Why rich and powerful? Everyone, no?
They’re the only ones who would be able to afford it.
The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?
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Re: The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?
#42> What If They Could? Then they'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Class based 'revolutions' are made up of a bunch of idiots who would happily destroy everything while being lead by somebody even worse who is qualitatively identical to the people they despise. They have proven that repeatedly.
Re: The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?
#43Gonna go out on a limb here and say that old age and dying are actually good, and that many of the problems in Western society are due to people living too long and holding onto power longer than they should / not passing on power and resources to younger generations.
I think blaming America's problems on gerontocracy is correlation-causation confusion. The reason we have a gerontocracy is that ordinary rank-and-file voters are too cynical and individualistic to participate in politics.
Re: The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?
#44We don't even know how to get someone to be 130, but sure, let's waste time talking about this.
Re: The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?
#45An interesting fictional book that has this idea as part of the story is Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. Imagine if Elon musk and the other ultra-wealthy could live forever and they become even more out-of-touch with reality as the centuries roll on... In the book almost anyone that has lived could live forever but that could never happen with limited resources/space so only the ultra-wealthy are able to. I'd sk…
elon is at least barely tolerable despitre being clearly POS, but maybe he has just pressure from stocks/companies he represents. Think more in the line of trump or putin, forever.
Such a person, upon becoming say potus, would on day 1 dismantle any option to be removed from power and basically did what trump is doing otherwise, and/or worse.
I keep saying this over and over - for greater good of humanity, we should be shooting these immortality scientists, all of them, regardless of horrible it sounds. 1000s vs hundreds of billions.
There is no conceivable way this will end in anything but catastrophe for mankind. One could theoretise that there could be Leto II Atreides type of situation (mankind needs to experience absolutely horrible things for millenia to go on a path which is overall better in extremely long term), but I am not holding my breath. We could also just die from our stupidity, and this is one prime example of it thats anyway still far in future.
We need to be at least multiplanetary civilization before achieving this, ideally in multiple solar systems so any catastrophe is not absolute.
Re: The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then what you're looking for is mandatory retirement ages and term limits, not condemnation to death.
Wars or pandemics like COVID-19 are more effective solutions.
You mean the ones which kill the young first? Especially the wars. "War" and "effective use of resources" are antonyms.
Re: The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?
#47Living forever sounds awful. For one, I am extremely curious what happens when I die. Without death, life becomes a hollow shell, or at least I imagine it would, as you would lack urgency.
Re: The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?
#48Please read ‘How to Stop Time’ by Matt Haig It’s a beautiful short novel exploring this idea.
I vaguely recall a Heinlein novel which explored it too. Methuselah's Children maybe?
Time Enough for Love. IMHO much better than Stranger in a Strange Land.
Re: The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?
#49Living forever sounds awful. For one, I am extremely curious what happens when I die. Without death, life becomes a hollow shell, or at least I imagine it would, as you would lack urgency.
I’ll answer that question for you for free. Here’s what happens:
Re: The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?
#50They could make progress on cancer, but the way things are going they'll have to learn how to survive a guillotine as well.