RE: Would You Choose To Stay Immortal If You Could?
I see what you are saying here I just don't agree. I feel like a lot of those traits come down to more of who you are than because you live longer. When we are born we are not aware we will die and might spend many years before someone explains that to us. I feel that the people who set short term goals and push to reach them and on to the next would continue to do that if they lived forever. Those that already waste time would continue to do that.
Also, I think that if we became immortal we would care more about life. Now, most of the world has created an after-life of some kind that helps us to cope with all the death we see. It is common to hear things like, "they are in a better place now" "They will watch over us now" all this could be true but we have yet to prove it. Even a killer know that that person they killed would have died one day away. If this wasn't true anymore I feel like over time murders would happen a lot less. Losses that right now feel like they might define your life would only be a small part of it.
The real issue I see is that if science pulls this off. It will be the rich that get to use it. They won't just give it to the poor. Because this world is becoming a mess with how many of us there are now. If we stopped dying it would get worse fast.
That does make sense. If you weren't aware of the concept of death in the first place, it wouldn't be a factor. Life would just go on as it did before.
But I think people would be a lot more curious and involved in finding the true meaning of life if death didn't exist. Think about it. If you, at this very second, were hit with this realisation that you'll live forever, it would probably be really important to you to know what your life means.
Existential crisis would become the new normal for people because if immortality really did exist, there would be no such thing as the after-life.
A majority of religions focus strongly on the idea of after-life and how it's a place where you finally find solace after you die, which makes religious people find comfort in the present time and less fearful of death. But with immortality, there's no concept of after-life, and hence we wouldn't understand the concept of death either, and as we know, what a human doesn't understand, it fears.
And about the population part, the world's population won't just keep increasing forever. Every country goes through a Demographic Transition:
The reason why the population is increasing so rapidly now is because most of the developing countries are at the second stage. In the coming years, the population will come to a balance as fewer babies will be conceived in those developing countries.
Curious to know your thoughts on all this.