The Immortality Option Forum: SSI-List
Thread: The Immortality Option
Greetings Alex, Why wait until nano or cryo technology advances to see massive disruptions in human society? You've got that happening right now with the projections of elderly baby boomers and aging in virtually every developed country in the world. In terms of robbing the young of their future, look at Japan where an older group simply blocked the rise of the younger such that they could not get full time high paying jobs like their predecessors. To be clear immortality only means that you fix problems with a persons body and mind at the same rate overall rate that you have problems. People that can afford high quality elderly healthcare will tend to live into their 80's and 90's. People without this live into their 50's & 60's. The biggest question about the advanced elderly is can they support their continued healthcare or are they a tax to society? The baby boomers in developed nations are by far the richest generation because compared to other generations they had the fewest elderly parents to take care of and the fewest children per capita as well. Nothing in there says that a person would cause a disruption if they lived to be 200 or more years old and continued to be a contributing member of society. As for banishing people that are rich or have long lifespans, human nature suggests that is in the opposite direction. Throughout history the elderly have held the majority of political control because the longer you are active the better you understand things and the bigger your political connections are. Only when a person is irrelevant or annoying beyond tollerance is there a real risk of banishment. Lastly being "immortal" will not save you from your next wipeout on a motorcycle or some other disaster. Most senarios of immortality point to either being apathetic or renegade at some point. Neither of these is a likely fate if you have to take care of yourself which apathetics are loath to do. What is to stop renegades from simply escalating their adventures until they are wiped out by any one of a number of accidents. In short, "immortality" sure looks like a rehash of an existing problem between unbalanced generations. I think there is a much larger problem finding people that want to live to an advance ripe old age and do the hard things like eating less that encourage it. Cheers, Thor
In several Science Fiction novels that have
explored "The Immortality Option", the ones that come to mind include "Against the Fall of Night" and "The City and the Stars" by Arthur C. Clarke, and finally "The Giants Trilogy" by James P. Hogan, didn't immortality lead to a stagnation in the societies (whether human or alien) that chose it?
The stagnation as depicted in these novels was usually cultural, scientific, and technological. From the stand point of evolution (both biological and cultural) isn't death a good thing? It leaves the way open for new experiments in humanity. Meaning new people replace the
old, thus bringing forth new thoughts, ideas, and concepts into the world. Could we view death as an important factor in our continual evolution as a species and a society? Could we view "The Immortality Option" a form of "Temporal Imperialism" robbing future generations of
their place in the world?
In the novel "Tech-Heaven" Linda Nagata presents a future Earth where nano technology and cryonics is perfected. These breakthroughs cause huge sociological disruption. The future society depicted in the novel comes up with an interesting solution, they decide that all cryonauts
who are revived and immortals should emigrate to space.
I only present these questions to open this topic for what may prove an interesting discussion.
Alex