Is it really a death wish? Immortality being a curse is a common trope. Hell, even surviving to 90 or 100 can be its own kind of hell for those whose life is being unnaturally preserved for the sake of those who can't or won't let go.
The silliness of the trope starts with the notion that once you have gone immortal you can't go back. Somehow you are stuck yearning for the sweet release of death.
In reality life is extremely fragile, maintaining the right conditions to support it requires constant effort. There is no reason to think that any future scientific advance will alter this fundamental fact.
Therefore it is highly likely that whoever achieves practical immortality will be also able to undo their "curse" by simply discontinuing whatever practice keeps them alive.
Also, "forever" doesn't happen all at once. Give me immortality, and then check in with me yearly if I still want it. I will let you know once I'm over it.
Immortality as a subscription service—brilliant!
That seems to jive with GC's point. The definition is the ability to live forever, not the requirement to live forever.
Because the "true and cursed" immortality is not on offer. Spending resources to extend our life is a possibility. Spending resources to better understand what aging is and how to extend our youth is. Getting cursed with immortality is not in the cards.
> The word immortality has a specific meaning, even if you don’t like what it is.
Ok. You can have your discussion about your fantasy concepts. They are fun! What should we discuss next? How many duck sized horses we would fight just to avoid being cursed with true immortality? It is all good with me as long as we don't try to draw real world conclusions from said fantasies.
I like the rational attitude. Like you pointed out, somehow people think it's some magic portion that you drink without ever the possibility of going back to being mortal.
The few elderly I know of who approached that age and were reflective enough told me they just ended up letting go. And they were actually happier.
Being sufficiently well-off is probably helping ;)
People seem to "tribal" and self-centred. People don't hold doors for people, they walk past people struggling like say their hands are full and they drop something but people just walk past not helping them. In stores people walk in front of little old ladies nearly knocking them down. Just a total lack of innate civility.
This is one of those cases where one shouldn't generalize from fictional evidence. Immortality as curse is a very lazy trope that breaks down upon casual inspection.
> even surviving to 90 or 100 can be its own kind of hell for those whose life is being unnaturally preserved for the sake of those who can't or won't let go.
That is indeed true, both in fiction and reality, but it's not the kind of immortality that's under discussion. Obviously being forever locked in a state of agony, in a failing body, is something no one wants.
That's like saying Rails isn't good scaffolding for a web service, because they're made of steel and are meant for trains.