That's an odd thing to say.

I don't know that I agree exactly. Death that is not chosen freely can be said to be less than optimal. In an ideal world, everyone would die only when they choose to have no more new experiences, out of sheer boredom rather than some form of suffering -- assuming that would even in occur in a world free of suffering.

There are people (and I am not one of them) who would argue that death (or maybe more accurately, mortality) is such an intrinsic part of life that the value of life would be diminished by trying to separate the two. It's sort of the flip side of the atheist argument that life is more precious because it's finite. If theism that posits an afterlife cheapens the value of life, then so would science that comes bearing biological immortality. I think this may reveal the weakness of the atheist argument about the value of mortality more than it reveals any inherent problem with biological immortality itself.

Under present circumstances though where quality of life becomes unobtanium at some point, death is a mercy and a finite existence is a comfort.

@mordant
Yeah, I'm not one of them either. I don't disagree with what you're saying here. Of course under current conditions, we can't deny the value of death as a means of escaping a life not worth living. But that's combining two issues instead of just looking at one.

It's like saying sex is bad because you can catch/spread disease. Well, it's true disease can be spread sexually. That can't be denied. But sex and disease are two separate issues that happen to be related. I would say sex is good and disease is bad, and where the two intersect, you need to be careful.

So I still say death is bad and escape from suffering is good, and making whatever compromise we must, under the circumstances, is just part of being a rational adult.

I like to make this statement about death every chance I get, to help break the mythology of the inevitability of death. Recently deceased AI scientist, Marvin Minsky said that if it had not been for religious resistance to science, we would long since have discovered a cure for death. And, realistically, I think we are not talking about doing away with death so much as taking control of its timing.

But, if @AstroChuck happens to be wrong and our species survives (I have my doubts too) we aren't that far away from solving that problem of being able to choose the timing of our death, at minimum. And still one of the greatest obstacles to that achievement is the public assumption of its impossibility and even denial of its desirability.

I like to point out that when we pushed life expectancy from 35 to 85 nobody complained because it was done incrementally. But if you say let's push it to becoming optional, then everybody's against it, because "impossible" you know. I think a public awareness bump is long overdue.

@skado Completely agree. Biological immortality is not impossible, although I don't think we're so close to it that it's going to be an option for me.

I think a big problem is that people have a failure of imagination here. Not so much the notion that biological immortality is impossible but failure to understand that the whole idea behind it is to live as long as you want with good quality of life, and misplaced concerns that basically come from having no way to frame the discussion. People seem to wonder about population concerns, what will we do with all that free time concerns, who will make room for young people concerns. And of course, thanks to religion, probably an aversion to the notion of "playing god". It's true that it would be transformative for society, and people quickly overload on the implications, turning into something New and Scary. It's my view that so long as it's affordable and available to all, biological immortality would usher in a lot of really nice problems to have.

I'd predict people will have fewer children, for example, and wouldn't just keep on having them, as many seem to imagine. Anyone who has had kids understands that one batch (preferably <= 2) is plenty, and if people didn't have to hurry up and have them because they don't want to foreclose their options with age, a lot of people would just never get around to it.

@mordant
"... biological immortality would usher in a lot of really nice problems to have."

Couldn't have said it better myself.