(no subject)

[vyvyanx]

I forgot to mention that after my golem/Gollum pseudopoll, some anonymous kind person bestowed a paid account upon me. I take this as an encouragement to post more polls! - so here is one on an issue I remember discussing with some people on Usenet several years ago:

[Poll #331385]
Update To clarify, you can't decide to have children first and take the drug later - assume that the government won't give the drug to anyone who has children, or that the drug won't actually work if you've have children. If you answered "Something else" for some different reason, please let me know in a comment what the reason is!

No offence is intended by this poll towards anyone who has, is about to have or wants to have children - it's just idle curiosity about whether people would rather have personal immortality or children (sometimes described as providing a form of immortality through genetic/cultural transmission).

Comments

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Rider: assuming it preserves my youthful vitality as well as my life :)

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I was making that assumption a well.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Yep, you can assume it does.

[davefish.livejournal.com]

At some point I'd take the drug, post 1 or two kids perhaps. Probably not jsut at the minute though

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

No, you can't have kids and then take the drug; the scenario doesn't work like that! (I originally put an extra bit in the question to this effect, but it was getting long and complicated anyway!) If you decide to have children at all, you will never be able to take the drug - imagine that either the government won't allow it to be given to people who have children, or the drug won't work if you've already had children. I wanted to know whether people would rather live forever or have children - not both!

[davefish.livejournal.com]

I think that I would probably go to the side of not having kids. I'd just have to be 'Mad uncle Dave to some of my friends kids :)

[velvetfox.livejournal.com]

I just wouldn't want to live forever. I'm part of a species that's meant to evolve, and my children should learn from my mistakes, and become better than me.

[deliberateblank.livejournal.com]

1) Nope, you're part of a species that does evolve, purely because that is a system that has thus far worked. It's not a given that this will remain the case or desirable indefinitely.

2) Evolution takes many forms; genetic, social, psychological and purely memetic. Learning from your own mistakes, and becoming better than yourself may work just as well. (At least for many value functions and many timescales. In fact all have been essential to getting us where we are now.)

[damerell.livejournal.com]

My answer is not very meaningful because as you know I'd take the drug even if it _didn't_ extend lifespan - an effective non-surgical steriliser is just what I want. :-)

[berglaug.livejournal.com]

i wouldn't give up the option of having children

or at least, i don't think i would

of course, i won't know until i'm actually faced with the decision, but i think mortality is something we all, eventually, must deal with, and that not growing old would get.. frustrating... i don't know, maybe i'm just silly

but

children i'd very much like to have

and even though i could be an 'aunt' to an awful lot of them, well, i like genetics and heridity... i don't think i'd want to miss it

[teleute.livejournal.com]

unless I'd be allowed to adopt. In which case, I'd take the drug and just adopt children every couple of years for the rest of eternity. I like that idea better :-)

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

You would be allowed to adopt, but there might not be very many spare children about to adopt in this scenario! Presumably, the only people still having children would really want them (since they're giving up eternal life in order to have them), so I guess the only adoptable children would be those whose parents died while they were still young. And the demand to adopt them, from other immortal childless people, would probably be quite high, so I suspect the opportunity would only present itself very occasionally.

But still, yours is an interesting answer - you seem to rate personal immortality above potential genetic immortality, but not above a lifestyle involving caring for children! This is the sort of thing I wanted to find out :-)

[teleute.livejournal.com]

I was assuming there would be religious or cultural objections sufficient that many of the world's population wouldn't take the drug (either by choice, or it wouldn't be allowed). I also assumed a financial issue, such that the world's poor wouldn't be able to afford it. In either of these scenarios there wouldn likely still be children available to adopt, although probably not of my culture/race (although I don't think that is an impediment to adoption).

I have never thought that genetic immortality was important. Married to anyone other than Adrian (who has a problem with adoption) I would be adopting rather than having my own children. Immortality would merely allow me the chance to raise more!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I can't answer; I like the idea of living a great length of time, but I don't yet actually want to rule out having children, and I can't decide between these two things.

[kaet.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't take the drug, because I don't really like the idea of much living much longer than, say, five score years. For me that's a contrast between a thing of negative value (the drug) and a thing of positive value (an option which I don't find it a burden to maintain).

It's plausible that in some society retaining the option of having children would have extreme negative value (perhaps people who might have children were sent away to intolerable freedomless over-protective asylum-like reproductive environments for the good of the species, whereas no interest is shown in those who cannot reproduce, making those people more free). In that case I might take the drug because the option of having kids would be of a great negative value. Or perhaps with a slightly different brain, retaining the option might cause such incredible anxiety as to whether I will or not, that taking the drug (or having a child) would remove that anxiety. Also, if I thought that I might in future act wrongly (owing to pressure or mental illness, say) I might.

But if I can be trusted to take the most positive choice when it is required (wrt children), and retaining the choice isn't painful, then retaining the choice has the value of the most positive option, whereas forcing the choice will have the value of one of the options (the forced one). So, forcing the choice is going to be less than or equal to the value of retaining the choice. If forcing the choice has accompanying it an auxilliary negative consquence (excessive longevity owing to the medicine) then forcing the choice and taking the pill has a strictly lower value than retaining it, whatever I would choose later concerning children.

Sorry I'm not clear, it's late.

[fellcat.livejournal.com]

Living forever would drive me even more nuts than I already am. I don't think that I am sane enough or responsible enough to become a parent. I am not prepared to give up the freedom that I now have in order to have children. However I am responsible enough to realise this before I get pregnant, and can so avoid pregnancy.