Rockman & Community > ZX
The "gift" of mortality
Align:
Why did they choose to limit reploid lifespans instead of allowing humans to change their bodies entirely to machines as they grew older? A workforce that can keep working indefinitely bar accidents, and grows ever more skilled... And overpopulation could be managed as long as you enforce sterility and abandon production of new reploids.
Flame:
Review those last two measures. So those sound appealing at all? YOU CANT HAVE A FAMILY. NOPE.
Overpopulation would rock the place. no amount of sterility laws are going to prevent people from reproducing.
And besides, even with lifespans, they still live an exorbitant amount of time. Recall Ciel disappearing only shortly before ZX. That's 200 years after the Zero series. And whatsis name in ZXA claiming to be an "old model" reploid. (And looking it too) Reploids and humans have lifespans, but still live very long lives. lives more than long enough to set their affairs in order.
Align:
But they still die, which certainly isn't something everyone would choose if it was a choice, rather than a law.
As for family, if you had a machine body you could probably opt out of biological urges (and of course, just because you have an urge doesn't mean it's okay to act on it); people would adapt. And I meant law in the enforced sense, just like the limited lifespans.
Hypershell:
So no family, no new people, and if anyone has a problem with that, they can hypnotize themselves?
Align, do us all a favor and don't dominate the world.
"Biological urges" are not a simple matter of a to-do list. People work for two reasons: to care for others, and to care for themselves. To many people of reasonable age, taking care of loved ones constitutes the better part of motivation in life. Deny the world the chance to start a family of their own, and your ideal work force breaks down. Do so to a population that is virtually immune to hunger and the elements and it only gets worse. Basic needs become non-threatening (the immortal don't really "need" food and shelter) and selfish gain becomes the only thing to work towards. Assuming for the sake of decency that you somehow curb that, and there's little to nothing left.
Immortality can be a curse if life becomes too monotonous. We, as a people, continually generate new experiences. When that is lost, life is meaningless. Weil himself suffered that, and MegaMan is far from the first piece of fiction to touch on the topic. "Death Wish" on Star Trek Voyager is one of my favorites. "Nobody says anything, because it's all been said."
Or hell, just look at the Master and Elysium in Legends 2.
Align:
--- Quote from: Hypershell on May 30, 2011, 07:43:57 PM ---So no family, no new people, and if anyone has a problem with that, they can hypnotize themselves?
Align, do us all a favor and don't dominate the world.
--- End quote ---
Heh, well, I wouldn't take such drastic measures without having a big debate first. I'm a fair ruler.
--- Quote ---"Biological urges" are not a simple matter of a to-do list. People work for two reasons: to care for others, and to care for themselves. To many people of reasonable age, taking care of loved ones constitutes the better part of motivation in life. Deny the world the chance to start a family of their own, and your ideal work force breaks down. Do so to a population that is virtually immune to hunger and the elements and it only gets worse. Basic needs become non-threatening (the immortal don't really "need" food and shelter) and selfish gain becomes the only thing to work towards. Assuming for the sake of decency that you somehow curb that, and there's little to nothing left.
--- End quote ---
Reploids may not need to eat or sleep, but their existence isn't economically free at all, as MMZ tells us...
Your family as it is would still exist and of course you could still form bonds with new people, so it's not like society would become a sea of lone individuals. People would still care for each other, though things like marriage might become sort of nebulous; I could imagine both parts agreeing to see what life is like with other significant others.
Plus there are other things in life than working for money that people enjoy, like art and sciences of all sorts, so I doubt all that will be left for people to do is be selfish when they have little want of anything.
--- Quote ---Immortality can be a curse if life becomes too monotonous. We, as a people, continually generate new experiences. When that is lost, life is meaningless. Weil himself suffered that, and MegaMan is far from the first piece of fiction to touch on the topic. "Death Wish" on Star Trek Voyager is one of my favorites. "Nobody says anything, because it's all been said."
--- End quote ---
I don't think that last would really happen; the universe is vast, our time in it short and our senses too narrow to get to appreciate all of it even if we live until the end of everything. And of course we're not going to FORCE people to stay alive; we're just not going to force them to age and die, either.
--- Quote ---Or hell, just look at the Master and Elysium in Legends 2.
--- End quote ---
Not played it, unfortunately.
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