u/cuckfromJTown

Thank you for writing, Concerned. Of course, your question touches on one of the most basic human impulses, with all it's associated hopes and fears for the future of the species. I also detect some unspoken questions. Do our Benefactors really know what's best for us? What gives them the right to make this decision for mankind? Will they ever deactivate the suppression field and let us breed again? Allow me to address the anxieties underlying your concerns, rather than try to answer any question you might have left unvoiced. First, let us consider the fact that for the first time, ever, as a species, inmortality is in our reach. This sinple fact has far-reaching implications. It requires radical rethinking and revision of our genetic imperatives. It also requires planning and forethought that run in direct opposition to our neural presets. I find it helpful at times like these to remind myself that our true enemy is Instinct. Instinct was our mother when we were an infant species. Instinct coddled us and kept us safe in those hardscrabble years when we hardened our sticks and cooked our first meals above a meager fire and started at the shadows that leapt upon the cavern's walls. But inseparable from Instinct is it's dark twin, Superstition. Instinct is inextricably to unreasoning impulses, and today we clearly see it's true nature. Instinct has just become aware of it's irrelevance, and like a cornered beast, it will not go down without a bloody fight. Instinct would inflict a fatal injury on our species. Instinct creates it's own oppressors, and bids us rise up against them. Instinct tells us that the unknown is a threat, rather than an opportunity. Instinct slyly and covertly compels us away from change and progress. Instinct, therefore, muet be expunged. It must be fought tooth and nail, beggining with the basest of human urges: The urge to reproduce. We should thank our Benefactors for giving us respite from this overpowering force. They have thrown a switch and exorcised our demons in one single stroke. They have given us the strength we never could have summoned to overcome this compulsion. They have given us purpose. They have turned our eyes toward the stars. Let me assure you that the supressing field will be shut off on the day we have mastered ourselves, the day we can prove we no longer need it. And that day of transformation, I have it on good authority, is close at hand.

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Not that I wish to imply, you have been sleeping on the job,

No one is more deserving of a rest... and all the effort in the World would have gone to waste... until...

Let's just say your hour has come again.

So wake up, Mister Freeman.

Wake up and smell the ashes.