We were Unlucky to Have Been Born When We Were

Science dictates that eventually biological immortality will be made possible or - at the very least - the average lifespan of human beings will be lengthened significantly (perhaps doubled), and that interstellar travel will be achieved and will become commonplace. So, to have been born a century or more sooner than the aforementioned breakthroughs sucks. I think our best bet is to have ourselves cryogenically preserved, but that's extremely expensive.

Damn. :(

Or maybe World War 3 and nuclear winter occurs in 2090 just after I die. So it could go either way.

Don't be so pessimistic.

The interstellar travel would be nice but I'm more than happy with the average lifespan as it is...

You know damn well that you want to live forever or at least live with the appearance and health of a 25 year old past the age of 25 up until your death.

If we as humans can pull ourselves together and get to Europa or Enceladus and maybe find other life in our solar system than I don't really care about immortality, and all that other stuff.

If you tell me I can be just as healthy and active as I am now for as long as I live, great! But 80/90 years is plenty of time for me to have my fun. Everything that lasts too long turns into a chore =)

We've got a lot going for us tbh, all the worlds information in an accessible place, 3d printing, self driving cars in the next couple of decades, enough food to feed everyone so long as you live in first world countries (not to say we actively feed everyone, but the food is there), not being part of the food chain, etc.

Aren't you being pessimistic by saying we were unlucky to be born now?

Or maybe you can start believing in paradise.

No, it doesn't. Even if we could make our bodies immortal, the brain just isn't designed to last much more than a century. And if we artificially augment the brain, then the question of 'are we even still human' becomes relevant.

I'm quite happy to be born when and where I was. I've watched the world go from analog to digital. I have the equivalent of a movie theater in my living room, and with Netflix and Vudu can access a massive library of TV shows and movies without having to leave the couch.

I have access to radar and satellite imagery at the click of a mouse. I can order whatever I want, when I want, and have it arrive the next business day without having to pick up the phone.

I can carry thousands of songs in my pocket. I can receive and place phone calls from almost anywhere. I can walk out into the middle of the woods and surf the net, play games or watch movies.

I grew up in a time when none of that was possible. It's been an interesting time to be alive, and I'm glad I wasn't born a 'digital native', because I truly have an appreciation for these advances.

That said, I believe I may just live long enough to see the beginning of the decline of our collective society. Resources are finite, and we haven't been good stewards. IMO we are at the pinnacle of our civilization right now. I'm not saying advances will not be made, they most certainly will, but the legs of the stool are becoming wobbly, if you will.

All great civilizations decline, and ours will be no different. It won't take war or social upheaval to push us over the edge, though those will certainly help speed things along should they occur. Everyone wants to live as well as we in the developed world do, and Earth simply cannot support that. There will be a balancing, and at the very best we will have to meet in the middle which means people like us will have to make do with less.

None of what you listed compares to interstellar travel. None.

Two things:

1. Your topic as presented is not exclusive to interstellar travel, and...

2. ...sure it does. You have just failed to understand the direction I took with the topic and how it would relate to interstellar travel.

If you had a choice to freeze yourself for 2000 years, you'll do it?

Of course. I wouldn't hesitate.

Think yourself lucky we weren't born in times to be fighting age in WW1 or WW2...

"Science dictates"

Yeah, and Russia could start World War III tomorrow and bomb the planet into oblivion., making any scientific endeavour for the next 250 years a mere dream.

First off I'm glad to see you have much the same mindset about our current technology as I do. Being able to appreciate how far we have come in a relatively short amount of time can keep a person in a fantastic mindset of the present.

As far as the decline bit goes, well I disagree to an extent. I think you will be correct about this in the near term, but long term if our efforts to curb the rise of the global population through education prove successful (as they have proven successful in our own first world countries) we shall need to feed less people, provide less people with resources, and all live in better off societies as a whole. Considering our current move towards efficiency in many areas it's not unreasonable to assume that the quicker we can bring people in third world countries along to our levels of well being they too will move towards becoming more efficient as a whole.

I think we are becoming better stewards and we will push future generations to build upon that groundwork. Whether it works out or not no one can say for sure, but for generations now society has laid groundwork in many aspects of the world and it has been further built upon for the betterment of the future societies (aka us).

It's only been successful in largely secularized societies. In societies dominated by religion, the opposite is true: they're having just as many children as they always have, only difference being the large majority of those children now survive into adulthood.

To put it into perspective: even while the birth rate of developed countries have declined, often below replacement levels, global population is still booming.

I don't think we're going to see a natural decline in global birth rates anytime soon, if ever.

@br0kenrabbit: You're probably a little older than me but I'm still a 90s kid and can appreciate growing up to watch it happen rather than it already being here before I hit my teens. I remember the first time I used the internet was in the mid-90s and I remember having to get off the phone so I could surf.

It also makes me laugh when people on Youtube accuse them and Vevo of censoring older music videos because they are too young to remember MTV and the fact that the "censored" videos were originally made that way so they could appear on TV. Or the ones who complain games are too expensive despite the fact that they are the same price that they were 20 years ago while in the same amount of time the price for an Extra Value meal has almost doubled.

As for you, TC, seek help. If everybody felt the same way as you we would probably all be dead by now from mass depression.

I think he just divided by zero.

when did science dictate this?

I think being born in the 80's was the best time to be born, seeing how tech has evolved into what we have now, take the humble NES for example and look at the consoles of today. Tech is advancing so quickly now I must say it would be interesting to see what tech is around in say 200 years, if I had the choice I would want to be around to see. I think anyone born from the year 2000 onwards won't have the same appreciation for tech as a 80's or 90's kid. It's interesting that a 5yr old kid today wouldn't even know what a cassette tape or video tape is or looks like.

interstellar travel will be possible within the next 50 years or so and technically we are immortal, just not in human form.

I was born in '76...my parents music collection was boxes and boxes of 8 tracks. :-p

History class, old movies/tv shows, google etc. are some ways these 5 year olds can learned about them.

Also don't you have tapes in your house?

I know, right? People keep talking about space travel, and they completely fail to realize that what we have now is pretty incredible.

I was talking to someone just the other day about how all those animated billboards in Blade Runner used to seem so sci-fi, and now even the menu at McDonald's is an animated panel.

@emil_fontz: As things are we are headed to extinction far before we ever realize interstellar travel. It's not being pessimistic, it's being realistic.

I think we are all lucky to have been born soon enough to experience the fappening

@PSP107: "History class, old movies/tv shows, google etc. are some ways these 5 year olds can learned about them."

I don't know if history classes will be teaching 5yr olds about cassettes and things like that, I might be wrong...... Do 5yr olds even have history classes lol

"Also don't you have tapes in your house?"

Nah none, my mother has video tapes and records and cassette tapes at her house some of those are my old ones. But I've left all those things in the past.

@br0kenrabbit: "I was born in '76...my parents music collection was boxes and boxes of 8 tracks. :-p"

Haha mine to, but now you can fit all that and more on a memory card the size of your small finger nail!!

1) This has been scientifically dictated by WHO?

2) Even if it becomes possible, do you really think you're gonna be able to afford it? Think about this for just ten seconds. There are already more than 7 billion people on this planet, and that's causing problems. Now exacerbate those problems by making this kind of "immortality tech" so inexpensive that it becomes COMMON. See the problem? It's kind of hard to find a job when everyone has functional immortality and doesn't retire or die. This shit becoming commonplace would be a fucking disaster, which is precisely why if it ever happens (and it won't), you and I and everyone on this forum is probably too poor to afford it anyway.

3) And interstellar travel? I'll believe that shit when I see it. In any case, you won't be doing that shit either. After all, travel into low-earth orbit has been a reality for decades, yet how many people ever get t travel into fucking space? That's right, almost no one. Even when it happens, it's gonna be under such rigorous standards that only the best and the brightest (and later on, maybe the wealthiest) get to do it. Which means, you still wouldn't get to do it even if you were born in a time when it is a thing that gets done.

4) And have you stopped and considered how much space travel sucks? And that's just talking about orbiting earth for a few months. Imagine how much that'd fucking suck if you actually DID go on an interstellar space mission.

5) And immortality isn't a blessing, it's a curse.

Just pointing this out...you admit that it's being done, but that you can't afford it because it's so expensive.

So really, think about this for a minute. There are companies out there that are willing to "cryogenically preserve you" on the basis that later generations can bring you back from death. And even THAT is outside of your budget, despite the fact that what they're selling is a whole lot of bullshit and empty promises. So if you're too broke to get your head frozen to later be revived, what the hell makes you think that you'd be able to afford "biological immortality"? Even in the unlikely event that that's possible for SOMEONE, it sure as hell ain't gonna be possible for you. You can't even afford to have your head cryogenically preserved.

Cold. Harsh. Reality.

Who the **** wants to live forever?

but it will not work.

Explain how it will not work.

Me.

Your answer matches your avatar.

People suck. Why would I want to be with them even longer?

huh?

My favorite history professor at UCLA asked my class what would be the "ultimate curse" you could inflict upon somebody else.

The answer:

eternal life

Or you could've been born 100 years ago and depending on who you are (black/irish/etc) been worked to death for pennies a day in some shitty steel mill or something without any of the technology, medicine, or (again depending on who you are) rights or standard of living you have today.

Amen.

people born 600 years ago would look at us as the luckiest humans ever born.

@comp_atkins:

Sure... but those 600 years ago life were much better than today. these days human making too much nothing but junk.

what was better about it? we have it pretty fucking fantastic right now..