Food for thought: Ammortality

[LHG100]

I'll admit I haven't read through the entire thread, but I honestly think Ammortality or Immortality won't really change too much. I don't know about you guys, but I personally think any human-like sentient being would just eventually get bored of living after a few hundred years. You can see a lot of stuff in eighty or a hundred years already, and a lot of old-timers I know or heard of are pretty cool with the fact that they'll die soon. I think a two-hundred year old would think more or less the same, and hell, from my view a two-thousand year old would be really rare.

So basically, I'm saying that the older someone gets, the less living is actually important is to them and the rate of suicide may also increase. At least, that's just my opinion and view.

I know I wouldn't really give a shit about anything once I reach 301 lmao.

 

[Amor_Fati]

You are absolutely correct if we assume this comes before the obsolescence of human labour, but seeing as the majority of jobs are likely going to be taken by robot automation in the next 100-200 years I'm doubtful. What is far more likely is this would hit us in a post scarcity economy (labour is redundant and we can mine any element we want from an asteroid) in which case this would have no monetary cost associated with it, as monetary costs are redundant. In a society without the need for labour, without scarcity of resources, the only reason ammortality would not reach everyone are those in power preventing it from being so.

I disagree with this "post-scarcity" thing. We will always have the need for labor - but labor will surely adapt and change, as it always have. In a robot-intensive society, maybe there will be no need for your average factory worker... but I doubt @merni would lose her job as a AI programmer. We have emerging jobs that pop up each year - tell me, how many youtubers you think that existed in Earth by 2000? - and I'm surely humanity will find new job openings and labor types. It'll cause massive unemployment, of course, for the ones that can not learn the needed skills to work in these future jobs, but surely there will be a gradual adaptation.

A very possible outcome of this "heavily mechanization" future is that all jobs that actually NEED human beings will be VERY specialized and will need many years of schooling. It has been a trend even nowadays - the average school years are on the rise, both the education requirement needed by employers and the actual education of the labourers - and it is not unplausible to imagine some decades of schooling needed for even the most basic jobs in the future. But whats some 50 years in school when you got 450 more years to live?

The more I think about it, the more it seems that amortal humans would be VERY similar to Tolkien's Elves.

 

[Otto of england]

I disagree with this "post-scarcity" thing. We will always have the need for labor - but labor will surely adapt and change, as it always have. In a robot-intensive society, maybe there will be no need for your average factory worker... but I doubt @merni would lose her job as a AI programmer. We have emerging jobs that pop up each year - tell me, how many youtubers you think that existed in Earth by 2000? - and I'm surely humanity will find new job openings and labor types. It'll cause massive unemployment, of course, for the ones that can not learn the needed skills to work in these future jobs, but surely there will be a gradual adaptation.

A very possible outcome of this "heavily mechanization" future is that all jobs that actually NEED human beings will be VERY specialized and will need many years of schooling. It has been a trend even nowadays - the average school years are on the rise, both the education requirement needed by employers and the actual education of the labourers - and it is not unplausible to imagine some decades of schooling needed for even the most basic jobs in the future. But whats some 50 years in school when you got 450 more years to live?

The more I think about it, the more it seems that amortal humans would be VERY similar to Tolkien's Elves.

This video will describe what I mean better then I could in a form post

Now even if it turns out we cannot create an AI to replicate human compelx creative tasks (ie game design), the subset of the population that is qualified, or even needed to do those jobs is minuscule. The vast majority of jobs, retail, transportation, factories, farming, etc. can, and likely will eventually be completely automated. Its true that new types of jobs are emerging now, such as full time youtubers, but these new job types are such a small subsection of all the jobs that is is barely noticeable. (the video has stats, I don't have time to write them out).

Also in the scenario where enough new job types are created that human labour is not redundant because of robots, there is still the fact our economy would be post mineral scarcity as asteroid mining can and will give us every element we need. That alone would completely destroy current economics. Technically the market would still be still have scarcity (being human labour) but, it would be reduced so much as to be almost unfathomable.

Also I agree with you, amortal humans would essentially become Tolkiens Elves. It is likely that even in a post human labour world people would still take some task and master it, be it blacksmithing, computer coding or really anything, since the alternative would get dull very fast. Waking up everyday, forever with no need to do anything is a little bleak, but if luckily people can create purpose by arbitrarily picking something to master and mastering it, even if there is no economic motive. That being said, such a world would still be so far past scarcity economics as to be hard to imagine.

 

[dunka2]

What I foresee happening is most Western governments (especially those providing state healthcare) will either balk at the cost of the treatments in the beginning, or they will ban them for being unequal. The "Immortality Industry" will more likely than not move to poorer, more corrupt countries near North America and Europe, setting up the necessary clinics and infrastructure while charging the global wealthy heinous amounts of money for the treatments.

It will probably only take a couple years for the technology to diffuse around the world because the patent holders won't be able to press their patents as the West will have banned life-extension treatments and the rewards of industrial espionage will be incredible. This should result in the technology reaching economies of scale large enough to bring costs down precipitously. Why go to an expensive clinic in Venezuela when you can go to a cheap one in India or Angola. Russia would also more likely than not become a centre for these treatments.

Once most people have access to these treatments, robotics research will probably become our #1 priority because who wants to work for the next whatever-hundred years in accounting? Then the machines will harvest our fleshy meatsacks to power their supercomputers. Or we'll become the supercomputers. Or religious zealots will go crazy and start killing everyone for playing god(s). Or (because probably curing mortality will involve gene treatments) some superbug will rise up and take advantage of the fact that we all share a certain number of genes, wiping us all out. Or in our infinite time, we'll just get bored and start playing war games with nukes for funsies. You know, like those aristocrats and kings did in their spare time (minus the nukes).

 

[Ezumiyr]

'Made for' is quite tricky term for biomechanisms. Our brain wasn't made for solving equations from functional analysis (and you can check it yourself), but it can.

Well I'm not competent for the "biomechanisms" part. But I'll try a bit : we know that the more you age, the poorer is your memory (roughly said). It works in a somewhat strange way since old people often remember very well their youth, but can't remember their last 30 years, but I think it shows that the physical process of memorizing ages, like the rest of the body, but it would be harder to prevent since you can't just rejuvenalize it without altering it.
When I wrote "the human mind is not made for such long lifespans", I was also thinking about the psychological aspects. I think that immortality, ammortality and eternality are very problematic for human psyche.

You don't remember every second of your life, because brain has means for trash cleaning, so these hypothetical immortals wouldn't remember some years from their life, or centuries.

Which is quite a problem, I think.
What whould individuality means for people who would live for thousands years ? Would they still be one individual being ? Would they have identity crisis each two centuries ? What would be an identity crisis for such people ? What would be the kind of life of someone who can do everything during his life, has maybe already done it and forget it several times (and would they want to do everything they can just not to be bored ?) ? What would be the point ? What would be their life goals ? Looks like many reasons to get completely crazy - or to have a new identity each X centuries. They might even want to have a new body with it, and even a "brainwash".
Maybe they would have very boring lifes and live in an ultra-relativist hell (everyone can do anything, it's just a matter of time - what for is it forth living ?).

 

[dunka2]

Well what are quarter-life, mid-life and near-term crises? Aren't those people completely readjusting (or at least as culture portrays it) their ideas and habits? I think that if someone did not have the grim reaper hanging over their head, they'd simply stretch those periods out. The quarter-life crisis would become the second century crisis (Romans!). Undoubtedly the most important commodity would be fun in this type of society; in the ever-increasing need to stave off utter boredom, I imagine people would go to great lengths to eek out any sort of amusement. This could, in the end, lead to more depraved forms of entertainment, though I suspect that we will be able to figure something out so as to not end up in some sort of ammortal Hunger Games situation.