In the recently released sci-fi film Elysium, we’re presented with a new kind of machine-assisted healthcare that can cure cancer and reconstruct body parts (see the fictional Med-Pod 3000 pictured above), a development that could make many humans virtually immortal. But as medical science and technology converge, we’re increasingly finding ourselves asking the question as a species: Do we really want to be immortal?
That’s the question that served as the topic of a recent Pew Research poll. The poll, which raises the discussion of futurists and a new life span of 120 years old as the norm, was conducted earlier this year and asked Americans about their feelings related to longer life spans. Specifically, the poll asked if the respondent could undergo a medical treatment that would allow them to live until the age of 120, would they do it? A surprising 56 percent of the respondents said that they would not.
via DVICE
