success of biomedical war on aging, as scientific, organizational, and financial limitations."

xyzzyz 11y ago
Even for very long 100-year projection horizon, with the most radical life extension scenario (assuming no aging at all after age 60), the total population increases by 22% only. Only 22% per 100 years? That's, like, 7 times over 1000 years, and 50 times over 2000 years. Two millenia is really not that long period when we're talking about immortality.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  No 22% over where it would be without ageing.

cerebrum 11y ago

Digitalize humans and let them live in simulated worlds.

lwhalen 11y ago
Did that. Look at the mess you (we) have made already.
CM30 11y ago
So kind of like Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead from series 4 of Doctor Who? Or Dark Water/Death in Heaven from series 8? But the idea is definitely an interesting one. More so if humanity decides to avoid the science fiction cliche of the simulated worlds all being like modern day Earth and actually has them based on any wacky theme you can imagine. You could let people live in a simulated version of the time period they were originally frozen in. Or an historical period that'd just be interesting to experience. Or even a fictional world with fantasy elements, cause there's probably a certain amount of people that would love to live their main existence in the likes of World of Warcraft.

bryanlarsen 11y ago

1) countries in developed countries quite regularly spend $100K-$1M to treat illnesses in poor people. I think a larger concern would be that they would choose to spend $50K to freeze a severely ill poor person than $1M to treat that same person. 2) as long as immortals don't have more children than mortals, then immortality has a surprisingly small effect on population growth. The effects I'd be worried about would be the effects of having the majority of the world's wealth and power being held in the hands of immortals and cryogenic trusts.

nine_k 11y ago
Ever read 'Altered Carbon' by Richard Morgan? This SF novel (quite a page-turner, btw) is set exactly in the world like that: changing bodies extends life, and the powerful understandably have more access to that, accumulating wealth.
- Aelinsaar 11y ago
  Absolutely fascinating way of looking at things, the concept of "Resleeving".
- siquick 11y ago
  Soon to be released as a series on Netflix http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/netflix-altered-carbon-series-order-sci-fi-1201683629/ http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/netflix-altered-carbon-serie...
wiredfool 11y ago
That's part of the plot of Cyroburn, by Lois McMaster Bujold. (Come to think of it, Neuromancer as well)

x3n0ph3n3 11y ago

Easy: you either get immortality or you get to have children, but not both.

tempestn 11y ago
Even if extreme measures did become necessary, they wouldn't have to be that extreme. For example, if everyone were limited to a maximum of one child, even if no one ever died from any cause, the population would still be capped at double the starting level.
- prodigal_erik 11y ago
  Do you mean every couple is limited to one child? Because if every person could have one, every couple could have two and they all live forever, that grows without limit. But if everyone gets half a child, that's basically Niven's birthright system.
  - tempestn 11y ago
    If a couple has two children, each person in that couple has two children as well, not one. IE, if you ask a father of two how many children he has, the answer is "two", not "one; the other one is my wife's". So saying each person gets one child is basically equivalent to saying each couple gets one child, except there's no need to include the concept of a "couple" in the equation.

zyxley 11y ago

> How then do we deal with population growth when people don't die of old age? That's not nearly as much of a problem as people think it would be. About 60 million people die per year, and about two-thirds of that comes from age-related causes. Something like 75 million babies are born each year, and that number is gradually but constantly shrinking as standards of living rise and people have fewer children. The most likely result in a world of reliable anti-aging treatments would be a gradual slowing of new births to a trickle long before the reduced death rate ever became a real logistical problem.

xyzzyz 11y ago
I don't see it the same way. Being immortal and fertile all the time could completely change the baby-making dynamics. What if people have fewer children because they can focus on their career earlier in their lives? Were they immortal, they could start making children while they're 100 years old and settled.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  I suspect that we would see a decline in the number of children born rather than an increase. If you could put off indefinitely having children many would do so until they died of some non-ageing related cause.
  - sooheon 11y ago
    I can also conjecture about the plausible couple who, having had their beloved son and daughter leave the nest, and with visits and calls growing less frequent, decide to go for round two.

foxyv 11y ago

A favorite author of mine is Wil McCarthy. He pretty much wrote an entire series on this subject. =D