Would immortal humans be ultimately benevolent, or not much different than mortal humans?

Great Debates
1

They say that renters tend to trash things in ways that owners usually don’t, because they know that thing is not their own, so why bother? Well our very minds/bodies/lives are all leased, borrowed - nobody gets permanent ownership of these things.

Although it’s normal to have an inkling of concern for our future progeny, it’s a lot easier cognitively (for example) to rape and plunder the planet of its resources, knowing it won’t be our own problem to deal with. It’s easier to fuck someone over when you know you’re likely never to see them again.

So I want to imagine a world almost exactly like ours, except there are a fixed number of humans who can not die and can not reproduce. They can feel pain just as much as any of us, however, and this is important to note as this is not a consequence-free existence we’re talking about. We’ll suppose that these immortal humans have strong regenerative properties - so disease would still exist, but a disease which would normally be terminal would eventually run its course and disappear (though not without the same amount of pain as a mortal human would suffer from it). A person could be dismembered, incinerated, or even decapitated and eventually recover - but it would still hurt like a bitch. I don’t want to get too hung up on these details, but just want to establish some parameters for us to imagine an immortal existence.

So in this world now people have a responsibility to themselves that extends far beyond what we could imagine. They know that they can’t maintain any unsustainable habits for any period of time because they’re the ones who will eventually have to deal with the consequences. They know that if they hurt/betray someone else, that person will have all of eternity to hunt them down and exact vengeance. Would this knowledge essentially force people to be kind and respectful to each other, and to act in ways that are far more responsible and empathetic than mortal humans? Or would one person one day decide to break the peace and it would simply end up in eternal conflict?

2

you’re talking about immortals that can be slain, and at the same time must learn to co-exist with “unhappy men, children of little lords and brief kings.” so the tolkien model will already work for you. more learned, more experienced, maybe more disciplined. you’ll have little advantage beyond that. in a long-slugging match you’ll eventually become just another statistic.

if it’s peace-time, your main concern will be to stay alive and, if possible, be on the side of those who make the rules. that means you should be either wealthy or inlfuential. if you’re a dolt with money, you’ll need to work and save several normal lifetimes to save what an average entrepreneur can amass in less than one.

in “creatures of light and darkness,” you have tolkien immortals (those who can be killed) and also true immortals who cannot be destroyed. their main pre-occupation is staying alive and fighting to stay alive.

3

No he isn’t:

4

I think the immortals would get used to the pain so in the long run it would be consequence free in that regard. But instead of the physical pain the mental pain would become unbareable. What’s the point of living if you can’t die? Are you even alive if you can never die?

5

They’d eventually manipulate their way into the highest levels of government in the most powerful nations and then all push the button.
Then they’d systematically slay the survivors.

Once the mortals are wiped without hope of resurgence out they’d say “Well, now that we’ve taken care of that problem we can build our paradise”.

But then again I’m an optimist.

6

ok, i missed that part. so you are a true immortal who can’t be destroyed. in creatures of light and darkness, such beings can’t seem to resolve themselves anymore. one is an indestructible “god” who takes on any fighter just for the heck of it. one is the embodiement of leftist opposition and is there in every fight between suites and rebels.

if you ask these guys, “can you destroy yourselves?” the answer is “no,” because they can no longer control their own actions.

7

That is debatable.

8

I imagine you’d see what amounts to mood swings, except on a rather long time scale. I’d wager that most immortals would probably go through a tyrant phase, an incognito phase, a “learn all I can about the world” phase, a power hungry yet benevolent (“you all are doing it wrong!”) phase etc. I don’t think anybody would ultimately be good or bad, but rather they’d shuffle around between personalities that to a mortal would seem rather irreconcilable, but would make sense when you consider how much 200 years of experiences could change someone.

Edit: Until they get bored at least :P.

9

duncan macleod to another immortal: “once a pig, always a pig.”

10

Cruelty & sadism are not governed by the span of days.

11

That premise is already false, unless you have a solid cite that the majority of renters acts like that because they believe that philosophy.

Yes, there are some Nomads among the renters who mess up the property (though I think many are simple untreated messies), but just because they get a lot of TV time currently doesn’t make them the numerical majority of renters.

And I can easily believe that poor renters living in shit-holes run by slum lords that the property is damaged not because the renters don’t care, but because the owner doesn’t care to get it repaired.

In some cases it might also be a case of ignorance of how to correctly care for an appliance or neglect from ignorance, rather than a deliberate trashing of an item, that leads to damage.

It’s not lack of conscience but the way humans are wired plus education that doesn’t sufficiently counter that, that leads people to think short-term. People smoke because they don’t care sufficiently that 20 years down the road, they will suffer problems: it’s too far away. People fuck up the planet because the effects are too far removed from the personally and difficult to understand.

What good does a comparision with a completly different population do to current humans? That world can’t be exactly like ours. If those immortals have been around since start of time, then one group would have died out or killed the other group long before now. If immortality came about suddenly - with advanced Aschen medicine, such some people are researching things right now - then a society plagued already with multiple problems would have to deal with an additional one.

But you said they heal better than mortals - so they can smoke as much as they like. Or do you mean messing up the enviroment? First they would need the mental capacity to accept unpleasant truths. Psychological studies show time and again that generally, people who get older get more unflexible to new ideas. So a 500 year old wouldn’t accept the idea that his habits are destroying the enviroment he’s living in, because hey, his habits worked fine all along, so why should he change them? What do these young mortals know, anyway?

You said they are like humans, right? Have you observed humans? Has the prospect of eternal punishment kept people in the Middle Ages or later from doing bad stuff? (Hint: no). Has the prospect of immediate doom deterred people bent on revenge? (No. That’s why “mortal enemies fighting over a vulcano” is a trope in fiction).

Yes.

12

My own beliefs on this is from scripture. God limited the life span of man, preventing immortality, once we got mixed up with evil in the Garden of Eden. Further limiting it after the flood. The reason is because we would harm each other which would bring about hell on earth.

So until that evil seed is removed from humanity we don’t want immortality as it can not be benevolent. Once it has been we will have that benevolent society.

13

What’s the point of living?

Yes.

To the OP, I think humans would be somewhat more moral over time.
Not because mortality necessarily guides our moral choices. But because over time we will all experience regrets. Psychologically, we don’t seem to have any defence for actions which we wish we hadn’t done and feel completely culpable for. I suspect that the equilibrium state will be avoiding behaviours one might regret.

…but I don’t think it’s that clear-cut. A human mind existing for centuries plus, presumably without any atrophy, is a very different situation to now. I don’t think there is sufficient information to know if there are behaviours we’d tend towards over the long term.

14

I think that immortals would have nothing to prove, so they wouldn’t do things to impress others whether by the Macho man route, or even the wealth and power route.

I do think that they’d expand science so as to find out more about the universe, likewise philosophy.

I also think that eventually they’d go insane.

15

If these are a handful of people across the world, who developed and were just born, at some point in pre-history, i’m pretty sure they would be living openly, most likely as rulers of monarchies of some form or another.

After all, they are CLEARLY favored by the gods, if not gods themselves. Heck, look how much one guy, 2000 years ago who was just reportedly able to do magic is revered these days. Imagine if it were one guy who has been through the entirety of human existance.

Someone who has been shot, stabbed, poisoned, beheaded, dismembered, and otherwise “killed” but is not dead. That person would have become a king long long ago, and would still be ruling today. Not like they could be killed off the throne…

16

Is that the dream-state-spaghetti-monster theology?

17

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply the immortal humans in this scenario were just a handful co-existing with mortal ones. I meant a scenario where everyone is immortal.

I don’t know - I’m not familiar with that concept. What is it?

18

The concept is that any claim for the existence of imaginary beings is equivalent to making a claim for the absurd – which is false, absurd things don’t exist.

Therefore, a spaghetti monster exists, if people keep on claiming the existence of the irrational.