Hang in There: The 25-Year Wait for Immortality

[Pat Says]

How are we overpopulated? I think I read somewhere that everyone in the world could live in texas with room to spare (albeit rather cramped). Yeah, evolution would be at a standstill but, I'm guessing we could alter our own genes in the future to produce 'super-genes' taking the place of evolution. Plus you could still produce offspring and they will gradually evolve and we could change our genes to be more similar to it. Plus like you said, natural, freak accidents would whittle the population somewhat. Would this be enough to drive ahead and push new boundaries you think? Hmm I should do a search on the number of instant deaths every year.

 

edit:

I did some figuring.. In 1996 669 people out of every 1,200,000 died in a car crash.

 

That is approximately 0.06% of all people or about 6 out of every 10,000.

 

The total death rate for 1996 is about 27,335 out of every 1,200,000.

 

That is approximately 2.28% of all people or about 228 out of every 10,000.

 

38 times the living rate... hmm...

[AzurePhoenix]

I guess overpopulation is partly a matter of perspective, and what your willing to accept as tolerable. Me, I hate people, like my space, peace and relative solitude. Thereby, for me, six billion is mondo-mega overpopulation.

[Pat Says]

Lol, true, the party is starting to get a little crowded when 6 billion are invited.

[Blackfin]

If I were castrated, I'd lose mini-Mokele and his two best friends

 

I'm sorry, but that just gave me a really funny mental image of three lizard heads. XD

[JPQuiceno]

Man, immortality! That sure sounds interesting. Would be nice to be here when they have the T.O.E. Also, when us atheist rid the universe of RELIGION!

[darkkazier]

big problems usually get people to make discoveries. If we faced a severe over population problem, then maybe we'd figure out ways to travel in a meaningful time to other planets and make them able to support life.

[rakuenso]

Immortality = no more natural selection

no natural selection = No evolution

No evolution = other species still evolve and kill us eventually.

[silentsailor]

Immortality = no more natural selection

no natural selection = No evolution

No evolution = other species still evolve and kill us eventually.

 

Brilliant scientists and engineers who live forever = big bad alien-killing weapons.

[The Peon]

Rich person walks into immortality shop.

 

Rich person pays 5,000,000$ US to have immortality.

 

Rich person walks out of shop, and gets hit by a mack truck.

 

Natural Selection wins!

[Locrian]

Only the greatest minds should be given the chance. Imagine if Einstein were still around to keep learning, theorizing, and helping out with every new step forward in physics.

 

I see where you are going, but allow me to make a counter argument.

 

Einstein spent the last two-thirds (or so) of his career as a physicist producing absolutely nothing. His primary "contributions" during that time were to make arguments that were shown to be incorrect (Hubble, EPR). The areas he was wrong in and troubled by have progressed, and the biggest areas he felt were worth working on haven't made significant progress since he died. Frankly given his irritation with extensive mathematics it's hard to imagine him working in either cosmology or GUT's these days.

 

So who knows? You could make a case that we've been better off letting someone else use the space Einstein would have taken up.

[Vanitas]

For water' date=' we could break apart Europa, guide it by blasting nuclear explosions, have it collide into Mars. This would put a massive amount of water on mars.

 

Hopefully the combined masses of Mars, and the chunk of Europa that we blasted off, would be enough to allow Mars to have enough gravity to keep it's atomosphere.

.[/quote']

 

 

GREAT SCOTT MAN! Are you mad? tinkering with the solarsystem... stripping Jupiter of a moon and smashing it into Mars could throw the delicate balance of orbits around the Sun to hell! There's no telling what implications that might have for the human race. If we mess up this solar system, we are seriously boned. The next nearest star (it's only a star, no planets.) is Proxima Centauri 4.2 LIGHTYEARS away.