I choose extending my life, and dreaming of immortality

(here is a post i made in response to a young kids (Varkaus) arguments against immortality. to read the actual thread please visit this link at immortality institutes forums)

my response to Varkaus on August 22nd:
Varkaus, your emotional responses remind me of myself when I was younger (although i was the crazy kid posting about immortality on a food & diet message board), so i actually find enjoyment in your posts, even if they are more emotional and do not properly respond to other. I would urge you to continue posting because even if people are tired of it, its good to get conversations and different opinions heard.

Meanwhile, i cannot help but respond to your post above.

First of all, I like to think of 'immortality' as the perfection to an exsistence that probably cannot be achieved, and life extension the process of curing life ending threats to work towards immortality. The robot complaint you make is interesting, however, i suggest you think of humans and robots like hybrid cars. Before we switched over to becomming robots, we would adopt technologies that improve our lives day to day, like cell phones, internet, pace makers etc. The electric cars on many occasions were thought to be to cumbersome to create and maintain, although its been made and remade for hundreds of years and the only way we as a society is accepting this (no thanks to corporations) is by the hybrid, which will soon lead us into zero emissions. I also propose that in the future nature will be proven to be super advanced robotics. Our robotics are crude and lame compared to natures designs. It actually makes more sense the other way around, super advanced robotics would replicate nature. Solar panels = leaves on trees. rainstorms = sprinklers. etc.

You explained some possible future situations that might take place if immortality was to exist. The father and child ect. I think these are very interesting prediction of the future however I stongly beleieve that as soon as immortality or life extension becomes available that a lot of these decisions would be made to control the despair of its emotions on people. For instance, the choice to NOT take the life extension pill would be consider a great sacrifice to the human race... you would be giving you place on a crowded earth to allow for the birth of a new child. Your sacrifice would be praised by everyone. Babies would become more precious and rare than ever, and death would be far more scarce and important. This is a VERY good thing. To respect death and cherish life, two things we do not do enough in this current world.

There would need to be a great deal of emotional damage control. Would some people be depressed sure; but i bet less than they are now. Would some people not like the system; sure but not less than they do now. There would need to be strict applications simply to get in line to have a child, you would need to prove that your child will be well cared for, have a good life and be surrounded by loving responsible people (which we should do anyways). By being very careful about who comes into this world, and who goes out of this world, those left to live for hundreds of years could better themselves to the best extent they possibly could. Learning, creating, debating, ect. Life would be a lot more than going to work, and watching tv.

The idea of the bad guy in jail, is no different then people in jail now. Its magnified by the life expectancy, but anyone getting life in prison now wouldn't feel any different than they would feel with life in prison with immortality. Its a different amount of time, but ultimately the exact same thing.

You mentioned how you were in favor of curing diseases but not natural processes, then I ask you to understand that aging is a disease. Every human being that is born has it, and every human being so far has died from old age unless something else beat them to it. Aging is a disease, and it should be treated as such. Simply because we assumed it is normal, doesnt mean it has to be this way forever.

I choose to survive. I choose to fight aging. I choose to embrace technology as a symbiotic force for survial. I choose extending my life, and dreaming of immortality.