http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/03/tech/innovation/3-d-printing-human-organs/index.html?hpt=us_t4 Bioprinting works like this: Scientists harvest human cells from biopsies or stem cells, then allow them to multiply in a petri dish. The resulting mixture, a sort of biological ink, is fed into a 3-D printer, which is programmed to arrange different cell types, along with other materials, into a precise three-dimensional shape. Doctors hope that when placed in the body, these 3-D-printed cells will integrate with existing tissues. The process already is seeing some success. Last year a 2-year-old girl in Illinois, born without a trachea, received a windpipe built with her own stem cells. The U.S. government has funded a university-led "body on a chip" project that prints tissue samples that mimic the functions of the heart, liver, lungs and other organs. The samples are placed on a microchip and connected with a blood substitute to keep the cells alive, allowing doctors to test specific treatments and monitor their effectiveness. This holds promise, imagine being able to renew all your body parts. All that is left is being able to hold all the information your brain holds. From that, there is no reason for a person to grow old and die. If life exists somewhere in the universe, maybe they have this technology and in essence would be a form of God.
Mod edit,,,OT,,flounder If this ever came to light, only the richest and most successful will have access to it. It won't be for the common folks.
That would bankrupt the socialized healthcare system that libs are creating. It would take Kathlne Sibelus 3 lifetimes to learn how to operate a 3d printer.
Achieved by sleepy government workers? No. This is coming from the private sector that Obama is trying to destroy. The clock is ticking on advancements in medicine thanks to that stupid man in the white house so don't get your hopes up.
until the copyrights expire would be no chance for the average Joe to afford to live forever but lets say there was, would we need to require that person to be fixed so they could no longer have children to prevent over population?
It won't be a thing about money. I think this sort of thing would transcend money. To be able to live forever is something I don't think people have a good conception of. It's a form of power and a class-distinction on a whole new level. You'd have created demi-gods, functionally immortal, but still able to be killed. As the nobility protects it's status above all other men, I think the people who become immortals will develop an ivory tower mentality quite removed from anything we've seen yet. They will think of themselves as Gods and protect membership into that club...visciously.
All I know is that the world cannot afford to have 7 billion people who cannot die. Look at how quickly the world population is increasing with many thousands of people dying every single day. Billions will die from famine and war so that a small cabal of elites can live forever, with the whole world to themselves.
the haves would definitely have to treat the have nots better, cause otherwise the have nots would kill them.. and that is the end of immortality .
Well as I said, if we can print organs and the like, why not engineer an even better human. In essence, reengineer life.
Just imagine if NASA didn't have a monopoly over space exploration. We'd probably have a United Federation of Planets by now. Thanks Obama
It sounds crazy doesn't it? That's the new reality in obamas lib la la land. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/07/nasa_to_boost_muslim_selfestee.html
Who knows... Large populations were encouraged in the past as a base for labor and warfare. Today...with drones pretty much pioneering automated combat, and increasingly sophisticated technology, it might seem like to some there is an awefully large number of people with no use as it is. Immortality for all...would be out of the question. Not really. They can still have you killed. You aren't invinvcible, you just don't die from natural causes. I'm not sure what you mean. Is there a correlation between atheists and seeing immortality as something that is generally bad?
if the rich keep something like immortality from the have nots... there are many more of the have nots... immortality is only beneficial if you don't get people so upset with you that they become suicidal killers in search of justice for all .
I noticed you didn't answer the question! I don't see immortality as something bad, although I'm sure it would have it's own share of social problems with it. I just don't see it as possible in any near future period, and I notice that those who obsess over some sort of technological immortality are the same people who mock those who believe in a spiritual one. The proper secular position is to come to terms with your own mortality, not dream about a science fiction one. If an atheist or agnostic is that desperate to live forever, they should probably just go back to religion. Either way, your odds are about the same.
The "have nots" are not really monolithic. They are divided by a large number of ideas and beliefs. For relatively short periods of time, they can be made to act towards a singular goal such as war or revolution, provided the stimulus for such an act is great enough, but the multitude is really a scattering of small, individual social spheres vaguely locked together under a geo-political identity. In the military, it is known that a small group of focused, trained, and well-prepared and provisioned troops can survive a force many times it's size- especially if that force is not cohesive. The elites are that small group. There are fractures among them, yes, but they understand that their whole system is endangered if the populace were to overturn them and so it is much easier for that small group to act in unison to maintain the status quo. This is generally government- practised for thousands of years- whenever there are large societies.
Well, I'm shocked. I figured people would have known I'm agnostic by now, lol. I make enough noise about it... Either way, I wasn't saying that immortality is bad, in and of itself, but that immortality was bad because people being born without people dying would mean overpopulation. Overpopulation is bad. But...there may be some biological conditions impeding the concept of immortality. For instance...memory. There is only so much memory the brain can store. To live forever, you past would begin to erode under new expriences. Instead of a relatively stable personality, you become a sort of drifting log...unless they find a way to improve memory as well.
