If you are unable to see what the consequences of that action would be and think it would lead to anything other than the ultimate stagnation of human culture then I think you are an idiot. If you pursue it out of a fear most teenagers outgrow, I think you are childish. So that.
Well, the first thing and most obvious point is, the consequences you're talking about are imaginary. You're speculating based on wildly incomplete information, and I'm telling you that if you can imagine negative consequences, you can also imagine positive ones.
I don't actually think biological immortality is likely to happen in my lifetime, if ever, but that people cannot imagine such a tool having anything but negative impacts speaks to a broader fear of change than anything else.
That the ruling class is likely to exploit such a technology for their own benefit at the expense of everyone else, is not, in itself, an argument against that technology - it's an argument for the dissolution of the ruling class. Unless you think we should also abolish...
...all other forms of technology that they've used to entrench their power through similar means. You don't strike me as an anarcho-primitivist, so I don't think you also want an end to the internet, electricity, and plumbing.
i think nimbyism is a straightforward example of this applying beyond the billionaires-- not a ruling class, but a generation which has been locked into an unfair advantage and viciously opposes changes to the status quo. i can't see that improving if it happens for everyone
Nimbys are almost exclusively homeowners, who necessarily own small property - I would argue that this necessarily puts them in higher class above renters. They also tend to be much more entrenched in local government, and frequently run their own miniature quasi-governments, HOAs.
I use "ruling classes" in a much more broad sense than a typical Marxist or leftist - I believe such a term includes anyone who holds some manner of institutional authority
but you can't really get rid of some people being more entrenched than others in a society where there's some specialization of labor, because by necessity there's some outside group doing it. death is messy, but it is the last stopgap between us and an unending ruling class.
I don’t think that some people being more suited to different tasks than others necessitates a social hierarchy - I think that's more than anything else a product of property relations.
but then what happened to your definition of a ruling class being any group with greater institutional authority? are institutional authorities something that only exist due to property relations, which would be done away with? if so, how do you reconcile a specialized group of decision makers 1/2
who by definition would have a greater institutional authority than others? it feels like a set of relations which contradicts itself. either there are specialized classes and leaders of institutions (which, in an industrialized society, must exist) or there aren't.
Authority is the right to issue commands and compel obedience. What you're arguing against is expertise, which is not the same thing. Unless you think the very concept of specific skills is bad, which seems to me to be hard to defend.
if you erase that stopgap, those who want to entrench their authority by necessity get infinite shots, and they really only need to succeed once. even a benevolent ruling class (which i doubt would spring forth) might just not see a need to step down and herd us into a suburban twilight forever.
in this theoretical scenario, the generation which is alive at the discovery of immortality gets unprecedented control and privilege over every succeeding generation-- and in fact, there will be no generation that DOES succeed them. all the replacement mechanisms will be gone!
dem party leadership aren't even immortal but they're still clinging to their posts as if they are, and it's an unmitigated disaster. i just haven't seen anything that makes me think immortality would be a net positive for reality.
i think to a certain extent that view comes about from the maniacs in silicon valley who are constantly shouting about it. it is clear that if the rationalists could pull it off, they would become vampire kings as quickly as possible and not feel a second's remorse, and people naturally oppose this.
not coincidental that these same men have also savaged the public health system which has actually done the most to extend people's lifespans in human history, either.
if you would like us to have millions of people from just five hundred years ago still furiously passionate over the nature of the trinity and the reformation, with no way for it to pass out of the stream of human relevance, you can pursue it-- but it seems straightforwardly evil to pursue.
you want to freeze and nail down the stream of human existence, or at least dam it. that also seems straightforwardly evil.