Would be willing to be forever young?

[Amazon]

If a new form of technology was created that allowed you to be forever young and stop aging would you do it?

If so why? If not... Why not?

[Florian]

I wouldn't. Life is already full of pain, misery, suffering and drama, either self or witnessed, and I don't see any way that it should get better at any point sooner or later. Francis was wrong, there is no End of History. So I'm pretty content with having gotten the same deal as anybody else, one lifetime, in which I hopefully leave some tracks in the sands before passing on, but I think it´s a horrible thought to be locked into eternal struggle.

[Amazon]

I was think more in the sense of not aging and not immortality, you would still die, one day your body would just give up and you can still die by trauma, infections and accidents, you just won't age.

[anjxed]

That would be great. I mean I can still die right? Just stop aging? maybe I can get rich or something and travel around. heh

[JeenLeen]

Assuming several caveats of it being safe tech, and if you still die of old age, I'd... well, honestly I'd probably not try it since I wouldn't trust it, but if it had existed for a couple generations I likely would.

I would still want to die of old age, though. I think there's several issues (ranging from economic issues, job market issues, and overpopulation to more philosophical and theological) I'd be concerned with if it meant no dying of old age. But I'd avoid discussing major societal changes in favor of having a fun, semi-serious talk. Some SMBC comics allude to some economic implications (like not being able to get a high-level job without decades or centuries of experience) fairly well.

I'm in my 30s, and I've noticed just how much worse my body is now than my 20s. It's not terrible, but just minor things like eyesight getting worse, back pain, neck pain, energy levels down, etc. And some hair loss. And from talking to friends in their 50s-70s, it gets worse. Avoiding (or stalling the advance of) that would be nice.

On the other hand, aging does have some benefits. If this tech existed, I'd probably want to pause around 25-28. Hormones are still somewhat strong in late teen and early 20s, so that stabilizing some in the late 20s would be nice. (I realize some would not see this as a benefit, and I admit I'd see the positive of still being in my early 20s.)

[factotum]

It sounds very "Brave New World"--there was a drug in that which people took that kept them young and active until they were in their 60s, and they would then degenerate and die in a matter of months. Speaking personally I haven't really had a completely pain-free week in the best part of 20 years, so if you offered me a method that would take me back to before that--so I could actually get a full night's sleep every night, rather than once in a blue moon--I'd go for it like a shot.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I was think more in the sense of not aging and not immortality, you would still die, one day your body would just give up and you can still die by trauma, infections and accidents, you just won't age.

That's hardly forever young, which is why I also thought you meant literally infinite natural lifespan based on the thread title.

Which, in fact, is what would happen. The process that would eliminate aging would do so by eliminating the things that kills us when we are past 60: weakened heart, weakened immune system letting more sicknesses through, weakened autoimmune system letting cancer cells grow out of control, etc, etc.

The answer, in my case, is no, for Kantian reasons: it would not be good if everyone did it, therefore I don't see why I should give myself an exception.

Now, under the alternative "you look and feel young, but somehow still die at some point before 130 years of age", sure, if there are no catches to it.

GW

[Eldan]

Ayup. As far as I'm concerned, three points:

*Immortality is worth any price
*Oblivion is pretty much worse than any amount of suffering
*I never believed the idea that an eternal life would be terrible.

[Potato_Priest]

Being forever young, but still mortal? That's like the best parts of immortality and mortality combined.

I'd do it with the following provision: my brain can still learn and store new knowledge (even if id doesn't "age" in the traditional sense), rather than being completely frozen at the point when I took the pill.

The body of a young man with the experience of an old one sounds excellent.

[Red Fel]

Yeah, I'mma get onboard the "needs clarification" bandwagon here. We've got to define "forever" and "young."

Forever: Does that mean you can't die? Because, gonna be honest, would start to suck. Does it mean you don't age, but at a certain point just snuff it? Because that would probably still be preferable to what we have now. Does it mean you don't age, don't die of natural causes, but can still die? Because that's golden.

Young: How young? Because, honestly, my current age isn't ideal, but I also wouldn't want to be, y'know, eternally prepubescent. Say, prime of your life, mid-20s? That works for me. Also: Is it you at that age, or you at an idealized that age? I wasn't exactly the picture of fitness in my 20s; I wouldn't mind being a healthier me. And although you don't age, can you change? One poster mentioned the idea of developing your knowledge and skills; I want to know if my body will also change, despite not "aging." Like, would I be stuck as an overweight 20-something? Could I stay fit despite poor habits? Could I develop muscle memory?

So yeah. If the prompt is, say, that you remain a fit, healthy you, in the prime of your youth and strength, until your death, that's a pretty sweet gig, honestly. But the details matter.

[Maryring]

I'd choose yes in a heartbeat. There's still so much of the world to learn and explore and understand. Being dead is just a waste of time after all. So yeah. Bring on the wonder pill.

[Aliquid]

Which, in fact, is what would happen. The process that would eliminate aging would do so by eliminating the things that kills us when we are past 60: weakened heart, weakened immune system letting more sicknesses through, weakened autoimmune system letting cancer cells grow out of control, etc, etc.

Actually, stopping aging increases the chances of getting cancer.

If you replace old aging cells with reproducing young cells, you create a good environment for cells to develop into cancer.

[Frozen_Feet]

Without dying and illness due to old age, statistical probability predicts most humans would terminate due to accident around age 200.

Living to 200 while physically healthy sounds pretty spiffy, so I'd take this deal. Dying via other means than age was never exactly hard, so it's not really a setback if life gets tiresome.

[Liquor Box]

I'm going to go against what looks like the majority and say YES. Life is fun, why not have it for longer? And if you are gong to be alive why not when you are heathiest and most attractive.

Grey Wolf's objection is fair - if everyone did it it would be problematic, and how do we decide which people get to do it. But, if this thread is representative, then that's not a problem - most people don't seem to want to do it anyway.

[Anonymouswizard]

Ayup. As far as I'm concerned, three points:

*Immortality is worth any price
*Oblivion is pretty much worse than any amount of suffering
*I never believed the idea that an eternal life would be terrible.

I'm agreeing with everything here, and in discussions about immortality I always bring up that an end to aging (or some sort of aging reversal treatment) wouldn't mean nobody would die, it just means that you wouldn't die of old age.

I also believe that if immortality is developed there will be a transition period (which could be decades) and then it would settle into a new form. A form that yes, might end up requiring a couple of centuries of experience before you can get a high level job. There'd also need to be some way to stop the immortal rich from accumulating an even larger proportion of the wealth, but I'm going into dangerous territory here.

As a side note, if unaging is developed (with no magic death age) then society will move towards a point of widespread acceptance as the centuries go by. The whole 'those against immortality just died off' idea. Sure, there will likely never be 100% acceptance.

This universe is amazing, and one day everything will die. But I don't see why I should refuse the opportunity to experience more of it than the small amount of time biology has given me. I'm of the view that if I die I want it to be by choice, not by chance or because my body gave out.

I agree with Grey Wolf that it would cause problems, but unlike him I'm in favour of widespread adoption of immortality. Because as far as I'm concerned I don't want to step into the next great journey until I've decided I'm ready, and because I don't see how indefinite life extension is fundamentally different to the life extension modern medicine gives people in any ways other than raw numbers of extra years. I'd take having to work out the consequences than forcing people to pass on just because it might cause issues to solve.

On the other hand, I am vain enough that if I die I'd want a simulation of myself hanging around to annoy people for years to come even if the consciousness typing out this post would be dead, so I'm not exactly normal.

Sure, maybe it'll turn out that almost everybody chooses death after a couple of centuries, or accidents stop anybody from living over 200, but I still want the potential to be there at heat death and die alongside the universe if I want to.

EDIT: I was once asked in a university debate on immortality if I'd be willing to let *insert famous person I strongly disagree with* live forever. My answer was that yes, I am, because I believe that choice should not be restricted.

[Starwulf]

Ayup. As far as I'm concerned, three points:

*Immortality is worth any price
*Oblivion is pretty much worse than any amount of suffering
*I never believed the idea that an eternal life would be terrible.

Agreed. I mean, I may eventually get bored after a millenia or two, maybe. But if I do, so what, I'm sure that somewhere along that timespan the technology would be invented that would reverse the process and let me die. My only caveat would be that it would have to eliminate my fractured spine. I'm not interested in living forever but doing so in immense pain every day. If I have immortality I really want to travel the world, mostly by foot so I can see everything the world has to offer.

[BWR]

Ayup. As far as I'm concerned, three points:

*Immortality is worth any price
*Oblivion is pretty much worse than any amount of suffering
*I never believed the idea that an eternal life would be terrible.

I vehemently disagree. Nothing scares me more than the thought of eternal existence in any form. In such a case the best I could hope for is my consciousness eventually shutting down, turning me into the blind idiot gibbering in a cold, dead universe with all other matter effectively infinitely far from me.

Staying young for more years than I have now, sure. Eternity, hell no.

[S@tanicoaldo]

But I love the idea of getting old, it means I'll finally be allowed to be an unapologetic ******* to everyone.

[Some Android]

If a new form of technology was created that allowed you to be forever young and stop aging would you do it?

I got to be forever young I want it to be from a magic painting thank you very much,

[Amazon]

Ok so let's get some clarifications.

-It's eternal youth, not immortality.
-You won't get cancer since you still get new cells, they just won't deteriorate.
-You still die at some random point when… I dunno the energy used to keep your body from aging catchs up and the whole body enter in collapse and instantly stops working.
-It's a painless form of death.
-You still learn.
-For the sake of arguments let's say it's far in the future and we already developed colonies in other planets.
-The process increases your life spam but don't make you immortal.
-It's painless.
-Not everyone does it so there are still old people as reference.
-You can revert to at any time to any age until your 18 birthday the “legal age”.
-Your body is not "lock" from there on you can gain or lose fat and muscle mass.
-The only "bad" thing is that the process is not revertible, once lock in an age you are stuck with it.
-Doing it late on life after experiencing old age is possible and common and can actually prolong your life spam twice the expected amount.

[2D8HP]

Ok so let's get some clarifications.....

From what I've experienced and observed, it's not the years that age you as much as it is cumulative injuries.

I've seen a guy stay young (seeming) into his '80's until a motorcycle accident turn him as old as his age, and I've seen other guys with work injuries turn old in their early 30's.

You don't have to be old to be crippled, you're just more likely to be crippled by the time your old.

"That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger" is utter hogwash.

[tensai_oni]

In a heartbeat. Kant was referenced earlier in the thread but I will flip that around: I believe eternal youth to be good for everyone, and so it's good for me too.

[Lord Joeltion]

Ok so let's get some clarifications.

-It's eternal youth, not immortality.
-You won't get cancer since you still get new cells, they just won't deteriorate.
-You still die at some random point when… I dunno the energy used to keep your body from aging catchs up and the whole body enter in collapse and instantly stops working.
-It's a painless form of death.
-You still learn.
-For the sake of arguments let's say it's far in the future and we already developed colonies in other planets.
-The process increases your life spam but don't make you immortal.
-It's painless.
-Not everyone does it so there are still old people as reference.
-You can revert to at any time to any age until your 18 birthday the “legal age”.
-Your body is not "lock" from there on you can gain or lose fat and muscle mass.
-The only "bad" thing is that the process is not revertible, once lock in an age you are stuck with it.
-Doing it late on life after experiencing old age is possible and common and can actually prolong your life spam twice the expected amount.

Well, even after Grey Wolf's all too sensible answer, I was about to say yes... Keeping my good fits (lol) until the day of my death doesn't sound all too detrimental at all. But then again you brought up:

"-Not everyone does it so there are still old people as reference."

And that sets me back onto Grey Wolf's answer. The reason I agree with that answer isn't Kantian, or even for moral reasons (or not so much, at least). My reasoning is about the sociological consequences and the interpersonal aspect.

First, about the individual: It would be nice to be eternally young (and possibly having a much larger lifespan than average). Until you meet somebody, befriend them or (worse) fall in love; and then realize you will have to live with the fact that you will survive him for decades, no matter what, because they aren't open to taking the magic pill. That sucks. Utterly desolation, in my opinion. I mean, I don't mind surviving somebody for things that are beyond my control (that is the sad truth of life) but, being the atheist I am, the possibility of surviving somebody because they simply aren't open to follow my life decisions, is my version of ending up forever in Heaven, alone. I don't know, that sucks for me.

And the social consequences are more worrying for me. Because havin people who live young and people who prefer* the natural way would set up two distinct classes for human beings. An "elite", if you like. And unlike other moments in history, said "elite" would constitute an ACTUAL, FACTICAL, 100% OBJECTIVELY kind of "superior beings". They will live on longer, hence their life standard, happiness and everything will be obviously better for them. They will be more productive, or more richer, or whatever, for the simple fact of having a better health. That's pretty alarming for me. Alarming enough to be completely against such a project. You either feed the Fountain of Your to everybody, or you simply destroy the damned thing. We have plenty stories (with enough similarities to reality to take them seriously) where a faction monopolizes the Holy Grail and exclude the rest. Spoiler: they always end up using it against people who don't share their "view".

*"Prefer", or, as it is in RL: "are denied the option".

[Frozen_Feet]

I vehemently disagree. Nothing scares me more than the thought of eternal existence in any form. In such a case the best I could hope for is my consciousness eventually shutting down, turning me into the blind idiot gibbering in a cold, dead universe with all other matter effectively infinitely far from me.

Staying young for more years than I have now, sure. Eternity, hell no.

There is no physical form of "immortality" which actually could lead to an eternal self under known natural laws. The self, in general, is a dubious concept and that is a primary reason to see most pursuits of "immortality" as fairly pointless.

If your personality is not kept in stasis, after enough time has passed the eternally young "you" won't have anything more in common with you than your child, or grandchild, or grand-grandchild (etc.) would have. So you could just skip the fantasy and go have some kids, reproduction is already a form of biological immortality.

Also, about those accidents, statistically if you live arbritrarily long the chances of you getting buried under too much stuff to dig yourself out asymptotically approaches one, and it's not up to yourself if you'll ever get dug out. The more-or-less inevitable fate of all "truly immortal" creatures would be to go the way of Balrogs and become living fossils.

[factotum]

If your personality is not kept in stasis, after enough time has passed the eternally young "you" won't have anything more in common with you than your child, or grandchild, or grand-grandchild (etc.) would have. So you could just skip the fantasy and go have some kids, reproduction is already a form of biological immortality.

However, like the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water, your personality changes so slowly that it *feels* like one continuous existence. I'm pretty sure I'm not the same person I was 25 years ago, but I can look back at memories of that time and know that it's me doing them. The same could not be said of my children, should I ever have any.

[Mx.Silver]

Err, yes?

I'm not sure why this would even be much of a question, honestly. Even before the clarifications you've just covered yourself from age-related illness and decrepitude, senility, menopause (if that's something that'd effect you), etc.


Not a terribly difficult decision to make, really

And the social consequences are more worrying for me. Because havin people who live young and people who prefer* the natural way would set up two distinct classes for human beings. An "elite", if you like. And unlike other moments in history, said "elite" would constitute an ACTUAL, FACTICAL, 100% OBJECTIVELY kind of "superior beings". They will live on longer, hence their life standard, happiness and everything will be obviously better for them. They will be more productive, or more richer, or whatever, for the simple fact of having a better health. That's pretty alarming for me. Alarming enough to be completely against such a project. You either feed the Fountain of Your to everybody, or you simply destroy the damned thing. We have plenty stories (with enough similarities to reality to take them seriously) where a faction monopolizes the Holy Grail and exclude the rest. Spoiler: they always end up using it against people who don't share their "view".

*"Prefer", or, as it is in RL: "are denied the option".

You'd get the same result by substituting the hypothetical anti-aging drug here with 'access to antibiotics' or 'access to clean drinking water' or, indeed, access to anything we currently have that improves health. Unless there's something about the hypothetical that makes it extremely difficult to access, then this isn't an argument against it, it's an argument for getting a proper distribution system in place

Although if you want to talk social impacts, I'd imagine the fact that the number of the (potential) 'working (and breeding) population' just exploded might have some pretty far-reaching effects, although assuming the forum rules haven't changed much since I was last here it'd probably be a bit difficult to discuss that side of it.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I'm a little worried about the psychological aspect.

I'm in my early 30's now, and I'm a different person than I was when I was 18. A better person, I'd say (although I'm biased because I am new me and not young me, young me might think differently about it). A big question is: am I just learning, or is this part of aging? Would I have become new me if I had stayed physically younger? I kind of like growing into the silverback stage of life. I was never a good cool kid, or a great challenger of the powers that be, I think the more relaxed controlling role of a full on adult might fit me better (even though I make a sport of being immature and not growing up in some ways), and to fill that role a full on adult brain and even a full on adult appearance could help.

It would be kind of nice to be a little less bald again, but even that sort of works within my overall look. At this rate I might hit my peak sexiness somewhere around 40. It would be a "hardworking farmer on his day off" kind of sexy, but it's better than what I had when I was younger. Any health problems I have had so far are minor, my stamina sits within the range of good enough for what I need it to do and my teeth even seem to have gotten better since my early 20's, but that probably has more to do with brushing discipline (and less energy drinks) than anything else.

So yeah, it would be nice to avoid getting old, but I do kind of like growing up, and at least for me that didn't stop at 20. Although it would be pretty cool if I could stop at some point before I turn into one of those nasty old people that know everything better and always need to be right in all the worst ways.

[Anonymouswizard]

Ok so let's get some clarifications.

-It's eternal youth, not immortality.
-You won't get cancer since you still get new cells, they just won't deteriorate.
-You still die at some random point when… I dunno the energy used to keep your body from aging catchs up and the whole body enter in collapse and instantly stops working.
-It's a painless form of death.
-You still learn.
-For the sake of arguments let's say it's far in the future and we already developed colonies in other planets.
-The process increases your life spam but don't make you immortal.
-It's painless.
-Not everyone does it so there are still old people as reference.
-You can revert to at any time to any age until your 18 birthday the “legal age”.
-Your body is not "lock" from there on you can gain or lose fat and muscle mass.
-The only "bad" thing is that the process is not revertible, once lock in an age you are stuck with it.
-Doing it late on life after experiencing old age is possible and common and can actually prolong your life spam twice the expected amount.

First off, using the term eternal youth implies immortality. But that's a nitpick.

Secondly, this is essentially a case of 'life, but without the downsides of getting older'. While it doors have some problems, I honestly don't see any real downsides of it doors not come with (potentially) eternal life.

Okay, we get a lot more people living up to the 'maximum' amount, but we can cope with that.

[Aedilred]

On the face of it, and as with almost everyone else in the thread, it's an instant "yes". I'm old enough to feel the ill-effects of advancing age and I know it's only going to get worse. To go back to a "peak" period (probably when I was roughly 22-25) would be great.

However there are a few caveats. Firstly, my mental health is much more stable now than it was then - although still not amazing. I'd want a confirmation that that isn't going to revert to the state it was in then. I'm also aware that I had a couple of minor but persistent health problems which lasted from my late teens to my late twenties and I really don't want to have to deal with them again at all, let alone forever.

One of the few benefits of ageing is that people do take you more seriously. Whether this would be the case in a society with perpetual youths who could be of any age is something we wouldn't know unless it happened, I suspect. It would probably still be worth the trade but nevertheless it's something worth bearing in mind.

Another nice bonus is that it might give more flexibility to career and life planning. At the moment, if for instance you want to be a professional sportsman, you generally have to have begun serious investment into that by your early teens at the very latest (sport-dependent) and commit to it fully by the age of 18. That means that by the time you reach the age of legal majority it's already too late to make that decision. This is partly because you have to develop the skills at a relatively early age, but rather moreso because the career window is very short: only about 20-25 years, and only as long as that in many cases because in the latter half experience compensates for declining physicality. It also means that the years when most people receive the bulk of their qualitative education are instead taken up by your work, which limits opportunities when you want to change career.

If you're permanently at your physical peak, and the career window for sport is tripled or more, it gives people more options for transitioning into it later in life. And there are a number of jobs where the maximum age for starting is relatively low (the military, in Britain at least, is another) which wouldn't have the same problems if the technology we're talking about were available.

[Florian]

I was think more in the sense of not aging and not immortality, you would still die, one day your body would just give up and you can still die by trauma, infections and accidents, you just won't age.

Still no. The problem with aging is the accumulated wear and tear on your body, also that every hurt you ever received will sum up with time. I'm rather 80 and look and feel like 80, then look like 20 with the accumulated hurt of someone who is 80.