These threads are always full of the most annoying, erroneous assumptions.
For starters,
developed nations are already below replenishment levels of reproduction. It goes without saying that access to even greater healthspans (note: not even talking about
lifespans here, just the length of time during which you are at your prime of health) would decrease the pace of reproduction even further, simply due to the nature of human planning and prioritization. More time available to do what you want -> less pressure to make kids NOW -> fewer kids in general.
Secondly,
accidental causes of death still happen, and while a huge contributor to this will go away in the near future (thanks to self-driving vehicles), there will still inevitably be a large number of people who expire simply due to freak accidents even with True Immortality. In combination with the above, it is fair (if not safe) to assume that a population crisis would not present itself in anywhere near the time that many in this thread would purport it to.
Oh yeah, thirdly,
the vast majority of population growth is still in undeveloped nations. See first point. It
will plateau eventually, given enough development, but of course that would mean giving them the resources to do so. At any rate, you can bet that folks in developed countries would have far less access to such remedies than anyone in a developed country.
Finally,
you're going to participate in it anyway. No matter what you believe or what you've said in this thread, you WILL do absolutely everything in your power to extend your healthspan when such technology is available - because why the fuck would you not? Obviously, many of us will be stymied in terms of access by monetary concerns, but given enough time even the cost of such care will eventually fall due to technological progress (especially thanks to things like general artificial intelligence becoming a reality within the next decade or so). It is simply an inevitability that you will have access to cheap pills that will extend your health span and you'd have to be quite literally suicidal to pass that up.
People are going to be living longer and longer lives as time goes by and nothing you folks have to say about it is going to change that. It's simply an inevitable part of human progress. Where there is a will, there is a way, and there is
definitely a will,
with billions of dollars being poured into this endeavor. We
will have to address issues with regards to access and resource consumption and all of that, the vast majority within our lifetimes (on the assumption that few of us on Gaf are 40+). It's not a question of
if, but
when.
We shouldn't be speaking in terms of hypotheticals. We should be speaking in terms of what we should be doing to make this as smooth a transition as possible, along with all the other things that are going to disrupt humanity's existence over the coming decade (along with things like 3D printing, genetic manipulation, machine learning, quantum computing, and so on). Anything else is naivete at best. Our reality is changing rapidly, and I'd much rather we recognize that fact than pretend that the status quo will somehow magically be maintained into the year 2025 and on.