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I wish we could leave people like this alone, why does this kid have to endure a life of being a lab rat? Also, giving "mankind the gift of eternal life" is a

I wish we could leave people like this alone, why does this kid have to endure a life of being a lab rat? Also, giving "mankind the gift of eternal life" is a flawed idea. Simply by improving our medical science which has given people a longer lifespan has caused a ridiculous amount of problems. There are too many people on this planet and by creating more and more that live longer and longer we are sacrificing the longevity of the human race as a whole, not to mention the other life on this planet.

lukev 16y ago
Disagree strongly. At risk of sounding too metaphorical, death is the greatest enemy of the human race. It represents the loss of unique and worthwhile personalities, and places a strict upper bound on mortal human achievement. Of course we'll have to deal with the sociological and economic ramifications of that in the scope of limited resources. But it is entirely appropriate to rage against the dying of the light.
- TamDenholm 16y ago
  I suppose i was taking a contrarian stance but i still believe that right now humans living longer is causing many problems that just arent being addressed at all. Taking social problems as an example, governments are scared to do anything about it because they'd have to do things like raising the retirement age, which is what France had major problems with recently. The people that dont want things to change for the older population are the older population and that is the demographic that is already huge and getting larger and larger and because their against it, nothing will get done. This is a very specific argument but my point applies to the broader problem.
deleted 16y ago
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orangecat 16y ago
The "problems" you mention are largely because we've pushed back death by a few decades without doing much about aging. by creating more and more that live longer and longer we are sacrificing the longevity of the human race as a whole, not to mention the other life on this planet. Neither of those assertions are clear. Arguably the opposite is true; people may end up caring about the environment a lot more if they can expect to live for centuries rather than decades.
- TamDenholm 16y ago
  Taking your argument of the environment, if there werent so many people, then we wouldnt need to care about it. On practically every TV show about natives of a country they only take what they need from the environment around them and are careful not to pillage it. If there werent so many people there wouldnt be a need for bustling metropolises and wouldnt have the impact that they create. My point is that if we didnt push back death we wouldnt need to do much about aging. I'm not saying we shouldnt advance as a society but IMO the vast majority of the problems of this earth are caused by people. But thats just my misanthropic view on life.
possibilistic 16y ago
How does taking a genetic sample turn someone into a lab rat? Once you have samples they get frozen at -80 indefinitely. There are not too many people on this earth yet either. My guess is that your analysis is coming from the wrong places. If there were too much human biomass, everything would be working to offset that equilibria. Granted our environmental impact is presently suboptimal, but that is changing as we see diminishing returns in existing methodologies. Who says immortality will even look like you picture it? Try thinking about what the world will look like in ten years--how accurate do you think you'll be? Science wouldn't be science if we could figure it out ahead of time. I am pursuing this line of research precisely to rebel againt this kind of attitude (no offense, of course). Every one of us--our perspectives, acquired knowledge and experience--is invaluable. On the same order of importance as genetic diversity. Our planet likely only gets one shot at reaching the stars (evolution got rather lucky to find the intelligence gradient). One day we will (hopefully) all agree on this, perhaps that being when Hollywood stops being so misanthropic and people start to appreciate the human capacity.

lukev 16y ago

Disagree strongly. At risk of sounding too metaphorical, death is the greatest enemy of the human race. It represents the loss of unique and worthwhile personalities, and places a strict upper bound on mortal human achievement. Of course we'll have to deal with the sociological and economic ramifications of that in the scope of limited resources. But it is entirely appropriate to rage against the dying of the light.

TamDenholm 16y ago
I suppose i was taking a contrarian stance but i still believe that right now humans living longer is causing many problems that just arent being addressed at all. Taking social problems as an example, governments are scared to do anything about it because they'd have to do things like raising the retirement age, which is what France had major problems with recently. The people that dont want things to change for the older population are the older population and that is the demographic that is already huge and getting larger and larger and because their against it, nothing will get done. This is a very specific argument but my point applies to the broader problem.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

orangecat 16y ago

The "problems" you mention are largely because we've pushed back death by a few decades without doing much about aging. by creating more and more that live longer and longer we are sacrificing the longevity of the human race as a whole, not to mention the other life on this planet. Neither of those assertions are clear. Arguably the opposite is true; people may end up caring about the environment a lot more if they can expect to live for centuries rather than decades.

TamDenholm 16y ago
Taking your argument of the environment, if there werent so many people, then we wouldnt need to care about it. On practically every TV show about natives of a country they only take what they need from the environment around them and are careful not to pillage it. If there werent so many people there wouldnt be a need for bustling metropolises and wouldnt have the impact that they create. My point is that if we didnt push back death we wouldnt need to do much about aging. I'm not saying we shouldnt advance as a society but IMO the vast majority of the problems of this earth are caused by people. But thats just my misanthropic view on life.

possibilistic 16y ago

How does taking a genetic sample turn someone into a lab rat? Once you have samples they get frozen at -80 indefinitely. There are not too many people on this earth yet either. My guess is that your analysis is coming from the wrong places. If there were too much human biomass, everything would be working to offset that equilibria. Granted our environmental impact is presently suboptimal, but that is changing as we see diminishing returns in existing methodologies. Who says immortality will even look like you picture it? Try thinking about what the world will look like in ten years--how accurate do you think you'll be? Science wouldn't be science if we could figure it out ahead of time. I am pursuing this line of research precisely to rebel againt this kind of attitude (no offense, of course). Every one of us--our perspectives, acquired knowledge and experience--is invaluable. On the same order of importance as genetic diversity. Our planet likely only gets one shot at reaching the stars (evolution got rather lucky to find the intelligence gradient). One day we will (hopefully) all agree on this, perhaps that being when Hollywood stops being so misanthropic and people start to appreciate the human capacity.