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Two points I guess.
First, can I get some theory or principle for when people are obliged to accept the limits of their biology and when they aren't? I'm assuming your ok with humans ignoring the limits of their biology when it means not going blind, or letting deaf people hear, or crippled people walk. If I'm correct about the above why are LGBT people obliged to respect the "limits of [their] biology" with respect to having children but the others aren't for their conditions?
Second, why care specifically about being "human"? Whatever that means to you. I see downthread you complain about playing the definition game so I'll sidestep that and say that if becoming a "cross-over between Umgah Blobbies and the Borg" leads people to live longer, happier lives of the kind they want to have I think that's good, whether or not you (or anyone) would call the resulting entities "human."
Catholics have had a longstanding argument about which kinds of technological help are warranted within a respect for God's creation and I must say I find their conclusions very reasonable.
The line between health and degeneracy is repair. It's fine to do anything to repair broken humans and allow them to do what they would be able to do if not for some disease or mutilation holding them back.
It becomes immoral when you start trying to augment humans beyond their natural existence and try to turn them into something else. Humans are not immortal, they don't reproduce asexually, they don't have 10 arm, etc.
Of course the debate at the margins can be fierce, especially since industry has changed a lot about the human condition and arguably too much already so that we suffer ills of our own making, but I think it's a generally sound principle.
Aging is merely the ability of the body to repair itself breaking down. Who says we mustn't repair that one, too? (Rhetorical question, Christians!)
Death is a necessary and natural part of life. You don't repair what's not broken.
Death is a necessary part of one particular configuration of an ecosystem, and appealing to nature is pointless. Everything is natural.
edit: not even that. Like darkness is an absence of life, death is an absence of longevity. It is not "a part" of life, it is that longevity is not a (necessary) part of life based on sexual reproduction. "You have outlived your usefulness", says the gene once it is duplicated and recombinated into a fresh host. I'm sorry, but who asked?
I could start to argue metaphysics, because I definitely think your view is incoherent, but that's boring and not very convincing.
Let us instead drop merrily into the realms of practicality: immortality is heavily and obviously dysgenic. Stagnant organisms lose the possibility to change, and therefore to adapt. And no cultural process can replicate one's just anihilation once they have indeed, outlived their usefulness.
Well your children presumably. I certainly think the boomers are robbing a few generations of their due by sticking around and holding onto all ressources for too long. Which is not fair, because they were themselves handed society in trust.
Immortality is just the extreme extension of this problem.
I for one would be ecstatic to have my parents around for longer, along with the rest of their generation, even if it robs my generation of its due.
I agree that greatly extending the human lifespan would cause massive societal problems. I am willing to struggle with those massive societal problems for as many centuries as it takes.
I think it's pointed out elsewhere in this thread, but this is where the bright line between immortality and anti-aging is fuzzy. Had we robust ways of dealing with those societal problems one might be able to consider integrating that technology.
But to remove death in the absolute is clearly over the line for me. I won't go into the minute details of why given there's seemingly endless art that explores the topic.
I don't think the ways to deal with those societal problems have to be particularly robust, at least not at first. If you eliminated aging today, the short-term (next 10 years) problems would look pretty similar to the problems we face today. On a fairly immediate timescale we'd need to deal with social security, as that would suddenly have a very different financial outlook. Over the time scale of decades or centuries, we would face new and interesting problems, but I don't think "we would have moderate political difficulties immediately, and we'd need to tweak some laws in 50-100 years" is a good reason to block anti-aging tech.
To remove the ability to die would also be clearly over the line to me. But to remove the bit where the bits of my mind that make me me slip away one by one, and then the body that used to contain the person who was me stops breathing? And to do that for everyone who wants it? I think that would be massively good on the balance.
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