RE: The Future
February 15, 2016 at 12:37 am
(This post was last modified: February 15, 2016 at 12:37 am by Excited Penguin.)
(February 14, 2016 at 11:31 pm)God of Mr. Hanky Wrote:(February 14, 2016 at 10:36 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: What will the future be like, do you think? What would you like it to be?
Just go crazy with it. This is supposed to be fun as well as serious.
I'll start.
Imagine people will live extremely long lives, centuries at least. Do you think this would change the way humans behave? Do you think it'll make us become more rational and less violent, on average(if it ever happens)?
Oh no, we'd be committing infanticide at record rates, or there would not be sufficient resources to sustain those who just stubbornly refuse to die and make way for new generations. This in turn would cause stagnation of our culture with stalled intellectual progress, art would become lifeless and boring, and then why would anyone want to go on living anyway?
The only way of avoiding the above scenario, short of sending billions of people to colonize the planet, or board a generation ship to the stars (a one-way journey in any case since there's no safe return to Earth gravity after a few years, so who wants to volunteer?) is to impose an arbitrary and mandatory cap on the human life-span. Ever see this movie?
Your argument is irrational. The whole point of reproduction is so that a species can survive. Ensuring indefinite lifespans would be the best way to do that.
As for your stagnation scenario, I find it ridiculous and baseless.
