Intergalactic Summit

http://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/world-news/modern-finances-report-cloned-soldiers-provide-high-return-on-investment/

Geras – Nearly two months after the existence of cloned soldiers was made public to the cluster by Jacus Roden, Modern Finances has released a positive report on the financial viability of the soldiers. According to the report, the average cloned soldier begins providing a greater return on investment with each passing day, allowing them to quickly overcome their initial cost.

So does this mean they're officially ready for prime time?

How can they provide a reliable return on profit when they have no long-term contract with whatever corporation and organization created them?

Or we could tear our self's apart and leave New Eden as lifeless as the void.

Lets face it if we use capsuleers as a measure of how we use immortal technology it doesn't bode well for the future.

Interesting how the very final part of the report is a brief mention of the potential negatives followed by the complete dismissal of them due to the financial benefit of the program.

Let us not concern ourselves with the state of living these individuals will have should they ever wish to leave the battlefield, nor worry overmuch about the increased potential for prolonged warfare that will now engulf even the ground wars; the monetary return on investment is too solid to ignore.

While I am thankful that the initial outlook would be fewer unnecessary deaths due to conflict and war, the potential for widespread devastation looms in the backdrop.

I do believe, that once we manage to develop post-scarcity society for more than the most minute elite of our respective cultures, Stitcher's suggestion will be both viable and inevitable.

The only limiting factor right now is genetic compatibility for the capsule, and whatever battery of tests verify the suitability of an individual for NIS implant technology. With the current lack of data on how exactly the NIS implant functions and the requirements for it's integration to the human body, I must make a cautious assertion that it is unlikely that everyone, even assuming infinite resources, would have the option of using such technology.

If the stories and rumors are true, the Jove have an immortal society, but seeing, let alone speaking with one of those elusive individuals is incredibly unlikely, and deriving their secrets would approach impossibility.

We're on our own with this problem, but should that resource bottleneck ever be overcome, I welcome the day that immortality AND freedom of choice (at least within a given framework) become a reality. Just adding that caveat to pre-empt the 'no death in Nation' line that will inevitably follow.

That's an assertion, not a conclusion, and with the entire rest of your comment being founded on that non-sequitur I feel I must challenge you to demonstrate that this would, in fact, be the case.

One need only read the history book to know that mankind has always felt the need for violence. Like it or not war and conflict have always been part of humanity with mortality being one of the few thing that really hold us back. Suddenly we are free from such a limitation and history starts to be written in blood rather then ink. Reading our own history book from even before the Raata Empire we can seen that the different tribes fought each other for things like land and wealth, after the federation came along we fought then over differences over ideology and then we fought them over land with the invasion of Caldari Prime. When the Amarr Empire found the Matari they attacked and enslaved them for generations, when they first found the Jove they launched an invasion of their space. The ancient Matari and Gallente tribes/clans/houses probably fought over similar things to the ancient Caldari tribes.

The point is casualties are generally what stopped most of these wars, The first Caldari-Gallente was a stalemate with massive casualty figures on both sides which forced a surrender. The Amarr lacked the numbers after their loss to the Jove to both launch another attack and deal with the Minmatar rebellion. This new technology simply removes casualties all together.

If you don't want to look at human nature for a reason not to use this tech en mass then lets look at some other reasons. What if Heth uses this tech on himself and the Dragonaurs? you then have and immortal terrorist cell the you cant get rid of. The bloody hand of Matari? They get a hold of it and the Amarr start to suffer for it. The pirate cartels? increases in raids on civilian population centers similar to the Incursions of Nation, obviously the aims would be different but still massive casualties. How about the null-sec capsuleer empires? Goonswarm slaughters thousands of innocent people in "Burn Jita" because they consider it "fun".

Humanity is not really to become immortal, we have neither the maturity nor the unity for it to not be abused. A day may come when we can put aside things like race, creed, class and wealth and become one people, not four empires. On that day we may be ready to ascend, but that day is far in the future.

Sure, but that's not what you said. What you said was that immortality would "inevitably" cause our base instincts to take over.

And now you just said that these same instincts have apparently been in control this whole time anyway. So, which is it, are things going to get worse (in which case, you need to prove it) or are things going to remain basically the same? (in which case, where's the problem?)

Except for the large percentage of Capsuleers who have nothing to do with Empire space or its corporate or government interests, of course.

The ground-troops are immortals who currently can't fly away and make their own rules.

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

In the meantime, I applaud your optimism. I have a very uncertain feeling about the future, myself.