Immortality Morality

[DesertFly]

Hmm. I would definitely live out my life as long as I could without dying, using the time to save up enough money to live on the interest first, then going and doing the things I know I won't have time for in this life. I'd get degrees and do my best to become an expert in any field that interested me. I'd learn every language that I could, and spend some time (as much as I wanted) living in every place that I possibly could, just to get to know this world better. I would learn to play all the instruments I don't know. I would write books about everything.

And if I died for some reason, I would come back if I could choose who died for my resurrection. If it was some random person, I would probably feel really bad about doing it, and waver for awhile, but then I would rationalize it and just do it anyway. If it was my close friends or family....not happening. I would hopefully have put away enough money that they could live comfortably when I was gone.

As for ruling the world. Perhaps, in time, when I've learned more about humanity and how they work I would work toward this goal. But not for several hundred years, at least.

[Havok]

In all situations, I would just live out my life however it turned out. My desire to see where humanity is going to end up definitely overpowers the guilt I may have if some random, or even a person close to me, died. As it stands now, death doesn't effect me that much anyway. Also, other than getting killed on a motorcycle, which with me is going to become highly probable knowing that I can't really die, you gotta figure at the worst some one is going to die every 50 years or so for you.

I'm assuming since you can change your appearance, you can choose the age you come back as. I would come back as a high school freshman each time, playing different sports and specializing in different subjects through college. I figure after a few hundred lifetimes, I might get math down.
I might even take a crack at the NFL or MLB once or twice.

Money isn't all that important to me but I would try to set up accounts over the years that I could access in case of emergency or the sudden urge to travel or disappear.

I would definitely try running for President at least once here in the States and maybe even try it in other countries as well.

Heh. Maybe I'd fuck with everyone and start a religion based on my "miracles"

[Ar-Adunakhor]

The obvious moral way to go about this is to immediately sequester yourself in such a fashion that your death is an exceptionally unlikely event, and remain that way for your entire natural life. Should your death become something that is certain to be a regular occurrence, you should terminate yourself.

With any luck you'll get several hundred to several thousand years of living deep inside a fortified bunker palace out of it.

Tsk tsk! I had expected so much more Duchess.

Surely a few deaths is not too much to ask to finally bring the world under a strong and capable leader? A unified vision would allow for the preservation of the human race and the prevention of thousands of deaths every day! What are a few random deaths --indeed, statistically they were probably suffering in some hovel anyway-- compared to all the good that could be accomplished by such a person? Are you so callous as to selfishly waste this great gift on yourself? Don't you owe it to the human race to repay the resource debt you accrued through birth and being raised in a first-world country?

Did you rip this off from 'Planescape: Torment'?

Surely you will agree that my version shows much more forethought than Ravel did. But yes, PS:T happened to come up in conversation the other day and got me thinking about it

Obviously this would make Taking Over The World (tm) much easier, and after I've done that I'd make everyone else immortal (and maybe enlightened) anyway, using Science! (r) rather than magic, so the 'curse' would become irrelevant.

What assurance do you have that you will be able to? Oh, nobody doubts that it will make it easier to gain large amounts of resources but then what are you going to do? Do you have the key to immortality locked away? What is to seperate you from, say, an insane alchemist who kills people to extract their "vital fluids" in an attempt to create elixers to help humanity. It sounds like you are simply trying to rationalize your continued life at the expense of others. Indeed, what makes your life worth more than the innocents that you are killing when you die? Because most assuredly you *will* die if you attempt to gain power, be it through assassin's bullets or just plain bad luck. Nor will large amounts of the world fold without a fight. Will you use your immortality to gain the power to wage war on the rest of humanity on top of the parasitic drain you already are? To keep them pacified in order to follow whatever you deem to be the "proper" course for humanity? What even suggests that your goals are the ones that should be followed if we want to survive? What suggests they are best for humanity in general? You are immortal not omniscient, after all.

I think moral degeneration is inevitable within a few centuries.

I agree. My reasons are that as you amass more and more wealth and power it has been demonstrated that more people also possess the sense of entitlement found among those who have it than remain bound by the strict morality that they might have possessed when poorer. Indeed, you will be immortal in addition to living in a life of comfort and power. What reason would you have to end your life, one that could do so much good! The chances are that the people you are killing will never amount to anything anyway, right? But here you are, obviously possessed of intelligence, cunning, experience, a solid goal that will obviously help the human race, and the immortality that ensures you can achieve it. What are the deaths of people like that compared to your survival, after all? You can do so much more than they can and that entitles you to their life, right?

What is your reasoning for coming to this conclusion?

I try to live out the first life as long as possible. If I die, I choose not to reincarnate.

That does not follow the outlined powers. You would have to intentionally kill yourself in order to not reincarnate. Would you? No just saying, "If it happens, it happens." but instead a willful desire to end oneself.

The idea of extending my own life at the expense of prematurely ending another's is morally reprehensible to me, no matter who the victim of it is.

Why? You probably won't even know them and at current population growth rates we are going to run out of land to supply all the mouths to feed. You would just be doing the world a favor, and 150,000 people die every day already. What is one more every 10 or 20 years?

Meh. The odds of permanently dying are so small as to not be worth worrying about. I wouldn't intentionally go out and try to get myself killed anyway, since it seems like it would be an unpleasant experience.

Then what about 1 in 100,000? 1 in 1,000? 1 in 100? 1 in 10? 1 in 5?

I think it might be interesting to watch how some family lines breed out. Not anything like eugenics, but maybe like picking 100 people, then subtly helping them out in various ways in the background, and then seeing how things turn out for them and their descendants as time goes on. You know, maybe in 150 years, that impoverished African farmer is now a wealthy businessman, or ruler of a country.

Doesn't that strike you as cruel? If you are a wealthy and powerful immortal then what do the resources needed to help these poor bastards matter to you? Surely controlling their actions and fate is even more cruel and unjustified than randomly taking someone's life simply to preserve your own, with no regard for theirs? What would be the difference between you and other inhumane experiments on people without their consent or knowledge? Don't you now have an obligation to help them as much as you can being as at any second you could take their life without them having a chance to voice an objection?

I suppose that's one of the lessons of this, if you want to think of it like that. If you've got some system like this where you can essentially get away with whatever you want and there really isn't shit they can do to you (especially under the original system, without some of the variations), how many people will really stick with a moral code and how many will use it to gain an advantage? And if in the course of it they need to off some random schmoe to regenerate for whatever reason...well tough luck.

Indeed, you have discovered one of the main things I was looking for. It seems that Power=Right is quite prevelant.

Good way: slowly become an immortal God-Emperor via accumulating knowledge, wisdom, resources and power.

Same question as I asked Starglider.

Bad way: become an eternal guerilla soldier for whatever cause you find noble. This would actually be funny, since people whom you wish to kill in the struggle will be certainly amazed by your immortality. That solution sounds like Alucard

You would sacrifice dozens, hundreds, or even thousands for this? People who had no will to be in the war and are now dead because *you* decided it was a worthy cause? What if you were wrong? What if the leaders you are fighting for are really corrupt motherfuckers who will screw the pooch when they take over? Are the innocent deaths you caused in the fight now justified? Barring mass civilian casualties, at least in a normal war the ones getting killed are generally the ones fighting. Are you saying that it is perfectly acceptable to slaughter innocents who have nothing to do with the war as long as it accomplishes your goals? Goals which, may I remind you, are ones you determine as an immortal, not an omniscient. What moral code is this?

Nothing would change for me. I'll live through my natural life, start a family, raise a child, then off myself.

So, you will survive just long enough to both not pay off your debt to society, increase the burden on the world, and then wipe out any good your immortality could have done for the world. Perhaps you would like to drive an SUV and vote Republican too? You would forfiet the chance to aid humanity in whatever way possible simply because "Boo hoo, I might hurt someone!" whilst doing virtually nothing to help those you claim to care so much about? Think about all the good you could do if you were to live, even if you don't want to rule the world or whatever. Maybe you could go to Africa and campaign for an end to the violence, I imagine they would be very inclined to listen to someone who cannot die.

Ohhhh... that's much better than the Death Note - you can kill at will, but you're also immortal. Actually, given the amount of truly bad people, I think it's rather hard for a person not to become Yagami Light 2.0 under such circumstances.

Quite. I admit that would be very appealing to me. After all, I can suddenly fix everything and the only ones dying are the "bad" ones. But what if I were to decide that anyone who says I'm wrong is bad? Or any woman who doesn't jump at the chance to join my harem is bad? Or perhaps anyone who doesn't want to follow the Grand Overlord's Third Directive Regarding Toenail Cleanliness is bad?

I mean, I'd still do it I imagine. There is, after all, so much an immortal with the goals of humanity as a group could do right now. Space flight, minimization of war and wasted resources. But it would be very tricky to stay away from my wants and the goals of humanity. I am unsure if I could do it after even a few thousand years, much less hundreds of thousands.

Heh. Maybe I'd fuck with everyone and start a religion based on my "miracles".

You know, this would actually be a good way to build your power base. You are a living god now, and it has been shown what extent humans will go to for gods that don't exist. Hell, I'd have a Cult of Adun. It would probably also give you a foothold into moral degeneration though. But once again, that's probably inevitable anyway, and it's not like you would stop yourself once you were degenerate.

[RogueIce]

Which will make it all the more ironic when I define him as the person most worthy of dying and he discovers that the only thing that can actually kill him is having his life sucked by the regeneration of another immortal. Good thing I thought of it first eh?

That assumes you both exist at the same time of course.

And even if you did, so what? He'd just off some other poor bastard and come back to life anyway since you both have the same power. I suppose he could lock it into a loop by choosing you to die to regenerate him and then it'd keep going until either A) one of you picks some other person to die instead or B) one of you decided to just die this time.

Since the only way to "kill" someone with these powers is for them to choose to die (unless you go with the 1 in 1,000,000 thing and they or you get unlucky) your plan is rather fruitless. It either results in some other person dying anyway or you get some really twisted multiple death loop going.

[ray245]

All world leaders before me would be a pale shadow, all religious figures - a zero, this would be a miracle of such gigantic proprotions that I would inevitably start a new world cult with me as it's eternal and undying leader, swiftly killing whoever I find evil enough to kill.

Peace through power! Peace through power! All hail Kane!

Kane lives!

Sorry, I just couldn't resist

I was wondering when would anyone starts to make the kane connections.

[Junghalli]

Ideally, I'd like to say I'd turn it down. Sooner or later I'd be bound to "get killed" and then I'd have somebody else's blood on my hands. The possible exception is the scenario where the victims are all violent criminals.

Realistically it'd be pretty damn tempting though.

[Junghalli]

Addenda:

If I didn't have a choice of whether I wanted the power or not, I would live normally but try to avoid fatal injuries with the same resolve I would if they actually killed me.

[Temjin]

That does not follow the outlined powers. You would have to intentionally kill yourself in order to not reincarnate. Would you? No just saying, "If it happens, it happens." but instead a willful desire to end oneself.

Hm, you're right. Then I try to off myself just before I die.

The idea of extending my own life at the expense of prematurely ending another's is morally reprehensible to me, no matter who the victim of it is.

Why? You probably won't even know them and at current population growth rates we are going to run out of land to supply all the mouths to feed. You would just be doing the world a favor, and 150,000 people die every day already. What is one more every 10 or 20 years?

Each person has only a very limited time to live. After we die, that's it. No afterlife. Nothing. Why should I take away a person's limited time on this planet so that I may extend my life to an unnatural degree?

The fact that the person is unknown to me changes nothing. The above still holds true.

And what, exactly, would an immortal person do that a normal person (or a group of normal people) could not? What could an immortal do that would justify the the innocent lives he must take?

[Covenant]

Given the amount of really awful people out there who I'd have no problems killing in defense of others, I don't have a problem terminating such a tiny number of people over such an immensely long time. I don't intend to die too often. My life is pretty sedate as-is, and if I was Immortal I'd pretty much stay the same. The only change is that, as an Immortal, I don't really need to concern myself with things like retirement and such.

This would certainly let me do something insanely stupid and get away with it as a way of generating some quick income. What this is I do not know, but something perhaps with Hazard Pay. That's not ideal, since I want to minimize the amount of life-force vampirism my body commits, but if I get to choose who (or if it is generated randomly) then it could be a pretty simple thing to do. If you're throwing yourself into a dangerous situation where the danger comes from bad people trying to kill you, then getting blown away is essentially a morally justifiable self-defense maneuver.

I think that the biggest decision I'd have to make, as an Immortal, is what I want to do with this. Obviously, indulging in a life of ridiculous excess isn't noble, and I'm not interested in it anyway.

As an athiest, this would be a rather confusing state of being. I'd want to ponder the meaning of this kind of magical regeneration, and I'd also be interested in finding out if there are others with this ability.

While I don't have the ethical understanding required of a world leader, it would be interesting to see what my chances are of actually creating a micronation where I could invite brilliant minds to help create a good society. Sadly, living forever doesn't really come with any other qualifications, so I'd need to spin this off as some kind of divine right to rule. The problem is, like I said, divinity isn't really something I believe in, so that presents an intellectual roadblock for me. I'd need to make it some sort of religion where, at the top of the enlightenment ladder, is the revelation that it's actually not religious at all.

I'm sure we could certainly come up with ten more functional commandments to base a society on, but the "God Emperor of Mankind" route, of manipulating events behind the scenes, is probably the more likely to end up properly. I'm sure the US could just freeze my assets. What good is being Immortal and broke? Sure, I can avoid death, but without the ability to effect change I'm not much of a useful superhero. I don't want to grow old, live in pain, and have to wear adult diapers any more than anyone else... but immortality, while an excellent trick, is really not an incredibly useful single power. I'd be worried that I'm simply not smart or capable enough of doing much on my own, so me living forever might be a kinda useless thing.

No moral quandry, really, I'm just not sure what good I'd end up being to anyone else.

[Starglider]

Obviously this would make Taking Over The World (tm) much easier, and after I've done that I'd make everyone else immortal (and maybe enlightened) anyway, using Science! (r) rather than magic, so the 'curse' would become irrelevant.

What assurance do you have that you will be able to? Oh, nobody doubts that it will make it easier to gain large amounts of resources but then what are you going to do? Do you have the key to immortality locked away? What is to seperate you from, say, an insane alchemist who kills people to extract their "vital fluids" in an attempt to create elixers to help humanity. It sounds like you are simply trying to rationalize your continued life at the expense of others.[/quote]

Wrong. I am almost certain that I would develop artificial general intelligence given an indefinite amount of time and resources. This is quite adequate to transform the world in fairly arbitrary ways, assuming of course that the extremely difficult task of /controlling/ the technology is also mastered.

Indeed, what makes your life worth more than the innocents that you are killing when you die? Because most assuredly you *will* die if you attempt to gain power,

I don't think so, since I'm not doing it by any sort of conventional means. The cheap, quick and reliable way is to develop motile brain-controlling micro/nanobots, seed all the major water supplies with them, wait a few weeks, then start broadcasting instructions. Most of the population will be assimilated before they even realise what is happening.</voyager>

Nor will large amounts of the world fold without a fight.

'They cannot resist my legions of doom! Forward, my atomic death robots!'

I practice that in the shower every morning just so I can get the delivery right when the time finally comes.

What even suggests that your goals are the ones that should be followed if we want to survive?

Is there any particular reason why I need to convince you?

You are immortal not omniscient, after all.

Yes, well, personal intelligence enhancement is a major priority. Much as I hate to admitt it, this is also a far more useful application for the self-transforming power than angel wings.

[Guardsman Bass]

And what, exactly, would an immortal person do that a normal person (or a group of normal people) could not? What could an immortal do that would justify the the innocent lives he must take?

Preserve knowledge and society in a way that literally is almost unimaginable? It's why I mentioned the point of watching how certain human lines breed out. You could do something else, like subtly influence societies towards peace and technology, start projects that will take centuries to fulfill, and learn an enormous amount.

To be perfectly honest, unless it was a relative, I don't think I could choose to kill myself permanently. I just want to live too much (and would probably want more so, after I get involved with tons of things on centuries, millenia, or even millions-of-years scale possibly), and that would, over time, overwhelm any guilt I feel towards an unknown person getting killed. I understand that's not exactly ethical, but it's what would probably be the case for me, at least after a while. The relative is a different story; I would flip the kill switch before letting it kill any close relatives; same goes for close friends.

[Singular Intellect]

With the sheer ignorance and gullibility of the vast majority of people, it shouldn't be hard to quickly establish yourself as a god like entity, or god 'representative' akin to some christ-like concept.

With that kind of influence, you should actually be able to establish yourself a powerful position relativity quickly. Maintaining your youth and health far beyond any hoax should solidify the deal.

[Temjin]

Preserve knowledge and society in a way that literally is almost unimaginable? It's why I mentioned the point of watching how certain human lines breed out. You could do something else, like subtly influence societies towards peace and technology, start projects that will take centuries to fulfill, and learn an enormous amount.

Besides that last one, how couldn't a group of people with a common purpose do it just as well?

[defanatic]

With the sheer ignorance and gullibility of the vast majority of people, it shouldn't be hard to quickly establish yourself as a god like entity, or god 'representative' akin to some christ-like concept.

Yes. You could commission a painting of yourself every eighty years or so, and have them subtly placed all over the world, as well as having your name on a few things. After five hundred years or so, your "evidence" would be complete enough so you could start gathering followers. In this time, you would be learning many many things, so that you would appear very intelligent and knowledgeable.

[Singular Intellect]

With the sheer ignorance and gullibility of the vast majority of people, it shouldn't be hard to quickly establish yourself as a god like entity, or god 'representative' akin to some christ-like concept.

Yes. You could commission a painting of yourself every eighty years or so, and have them subtly placed all over the world, as well as having your name on a few things. After five hundred years or so, your "evidence" would be complete enough so you could start gathering followers. In this time, you would be learning many many things, so that you would appear very intelligent and knowledgeable.

I'm rather curious as to why you said 'appear' very intelligent and knowledgeable, when a person having lived that long, assuming intelligent in the first place, would actually be so.

[The_Saint]

Having had an unpleasant taste of the "relationships not lasting" part of mortality I think I'll try and live like normal and end it if I get into a situation where I would die normally.

On the other hand... power can be addictive... is the immortal candidate aware of the lives they are taking every time they regenerate??? If not then the choice is going to be easier.

[lance]

You could have your organs harvested and save more lives than your taking.

[Guardsman Bass]

Doesn't that strike you as cruel? If you are a wealthy and powerful immortal then what do the resources needed to help these poor bastards matter to you? Surely controlling their actions and fate is even more cruel and unjustified than randomly taking someone's life simply to preserve your own, with no regard for theirs? What would be the difference between you and other inhumane experiments on people without their consent or knowledge? Don't you now have an obligation to help them as much as you can being as at any second you could take their life without them having a chance to voice an objection?

Since when does "subtly helping them out in various ways" turn into "controlling their actions and fate"? Don't strawman me.

[Guardsman Bass]

Preserve knowledge and society in a way that literally is almost unimaginable? It's why I mentioned the point of watching how certain human lines breed out. You could do something else, like subtly influence societies towards peace and technology, start projects that will take centuries to fulfill, and learn an enormous amount.

Besides that last one, how couldn't a group of people with a common purpose do it just as well?

I'm not saying that they couldn't do it; it's just that even societies aren't as great in preserving memories and acting on the centuries' scale, simply because at some point the Old Guard has to die (whether or not it's a good thing that the Old Guard dies is a different issue).