Would you bio-engineer your child for immortality?

[Silverhair]

Let us suppose that biology unlocks the secret of ageing and is able to DNA modify a human fertilized egg so that the resulting human will not grow old. He/She can still die due to accident or disease but would have a ramped up immune system and healing system, and the genes that program aging would be turned off.

Let us suppose that the treatment can be done for $100K USD.

For the sake of the discussion, to focus on just this aspect of the question, let it be assumed that there would be no other effects. They just grow until they are 19, and then their body continues to repair itself and keep it at a physical 19 - forever, unless the injury or disease is enough to overwhelm it.

Would you want your child to be treated?

[LostInAnomie]

1. NO!

But I would definitely bio-engineer myself for it.

[applegrove]

2. The very old will tell you - they get tired of things. You can only

live through something a few thousand times before it takes on a different meaning. I think life would be very diminished if we allowed that to happen.

It would be the less emotional & more egotistical ones who chose to live that way.

Who wants to up the % of those ones in the world?

[whistle]

3. If it would mean making social security solvent, sure!!!!

...But I certainly would not want the little grease-ball living the good life while we parents slaved our butts off supporting them!:grr:

[jedr]

4. a new meaning to the term "living hell"

[Biology]

5. you'd really need some...

birth control if people could live that long. If not, starvation, war, pollution, deforestation, despeciation... wait. Thats happening now!

[Ready4Change]

6. With near todays technology, no.

Too many potential gotchas in the genetic code. Nature has designed us to die, to get out of the way of the next generation and give them and their codes a better chance.

Now, I'll stop playing devils advocate and assume somehow medical science has solved every potential problem, leaving only accidents as a cause of death. Then I'd want to know what the current laws are regarding assisted suicide, living wills, etc...

I'd like my child to have as long a life as he or she chooses to have. If it looks like society intends to force people to literally live forever, then no, I would not treat my child.

But if society looks to be providing an out option, then yes, I would. (Assuming money allows.)

I've read a lot of Sci-Fi treatments of this. They typically have immortals either become extremely protective of their safety, or extremely reckless.

I prefer Larry Nivens take, which is people being very protective in younger life, but as they get older, more experienced, and more BORED, they start taking risks, until at some point the risk gets too high and kills them.

That ones ok with me, so long as society allows people to take risks.

[Silverhair]

13. I love Larry Niven, especially his earlier works.

He had more imagination when he was working alone and in the known space novels.

[benburch]

7. Remember that disease and injury take most of us...

Especially cancer. Likely this would less than double life expectancy.

[Silverhair]

14. Granted that it is an extreme hypothetical.

But hypotheticals can be fun. As you can guess, I read a lot of scifi.

[susanna]

8. Absolutely not.

The knowledge of one's own mortality is a benefit, I think. It helps you find focus in things that transcend yourself. (Science, math, history, art, music, philosophy, theology...in no particular order.)

In a nutshell, I think you begin to appreciate the timeless when your own time is limited.

[oscar111]

9. YES. death is a RW thing. Life, joy are LW thingss

basis of RW is

freud's personality core for fascists is called --

"anal-sadistic"

which means greed {anal retentive} plus sadomasochism.

sado is death, pain

death is a RW thing

Just look at Fox tv programs .. all about fighting, pain, fear, death.

lets be done with it. For a kid, for ourselves too.

PS i am amazed at how many here are still locked in the mental framework of tradition on this and other issues. Are we not dems? Question all. Question death.

As to feasibility, some whales live over twohundred years, and they are mammals like us.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%5
Dr Kenyon at UCSF has made nematode worms live seventimes normal lives. In human terms, that is five hundred years.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Redwoods and creosote bushes live in clusters that have one root system, so in a way they have lived over ten thousand years. Redwood.. i am not talking about a single tree, but fairy rings .. not annual rings.. of many trees from one root system after fires.

[Silverhair]

15. Or do we?

I think we might be more inclined to take care of the enviornment if we lived for centuries. Global warming would be MY problem, instead of my great-grandkids.

And we might be inclined to take solutions to problems, even if they were slow ones. We might embark on a program that would take two hundred years to reach culmination.

Maybe, we might even go to the stars.

[indie_voter]

10. Yes, I wish I could do the same for me. ;) n/t

[oscar111]

11. Many discussion groups exist on immortality

google for them and join in

109 trillion is usa wealth.. more should be spent researching this issue.

[oscar111]

12. 500 year old humans

based on the nematode worms now alive in UCSF .

see my first re .. several above this one

[Silverhair]

16. Kick for the day crowd to see. NT

[SoCalDem]

17. And where will the extra jobs come from?? for people who

never retire?? we think SS has problems now??? where will all these non-dying people live??

[Silverhair]

19. You have made the mistake of the "fixed economy".

You seem to think that the economy is a fixed size. It isn't. If a person is engaged in productive work, they are not taking someone else's job. They are helping create another job.

I would think that is someone were always 19 and healthy (Except in experience)then they would not be allowed to collect SS. If they managed to become rich enough to fund their own retirement, that would be a different matter.

If such were possible, I would want them sterilized after one child.

[SoCalDem]

20. good luck with that sterilization plan

:P

[Silverhair]

22. True. But it is a hypothetical to stimulate discussion anyway.

I sometimes like to ask really far out questions, just for the fun of it.

That I can see, there isn't the slightest hint of any practical ideas that can come of this thread. It is just for fun, and to examine an idea in the abstract.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. No

The only way it would work would be if people stopped having children, because eventually, the world would become too crowded with "immortals."

And if people stopped having children, where would the fresh ideas and social changes come from?

[Discord]

21. NO. We are already becomming overpopulated.

The resources we consume are outpaced by population demand. This would get infinately worse if people stopped dying of natural causes.

[Silverhair]

24. What would the social effects be of such class division?

At my price of $100K, it would be beyond the reach of many people. The immortals would be a class of their own. The life span could not be redistributed by any gov't program.

How would society look? How would you feel if you were born without the treatment? Would you want to kill an immortal? Would the punishment for murder of an immortal be different from the murder of a mortal?

Lots of fun questions in this one.

[Discord]

27. My fear was geneticly engineering elite classes to be

immune to certain strains of deadly diseases, then having them unleash those diseases on the public. Could be done in total secrecy and would wipe out 10's of millions of lower and middle class people.

[Mr_Spock]

23. No, me first :D

hehe

[Nikia]

25. I think that many people would become irresponsible

If many people were forever young. If you have unlimited time, you don't have to make good choices. You have lots of time to correct your mistakes. Of course, this would kill a lot of them off.
I think that isolated individuals who are taught to respect and use their gift for their good and others good could prosper and become a great source of wisdom.
As far as the reality of it, engineering like this from the womb would probably increase the rate of cancer. It wouldn't have to increase the rate of cancer, but they would probably make that mistake regrading the first crop of immortal babies. Cancer is uncontrolled cell growth after all. I think that regular treatment with stem cells would be a better approach to anti aging (ethical issues aside). A person could also choose to stop treatment if they wanted to grow old naturually. It also could be started at any age for the people who we already have here and for those making the choice later in life.
People's bodies change at different rates and in different ways, but 25 would probably be a better age to pick as a point for stopping the aging, growth process with your plan. In many people, the brain is not completely developed at 19. Many people haven't stopped growing yet either, since human's frames often increase in size several years after maximum height has been achieved.

[Silverhair]

28. Yeah, 25 would be better, maybe even 30.

I was just picking a number for discussion sake. I would hate to have to deal with my 19 year old harmones again. Thirty was a good balance between age and strength. Let's go with 30 for the stop point.

[AngryAmish]

26. Hell yes

Someone has to take care of me when I grow old. In fact, I would take the treatment myself.

[freestyle]

29. Absolutely not, and not for myself either

First, forever is just too damn long. Also, there are major practical concerns. Without death, how would reproduction be controlled so that we do not destroy the necessities of life even faster than we already are. Can you really retard physical development without also retarding mental development. We already have enough overgrown teenagers running around.

Death is a thoroughly natural transition between states of existence and in the grand scheme of things is necessary for growth and regeneration.

[annabanana]

30. And cut them off from the infinite? Hell no..

Anyone who would do this would limit their child to that which we can only see, feel, taste, touch and smell...

terribly reality-centric and narrow, to my way of thinking.

[Deja Q]

31. No. With finite resources, quality of life once again becomes an issue.

Why live when it can't be enjoyed?