I know there are people out there who don’t believe in an afterlife, and who don’t believe that human immortality is possible even in principle. I also know that some of them have children. I don’t understand them.
In a way, yes, I get it. I understand the will to live, and hormonal urges and biological drives. But… how could anyone who thinks all life must die make a deliberate choice to do that?
I think human (or post-human) immortality is possible. I am grateful to the billions of ancestors who came before me that helped to make this possible. Those who struggled and suffered through life, and reproduced, and died with no chance for limitless life of their own, so that some day in the far future someone else could live. They paid the ultimate price for someone they’ll never meet. Our species as a whole has been paying this long price for uncounted centuries.
I hope to see these advances, to maybe be one of the age-less. But if I am not, at least I believe that my sacrifice will lead to our descendants finally achieving this, and hopefully some of them will think of us ancients now and then.
But to believe that all of this is for nothing? That no matter what, all people must die, all things must fade, and the only purpose to life is to reproduce so that endless generations afterward can also reproduce and die? It’s a horror story. It almost feels like the mentality of a virus. I would rather not contribute to that.