Reddit — Instagram Data

Subreddit:Keyword:Sentiment:Export CSV

Subreddit: r/Futurology clear

2 posts · sorted by score DESC

Subreddit

Title

Author

Upvotes

Ratio

Cmts

Score

Sentiment

Keyword

Date

Link

r/Futurology

If humans cure aging by 2050, would governments eventually have to ban reproduct...

hosseinz

49.9

regenerative medicine

2026-03-10

↗

commenter	comment	upvotes
u/kore_nametooshort	If aging ended, we would continue to die due to disease and accident. I vaguely remember reading a study that said average life expectancy in the western world would be about 1200 if that happened, but it would be more like a half life where you'd expect half the population to die in that period rather than people to live about that long, give or take. So reproduction would be necessary, but to a much lesser degree. This would probably lead to restrictions, but not bans. Something like a stricter version of the China one child policy, or severe devaluation of human life allowing countries like russia to throw lives away in wars much more readily. It might also coincide with higher productivity because you would change from having only about 62% of the population being working age to probably the high 90%s. And many fewer of those dedicated to caring, education for the very old or young. You would need this to bring in more food, energy and housing for all the people.	17
u/CTRexPope	They likely won’t need too. Birth rates are already falling globally. Give people time to put off kids for decades if not centuries, enough will opt in and die from random accidents to control the population level.	9
u/malk600	Cool, cool. Let's start with the obvious. We're not going to "cure aging", and certainly not within 20 years. People who claim that are misinformed or selling you fancy snake oil. Long term? Who the hell knows. I kind of like to imagine a Star Trek or Lancer-like future (or even Expanse, though that's not exactly optimistic), where space is the frontier that calls for humanity to fill it, but the path from here to there is fraught at best.	6
u/orgin_org	Any such cure would probably entail obscenely expensive RNA treatments that are specifically tailored to an individuals own DNA and cellular makeup and not a generic treatment that works out of the box on anyone. So only very rich people would be able to afford it. That is, the adoption would be very slow so any population regulation would be very far down the line.	5
u/Gerdione	I think quite simply no. If the only part of your hypothetical is that they cure aging, then it just means that only the obscenely extremely wealthy and connected will have access to it thereby cementing their legacies and power. Why would they make it accessible to poor people? Insurance already tries to cover nothing, imagine arguing why you need to stop biologically aging.	5
u/Waboritafan	There is a Kurt Vonnegut story that tackles this subject. A man and his wife have triplets on the way. They must find 3 people willing to die voluntarily so the babies can live. Or the babies will be euthanized.	3
u/Aggressive-Fee5306	"Fill out a C-01 permit before engaging in any activity that may lead to reproduction." Doubt it though, to governments it means more taxpayers and to businesses cheaper labour. There is no concept of "okay, 100 billion is enough"	2
u/IndigoFenix	You're forgetting about the cost of raising a child. Populations don't grow without limit, they are restricted by the available resources, which is abstracted as money. If immortality becomes cheap and available, what is most likely to happen is that the paradigm of "once a child is born, someone has to support them" will fall out of favor, and that the cost of supporting a child will fall on the parents. If parents have more children than they can afford, those children will simply die. It seems cruel, but what's the alternative - artificially preventing most people from having access to immortality treatment? That's the same as letting everyone die when they don't need to. Try that, and you've turned the minority restricting the supply into a target for literally everyone else. Provide easy access to both birth control AND cheap immortality, and people who decide in spite of this to have children they can't afford will become the target instead. That's a minority that is much easier to condemn.	2
u/fafarex	It raises some strange questions: Would reproduction become illegal in an immortal society? moot point it would never be available to enough of the population for it to need this type of legislation. Would immortality create a permanent ruling class? most likely an indirect one based on oligarchy in democratic country and an actual one in dictatorship an monarchy. Could the human mind even handle living for centuries? since we are talking about a case where your brain regenerate permanently (a requierement for extended life/immortality) at worst you should forget things very far in the past that you didn't thought about for a long time, just like you already do now.	2
u/leigen_zero	Like you said it will be a luxury product available to only the ultra-rich. Rest of us will grow wrinkly and frail like we have done since ape first picked up a rock and smashed another ape in the head with it. The immortals will stand to make so much profit from the mortals that they'd never allow a deathless society.	1
u/Low-Speaker-6670	Love death and Robots episode "pop squad" Your fictional scenario played out.	1
u/owjfaigs222	Well seeing how the birth rates are going down in developed countries, perhaps people would stop reproducing on their own. But otherwise, if it's available to an average Joe, probably yes. Population control was already used in some countries like China.	1
u/DragonWhsiperer	If you want a glimpse on how that would work, you can check out the Warhammer 40k universe. It's a satirical hyper enhanced, highly advanced but very dark future of humanity, where all the darker sides of people and their motivations are magnified to the extreme. Class warfare exists where anyone who is part of a ruling class is always part of a dynasty that can get Rejuvenation treatments and live for centuries. The rest of humanity lives in terrible conditions, is allowed to propagate without restraints and any excess of the population is used as cannon fodder for endless wars in service to those in power. So yeah, elites will hoard this undeath technology for themselves, while reaping the rewards of the rest of use for perpetuity.	1
u/Leather_Office6166	In a world with dense populations and no vaccines, protection against aging would be unimportant because almost everyone dies before getting old.	1
u/dust_of_the_stars	Don't worry. The system needs cheap slaves to perform the labor. As long as human workers are cheaper than robots, your right to produce new slaves will be encouraged. Robots that can do manual labor like cleaning and cooking are expensive and difficult to make, so there is still a long way until they become cheaper and more efficient than humans. Capitalism does not encourage space colonization or the development of innovative drugs anyway because the research required for that is risky and does not bring quick profit. I doubt there will be any meaningful progress made until 2050. So, the system will remain the same, and the population will continue growing exponentially until this planet is depleted of all the resources and pollution from wars, chemicals, plastic and factories reaches the levels not compatible with life. However, your reproduction rights are safe. Capitalism needs your children for labor.	1
u/Trophallaxis	Currently, a fertility rate of around 2.2 is necessary to sustain a population. That's basically because everyone dies at some point - that's the 2 part, and some people die without having any kids - that's the .2 part. If no one died from old age, we would still need at least a 0.2 Fertility Rate just to compensate for random fatalities. Fertility rates are in free fall all across the globe. South Korea already has a fertility rate of 0.68. A lot of developed countries skirt around 1.2. And, mind you, all this with governments bending over backwards trying to incentivize big families, and people still facing a lot of pressure from their relatives and their biology. Like, I did a little poll among friends, obv. not representative, but I asked why did they have children at a certain age and not later or sooner. Every answer came down to some version of this: - not sooner because money - not later because then less chance for grandparents to be alive - not later because of biological limitations If we solve aging, all three factors change. You can keep building your life until you can have kids on your terms, spend as much time with them as you want, no compromise. Important family will still be around and your biology (perhaps with assist, but still) will still enable children. I am very much convinced that radical longevity will keep pushing down birth rates further.	1
u/pjkm123987	It won't be available or told to the public. Only private will ever know about it
u/StarChild413	[deleted]
u/JUST_A_LITTLE_PUSH	Naw. We'll send all the ageless Zombies to Mars instead. First we have to survive World War 3 before living World War Z.
u/wwarnout	if curing aging actually becomes possible, would it improve humanity, or create a dystopian future? I read a novel about an intelligent alien species that had conquered aging - and their society stagnated. Their people no longer had the pressure to "get x done before they die", and instead took the attitude, "I'll get around to it eventually...", and "eventually" never came.
u/texan-janakay	IF all causes of death other than accidents were implemented (i.e. aging, cancer, etc.) we would definitely need to implement some sort of reproduction control. Hopefully people would at least put off spawning until they were older and more settled and could better afford it, instead of the welfare children we have now. In the world of sci-fi, they often solve this dilemma by making birth control implants (both sexes) mandatory at puberty. Then only when the person can prove financial security AND emotional maturity can the implant be removed. That has always seemed reasonable to me. Can't afford the baby? nope, can't have one (yet). Can't nurture it and take care of it? nope can't have one (yet).
u/Punpun86	If it happens it will be a available only for the ultra rich. The rest of us useless eaters are not needed to be alive and "leech" the pension scam fund.	-1
u/2mxm2	If this can be solved, it will be available to the rich, not the poor. There will certainly be no interest in everyone being immortal and the number of people going to unbearable numbers.	-2