/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.7480075]

Plan for (eventual) immortality:
Strictly enforced breeding program, every year the minimum age of reproduction is increased 1/20th of a year, or a full year every 25 years for simplicity's sake.

Would this work?

[Anonymous No.7480173]

you would just end up with a bunch of old people dying from childbirth

also, if you live long enough, you'll probably have accumulated enough weird shit in your body (like, but not limited to, lead and mercury) to cause any offspring you produce to be riddled with birth defects

i think the only reasonable method for reaching immortality is to fund more biomedical research regarding aging, push new students toward the topic, and wait

and if it turns out that biological immortality is beyond our reach, there's always the hope of uploading your brain into a computer or whatever, but that's probably not going to happen

[Anonymous No.7480363]

>>7480173
>you would just end up with a bunch of old people dying from childbirth
That's sort of the point of my idea.. To force (the remaining) people to still be healthy enough to give birth at an increased age, they have to age slower - increasing lifespan.

[Anonymous No.7480427]

Take 1 minute to do the math and you'd realize this isn't sustainable. Immortal life usually means no reproduction for the simple fact that the population would increase exponentially, never dying off to old age leading to a resource drought for that species, in turn killing it off entirely. When reproduction IS involved in nature, usually the species dies off before it even reaches maturity, in the end the population balances itself out and the species can conceptually survive in that environment. In the case of humans however, we're both intelligent and physically capable enough to survive indefinitely. If worldwide immortality is to be a thing, you would need to remove the ability to reproduce to ensure we don't commit evolutionary suicide.

The only way we could repopulate should be a centralized system where a set number of children are determined on a case-by-case basis. Maybe when the population reaches a critical point where there aren't enough humans spread across a large enough number of environments for our species' probability of survival in a deadly natural disaster to be greater than practically 0%.

Fuck, if I was immortal today the first thing I'd do is go out and kill the other immortals. Transhumanists seem to believe once you get all these interesting advancements that people won't do anything in their power to exercise their newfound position in the food chain.

>>7480173
>there's always the hope of uploading your brain into a computer
It's 2015, people still believe this is possible?

[Anonymous No.7480441]

>>7480427
But unlike all other species we can calculate what a sustainable number of children is and adjust accordingly. Other animals simply don't have the capacity to record accurately their births and deaths, so they just breed as much as possible.

[Anonymous No.7480560]

>>7480441
Humans aren't a single organism. Just because you set a law or standard doesn't mean every one is going to follow it. A megalomaniac can still breed thousands of immortals in his secret hide out and take over the world. The only solution is to remove reproductivity entirely

[Anonymous No.7480771]

>>7480427
>It's 2015, people still believe this is possible?
yes, many people believe it is going to be possible (see /r/futurology or /r/transhumanism)
they're basically baby philosophers who figured formal logic was too complicated and turned to pop science

i don't think it's ever going to be possible, i was just throwing it out there because some people do think it's possible

[Anonymous No.7480799]

>>7480427
>Fuck, if I was immortal today the first thing I'd do is go out and kill the other immortals.
...with a sword?

I like to think that Highlander was only about the asshole immortals. Like, "There can only be one (asshole who lives forever, because assholes who live forever will, sooner or later, always try to kill each other with swords)." All of the immortals who are not assholes just live peaceful lives and don't see any reason to try and kill each other, particularly with swords, when they can just make long-term investments and do extreme sports.

[Anonymous No.7480814]

>>7480799
Plz I was trying to have a serious thread.