How will we think about life and death in a post-mortality world?

Thinking about the future of civilization, it's impossible not to consider the fact that it's inevitable that human lifespans will increase by 100 years or more. It'll no doubt be a point of contention between generations that came from the times when people usually died at 80 after suffering from various age-related illnesses for years if not decades, from an a time when death was accepted as an unavoidable reality of life, and those after.

More than that, it will bring about ethical question of whether it's even ok to bring into the world human beings for whom the only means of their existence are by either suicide or accident? Is that a desired future, or one dystopian in nature?

The main point of this debate revolves around a single question: If given immortality, does a human lose a sense of purpose/meaning in life?

The pessimistic side is certain that death is what gives life meaning, so if you eliminate aging-related death, thus gradually extending our lives to 150, 200, 250, 300 years and beyond, humans will lose their sense of purpose and the civilization will collapse. If you have infinite amount of time, there will be no pressure to do anything, because you'll always have more time!

The optimistic argument makes a claim that meaning is extracted from a desire to create, collaborate and love, from being inspired by what the humanity can achieve if it sets its mind to things, all the amazing social and technological progress that's possible and ever-accelerating, all that good stuff.

There's validity on both sides of the argument, and the side on which one might find themselves is likely correlated with the ratio of optimism and cynicism a person embodies.

I'm extremely optimistic about most things in my life, especially about our civilization's ability to make it. So my view on immortality is heavily biased by my sense of wonder for existence and technological progress. The promise of death due to old age is not what motivates me to wake up in the morning, at least not the promise of my individual death. What wakes me up in the morning is the desire to witness all the positive progress we're making in various aspects of technology, culture and morality, and the desire to help prevent all the negative progress we're making, be it worker exploitation, censorship by nation states and social media platforms, centralization of power, and the reliance of our civilization on centralized non-sound money. I want to live for as long as I can so I can witness how far we as a civilization can go.

The longer we live, the wiser we will get. The longer we live, the more we will be concerned about the impact of our actions on the planet and the society decades or centuries later, instead of just the following 10 years. Longer life-spans will make us less selfish. The currency of time will not be in short supply anymore, and our goals and desires will begin to point outward instead of inward.

There is one big catch, however: how do we deal with the fact that some people will inevitably want to end their lives before they die due to an accident?

With so many people on this planet, ones desiring suicide will always be there. But in an age of endless life we'll have to start thinking about this differently. Assisted suicide these days is already possible. But it's a fundamentally different context in which assisted suicide is even being discussed. It's being discussed in a world where death is absolutely inevitable. People who want to stop existing are urged to hold on for 20-60 years more. But everyone knows that they will still die at some point.

Perhaps it wouldn't make any difference. The prospect of living either 40 or 400 years doesn't change the fact that someone might have experienced trauma that is simply unbearable to live with for any longer. I cannot claim to know how a person like that, of which there are many, must go through on a daily basis. Memories can haunt you during every waking hour, and even take hold over you in your sleep. Not everyone is created the same; some are better equipped to deal with trauma than others, some are able to get just the right help to get over their trauma and continue living their lives.

But it seems important to consider the fact that once we are able to extend our lives indefinitely, death will be optional, e.g. opt-in, for the most part. Accidents notwithstanding, our bodies will not be able to expire. If you want to die, you have to commit suicide. I'm not quite able to put my finger on it, but suicide in an opt-in-death world definitely feels completely different than how it does currently. We'll have to become more accepting of people's decisions to end their lives, either due to issues that are common nowadays (excluding suicide due to age-related diseases) or, for example, due to the unbearable prospect of having to live for hundreds of years more.

In my opinion this is likely going to be a bigger issue during the transition period between the time when we were able to live for a long time but not forever, to a time when we can live forever. "Older" people will likely have a hard time dealing with that fact, but what about the young ones, born into a world where immortality is the de facto truth? Likely, the thought of not having a choice over when or whether to die will seem as strange as immortality seems nowadays. Personally, I can't wait for a future like that.