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What will happen when we become immortal?

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AbstractMany researchers are working toward the goal of finding a treatment that halts or even reverses the aging process of the human body, a treatment that would make the recipient potentially immortal. The hope that they will succeed in the relatively near future is gaining ground among academics and laypeople alike. What will happen if this hope becomes reality? Specifically, how will our political and social institutions and practices be affected by that discovery? These are the questions raised in the present paper. Concretely, I will discuss three political and social problems that the invention of an immortality treatment is likely to provoke, namely the struggle for access to that treatment, the threat of overpopulation, and the friction between potentially immortal individuals.

Wiley

Wolfhart Totschnig

The Philosophical Forum

Title: What will happen when we become immortal?

Description:

AbstractMany researchers are working toward the goal of finding a treatment that halts or even reverses the aging process of the human body, a treatment that would make the recipient potentially immortal.

The hope that they will succeed in the relatively near future is gaining ground among academics and laypeople alike.

What will happen if this hope becomes reality? Specifically, how will our political and social institutions and practices be affected by that discovery? These are the questions raised in the present paper.

Concretely, I will discuss three political and social problems that the invention of an immortality treatment is likely to provoke, namely the struggle for access to that treatment, the threat of overpopulation, and the friction between potentially immortal individuals.

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