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Posted: July 25, 2012

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If we discovered a way to stop people dying of natural causes, should it be made available?

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~Ragerancher Jul 25, 2012

Just as the question in the title says. One of the most consistent desires of mankind is to overcome death. People throughout the millennia have looked for a way to stop it yet all have failed.

Death serves a useful purpose in humanity as well as in all life. It allows change and adaptation. The consequences of removing death cannot be known. However what do people think of the concept? If people don't want to die, should we provide them the method to artificially extend their life indefinitely or do you think there should be rules to prevent a fundamental mechanism of nature from being removed?

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~EternalJedi Jul 27, 2012

The earth is already overpopulated, we don't need people hanging around even longer.

~maddmatt Jul 26, 2012

So people could still be murdered, right?

~Ragerancher Jul 26, 2012

Basically this would remove death through aging. Things like jumping off a building or getting a lethal disease would still kill.

~maddmatt Jul 26, 2012

So this might heighten survival of the fittest. I could imagine an authoritarian view where the weak are killed by the stronger to control the population.

~Ragerancher Jul 26, 2012

In an extremely distorted sense. Survival of the fittest requires even the fit to eventually die. All they need to do is survive long enough to breed and maybe raise the next generation. Once that has been achieved, their survival is no longer important. Also fittest does not only mean the most physically fit. Actively killing off the 'weak' is more a genetic engineering than survival of the fittest. A person who lost their legs in an accident will be weak but genetically they could have bee a 7 foot tall, well built genius. Genetically they would be very 'fit' but circumstances makes them weak.

~maddmatt Jul 26, 2012

But circumstances aren't the norm. Unless for some reason most superior were getting their orgs lopped off.

And superior doesn't always mean physical fitness. Humans dominate over a variety of physically superior animals. But you are correct, can humans really do anything in a natural sense, since we have the abilities to form structures that can engineer according to cultural acceptance.

~Ragerancher Jul 26, 2012

Survival of the fittest works by causing animals to adapt to their environment. Our intelligence and bodies have allowed us to adapt our environment to us. Since we have been able to do this, natural selection in many ways has been reduced. Resistance to diseases used to be our main natural selector along with ability to survive childbirth. Now those 2 problems have been pretty much solved with modern medicine and our society allows for really poor genetics and lifestyle choices to surive. The majority of Americans could not survive in a harsher environment on account of their weight and poor fitness for example. Killing off people for posessing certain traits would be a survival of the fittest of sorts but generally survival of the fittest is meant to mean a creature best adapted to the environment. Conscious extermination of certain people isn't regarded as survival of the fittest and more of genetic engineering.

~maddmatt Jul 26, 2012

Natural selection would indicate natural means. But humans having a natural ability to engineer and dominate would create different possibilities. But we would adapt in different ways. Still would be plausible to suggest those that best adapted maybe even more behavioral would be the ones to survive. I still see mankind moving towards a more authoritarian approach to selectively choose who dies to maintain viability as a whole.

~Ragerancher Jul 26, 2012

Well you have to remeber it would take intervention to stop people dying and would not be the default. If populations are not given access then they will continue to die normally. Humans killing each other would only really arise in a situation where a sizeable chunk of the population are immune to dying of old age.

~Saeter Jul 26, 2012

The last season of Torchwood was about that. Look up the I think it was aired on Showtime.

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