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[Tumetsu]

Ok, let's assume that we invented way to stop ageing and therefore make you medically immortal. Meaning that you wouldn't die due old age, but accidents and serious illnesses might still catch you. To maintain your immortality you probably should visit every once in a while in hospital or whatever to do simple and quick process to keep your immortality on.

Thing is that to control population growth, you have to choose either immortality or having kids.

Which one would you choose, why and how you think it would affect the society?

Topic twisted rather quickly into space colonization which is also rather interesting topic so added it into topic title too :D

[Geeze]

But can I choose immortality and then adopt some kids?
Win-win-win situation
- I could live forever. I'm happy
- Some orphans could get a parent, therefor better future for them. They are happy
- No extra population. Government is happy.

[Paul Eres]

it's been shown that the planet can support over 10 trillion people if done right; also, space colonization of other planets will probably be feasible by the time medical immortality arrives, so this question is kind of a non-issue. not to mention that accidents will still happen, you can't be made immortal to a gunshot to the head even if you don't age, and just as many people die of accidents (car accidents, etc.) than aging, and those people wills till continue to die, so you'd still need more than 0 children for a replacement for the constant deaths due to accidents. in fact, if you cure aging, cancer, and heart disease, it's been calculated that the average lifespan would *still* only be 120 years old, because of all the accidents people have

but even if it went exactly as you described (which is unlikely) people could still choose to adopt if they really want kids, or to babysit, or to share kids (10 parents sharing the responsibility of raising one kid), or have virtual kids in virtual reality, ai kids, robot kids, etc.

[Tumetsu]

I don't know, there is estimations that this could be possible in this century, meaning a lot before space colonization. At least I think this is easier problem to solve than efficient space colonization. Especially because medical sciences tend to get bigger budgets. So I think we would have to deal with this here on Earth.

Also, I don't think we can manage 1 trillion people in reality in anytime "soon", since we have some serious problems already. Basically I think this too is a problem which is probably slower to solve than medical immortality, mainly due political reasons and what not.

Good point about 120 year old accidental death rate. In reality at least on longer time complete children forbid is probably not necessary.

I don't know but that adoption thing starts to sound something like rich immortal people buying children from "child factories"...  :D But yes it probably would be allowed. Keep in mind though that if choice for immortality would be considered basic human right and be available for anyone, there might start becoming more and more immortals and lesser "breeders" which make adoption harder.

Also immortality could cause some problems of society "stagnating" which in past AFAIK hasn't been good thing for most of societies.

[AMAZON]

u been reading postmortal?

i honestly dont know. i dont really know if im gonna want kids in the future, but i'm not so sure i really want to be immortal either. i think for me its one of those decisions i would just have to make in the heat of the moment

[Tumetsu]

Actually no. I suddenly remembered old documentary about one bearded guy trying to accomplish immortality and I remember they suggested kids or immortality choice for population problem. I found the choice rather intriguing and interesting to hear what people would say about the matter, as a purely thought experiment.

Personally I too can't be sure of my own choice. Both have their bonuses so it is hard decision, which makes it interesting.

[Paul Eres]

that documentary is very good, and i like aubrey, but remember that aubrey degrey (that bearded guy) is considered a fringe scientist whose degree is in computer science, not biology, and is famous for making predictions, not for doing any real research. he's more similar to a sci-fi writer than a scientist

so i think it's possible it'll come before space colonization, but unlikely, and in any case it won't come *so* much before space colonization that we couldn't start doing space colonization before overpopulation becomes a problem (i disagree that overpopulation is currently a problem, obviously)

[Aquanoctis]

I'm gonna say immortality. I'd just like to observe human progress throughout time. Just watch what we can do and how far we can go. I suppose I'm choosing immortality for rather selfish reasons really.
I would like to think that medical immortality would make society think more about what life is and stop arguing about pointless, vapid things.
However, in the short term at least, there may be an increase in materialism. The people who do not have children may instead want gadgets and technology to fill their lives with.


On a related note, there's this site called http://www.futuretimeline.net/. It's a really interesting read, and it actually includes a part similar to this. It talks about what I'm trying to say much more eloquently and in more detail.

Warning - while you were typing 2 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.
On the subject of space colonisation, I would have thought that until immortality comes into play, only the very, very closest areas of space would be colonized, given the immense amount of time it takes to travel to planets.

[C.A. Sinner]

immortal kids

[Tumetsu]

@Paul
By estimation of this century I didn't reference Aubrey and know he is rather fringe scientist. I have seen that estimation on other sources too, but I don't know if it has originated from Aubrey.

Why I think immortality could be achieved before noticeable space colonization there is some reasons.

1. AFAIK medical science gets more funds, though immortality is kind of taboo so getting funds for it might be rather hard. I remember that Aubrey guy had rather huge issues with it? This might be just perspective issue on my part, but I think medical science has "better reputation" than space science which is largely brushed off as scifi.

2. Proper space colonization should solve far more different problems than immortality. We need better spacecraft (or more specifically cheaper), good form of living in distant planets and everything related to inhabitation, solutions for long term anti-gravity issues, etc. etc. and almost all of these involve very costly technology. Not saying immortality is easy thing to tackle, but I feel that space colonization as a larger scale (ie. not just andom moon bases) is much bigger set of problems.

Personally I would put space colonization before immortality in my priority list of human advancement.

(i disagree that overpopulation is currently a problem, obviously)

Well, I think overpopulation in itself isn't the problem, but the resource consumption related to it. According to Jared Diamond world can't sustain even industrial world's consumption at current rate too long. And China is just coming into picture.

[Paul Eres]

one consideration: a lot of that money is being spent on trying to treat diseases which are easily preventable through diet and exercise. those are not diseases that have to exist, people wouldn't die from them if they would have more sensible lifestyles, but the vast majority of medical research is going to cure diseases which we *know how to prevent*, not to aging research

so i think it's a mistake to think that all the money being spent on medical research is equal: only a small portion of it is actually going to research immortality, probably less than 1%, the vast majority of it is going to areas that have no relevance to immortality

[Superb Joe]

i'd like to die some day, but i also don't want kids. i suppose the solution is to murder children.

[Richard Kain]

I'm not interested in having my current body prevented from aging. My current body is already flawed in numerous ways. If I did decide to go for the non-aging option, I would want to be a cyborg. Bring on the robot parts!

But that's really just the particulars. As to the root question, I'm not really sure. On the one hand, we would all like to have more time. On the other hand, I'm actually very fond of children, and have always gotten along well with them.

The ideal situation is to have widespread space colonization, because then the excess population can take off for parts unknown. Of course, we can't be sure if they are doing it to have kids, or to escape their new cyborg overlords. 

[moi]

as eres said it, immortality would not eliminate the need for reproduction,  only a more controlled rationalized reproduction.
Also: a great number of disposeable children would be necessary for space colonization.

[JobLeonard]

I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I think Steve Jobs was right when it comes to death. I'll go with Kids.