Living evermore

Not possible. I don't care what any scientist says.

I guess I shouldn't say it's not impossible. I know for a fact they could increase the human life span, but how can they test their results? I mean, there really is no way to tell if they really can preserve a human life for eternity, because there is no stopping point for their results.

In fact it is impossible. Mechanical wear and tear make a body and its component parts wear out.
While one could argue that those parts can be replaced, I doubt one could argue that a person is still the same person after say brain transplant.

And even if possible, what would life be like living centuries while still aging? Most people of over 90 or so are invalids with rapidly declining mental powers.
We'd end up with billions of people needing massive amounts of care which the declining number of people capable of giving that can't supply (let alone the amount of food they'd need to produce).

I agree. These scientists say they can make people live forever, but what about the huge population explosion of mentally disabled people if it happened? Besides, I wouldn't anyway

The only option would be something that prevents aging indefinitely.
Kim Stanley Robinson experimented with such a procedure in the Mars trilogy and explored the consequences of the availability of the treatment.
It wasn't pretty...
Population explosion until the world exploded into allout war for resources, ending with an effective dictatorial world government with very strict birth control regulations (effectively restricting births to the number of emigrants and deaths minus the number of immigrants after reaching a set level).

Yeah, I didn't think it was possible. I'ts not hard to think of all the bad possibilities that would arise from such an action.

Even if we could, my question would be WHY?

We've consistently got around 6 billion people on earth, with the amount of births and deaths we currently have. The number has been going up, thanks to longer life expectancy, and higher birth rates in certain countries. If people quit dying, where would we put all the people? I don't see our space colonization science advancing incredibly far in 25 years.

Well, even if they could do it, I'm sure laws would quickly form to abolish it. I think it would turn out like the human cloning: Illegal.

But again, I can say for a fact that it's not possible.

I doubt politicians would make laws against it. After all they would be among the first to get the treatment, giving them more time to stay in power...

They might make a law requiring special permission to be treated, causing more bureaucracy and corruption.

Precisely. The government is corrupt these days. There's no escaping that. I wish more honest people were in power. It's a bit like those indulgences that the Pope gave in the middle ages.

The reason for becoming in a position such as PM or the president has not become a place laden with the responsibility of running the country and then helping this to become a reality.

Instead, people try to get in the position because of an obscure and meaningless position of pure power, and to heck and back with all those blasted responsibilties.

I doubt politicians would make laws against it. After all they would be among the first to get the treatment, giving them more time to stay in power...

They might make a law requiring special permission to be treated, causing more bureaucracy and corruption.

hehe..That makes a lot of sense.

JJ, all governments are corrupt and always have been. Power corrupts, doesn't matter who has it.

JJ, all governments are corrupt and always have been. Power corrupts, doesn't matter who has it.

I think it was John Locke that said all humans are born "basicly" selfish. The US constitution was designed to implement several barriers against selfishness, but of course they only work to some extent.

A good example of corruption is how these lobbying groups have so much power..It's redicilous.

The US constitution was designed to implement several barriers against selfishness, but of course they only work to some extent.

Barriers? What? Example please?

I would love to live until suicide, then once i have seen all i want to see ide jump off a cliff :)

hey i need a 2 months free i don't care if its old i just need one that haven't been used yet yeah don't care if its old so yeah

Living forever would start off fairly well, but after a billion years or so, it would get rather boring. A billionbillionbillion years, and you would start to wonder if the whole thing wasn't that well thought out.

I don't think it's completely impossible. With nanotechnology it may be possible to create microscopic machines that could continuously repair your body at a cellular level. I really have no idea whether something like this is feasible or not, but I wouldn't be so quick to say outright that it is definitely NOT possible.

If technology did reach this level, It would have all sorts of very serious implications that we would have to deal with. Overpopulation comes to mind, not to mention boredom. I think by the time most people hit their 80s-90s, they are ready to go. But maybe that's just because their bodies are in such a decadent state...

we'd also have to get used to a working life of centuries, maybe millenia.
Instead of retiring at 65 there's be no retirement, ever, unless you've saved up enough to never have to work again LITERALLY.
The only ways out would be death by some means or a disability so severe that it can't be treated (and if you can treat old age itself, there'd be very little that couldn't be treated...).

Nature seems to have a way of sorting itself out. I think that due to subsequent overcrowding, disease would be rife, and due to over-population, poverty, greed, war would keep the population figures reasonable, and most people would never enjoy an overly long life.

Also I would assume this technology / science would come at a price, such that those with power will never let those without achieve it.

Evolution always seems to counteract evolution. Better defence is a catalyst for better offence.

Wow, 50,000 wombats voted on this poll, has someone played around with these figures, or is the Wombat voice crying out to be heard?

It will rather be available more easily to people on social security and people in 3rd world nations.
The political left will argue (and successfully) that reserving such a treatment to those who can pay for it amounts to discrimination and social stigmatising of low income people. Thus everyone will be forced to pay massive amounts of taxes to make it available for those who are already leeches on society, causing those who could otherwise pay for it to now no longer be able to afford it...

I recently saw an article in The METRO (a free paper usually found at train stations in little stacks in a metal box) about some scientists making a breakthrough. They say that in 25 years time with the proper funding, they will be able to make eternal life possible.

What I'd like to ask is, would you live forever, given the choice?

Wow, the poll results are surprising and quite, umm, unusual . I will live forever. That's awesome and I hope to see all of you there. Think about it (and technology, in this case, is not necessary at all to do so).