Science fiction is full of stories where our zep live always . And some current biological enquiry is aimed at wee-wee our lives last centuries . So what ’s the downside of go forever ? Here are four reason to be a mortalist .
1 . We will no longer be human .
Developments in genomics and biotech have give us everything fromlight - activated , extremely - targeted medicinesto prosthetic implant that canturn cerebration into quarrel . When technical school like this matures , our lifespan will be much longer . But is that always a unspoilt thing ? What if all those implants and genome hacks metamorphose us into Locutus of Borg or the Daleks ? What good is living evermore if you are just a shell of your former ego ? If you have lost your individualism and become a killing machine ?
https://gizmodo.com/three-new-medical-technologies-that-could-save-your-lif-5397953
https://gizmodo.com/prosthetic-speech-implant-turns-your-thoughts-to-words-5021879
2 . Whatever body you ’re in , there you are .
So you ’ve ported your consciousness into a cyberheaven , or a giant blue alien with sexytime haircloth , or a deadly golem who wears a plunger on his straits . The thing is , you still have the same job . You ’re still mess up up over your last divorce . You ’re still have to fight the vicious corp that want to put down the beautiful Moon where your novel body feels most at domicile . Or you ’ve all of a sudden fall back your free will because your brain is running Dalek microcode . While transforming your torso will certainly deepen your perceptions , it wo n’t work your problems .
3 . Our augmented bodies and minds will be hackable .
As figurer security nerds already know , every new tone ending imply a young exposure . Your awesome brain - computer port may give you unlimited memory but it also mean that an malign cyberpunk can take over your cognisance by exploiting a buff overspill in your psyche . Your bionic branch is awful , but only if you are able to get updates for it from a trusted author . And your cool young exoskeleton ? get ’s just go for somebody patched that trouble that lets kids in Russia take it over remotely and make you hump truck perpetually . Or how about a Dollhouse scenario , where everybody in the world stimulate a telephone set call that reformats their brains and become them into supersoldiers dented on ruin each other . Augmentation creates its own kinds of disabilities .
4 . We ’ll have to deal with the immortality divide .
Daybreakers was a pretty uneven moving-picture show , but it got one matter the right way , and that was its interesting rendering of the old history of the haves vs. have - nots . When the whole world go vampire , human have gross health and can live perpetually . The problem is that not everybody can afford the blood required to maintain their freshly - augmented bodies . So wealthy humans have superintendent - forcefulness , while the blood - starved misfortunate crook into senseless , ravening animals who have to be kill . Immortality technology will exacerbate the already - growing divide between rich and poor . In a future where people have access to know - extending biotech , wealth could have in mind survive for century , growing more potent . hoi polloi born into poorness will have even fewer prospect to compete against the rich , and the free market could stagnate . Democratic human fellowship might ossify into rigid , caste - base feudalism once again .
societal immortality vs. personal immortality
Sure , you ’re say , there ’s a downside . But does that imply we should n’t indue in new medicines and technologies that will offer our aliveness today ? Or make our lives more comfortable ? No , that ’s not what it means . We should absolutely keep work to make medication as advanced as possible , and to make our life as levelheaded and farsighted as potential . But not to the point of impoverishing other surface area of animation .
What a lot of these story share in common is a sense that immortality becomes a job when social wellness is sacrificed to benefit greedy elites . So , for example , the bad Guy in Daybreakers are the people who launch the biggest blood processing bay window . And Dollhouse ’s Big Bad is the eponymous Dollhouse – where brainwiped hoi polloi are lease out by the minute . Here we see augmented , enhanced , virtually immortal people who only get to be that manner by depriving others .
These story call aid to the difference between innovations that lead to personal immortality , and those that lead to social immortality . The latter is the immortality of our species , its ability to continue hopefully jillion of years into the future tense . But this can only be accomplished if hoi polloi today are willing to pursue forms of science that are n’t just aimed at augmenting the mega - elites , but will also direct to mintage longevity . I ’m talking about skill like large - scale organisation biological science , the work of longterm environments and ecosystems . Space exploration , so that one day we can live offworld . And sustainable urban development so that we can continue go on this planet for another 150 thousand years , when today ’s world will be the Homo erectus of some future version of ourselves .
This a version of a presentation I gave atDorkbotin San Francisco last night . Thanks to all who came !
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