What would happen if immortality were discovered?

[sdimbert]

Since we’re tossing out Sci-Fi books that deal with this, I have to point out that The Dean dealt with this in “Methuselah’s Children” then later in his magnum opus, Time Enough for Love.

Interstingly, all of the real-world implications of immortality, like overpopulation, off-earth colonization, riots in the financial markets, etc. that have been mentioned in this thread can be found in those two works.

Gotta love RAH!

[Dave_Stewart]

I was wondering when someone would mention Time Enough for Love.

“In ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey,’ the gods’ lives were trivial and dull. It was the mortals who had lives where things mattered. Our way of valuing and thinking about life is not unaffected by the fact that we are mortal beings.”

…from the creepy story to which Doghouse Reilly linked us.

Its a good point. No risk, the gods being invulernable(more or less) as well as immortal. Things might get boring.

Or maybe they’d get interesting. No risk? Scale that icy chasm!

One would want to be invulernable as well as immortal. Otherwise, I wouldn’t like to live out eternity as a pile of radioactive ash in the event of a nuclear war.

[inertia]

*Originally posted by Doghouse Reilly *
I have heard something about a particular kind of gene called telomeres, which apparently shorten each time that a cell divides and thus provide a built-in biological clock.
…[blah blah blah]…
Question #1: Is it conceivable that such genetic mechanisms could be reconfigured such that a person’s body keeps on operating as if it were twenty years old? A person could still be killed, of course, but barring violence or accidental death, she or she [sic] could presumably keep going on forever…[blah blah blah]

Tel0meres are found at the end of the DNA chain and aren’t really considered genes as far as I know. As cells reproduce, the chain gets shorter. Cells have been treated with telomerase, an enzyme which manufactures telomeres, which have shown signs that they were able to divide more times than non-treated cells. That’s good. These cells then become cancerous. That’s bad.

To answer your question, I think so - eventually. It’s already been shown that through selective breeding flies and worms are able to live up to twice to six times longer respectively. That is to say that they age that much more slowly and that’s all in the genes.

OJ who?

Practically, science might be able to elevate us to the level that we would not die via natural causes which leaves plenty of ways to die via accident. Slip in the bathtub. Get bitten by a snake, spider, big dog, shark etc. I suppose the average life expectancy of the affected individuals would skyrocket, but would not nearly approach infinity.

This leaves the condition of availablity of the technology. If this process is widely available there’ll be rampant overpopulation. If it never (that’s a long time) becomes widely available, it may take several years for there to be any impact if ever. Depends on the actual availability and the life expectancy.

In an overpopulation situation, life would be considered cheaper and useless people, criminals and good-for-nothings, might find themselves sitting on a very short death row.

Blinking Duck:

3. Not so. People leave their jobs for other reasons than death or retirement. Perhaps they move to the coast for 100 years and decide to move back to the midwest for the next 100 or so. And since the Always18 guy is really 60 and the Always35 guy is really 77, there’s not that much difference in their ability if any.
4. Economics would take care of it. Inflation and taxes would wipe out a LOT of savings and prod people back to work. Perhaps sloth could be taxed. If you don’t have an employment chit, you can buy one for $20K. Alternative, get a job and make $50K. The other alternative - the great bye bye.
5. That’s your own personal anecdote. If you’re wasting your twilight years, that’s your problem. At 31 - while not old by any means, but it does set a precedent perhaps - I’m learning to play the piano and I’ll be learning French and Spanish any day now.
6. & 7) A lot of population attrition will be self-induced, yes.
   Finally, the residents of Aurora, the first of the Spacer worlds and the longest lived humans, lived to a maximum of 400 years give or take a little. Dr. Fastolf, for instance, died at the age of ~380ish. But yes, Asimov’s Aurora did decay somewhat. However, in the forth book of the Foundation Trilogy [heh] the hero returns to Solaria to find it still populated by relatively the same culture as we left it in the second Lije Baley novel 60,000 years before. (In his third Empire novel, The Stars Like Dust, during the thriving Empire years, a date of it being 50,000 since earth was the only planet is mentioned.)

kabbes: Days of life as a medium of exchange sounds like a pretty good incentive to work. For a couple hundred years or so. Eventually, the trade wouldn’t be so valuable. I guess you’ve got to give up a certain number of days of life to have a kid, huh? No credit accepted.

Personlly, I’d jump at a chance for an extended life span. If we could open the flood gates of stem cell research I might have the opportunity to live to around 250 or so. That’d be cool.

[dalovindj]

And if you can make it to 250, that’s an extra couple hundred years of more scientific advancements. I think if you can live the next 60 or 70 years you’ll probably get a chance at thousands of years.

DaLovin’Dj