What if we overcome ageing?

[Jason]

They'd still need organics to plug in their ethernet cables

I suspect organic units would be something like the slave/servant classes of ancient Rome.

[Jason]

The sexual stigma of the cybernetic future: crossover cables.

[rasetsu]

The sexual stigma of the cybernetic future: crossover cables.

That stigma has already been superceded with auto-detection of cable type and auto-configuration. Everybody and nobody is bisexual. You experience your sex based on what you interface with.

[Jason]

The sexual stigma of the cybernetic future: crossover cables.

That stigma has already been superceded with auto-detection of cable type and auto-configuration. Everybody and nobody is bisexual. You experience your sex based on what you interface with.

I'll take a bit of that.

[Ian]

The problem with living forever is the strain on limited resources. We're currently outstripping certain resources. There will be a time at which there aren't enough resources to support everybody living forever (and making babies). (This applies to the Matrix solution as well, because organic life is very inexpensive. The first cyber citizens will be the rich, the powerful, and the famous. Being organic may one day be a mark of shame.)1

I disagree. I think the problem with organic life is that it will be far more expensive than cybernetic life. Computers get both more powerful and cheaper all the time. Eventually, they'll be like paper: once treasured and expensive, but eventually cheap and ubiquitous to the point of barely even noticing they're around. An organic person needs housing, food, fuel, and many other material supports. A cyber citizen needs only a system in which he or she can inhabit, and those systems will just keep getting cheaper.

[odysseus]

Just because we can doesn't mean we should. Until the possibility of expansion into the universe becomes a reality, greater longevity will be an extremely bad idea.
I like the idea of death - it is the great leveller. It doesn't matter who the hell you are, for the vast majority one day you will be just as insignificant as before you were born.

[mistermack]

I don't think that bacteria will progressively be more deadly.
Quite the opposite, within the time-frame that I was talking about, I think bacteria will be conquered.

We are breeding resistant strains now, by selling antibiotics to couldn't-care-less users.
And farmers.

That will have to stop. Eventually, you will only get the new better antibiotics if you are fully supervised, so that the full course clears the infection. People who can't or won't agree just won't get that drug.
That would have to be enforced by governments.

And eventually, we will be breeding viruses that kill infectious bacteria, without harming the patient.

[rasetsu]

The problem with living forever is the strain on limited resources. We're currently outstripping certain resources. There will be a time at which there aren't enough resources to support everybody living forever (and making babies). (This applies to the Matrix solution as well, because organic life is very inexpensive. The first cyber citizens will be the rich, the powerful, and the famous. Being organic may one day be a mark of shame.)1

I disagree. I think the problem with organic life is that it will be far more expensive than cybernetic life. Computers get both more powerful and cheaper all the time. Eventually, they'll be like paper: once treasured and expensive, but eventually cheap and ubiquitous to the point of barely even noticing they're around. An organic person needs housing, food, fuel, and many other material supports. A cyber citizen needs only a system in which he or she can inhabit, and those systems will just keep getting cheaper.

Valid point, except that the infrastructure for organics is itself organic, so vertical integration creates massive economies. An electronic worker doesn't produce the tangibles of infrastructure.

[rasetsu]

I don't think that bacteria will progressively be more deadly.
Quite the opposite, within the time-frame that I was talking about, I think bacteria will be conquered.

We are breeding resistant strains now, by selling antibiotics to couldn't-care-less users.
And farmers.

That will have to stop. Eventually, you will only get the new better antibiotics if you are fully supervised, so that the full course clears the infection. People who can't or won't agree just won't get that drug.
That would have to be enforced by governments.

And eventually, we will be breeding viruses that kill infectious bacteria, without harming the patient.

Well, one of the obstacles facing this goal is simply mathematical. We don't have a sufficiently powerful mathematics to allow us to describe, characterize, predict and ultimately design robust solutions for enabling certain biosystems to prosper and others to die. The question of whether we can reach such math, or even if it exists at all, is something that cannot be known currently. Lacking the math, it's a continual series of lighting two fires to put out one.

I like to say that the truth doesn't issue promissory notes in lieu of actual results. Only an idiot claims that this or that milestone will be reached without massive qualifications on the statement.

"Evolution is smarter than you." (Dawkins?)


(See also genetically modified crops and monocultures. The documentary Food, Inc. is a good intro as well as being awesome.)

[Ian]

The problem with living forever is the strain on limited resources. We're currently outstripping certain resources. There will be a time at which there aren't enough resources to support everybody living forever (and making babies). (This applies to the Matrix solution as well, because organic life is very inexpensive. The first cyber citizens will be the rich, the powerful, and the famous. Being organic may one day be a mark of shame.)1

I disagree. I think the problem with organic life is that it will be far more expensive than cybernetic life. Computers get both more powerful and cheaper all the time. Eventually, they'll be like paper: once treasured and expensive, but eventually cheap and ubiquitous to the point of barely even noticing they're around. An organic person needs housing, food, fuel, and many other material supports. A cyber citizen needs only a system in which he or she can inhabit, and those systems will just keep getting cheaper.

Valid point, except that the infrastructure for organics is itself organic, so vertical integration creates massive economies. An electronic worker doesn't produce the tangibles of infrastructure.

Well I think you're right that the first cyber citizens will be the wealthy. I just don't think it will be because it's a more expensive way to live. It'll be cheaper, but access to it (especially at first) will not be for everyone.

[mistermack]

Well, one of the obstacles facing this goal is simply mathematical. We don't have a sufficiently powerful mathematics to allow us to describe, characterize, predict and ultimately design robust solutions for enabling certain biosystems to prosper and others to die. The question of whether we can reach such math, or even if it exists at all, is something that cannot be known currently. Lacking the math, it's a continual series of lighting two fires to put out one.

I like to say that the truth doesn't issue promissory notes in lieu of actual results. Only an idiot claims that this or that milestone will be reached without massive qualifications on the statement.

I didn't understand a word of that. I think the word mathematical froze my brain.
I just got the red bit.
Does putting "I think" count as a massive qualification?

[Audley Strange]

Zardoz!!!!

[Cormac]

If medicine overcomes ageing one day, and has cures for virtually every disease, what would happen?

That might not be too far away, acutally.
It would be a disaster if it happened now, with room on the Earth running out.
But if we colonise space, room will never run out.

If the ageing process is conquered, and we find a cure for all cancer, you could live for thousands of years.

But how would YOU feel about it? Would you want to go on living for thousands of years?
I wonder how many people would eventually commit suicide?

After all, nowadays, suicide isn't really killing yourself. Your death is already a fact. A suicide just fixes the date.
But, if death was NOT inevitable, suicide would be a very different step.

I actually think all of this WILL happen, one day.

I don't think room is actually running out.

The research pointing to trends that will result in reducing populations seems more convincing to me, (although it does require that the recessions will pass, and we return to some semblance of a stable economy).

I think we'll have a reducing population - so that problem will be producing youngsters to provide the services we'll want to have, in order that we can enjoy our retirement.

[rasetsu]

Well, one of the obstacles facing this goal is simply mathematical. We don't have a sufficiently powerful mathematics to allow us to describe, characterize, predict and ultimately design robust solutions for enabling certain biosystems to prosper and others to die. The question of whether we can reach such math, or even if it exists at all, is something that cannot be known currently. Lacking the math, it's a continual series of lighting two fires to put out one.

I like to say that the truth doesn't issue promissory notes in lieu of actual results. Only an idiot claims that this or that milestone will be reached without massive qualifications on the statement.

I didn't understand a word of that. I think the word mathematical froze my brain.
I just got the red bit.
Does putting "I think" count as a massive qualification?

It does little to qualitatively alter my assessment of your thinking, no, not in that aspect it doesn't. Or at least, I don't think it does. Do you?

[mistermack]

It does little to qualitatively alter my assessment of your thinking, no, not in that aspect it doesn't. Or at least, I don't think it does. Do you?

Only an idiot would claim that it does without massive qualification. Or do I mean that it doesn't?
I don't think I do.,,,, Do I ?