BUT.. are people really so pessimistic about technology and the future that the main thing that comes to mind when they think of digital immortality is.. this?
Your virtual body can be anything you want. You can't die as long as your digital code is backed up somewhere.
If you can't see the bright side of that stuff, there is some kind of psychological issue.
Indeed, if things are just left alone I would not even say the default state is that you'll be in control of your own code. It will be a company that develops this technology first, since the alternative is inconceivable, and they will have their own agenda. There's a lot more possibilities that could emerge than just a happy utopia.
One might argue that these technologies are so advanced that they will not be developed until the current resource scarcities which govern our lives have been removed, and as such we wouldn't be subject to the same degrading economic pressures.
This makes some sense to me, but maybe I've just been watching too much Star Trek.
A virtual hell is a nasty place where sinners are copied into post death, for eternity. Sometimes young sinners are given day trips there to straighten them out, before death.
He talk a little about it in this wired interview: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/10/iain-banks/all/1
Of course digital immortality is inestimably cool. There are so many amazing and obvious positives that we can even imagine on this side of the singularity.
However, if we only think of the positives, without considering the negatives, then we run the risk of stumbling blindly into a dystopia created by the few who did think of the negatives (and how to profit from them), or by optimists who failed to plan for a suboptimal outcome.
From another point of view, fiction about a perfect utopia is boring. You need some imperfection in order to provide the requisite tension to make a story.
For example, if You and Digital You (tm) were alive at the same time, I could put you in one room, and Digital You in another, and smash Digital You without You having any idea. You could live your whole life not knowing if Digital You was "alive."
Whatever your definition of me is, it seems like me dying should have an effect on me.
Is that situation utterly contrived because he destroyed his mind, or are you insisting on a limited definition of self?
(Let's set aside the part where there is mind replicating technology but no snapshots or version control)