Issues of Immortality

This post is a practical post. In several of my stories, Celestia and Luna are working to provide the rest of ponydom with eternal youth like they have. And no matter how often I post, every five damnable minutes someone is in the comments asking "but what about overpopulation? What about villains, what if they get a new Hitler? What about this? What about that?"

SO. I am posting a summation of my responses HERE. So I can reference it when the question is raised again.

And again and again and again and again....

ZEROTH POINT: TO HAVE THE CURE TO A TERMINAL ILLNESS, AND REFUSE TO SHARE IT, IS TO COMMIT MURDER BY WILLFUL INACTION. AND DEATH BY OLD AGE IS NOTHING MORE NOR LESS THAN A CUMULATION OF TERMINAL ILLNESSES. That, and that alone, should be the end of the discussion for anyone with the guttering remnants of a moral spark in them. But we have millions, oblivious to the fact that they are advocating nothing less than passive murder, who will yet mumble and mutter on about their "enlightened" viewpoint....

1)Historically, increased prosperity and longevity have resulted in LOWER birth rates, as people postpone having children and things like condoms and the pill become more available. Most of Western civilization, in fact, is currently below replacement birth rates.

2)Most of the problems attributed to a larger population are more correctly attributable to having a large senescent population. Think of how much of our resources are spent on battling the sicknesses and injuries and disabilities of old age. Picture the capacities of a world where you remain in your physical and mental prime indefinitely.

3) What accomplishments would a Gates or a Jobs or an Einstein or an Edison or a Tesla have been capable of after two centuries of learning? Three? A dozen?

4)We are barely utilizing a miniscule percentage of the resources currently within our grasp on this lone planet. Our entire world's population could live in a pleasant, spacious suburb the size of Texas, with the rest of North America for agriculture and pretty much the rest of the planet as a nature preserve. And that's just with current technological and agricultural levels. We have nine planets, dozens of moons and a billion asteroids for resources, again, just with modern levels of technology.

5)There has never been a correlation between population and famine. Ireland was scarcely overpopulated, but foolish management by the UK led to famine. Japan is the most densely populated nation on the planet, yet they are a net exporter of food. The same holds true of other resource shortages, historically speaking. There's more than a sufficient amount of everything for everyone-- so long as we keep the fingers of despots, tyrants, criminals, and well-meaning meddling fools out of the pie.

6)People fret about being bored with immortality who can't manage to get everything they need to done in a given day. If you get bored in a universe this big, where something, somewhere, is always happening--- you're not trying!

7)We're speaking of eternal youth, not godlike unkillability. But even if we were, solving any of the hypothetical problems with such immortality is a lot easier than curing a case of death.

8)There is a disease called progeria--- a genetic condition that causes people to die of old age by around the age of thirteen. it affects one in eight million people. If you had the cure in your possession, would you argue against it for fear of overpopulation, or the worry that these children would be unable to deal with their vastly extended lifespan? Suppose you were the only normal person in a world filled with people who died of this condition. Would you fret about administering the cure? I hope to God you say no! If you were presented with the secret to perpetual youth, you would be under the exact same moral imperative to give it to a world full of people slowly dying of the disease of old age, and to perdition with any silly old-woman fretting about population numbers or hypothetical immortal ennui!

9)There are those that argue either theologically that death is God's design, or nature's design, or that wicked people would only become more wicked if immortal, etc. This one requires sub-points.

a)Again, not immortality, just perpetual youth. Eliminating death, I would wager, lies beyond the impossible for the material world.

b)There are people, Christian people, that sincerely believe we are 'disobeying God's will/failing to exercise faith' by going to doctors, taking medicine, using insulin... these people are regarded by other Christians as in grievous error and ignorance and to be committing a great evil against those in their care, and by secular people as either lunatics or plain evil themselves. Curing the sicknesses and injuries of old age should be regarded in the same light and with the same commonsense clarity.

c)Theologically speaking, death itself in Christian theology is a tragedy, contrary to God's original design and plan. It would also not be the first time God revoked a curse, nor the last-- after the Flood He revoked the curse against the ground 'for man's sake.' If God saw fit to provide a cure for old age, there is, yet again, a moral imperative to distribute it.

d)For those of a more agnostic or pagan outlook, who argue that we should not change nature--- nature IS change. The part that we can affect. And it starts when we decide. (A very wise cartoon rat once said that.)

e)Yes, prolonging life means that men will be given more time and opportunity to become wicked. But by that logic we should be pushing suicides off of bridges and strangle every newborn in its crib to keep Life from corrupting them! Longevity gives men opportunity for wickedness; it also gives them opportunity for virtue and redemption, the chance to change their course and go the other way.

This is the sum argument: Despite all the problems that come with it, life is still an undiluted Good Thing, and should not be cast aside.