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Comment by tayne | Hacker News Reader

Surprised to see this take from you. We could also have your parents, grandparents, siblings, kids, grandkids not get sick and suffer terribly before being discarded like garbage. And we can keep all the amazing people who fight for good. Oh wait, that would mean we can’t stick it to some bad people, never mind.

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> Surprised to see this take from you. We could also have your parents, grandparents, siblings, kids, grandkids not get sick and suffer terribly before being discarded like garbage. And we can keep all the amazing people who fight for good. Oh wait, that would mean we can’t stick it to some bad people, never mind.

I don't think you're thinking this through. Immortality plus "kids, grandkids" (without sci-fi spaceships or suicide/euthanasia) will pretty quickly lead to overpopulation and a lot of obvious problems.

If it leads to decades more time of fertile reproduction and productivity, it needn't do so. We'll still have some rapid diseases not related to age, and of course accidents. If some of our brightest minds have another 40 years at the peak of their scientific and engineering careers, maybe we'll have seasteading and urban hydronic/aquaponic/aeroponic food supplies figured out and affordable. Convincing people not to have another generation at 20 years of age would of course be the hard part.

Let’s establish the fact. Nobody knows what the consequences will be. But overpopulation won’t be The outcome. Developed countries have a population die-off problem. In the US the birth rate has plummeted since the 70s and we are way below replacement. We desperately need more people.

Tens of thousands of people die in car accidents alone every year. The geriatric population is exploding and we can’t take care of all of them. We need a cure for the disease of aging.

So you're solving the overpopulation problem by hoping the "kids, grandkids" don't exist or are small enough in number that death via accidents creates the space for them. OK.

The corollary of immortality for everyone (without sci-fi spaceships or suicide/euthanasia) is either stagnation (more or less the same set of people existing until resources run out) or overpopulation (and prompt resource exhaustion).

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