Immortality rule : 196

[–] TotallynotJessica 77 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Saying death makes life meaningful is a cope. If we could get rid of aging, almost everyone would do it. Us being programmed to die is just bad. It doesn't make life meaningful, as everything is temporary even if you ignore death. Gratitude is what makes life meaningful, not inevitable death.

I'd live for billions of years if humans were capable of it. I want to live in a world filled with immortal people in peak physical condition. People would regrow limbs, heal brain damage, and be able to fully recover from any non lethal injury. I'm not convinced any of that will never be possible. Someday, death from old age won't be an inevitability, but a choice people are free to make.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 7 months ago (3 children)

A choice for the rich people to make.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago

Yeah... Things would get worse before they got better if cure for aging were found overnight.

[–] Valmond 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah like mobile phones, and lots of other stuff.

First they are expensive and work badly, like the mobile phones in 1980-90.

Then they become withspread and are affordable, like mobile phones in the 1995-2005 (take a bit, give a bit depending where you live ofc).

Then they work perfectly and costs almost nothing, like mobile phones today.

Smartphones will go the same way, rejuvenation therapies too.

Also, any government would prefer people live longer instead of hogging up the retirement and hospital budget, and instead continue to contribute to society, so any sane legislator would pay upfront for the treatments.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

so any sane legislator would pay upfront for the treatments

Welp, RIP me and my fellow Americans

[–] TotallynotJessica 2 points 7 months ago

For a time, but not forever. There are too many benefits to having immortal workers, too many drawbacks to having new people outnumbering the old, and too much danger from long term exploitation. They'll be motivated to find the most stable system in the long run, and eventually they'll realize that exploiting people is dangerous on large time scales.

The rich people of today create a worse world for the children that inherent their wealth at best, or for themselves at worst. Capitalism creates suffering, which then creates instability, which then creates conflict, either with the ruling class directly or with other nations. They might support fascism because they think it's better for them than socialism, but fascists create conflict with each other. The devastation of modern war is horrific, and no amount of wealth can fully protect you from the worst of it. Even if you stay on top, you'll be constantly looking over your shoulder and always be in danger of someone else taking everything from you.

The rich people who want to live forever will look to minimize these terrible conflicts, which will require minimizing unhappiness, which will likely mean not monopolizing immortality. If most people are older and happy with their lives, they won't threaten the system as much as most people being young, mortal, and miserable. In the short run, the rich will be foolish and terrible with immortality, but not in the long run. The ones who realize the futility in trying to get a free lunch for their own selfish interests will be the ones that live the longest. Selfish assholes will eventually go extinct amongst the immortal rulers, even if it's for a cynical reason.

[–] Wilzax 67 points 7 months ago (4 children)

I see no downside to living forever because if the heat death of the universe is truly the eternity I'm doomed to, then I'll eventually become so deprived of sensory input that there would be no difference between life and death.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 7 months ago (2 children)

that's bullshit you're gonna complain about it like you do already

[–] [email protected] 44 points 7 months ago (1 children)

"This sucks. I should have brought a jacket. I'm fuckin cold."

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

Wait, I thought the heat death of the universe ment it all got so hot nothing survived... Does it literally mean heat will die and it's going to be cold?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago

Basically, yeah.

Eventually the distant galaxies will fade into memory as their light is lost to the expansion of the universe, then the stars will all burn out, the radioactive materials will all decay, and black holes evaporate in the final flashes of light to illuminate the universe.

With no sources of heat left, what remains gets down near absolute zero as residual energy is lost as infrared radiation. The heat death of the universe is the long, cold dark at the end of everything.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yes. To my understanding, it's when all the things in space drift so far apart due to the expansion of the universe that all the atoms and energy are spread so thin that there is nothing left but empty, cold, void.

The antithesis to Heat Death is "The Big Crunch" where the expansion of the universe stops and then starts to go back into itself until there is only a singularity like the one that the big bang originated from.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

I liked when they called it the Great Gnab, as it's the reverse of bang.

[–] Hawke 11 points 7 months ago

It means that everything will be in equilibrium, and there will be no such thing as hot or cold. No energy to move from place to place to create the idea of hot or cold.

So I guess that means that it’d be cold but the concept would be meaningless.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

Yeah put simply, heat is energy. When the energy from all the stars is spent and eventually no sources remain...

It's going to be very cold

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's a theory that all the suns go out and there is no heat left.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Energy is neither created, nor destroyed, only changes form. With the 'heat death' of the universe, all the heat spreads out evenly, so it's pretty danged cold by our standards of such things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe

"If the curvature of the universe is hyperbolic or flat, or if dark energy is a positive cosmological constant, the universe will continue expanding forever, and a heat death is expected to occur,[3] with the universe cooling to approach equilibrium at a very low temperature after a long time period. "

[–] Wilzax 3 points 7 months ago

Oh yeah definitely but in the face of infinity all complaints seem so... finite

[–] [email protected] 37 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Immortality doesn't imply invulnerability. Statistically you'll turn into a meat sack filled with shattered bones at some point. Pain eternal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

/> pain eternal

ah, just like life

[–] [email protected] 33 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I mean, true heat death would also imply that even your body is spent. No neurons will be able to fire. No brain activity. You won't be any different than dead.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thus, any "true" sort of immortality must necessarily violate the conservation of energy.

Therefore, we should investigate immortal entities as potential post-stellar-phase power sources.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Oooh, brand new man made horror beyond my comprehension: immortality as an endless torment, being perpetually harvested as a resource.

Actually, I think Made In Abyss touched on that a bit in its second season

[–] harmsy 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Being unable to die even though he wished for it, Wilzax eventually stopped thinking.

[–] PugJesus 1 points 7 months ago

JOJOOOOOOOO

[–] TerrificTadpole 44 points 7 months ago (4 children)

... wait a second that's fucking mercury.

[–] PugJesus 22 points 7 months ago

Yes, the elixir of life!

[–] RIP_Cheems 6 points 7 months ago

I think you me...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

It's even in a beaker, from a lab.

[–] harmsy 2 points 7 months ago

I didn't catch that at first.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Read a sentence about immortality in a shadowrun book decades ago.

Was something like: "Immortality would be hell for most people, since they dont even know what to do with themselves on a boring sunday afternoon."

[–] Valmond 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

True immortality sure sucks, but being young again, that is in the ballpark of the coming decades.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

As it has been for the last several

[–] PugJesus 4 points 7 months ago

Fusion in the next 10 years!

[–] [email protected] 24 points 7 months ago (1 children)

i saw this and said "is that mercury"

yes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Is not getting any older the same as being immortal?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

As long as it's turn offable

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I am sure there are levels of immortality. Like first you don't age. Higher levels you can regrow your head. At some high level one has a body only if they want it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

Just keep ~~soaking it~~ drinking mercury.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Presumably flinging oneself into the nearest star would be an option, that's pretty complete obliteration.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I'm all for it as long as I have an out, like, I dunno, a snail that follows me forever.

When the universe faces its inevitable crunch from heat death, we will be there, together. At the end of all things.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Or you know like more realistically we would get biological immortality I.e you could still get run over by a truck and die. People always talk about immortality as if you’re godlike being.

[–] currycourier 2 points 7 months ago

Decoy snail

[–] sh__ 7 points 7 months ago

I feel like it's gone in the opposite direction for me...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Well us dergs have very long life-spans naturally and the problem with this idea of everlasting life or even very long life that no one ever really thinks about is that the probabilities that misfortune will befall you don't go away or even really go down once you have it. That means that even though it seems unlikely to be crushed by an air-conditioner falling out of a window, or fall down the stairs, or choke to death on your food, the probability of these things happening when given enough time approaches 100%, even the very unlikely ones.

So while you might think something like this is awesome unless it also grants you the invulnerability to survive the catastrophes you will encounter in the future or cancels out their probability, it's basically useless, because those will get you likely in a comparable amount of time as old age would.