Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-27014396-20181124054353/@comment-27014396-20181227125631

224. People cease trying to be immortal. If everyone was immortal then the food chain could eventually collapse. This is why:

When an organism dies, they don't "disappear into nothing." Molecularly speaking, the atoms of the deceased entity still exist; they are simply disassembled into simpler organic compounds by various decomposers such as bacteria, fungi, and scavengers so that these organisms and many others (e.g. plants) can use these compounds to feed themselves, and subsequently their predators are able to continue eating them to absorb said carbon atoms and the predators' predators could do the same and so forth. When something dies, its carbon is simply recycled into the systems of other organisms so that the cycle of life can continue to function and new generations of species can continue to surface. If the human race were immortal, they'd infinitely absorb the carbon molecules of other animal species and their surroundings until both collapse, and then the humans themselves would collapse as the environment can no longer sustain them.

200-year-lifespans are good enough, it's pointless trying to go for infinite lifespan considering the molecular consequences of eternal life.