What if noone died or could die?

[SpyderEdgeForever]

What would the world and human history be like if people had the same basic nature and mindsets, but, physically, noone could ever die or be physically damaged? Say your body and the bodies of all human beings who had ever been born in the entire history of the world, right up to this present day, grew to about 30, and then forever stayed in a healthy physical state (no deformities, mutations, etc), and then stayed that way..forever. No matter how much physical kinetic force was enacted against the structure, we were all indestructable/invulnerable, and retained all our memories.

How would this effect society, economics, law, inter personal relationships, technology development, and so on?

Would we have long ago had to spread into the stars to relieve population pressures?

Some good and bad sides to it that I can see:

Good:

Great minds would be on Earth and those people who bring great things to us would continue to do so. Imagine Einstein, Faraday, Maxwell, Pasteur, Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes, Bain (the steel-man), and other scientists, educators, engineers, etc etc etc, living forever in a youthful state, able to have centuries and millenial-long careers to make new things for mankind.

Technology would likely be alot more advanced, because of the long life spans, people could devote themselves to developing science and technologies as stated above.

No grief from family death; your family and loved ones would continue to exist forever, for better or for worse, and you would never have to say goodbye.

Some bad sides:

Just as the decent people who desire to help mankind would continue on, so too would the ones bent on harming and attacking others.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the Caesars, Nero, Caligula, as well as all the sadistic psychopaths and ancient ones none of us here know about..would all be in existence, too! They would likely try their best to continue to seize power and control others, through any means necessary.

Breathing room lack: As I said above, humankind would likely have to spread out into the stars because if noone ever died, the Earth would have no standing room at all, and the resources would be used up.

Please feel free to add your insights to this.

[farnorthdan]

For some reason Logans run comes to mind..... :D

[Evil D]

We would be over populated to the point of standing on top of each other, shoulder to to shoulder, on every inch of inhabitable land on the planet. Air quality would be so horrible it wouldn't support life.

[The Mastiff]

We would be over populated to the point of standing on top of each other, shoulder to to shoulder, on every inch of inhabitable land on the planet. Air quality would be so horrible it wouldn't support life.

Picture unending warfare. Constant, unrelenting warfare by people who only get better and better at it with most inventions and human output going towards doing it better and more destructive weaponry. With people indestructible warfare against the very world that supports them and allows them to make better weapons becomes necessary.

In fact, this is the story of the Djinn. Made before humans and made stronger, longer lived and with powers and abilities we can only guess at. Eventually, before the earth was destroyed God had to send an army of angels to banish them from earth. The world was eventually given to humans, imperfect, weak , and short lived.

Seems like we aren't wise enough to be better stewards of this earth.

?

[demoncase]

If everyone could live forever every forum off-topic area would be filled with interminable and non-sensical threads for all eternity.

*ahem* :D

[The Deacon]

So, instead of 72 virgins, a suicide bomber would get 72 mini-mes? :eek:

[kbuzbee]

I'm going the other way with this one.

I don't think there would be endless wars. No one would die. Eventually, even humans would figure out how pointless that was.

I go more for the Ent scenario from Lord of the Rings. You can live so long that nothing is interesting any more and eventually everyone just stops moving. Eventually they'd forget they even could move.

One of the things that makes all life precious, is it's finite. We only have a limited time to do whatever it is we are going to do. If that wasn't the case, our perception of the value of doing ANYTHING would be greatly diminished, to the point of not doing anything at all.

In some ways this is similar to your unlimited wealth question, but where in that one no one would ever need to work and all jobs would go undone, in this one no one would need to work because you wouldn't need the product of that work. If you couldn't die you wouldn't need food or shelter.

Now, if this just "happened" to people currently living what we think of as a normal life, there would be a learning curve as people adapted to immortality. People would fight or study poetry or whatever. But, eventually I think everyone would quit doing anything at all.

Ken

[kbuzbee]

So, instead of 72 virgins, a suicide bomber would get 72 mini-mes? :eek:

What would suicide even mean in this scenario, Paul?

Ken

[jackknifeh]

There was a series on tv called Torchwood with this exact plot. Everyone wasn't healthy though. In fact if your body was torn apart by a bomb your cells would keep living. That happened and they cut off the guy's head and his head kept living. But forgetting about injured or sick people there wouldn't be enough food.

Worst problem: Spyderco wouldn't be able to manufacture enough knives for everyone. They have a hard enough time right now with some models. :D

[xceptnl]

If everyone could live forever every forum off-topic area would be filled with interminable and non-sensical threads for all eternity.

*ahem* :D

:D

[Monocrom]

I look forward to the day I get to no longer exist on this sad, pathetic, miserable, joke of a world filled with far too many wretched fools, and obnoxious greedy creatures who only give a crap about themselves.

BTW, just to clarify, no; I'm not joking. Not even one tiny bit.

[The Deacon]

So, instead of 72 virgins, a suicide bomber would get 72 mini-mes? :eek:

What would suicide even mean in this scenario, Paul?

Ken

Just meant it as a quick way to point out the absurdity of the idea of immunity from death. As for suicide, I'm sure some would still feel the need to try. So, between them, and all those who would now "survive" plane, train, and automobile crashes, towering inferno type fires, and pissing someone off badly enough to have that person empty a Glock into them, there would be a lot of very badly mangled people walking the earth. What would getting buried in a mine collapse mean?

[Stuart Ackerman]

[kbuzbee]

Just meant it as a quick way to point out the absurdity of the idea of immunity from death. As for suicide, I'm sure some would still feel the need to try. So, between them, and all those who would now "survive" plane, train, and automobile crashes, towering inferno type fires, and pissing someone off badly enough to have that person empty a Glock into them, there would be a lot of very badly mangled people walking the earth.

...and then forever stayed in a healthy physical state (no deformities, mutations, etc), and then stayed that way..forever. No matter how much physical kinetic force was enacted against the structure, we were all indestructable/invulnerable,

.... so, no. No mangled people... Even from that Glock.

What would getting buried in a mine collapse mean?

A very long, very lonely, very dark life. Of course, if you had forever and were infact indestructable, you could, eventually, dig yourself out, I suppose. On the other hand, why would you ever be in a mine in the first place?

Ken

[Evil D]

We would be over populated to the point of standing on top of each other, shoulder to to shoulder, on every inch of inhabitable land on the planet. Air quality would be so horrible it wouldn't support life.

Picture unending warfare. Constant, unrelenting warfare by people who only get better and better at it with most inventions and human output going towards doing it better and more destructive weaponry. With people indestructible warfare against the very world that supports them and allows them to make better weapons becomes necessary.

In fact, this is the story of the Djinn. Made before humans and made stronger, longer lived and with powers and abilities we can only guess at. Eventually, before the earth was destroyed God had to send an army of angels to banish them from earth. The world was eventually given to humans, imperfect, weak , and short lived.

Seems like we aren't wise enough to be better stewards of this earth.

?

That's called "scorched Earth policy". You destroy all resources of the opposing force to cripple their war effort. Since food would be irrelevant, we would start bombing the land itself in an attempt to make it somehow inhabitable.

For starters, child birth would likely be either illegal or you would need to apply for a permit and meet extremely strict criteria to be allowed to reproduce, since more kids just equals more over population. This would somehow have to be on a global scale, which just isn't possible.

Animal population would probably be the first to suffer (assuming they CAN die). Either their ecosystem would be destroyed by our pollution or just outright development of land and nowhere else to live. The crazy part pertaining to animals is....if we can't die, what happens to top tier predators like mountain lions/bears/lions/etc? Humans would be everywhere, to the point that contact would be inevitable, but they can't kill us...maybe the war would be with wildlife? At least up until the point that everything that threatened us is extinct (if you can be threatened when you're immortal).

What about jobs? Would you work if you couldn't die? Seems like the only real incentive to work would be out of sheer boredom.

What about laws and the judicial system? If I can't die, you can try to put me in jail, but without the threat of death there isn't anything stopping all those people in prison from literally pushing the walls down by sheer numbers. I wouldn't give a **** about speeding and getting pulled over, in fact I would probably just run cops off the road since neither of us could die from it lol.

The more I think about this, it would basically turn life into a giant global video game where everyone has God mode. If you think about it, most punishment across the entire globe is based off of the ultimate punishment of life and death. Even in countries that don't have the death penalty, you get locked up for life, but they would have to devise a way to lock someone up without the entire prison population rising up to break out (which would be inevitable).

Everyone would probably just do a lot of drugs. I personally am not into that sort of thing, but if I were immortal and had nothing better to occupy my time, in a world full of other immortals, there would have to be some serous mental recreation to keep people occupied.

[Surfingringo]

I'm going the other way with this one.

I don't think there would be endless wars. No one would die. Eventually, even humans would figure out how pointless that was.

I go more for the Ent scenario from Lord of the Rings. You can live so long that nothing is interesting any more and eventually everyone just stops moving. Eventually they'd forget they even could move.

One of the things that makes all life precious, is it's finite. We only have a limited time to do whatever it is we are going to do. If that wasn't the case, our perception of the value of doing ANYTHING would be greatly diminished, to the point of not doing anything at all.

In some ways this is similar to your unlimited wealth question, but where in that one no one would ever need to work and all jobs would go undone, in this one no one would need to work because you wouldn't need the product of that work. If you couldn't die you wouldn't need food or shelter.

Now, if this just "happened" to people currently living what we think of as a normal life, there would be a learning curve as people adapted to immortality. People would fight or study poetry or whatever. But, eventually I think everyone would quit doing anything at all.

Ken

An optimistic point of view, but wars might persist. There are fates worse than death. Life imprisonment or sensory depravation or relentless torture would look like awfully frightening prospects to a man who couldn't die.

Sometimes I wonder it isn't the fear of death and what comes next that keeps us acting decent half the time. Anyway, it's an intriguing question, but one for which I don't have the answer.

[phillipsted]

There's a great SciFi book out there that addresses this very question. Its called "The Postmortal" by Drew Magary.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Postmortal-Dr ... 0143119826

TedP

[Enkidude]

Individually people would eventually transcend their physical bodies and return to their ethereal bodies.

[The Mastiff]

Individually people would eventually transcend their physical bodies and return to their ethereal bodies.

Isn't that what's supposed to happen at death to us mortals?

I look forward to the day I get to no longer exist on this sad, pathetic, miserable, joke of a world filled with far too many wretched fools, and obnoxious greedy creatures who only give a crap about themselves.

BTW, just to clarify, no; I'm not joking. Not even one tiny bit

Monochrome, have you ever just thought about leaving NYC? I suppose I see people that fit the above description every day on the news, and on docudramas on TV but the vast number of people I meet in real life are decent, nice enough folks.

The Shitheels are louder and make more interesting TV but the decent, good people outnumber them by a large amount. I look back at my life and can't count the people who were really good people who would go out of their ways to help a stranger.

Yeah, there are a lot of really good people out there living quiet, boring ( to others) lives.

Joe

[enduraguy]

I'm enough of an optimist to believe that if our technology reaches this point, so will all technology. We wouldn't in other words simply evolve in this one area of life extension. We would also have found ways to fix over population issues, pollution, crime, etc.