We Are Especially Unfortunate to Die, When Our Descendants Could Be Immortal
the-tls.co.uk
the-tls.co.uk
For me immortality seems like a recipe for stagnation and inequality rather than dynamism and renewal. Unless individuals suddenly learn to change, to adapt and to give up their old ways (in which case what's really the point of thinking of yourself as immortal or a continuous entity), I think there's a very obvious upside to birth and death.
But, yes, there is no churn, no opportunity to have s change of the guard. If it becomes very, very slow.
I suspect a Congress that was completely reshuffled every 8 years wouldn't have anywhere near these issues.
Rather than achieving true immortality through some one-off miracle pill a la Golden Age pulps, "immortality" is a sequence of stopgaps - one life-extension therapy gives an individual enough time for science to advance to the point where it comes up with another extension. Rinse and repeat for eternity (or until your nanotech goes crazy and melts you from the inside out, whoops).
The sociological consequences of a system like this, where maintaining your immortality through the pursuit of enough wealth, prestige and tech to get your hands on the hottest new therapies becomes practically a raison d'etre in and of itself, are an interesting contrast to Banks' utopianism. I'd love for us to go Culture, but I'm not holding my breath. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised to see some variation of the therapy-chain thing during my natural lifespan.
It's interesting to note that he also wrote some about the style of immortality described by Alastair Reynold's and the cheap immortality of his "Known Universe/Ringworld" novels is after that time period in which longevity has become cheap, commoditized, and easily affordable by all.
I think people are more interested in having working joints, no wrinkles, youthful energy and libido, and a full head of hair for an additional 20 years than immortality.
In particular, I know of one octogenarian who works part-time in the IT field as a mid-level support tech in a large company. He’s the one who sets up systems, replaces broken mice and monitors, and gives printers a good whack upside the chassis when they misbehave. It’s light enough work for him to keep up with the field, but important enough that he feels valued.
And the company loves him. To everyone there he’s their “Opa”, and that’s what makes him jump out of bed every morning.
I suppose that the biological immortality that author has talked about, the kind that our future generations will see, will still require all the necessary resources like we do. They'll still get sick and will need medical care sometimes, environment will still affect them, the only thing that will change is the deterioration that our body goes through as we age. I don't know much about the concept but I think it is pretty easy to picture it.
There’s evidence this is not true. Many animals mourn the dead, and many animals will routinely remove older animals from power/leadership.
But seriously they aren't aware of death they just act based on evolutionary impulses that in the past made their ancestors not die. A prey creature has zero cognition of its own death.
That's exactly what we do also.
"> A prey creature has zero cognition of its own death. "
Well, they look scared to me, the simplest explanation is that they feel the same way that us. Why to add anything else to the simplest explanation? In order we can feel superior to them? Sounds like chauvinism to me. Or in order we don't feel guilty when we kill them? Sounds like cowardice to me.
Or put it another way, why I can't say the same thing about you? Maybe you are not aware of your own death, you just act based on evolutionary impulses that in the past made their your ancestors not to die.
I am obviously not counting regular medicine like vaccines and antibiotics etc, they increase our likelihood of reaching the natural lifespan limit but do not extend the limit.
When they can show that some treatment extends the limit from around 120 to something like 150, then come back and talk about immortality. Although even then, there is a big difference between immortality and adding a mere 30 years! Oh, and those extra years had better not be as a bed bound senile in a nursing home. They can better be quality years, otherwise there is no point in bothering.
Metformin. Originally used to treat diabetes, we’ve slowly begun to realize that the users of it tend to live longer than non-users. There are some studies running now to determine if it’s effective, but there are already people taking it daily to try and live longer.
Since that issue seems likely to exist for the next 50 years, I doubt anyone alive today will be immortal, or if they are it'll be maybe limited to zuckerberg - I can't think of anyone else young enough and rich enough to benefit from it.
(Ironically, indestructibility, on the other hand, can lead to situations that are worse than death.)
err... just ask #math, use geom distribution...: 0.9995^n = 1/2 = 1386 lifetimes...
Way longer lifespans than we expect today we might just see. Immortality means forever though.