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: Begging the Question

What if we could live forever?

By "Milbarge" and "Fitz-Hume"

Scott Adams had a post at The Dilbert Blog recently in which he mentioned, in passing, an invention that allows doctors to "print" organs by replicating a patient's cells, layer-by-layer. Adams didn't cite his source, but let's assume for now this device is legit and fantasize about a world in which it is accessible at any hospital and could replace virtually any failing human organ. What would be the consequences of something like that?

The mind reels. Adams says we'd essentially be able to live forever, and I think that's right, more or less. (I figure some sorts of traumatic injuries would still be fatal, especially if one couldn't get to an organ-printer in time, and I wonder if a machine could ever replicate a human brain. But let's leave aside those complexities for now.) What would we have to do to accommodate eternal life?

Maybe we wouldn't go so far as to institute a Logan's Run-style system, but I think we'd have to place some kind of limits on this kind of capability? Or maybe the libertarians would disagree: the rich get as many prints as they want, as many as Kinko's can copy for them, and those without health care get one heart for as long as it lasts.

Perhaps we wouldn't institute outright population control. Everlasting life would cause massive cultural and economic upheaval, though, to be sure. But imagine the myriad little changes we'd have to make. The eligibility age for senior citizens' discounts would have to rise. We might begin to rethink sentences of life imprisonment. And "till death do us part," for that matter. Fewer products would offer lifetime warranties. And I'd be curious to see how religious people would reconcile eternal life on earth with their doctrines of an afterlife. What else?

Full post as published by Begging the Question on December 21, 2007 (boomark / email).