-serious face- Idle daydreaming is positively foolish.
Nevermind that we're on a site with anthropomorphic art!

Anyway! Yeah, I saw that story awhile back ago. It's pretty cool to think about. I'd print out some wings for myself. Always wanted to fly >.> That, and cat ears and a tail just because I can XD

Oh, if you want a more practical answer, new thighs and rear x.x those always seem to be the last place I lose weight xp and new lungs so I'll have a better lung capacity. And maybe new calves. It's great having strong legs and all, but fuck these cramps x.x

haha, nice selection there. Wings were a correct answer, you get points. A cat tail is also nice and practical, as its the perfect kind of tail to hide for those life occasions when you don't want a tail. Unlike say a kangaroo tail, which is always gonna be there.

If I were to give a 'practical' answer like you... mmm, I donno. Can I copy your lung idea? And ever-so-slighlty longer legs, so I can just get it over with and be 6 feet tall. And a new heart. Those things are importaint. Oh, and I'll get me a face that looks like frodo baggins.

Then I'd print myself a pet yoshi.

SCIENCE!

Are they using the word "print" to make it easier to imagine or literally?

Eitherway the thing you just mentioned... I certainly hope it'll never go that far, at least not before I die. Death is one of the only forms of real justice in this world, world-wide. Everyone gets it. You can argue how some get it too early or something, but in the end everyone does. There's talk of overpopulation, so why bother fighting the greatest natural weapon we have against it?

Also I currently live with my grandma. Even if there are chances she'll move out, the thought alone that a person like her would never die are dreadful! She's an awful person that now during her old age she's unbearable!

Immortality is a very unethical thing that I don't think should be given to everyone, and if people question who's to judge who would be to get it, then we return to my start: It shouldn't be done!

'print' in this context basically means a type of manufacturing process. Have you heard of 3d printing? Its the same concept as if I made a warhammer model in a 3d program, and then 'printed' a physical resin model which I could then play with. You'll be able to manufacture almost anything soon. At least in theory.

You raise a lot of good ethical points, but they points which I happen to disagree with XD. Which is awesome.

First off, something like this would lead to immortality, not invincibility. Immortality in the sense that your physiological (and hopefully mental) capacities do not degenerate over time, and your chances of dying does not increase as you age. An immortal person will still eventually die, everyone is subject to accidents or body failure at any given moment. You just won't be able to put a general timeframe on it. (i.e, 70-100 years). So no one is cheating death, or 'real justice', as you put it.

Overpopulation is a serious concern; though it's worth noting that this is not a first world issue, which is where technology like this is likely to be implemented. There can also be policies introduced that can limit this... stuff like "all citizens who chose to have this procedure must agree to become biologically sterile". It is a problem, but nothing that can't be worked around.

Another argument which you could make is that if people don't age, then people won't retire. They won't step aside and allow the next generation coming up and eventually 'take the reigns'. This also has its pros, IMO, but it is something that would fundamentally change society, and could lead to very, very long periods before the guard is changed across generations. Though again, with the concept that we will all die within about 100 years gone, this may not be as bad or as devastating as it sounds from our current perspective.

At the crux of it all though is that this is just a natural evolution of medicine. As a society, we can (and will) have a long debate about the ethics of immortality; but ultimately it's just a form of medicine. At the moment, no one would argue against a man in his 40's form receiving a life saving heart transplant; how is that really any different to giving someone in their 90's a life saving body transplant?

Ehhhh this whole thing still sounds fishy to me. I can't feel safe about it, then again I guess I can be hopeful that technology will never reach perfection and it'll never be real eternal life.

And as to your argument about my vision of death as justice..... ehhh I don't know.... I guess it is still the same principle, dying between the age of 1 or 100, but raising that to 1 to infinity seems kind of ... sick to me. I can see a lot of people in third world countries never making it to 30 years while here in the first world rich snobs can eternally live in their mansions.

Argh, sorry, I'm probably not the right guy to talk here. I just have a very specific relation with death. I'm even a person who was in the hospital confronting the possibility of death. I did overcome my fear. Even with my many dreams not having come true by this point (which they still haven't...) I felt like I can accept death... but now this idea that people shouldn't have to die... all the sudden I image a whole bunch of old geezers shaking in their boots while I, a guy not even half their age was ready to "cross that door" so to speak.

=:O I would turn myself into an ultimate bunnyroo! just full of fluffyness and a pouch!

That sounds like a pretty custom model, you wount be able to torrent something like that. Its a good thing you know how o model for yoruself XD.

Pouch would be useful XD. Though, if I was working at a restaraunt and someone gave me warm, moist money form their pouch I would probably recoil.

he/she must've been a roo in human disguise!

Not so sure they can just go and make custom critters if the process is based off of natural DNA. Not unless there's a process for generating that stuff. Guess they could build perfect bodies though. Get a few designs to work off of and all. Which... wasn't that a Twilight Zone episode?

...Sorry, losing focus. Even if the body lives longer and longer, isn't the brain still decaying? Kinda tough to pull transplants on that one. Whole mess of neurons and such that aren't that good at growing back. At least to the extent of my knowledge, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some way around that one too that I don't know about.

I would actually like to do a biology degree for a lot of the points you just raised (that and I could be on the path to fulfil my childhood dream of being a palaeontologist. Or you know, medicine will be a boom industry and it's a good career move, whatever...).

Yes, I imagine these are all roadblocks. I imagine you could theoretically make 'custom critters' if the technology was developed to convert designs into DNA 'coding' and then print that, but then you probably have the whole body rejecting your brain as a foreign object thing. But then again, there's nothing to say you have to be limited to stuff like that. You could be the whole brain in a robot thing, either fully robotic or with some organic matter... like a Geth I suppose. Go beyond the concept of traditional transplants.

Also, yes you brain would still age. It can regenerate more than they used to think, but its still fairly 'plastic' I think is the term. While I believe the cells are designed for longevity moreso than other organs, the cells would still be acquiring waste and such. I imagine you'd only be able to hold things like dementia at bay for so long, even with 'good genes' and a good diet. So new technologies would have to be invented. Though this is a big unknown... who knows how long a brain can last if the body can support it indefinitely? It could be somewhat immortal for all we know. Or at least, for all I know :p.

Assuming the technology and everything works and was accessible; would you do anything with it when you turned 80?

Hmm, depends on how much I've lived by then. If I've had a pretty full life and feel satisfied with myself at that point, I'd turn it down and go gracefully. If I felt like there was more for me to do or stuff I wanna do again sixty years from now, I'd probably go for it. Though it does occur to me that being able to put off death once might work up the fear of it in my head which would force me to just keep putting it off and regenerating over and over until I decay into infinity with the rest of humanity. *shudders*

All the more reason I guess to make the current frame of time that's realistically available as meaningful and crammed with stuff/events as possible. But that's another topic.

Now on the other hand if they did figure out how to mix and match different sorts of anatomy to bring about different varieties of lifeforms capable of existing in the same way a standard human body does while supporting sentience, if you catch my drift, I might change my tune a bit. But it would be an act of pure curiosity, not really wanting to gain anything out of it beyond learning what it'd be like. The fact that it'd probably look slightly Cthul-esque in real life aside, it could be interesting.