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Comment by naasking | Hacker News Reader

> I don't think the world would be a better off if the Bezos' and Gates' were to live forever. Death provides an opportunity for change

Immortality becoming a possibility is also an opportunity for changing our social structures. There's nothing wrong with Bezos or Gates living forever, as long as their social and financial dominance isn't also guaranteed to live forever.

> Removing death from the equation introduces either: stagnation, if it is made available to everyone

Stagnation follows from an assumption that neuroplasticity is zero. That is one of the problems that need solving for immortality anyway, but I don't see why it's unsolvable. If some technique rejuvenates at the cellular level, it could also work on neurons.

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> Immortality becoming a possibility is also an opportunity for changing our social structures. There's nothing wrong with Bezos or Gates living forever, as long as their social and financial dominance isn't also guaranteed to live forever.

While that moment may provide an opportunity, my view is that a ossification will set in more broadly in the long term.

> Stagnation follows from an assumption that neuroplasticity is zero. That is one of the problems that need solving for immortality anyway, but I don't see why it's unsolvable. If some technique rejuvenates at the cellular level, it could also work on neurons.

Possessing the capability for change is not the same as possessing the desire to see that change through. Those with power seek to hold on to it. An extreme example would be that of dictatorships and monarchies. Death ultimately limits the harm those people can cause while also providing a moment of instability which may be seized to alter the system.

Unless practical immortality coincides with fundamental and extreme shifts in our society and economy, it'd be a catastrophe.

> it'd be a catastrophe.

Phew, so lucky we got this alternative scenario where literally everyone dies.

>There's nothing wrong with Bezos or Gates living forever, as long as their social and financial dominance isn't also guaranteed to live forever.

Pretty sure this problem has been around since the dawn of civilization. It's not simple to keep money and power from concentrating in society

Seems more likely that we create an immortality drug than we create a social governance scheme that doesn’t allow billionaires to very easily grow their wealth at society’s expense.

Sure, but the immortality drug will have to lead to social change. Every problem is also an opportunity.

We already have a problem and an opportunity to fix it.

A proposal that makes this problem worse does not seem likely to make the opportunity easier to take advantage of.

I disagree. A bad situation can be ignored, a catastrophic situation cannot. This inevitably leads to revolutions.

And that is why the world no longer has any long lasting oppressive regimes. Oh wait…

Actually we don't. Of course we probably have different conceptions of what's considered "long lasting" in terms of civilizations, and even what constitutes "oppressive" to a catastrophic level, which was the context I specified.

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