Omega black
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Posted - 2007.03.11 01:04:00 -
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This is a more pessimistic view of things.
If everyone were to become immortal I believe there would be much lawlessness and chaos in the world. The (fear of) consequences and measures that would normally (some of the time at least) put a stop to the regular human crime would be useless. What would stop you from robbing a bank/store knowing that you could't be injured and had infinite stamina? Not to mention that there wouldn't be enough space to hold all the criminals that were caught. A 100 or 10000 year jail sentence - well you will live forever, 10000 years is a pittance. Immortality is a great power and great power has the great potential to corrupt. Think of the super-powered individuals in comic books that turned to crime after being given their powers.
Now the following is not meant to offend anyone...
An example of this is EVE. One of the many options available is piracy. Not to say that pirates in EVE are bad, indeed some of the negative security players are some of the most virtuous people you could ever meet in RL. However, in EVE, there are a lack of devastating enough consequences (which is fine by me) that could stop pirates from being pirates. Sure there is the consequence of losing your ship and billions in assets, or you can even be podded. But you must remember that us pod-pilots are IMMORTAL and so there will always be piracy. This also goes for pvp, you can keep doing it (i.e. fleet battles and wars n'stuff) because you can never run out of pilots). I also love pvp/piracy included so this is not to be taken as an argument to slag it. You don't see a regular citizen of EVE (non-capsuleer) causing such mayhem as a capsuleer can.
But the morality behind immortality non-withstanding: With immortal people on Earth without death being able to balance things out, planetary resources would run out very fast. I don't believe that science is advancing fast enough to find a solution (i.e the mass colonization of space, replicaticators for materials, sources of limitless energy). With greater populations you have a greater need for clothes, building materials and consumer products. I am assuming that immortal people do not need to eat (or breathe) so perhaps the food/health industries would collapse and many jobs would be lost. With an ever expanding population, the habitats of animals (who i am assuming are NOT immortal) would be wiped out and so would many species. The ever increasing pollution would basically kill off anything mortal and render our planet inhospitable, except for us.
Needless to say I hope that this waking-up-immortal thing, never happens. Death/destruction/decay of mortal things, or the changing of matter we can say (including non-living),is an integral part of nature. Indeed, our universe (in my opinion) depends on the cycle of life and death.
This is a very thought provoking topic, very well done Tre Doonan.
P.S. I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors.
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