I have this argument with people almost every other day. I genuinely believe that I will live until I’m at least 200 years old. Right now I’m 32 years old. But in 60 or 70 years time? Who knows what medical technology we’ll have at our disposal. I honestly believe I have a decent chance at living forever! Who is with me?
So basically I want to become a real life Conor McCloud.
But is it possible? And even if it was possible, would you want to live forever?
I say it is possible. Surely in 60 years time we will have the technology to replicate the human brain as a machine. And, if not, maybe stem cell research will have advanced to the point where we can basically grow ourselves an entire new body, Orichimaru style!
Am I crazy? Probably. Am I right? I’ll leave that for you guys to discuss.
Comments
65 responses to “Off Topic: Who Wants To Live Forever?”
You’ve gone mad from sleep deprivation.
I think someone should reboot the highlander series.
There should only be one.
What do you mean “should”? I think “is”. They never made any sequels.
I mean that a reboot shouldn’t be made.
They’ve tried.
Just watch the first one again, still a great flick 😀
I couldn’t handle it. I’d go utterly and completely mad.
I’m bad enough at 31…
You may surprise yourself. Life is quite interesting, and very addictive. Kind of like a good game, really.
I’m with you Mark. But there can be only one.
As the worlds greatest procrastinator I have to live forever if I want to get anything done. Also I have an insane amount of curiosity about everything, so if I want to know everything then that will take more than the 80 or so years biology has assigned me. Also I’m kind of fine if everyone I know dies before me, ill miss them but you know SCIENCE!!
Not to mention GTA75 and COD28547
AS to if I think it is possible, I don’t know. I listen to people like Dr.Aubrey de grey (Mr awesome beard) and am filled with hope that maybe I might just get it done. Though it would be good if I could live forever AND eat as many cheeseburgers as I want.
I wouldn’t mind it if they stopped the ageing process, and even wound back the clock a little (getting back to late 20’s might be nice), stopping disease so that the only way to die is by deliberate action or accident. It would be terrible when population numbers explode though.
However I don’t think I’d want to live forever. I’d probably want to clock out at some stage but at least live long enough to see some cool shit like developing technology so that we can easily travel to other solar systems.
Ramirez should have slaughtered Connor and taken the prize for himself. Fool!
But yeah, living forever would be cool and all, but you would probably go insane eventually. Imagine all the facilities full of crazy immortals… that’s some f’d up shit right there.
P.S – If immortality came with a rocking Queen soundtrack, i’d put up with the downsides. Just sayin.
Flash, Ah, ah…
I’d want to live forever. People always point out all the downsides to that, outliving people you love, being trapped for years in horrible situations etc, but I like to think that all the good you’d experience from an eternal life would balance all that out. After all, in our normal lifespan we experience all sorts of lose and pain, and there’s always the chance to experience more than we ever predicted, but we still enjoy life, still look forward to the good things, so why would it be any different if that life went on forever?
Hey Mark have you read Altered Carbon? You should read Altered Carbon.
You should all read Altered Carbon.
Sorry, I didn’t quite get what we should read.
Something a long the lines of Unchanged Oxygen? I’m a bit unsure myself.
I’m sorry, I didn’t understand this question as I was too engrossed daydreaming about this amazing detective-noir ultraviolent tale about a future where the rich can live forever through cloning and the poor are left to cycle through cheap castoff bodies and live through reintroducing themselves to their loved ones
— oh wait, that’s Altered Carbon!
you forgot to mention the sex…
I didn’t forget, but I should’ve mentioned it. It’s got the most graphic sex scenes I’ve ever read.
If you had the choice to live forever or die right now, what would it be?!
bacon
Fuck I could go for some bacon right now. Crispy bacon butties. Tomato sauce.
Gahh I hate hangovers at work.
EDIT: I hate you for suggesting bacon.
Amen to that.
Hate me all you like, just don’t hate on the bacon.
Lifeline – 13 11 14
Heck no. Living forever is something I have nightmares about.
I think someone answered this in a article somewhere on the internet but here’s the gist:
Ever wonder why a week can move in the blink of an eye now but when you were a child, a day felt like an eternity?
It’s because our concept of time changes as we age (most likely because we’ve had more of it by then). If you lived forever, eventually, days, weeks, months, even years will start to pass by you in what feels like mere seconds.
You would lose all attachment because everyone you’ve ever known and loved would be dead (assuming they did not receive immortality also) and if they didn’t, how many of you are still friends with everyone you’ve ever been friends with.
Eventually, you will start acting like Dr Manhattan from Watchmen, except minus the god-like powers. It’s a pretty depressing outlook.
Plus side: If you don’t go mad from solitude, you could possibly make a trip to another planet beyond our solar system, so that’s a win.
I don’t know about forever but I would love to have about 10 lifetimes in which to experience living on every continent and doing a number of different careers and hobbies.
I need another lifetime in which I can become a master ninja, one to just play games, one to be a master chef…….
It will be possible. Scientifically. Ethically it will create a have versus have not population like no other. One group of people to provide organs for another. The other issue is that it’s bad enough being old once. You aren’t a unique snowflake. You will decay. And that’s awful. Ask your grandpa.
Would give me more time to finish my back catalog of games…
Cracked ran an article a while back listing all the ways scientific immortality would be a really bad idea. The one that suck out for me, and something I didn’t know before, was that the brain has a finite storage capacity of a little over a century of memories assuming it’s kept pretty healthy, and if you lived for 200+ years you’d essentially lose the first fifty years of your life. Imagine losing your memories of growing up, your first loves, kids, marriage, these are the things that define you as a person and sacrificing them to be the worlds most crotchety old man seems like a bad deal.
Yes. All of what u said.
Just imagine the gamerscore >.>
But yeh, I could live forever providing some caveats like maintaining a late 20s early 30s body and not suffering from dementia and keeping a reasonably decent memory as what is the point of experiencing all these things if you can’t remember half of it.
Depends if I can live 200 years as ‘young me’ or not. I don’t want to be like Boris Karloff in The Mummy.
I’m off to listen to Queen now
I AM IMMORTAL
I HAVE INSIDE ME BLOOD OF KINGS! (YEAH!)
I HAVE NO RIVAL
NO MAN CAN BE MY EQUAL
TAKE ME TO THE FUTURE OF YOU ALL!!
BRING ON THE GIRLS
FAT BOTTOMED GIRLS YOU MAKE THE ROCKIN’ WORLD GO R-
… oh right.
WHO WANTS…
..TO LIVE…
…FOREVER!
Bah people already live too long, bring back the old fashioned Logans Run palm crystals I say
Which is a nice segue to…
Ken Levine has reportedly been nominated to write the screenplay for a Logan’s Run remake!
Let the drooling commnce… 🙂
I’ve been hearing things about “Rapamycin”, a drug used to help bodies accept organ transplants, they’ve found it also improves the condition of aging organs, tests on mice have shown a 14% increase in life span. It’s not forever but it’s a start, kinda like a time extension 😛
i want to live for ever and be invincable, but the only person who is so i can take over the world and make it a better place
I would want to live forever if I could also be healthy and vigorous (with upkeep and the usual healthy habits on my part).
I have no trouble keeping myself entertained/engaged.
I’ve always said I’ll live to 125 and have always wanted to live forever, There can only be one.
Too much cool stuff is gonna happen after I die, so given the option I would certainly live longer/forever.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be fed up by the time I’m 80 or 90. Even if you could promise me eternal youth, I’d run out of things to look forward to.
Wii Z, PS10 and XBox Onety-One?
We may very well discover how to effectively delay the ageing process in our lifetime. We more or less have a general idea of how it works, we just need the drugs and the genetic engineering to alter the process. The body is programmed to die, we just need a way to tell our cells to keep dividing properly without causing cancer (cancer is a disease of prolonged life – the more your cells divide, the more likely there will be errors in the DNA replications, errors that can lead to cancer). The problem is, we may be able to prolong life but then other health problems take over. That’s why genetic engineering is key. It’s basically the answer to everything. Genetic engineering in humans though is only very new but the field is making progress. Stem cell research is another interesting thing that may help too. One thing that might get in the way though (as has been seen with stem cell research) is ethics. Another is cost.
Personally, I’d love to live for as long as I can. Living in a Star Trek-esque like civilisation would be an interesting experience. That’s if humanity ever gets there.
Im 31, I figure Ive got another 20 or so years of wanting to live forever. The way my grandfather told it, when youre a young man you want to live forever, when youre an old man you want to die before you lose control of your mind and bowels.
As long as I don’t have to work for a living during this eternal life.
Not forever.I want 200-300 years. I want to travel in space. I want to see the first colonies on other planets. I want to learn all of the things for as long as I can handle it.
But 300 years is enough. Then they can just store a VI of me in a library in case they want to know about any of the experiences in my long life.
Guest Post by Chris Traeger
I keep in mind that any technology that allows me to live forever will also allow people richer and more awful than I to live forever. Like Rupert Murdoch. Or the Phelps/Roper clan, better known by their stage name, the Westboro Baptist Church. Or the Koch brothers.
Death is how bad ideas get killed – the steady-state theory only died when the few people who still held it died. Most people don’t really change their views after a certain point. Eliminate death, and I’d bet we go into a stasis period, where society stops changing and the deal we have is the best it’ll ever be again.
That is LITERALLY the best post I have ever read
And also in terms of a broader society, immortality/ultralongevity will cause us to go into chronic overpopulation mode too.
Don’t forget the chance of an accident or mishap, out of the people I went to school with there have been deaths from car crashes,drowning,house fire,murder,drug overdose,suicide,cancer,brain tumor,army service training accidents and that’s just in 10 or so years, so if you expanded that to 200 years the chance of a mishap would risw considerably.
Anyway if that med tech did exist it would be only for the mega-rich or goverment controlled as the world simply couldn’t support the population.
Another thing to consider is that if your in your 30’s now and this tech is at least 20 years away would you really want to be middle aged forever?
I don’t want it. Used to think it’d be great, but have changed my mind. I’m 28 now; if I hit 40, I’ll be fine with whatever comes (or doesn’t come) next.
I use to want to live for forever, but a year ago my child had cancer( is currently in remission). Made me realise living for ever is only good if the ones you love can be with you, otherwise I think it would be hard, I’m not sure humans are emotionally ready for that kind of life span.
Isn’t there a theory that if you’re immortal, the probability of you getting permanently trapped in a crevasse until the end of time raises to 1?
I do
SMH had an article about this today
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/russian-tycoons-plan-to-live-forever-20130616-2ocai.html
As long as I look young I would be ok with it.
Only would want to be immortal if I also don’t require sustenance. I think if anyone has read the TIde Lords by Jennifer Fallon, very similar to her rendition of immortality.
oh my god. This is my exact fantasy that can come true. Scary that someone else thought of it too haha.
Personally, if i were given the chance i would definitely take physically immortality, barring that computer aided immortality.
My personal preference would be in a fashion similar to that of Dorian Grey, immortal and beautiful.
Just to sweeten the deal i would also want time travel either doctor who style or computer simulated
Who wants to hold down a 9-5 for ever?
A super long lifespand would be ace if you could ‘retire’ at a reasonable age and enjoy yourself.
I already feel like i’m a few hundred years old, why not live forever