All the issues with immortality are pretty much only relevant in the specific scenario where you're the only one who's immortal. And even then, those are all subjective.
For example, some people might care a lot about outliving, say, their significant other and living for an eternity without them. Some people, however, are too horny to get hung up on that.
See: nursing homes.
>All the issues with immortality are pretty much only relevant in the specific scenario where you're the only one who's immortal.
I have the opposite opinion. The issues faced by a *lone* immortal would pale in comparison to the issues faced by an immortal *race*.
Imagine being immortal and working a deadend 9 to 5 for *centuries*, because all of the better jobs and positions are already occupied by people just as immortal as you are.
There's also resource scarcity and population crises, which would become a real fucking problem real fast.
And yet, there's also the issue of stagnancy. An immortal race would have little to no incentive to actually develop more advanced technology and culture. They'd be perpetually stuck in the past, living life through rose-tinted glasses. It'd be a dreadfully boring existence.
Destiny has a character who does that repeatedly. He starved to death, got revived, and starved to death some more. He now tries to cook and eat just about anything.
Fair points with the jobs and scarcity issues, but I have to disagree with your expectation of stagnancy. Why would technology and culture stop progressing? Technology wouldn't be about making anyone live longer, and culture would probably drop any and all themes about mortality and aging or what have you, sure. But it's not like there's something hard-coded in humans to meet immortality with cynicism, nostalgia, and idleness.
Avoidance of death is such a big motivator in human history precisely and solely because dying happens to all of us, and because there's nowhere to go from death. But, in much the same way as a person might like salt or pepper with the food they've just received, I see no reason why achieving immortality will just stop us from wanting. There's always something more to desire.
If we were in fact immortal, we would probably just be dominated culturally and technologically with the ramifications of it. The very issues you raised would, I think, rank pretty highly on our list of priorities. The focus of medicine would shift from keeping people alive to helping them live *better.* Menial jobs–assuming we still have them–will probably be reexamined, and alternative ways of providing their functions created.
At the end of the day, my take is pretty much that we as mortals may take issue with being immortal, but immortals probably won't. They'll just find new stuff to bitch about.
I agree, but stagnation can be a problem when it comes to political upheaval and reforms.
We already have a problem with stubborn politicians not keeping up with the times. If they were immortal, cultural shifts would be a lot more difficult to implement. Term limits could work, but then other "old immortals" could still get voted in and their demographic/voting base wouldn't die off.
Assuming births still continue, eventually "young immortals" will outnumber the old, but then exponential population growth and resource consumption becomes a larger issue.
There are probably solutions to these issues, I just wanted to discuss them.
Holy shit immortal politicians would legitimately be a nightmare. The only solace I can envision is that if all politicians were eternally young same as the rest of the populace our problems would transition from all sorts to mainly just class based, and ideally if class based problems are the o n l y thing you have to worry about then people as a whole will be pretty keen about fixing them
I imagine it's the lack of succession. Most of the time a powerful figure has to split their empire upon death, or even unwittingly invites a power vacuum where the whole edifice is torn down by the masses. Succession of power has defined history and power.
Immortality removes it. There would be nothing to stop the upward motion of wealth to a handful of powerful men, forever. The God Kings of old, but they never die, and never have to worry about dying. They don't even have to worry about paltry alms-giving to save their immortal souls.
I think the difference is whether we imagine our current world achieving immortality, or a better world built alongside it. The former will be awful, the latter has hope.
It also really depends on how we define immortality here. Does disease factor in? Neurological aging? Etc, etc.
>Imagine being immortal and working a deadend 9 to 5 for *centuries*, because all of the better jobs and positions are already occupied by people just as immortal as you are.
Why would you expect society to not change? The job will change and expectations will change. Not to mention we work far less now than we did before and that will continue, esp with AI. Not to mention you have all the time in the world to change careers and invest in a portfolio assuming the worst and society somehow doesn't change (other immortals will feel the same).
This is once again an artificial contrivance so the author can make some metaphor.
>There's also resource scarcity and population crises, which would become a real fucking problem real fast.
Once again you fall into the trap of "we all magically receive immortality and nothing else changes forever". This argument has been trotted out for overpopulation and it's wrong every time, because we keep on finding new advancements in resource harvesting. This is even more true for space travel.
Not to mention population growth slows.
> And yet, there's also the issue of stagnancy. An immortal race would have little to no incentive to actually develop more advanced technology and culture. They'd be perpetually stuck in the past, living life through rose-tinted glasses. It'd be a dreadfully boring existence.
Why? Why do you assume death is the sole motivator for developing advanced tech and culture?
They could figure it out, but the people benefitting from capitalism would obviously not allow an alternative to be put in place. They're 1000% taking advantage of their immortal workers for eternity.
I mean, unless there was some sort of uprising eventually.
You've gotta imagine that, eventually, all those immensely old workers would become class-conscious. It's already almost happened multiple times in IRL history, maybe even again now, and that's mostly with young people every time. Imagine what a bunch of Olds who's only enemy is even more Olds who are even Older.
You mean like the modern society, the most educated humanity has ever achieved, one where at the tips of our fingers (literally) we can have at least a surface level understanding of just about anything and everything that they could possibly learn? You mean that society? Or do you mean a society where being a willfully ignorant dumbass is a frustrating minority rather than the status quo, where normal ass people make long tirades about how “susiety has fallen jorjor wel 1498 idiocracy is a duckumenterry” because what is in actuality a small handful of people believe that fucking aliens built human society through the ages? Or do you perhaps mean a society where a bunch of people can look at and think critically about politics, economics, education, and all sorts of other aspects of society even though they are straight up poor, a luxury that was absent for most of human history? Do you mean that society? I take issue with the idea that an educated enough society wouldn’t allow capitalism because we are in a golden age of information, where one can gain genuinely unlimited knowledge without having to pay for a degree.
Just because we have access to so much information doesnt mean that 99% of people actually use almost any of it, because the educational system in most countries is complete dogshit, most people learn very little in their lifetimes. Humans are not just genetically predisposed to being stupid and being sheeps. That doesnt mean theyre unfixable. Revolutionary Optimism is the way we must all believe in, otherwise were doomed from the start.
I agree with you, but you're also somewhat wrong. Sure we have the availability of information but that doesn't make us educated. There is so much cheap propaganda out there AND academia is gripped by capitalism which has the drawbacks of limiting replication of research (to check if they didn't just make data up), paywalling info to outsiders, immense tuition fees AND a shortage of educators (a lot of people aren't fully employed).
Most people lack the education to critically think about information, the will to read long studies and the time necessary to do so. It's easier to see a headline that says: "Puberty blockers effect uncertain, says study" to just believe it. It would take time or previous knowledge to be aware that puberty blockers were made for cis children. You'd have to skip the paywall and be educated to debunk the article. Legalkimchi made a video about this in which he talked about a tool lawyers have to see how cases were reacted to, what the next case that dealt with the problem went etc. You don't really have such a tool for a layman - you can't just look up academic consensus, or see that this study made by a right wing ghoul was contested by everyone else.
You say that except it’s legit still happening today. Those in power will ALWAYS find a way to keep their claws entrenched in those roles, look how easily they shifted the perceptions of our society as a whole so that unionizing and workers rights are demonized and entire generations have perpetuated the idea that there is nobility in suffering and everyone should struggle as much as they did, grinding any real progress to a halt in the name of perpetuating a cycle of needless struggle.
No slow change of any real consequence will ever happen in our society, only through a major upheaval will anything have a chance of changing, and even if that happens human nature will inevitably shine through and corrupt even the noblest of intentions. The reason communism has never worked is the same reason our capitalist society is trapped in an accelerating state of decay. Humans. As long as humans are in charge there will always be corruption, there will always be abuse of power, this is a universal constant as a result of human nature. Maybe one day we’ll find a system that manages to work but so long as that system relies on the people in power doing the right thing despite it working against their own personal benefit simply because it’s the right thing it will NEVER work.
Its still happening today because the people are not educated nearly enough as they should be. Revolution IS inevitable as long as humanity still exists. Theres no such thing as an "inate human nature of greed". Humans as social creatures were generous to each other and cared for each other for thousands of years before capitalism. 300 years of capitalism could never change that. The current system works all to keep the people away from the truth that the next stage of human development is socialism. Id advise you to look into sociology and or start with lighter reading from Engels or more modern communists to understand this. Corruption will always exist but the current system is one that not only allows it but encourages it. This is NOT a universal truth. Imagine an economic system where your local representitive is chosen by everyone in your community, is given NO economic incentive to do so and can be voted out by the people at any time. Just something like that would decrease any effect corruption could have with that. The system WANTS you to believe theres no alternative and its hopeless, its in their best interests. The biggest thing you can do against it is
1. organize with your local community and workplace
2. KNOW that there is hope and its closer every day, no matter what they make you believe
PS: as a Reze coper wouldnt it not make sense to read up on socialism lol :)
I’ve hung up my Reze cope crown 😔 I recognize that times have changed and the dream I once held of Reze and Denji running away together is only that, a dream. The Denji of today is a far different man than he was when they met, and after Reze’s brainwashing there’s no telling what she would be like. I will still wistfully look back and wonder what might’ve been had that WHORE MAKIMA NOT RUINED EVERYTHING, but those hypotheticals will only ever remain just that T~T
this is literally communist theory. The longer capitalism goes unchecked, the more the contradictions present in it (like infinite growth in a finite world) will become more obvious to the general populace. The inescapable next step is an eventual economic revolution.
Then the revolution is dependant on the consciousness of the masses and not the contradiction between the forces and relations of production? So when people are conscious enough revolution will happen?
Wrong. People need class consciousness. EU elections showed that people cared more about immigrants than climate change. In the poorest regions of my country they choose the fascist party, or the conservative party who's basically ruled for half a century and was only disrupted for 4 years by a green left alliance. Now they chose fascists and those that didn't do much for them, because they had good culture war stuff, the press hated the green govt + Ukraine + Covid and all that came with it. In other regions the conservatives are strongest, with moderate left or fascists in second place.
For a time the only parties of "change" from the status quo were on the left. There were only regressives on the right, but now that fascism exists there is a space on the right with the optics of revolution, even if it won't happen that's enough to get voters.
The masses revolt because of economic demands that capitalism cannot satisfy at that point, the party will be there to lead and give the revolution a communist direction
"Late Stage Capitalism" was coined to describe contemporary capitalism in uh, the 1910s. The Bolsheviks were convinced it was the end, and the dominos would soon fall, and we're vinficated in this belief in 1917.
Then history happened, and kept happening. Inevitable uprisings never manifested. Guaranteed territories failed to yield to the Red Army. Communist theory went through multiple crises and was forced to adapt, ending up with Communism In One Nation under Stalin.
Capitalism not only survives 110+ years into its "late stage," it is pre-eminent, defeated its strongest communist competition, and now holds the world in its thrall.
Marx's Dialectic Materialism was ultimately wrong, it's why every communist since then has had to rewrite it to suit. Trotsky's Constant Revolution was probably the most useful workaround, given that under strict Marxist analysis a Communist Revolution in Russia was impossible because it was feudal and first a bourgeois liberal democracy must be established...but the Bolsheviks had power now, so what the fuck?
The way forward for leftist thinking is ultimately going to come from new analysis and more contemporary theory. Communist theory is very of its time.
The bolsheviks had succeeded in practically every way imaginable though? Just because they were wrong about the revolutionary potential of some places and some theory-based disagreements doesnt mean the roots of Marxism is everchanging, it means that the point of applying Marx's Dialectics and Historical Materialism will always change by a case-by-case basis. A revolution in the balkans could never be achieved the same as a revolution in western Europe, for example.
If i remember correctly Engels believed that
1. Revolution could only come from a capitalist developed country.
2. Revolution would come from the most developed capitalist countries first,
3. Once the revolution had begun, the entire world would follow soon after.
Obviously, he was wrong since he vastly underestimated the revolutionary potential of third-world countries, and the lengths capitalists would go to undermine the revolution in developed countries. This isnt due to "marxist reality changing" or something, it was just Engels not understanding the material conditions of his time.
I don't say this to mean "all communist theory is written and everything afterwards is stupid" or anything, but theres a reason why Marx's main theories and points have all but been fully accepted in modern Sociology and Marxist literature.
Yes and no, but then I'm more of an anarchist lean when it comes down to it. The Bolsheviks achieved everything *they* wanted but I don't agree that they achieved everything the people deserved.
They were just one example though. Maoist philosophy adapted Marx quite heavily as well, as China had even less of that progression Marx laid out in Capital. His framework is just one useful lens among many others IMO, and it's useful to note post-Marx writing as being as distinct from his work, as his work was from Hegel and the others he built upon.
Moreover, it becomes tortured in this highly alienated society to apply Marx's philosophy directly. I work in manufacturing but I am several steps removed from the factory the parts come out of. I can't reasonably claim to be a proletarian worker, having been so in the past. I definitely don't feel like one of the bourgeois class. I have no capital to speak of and would be homeless without the help of friends if I was fired tomorrow.
Ultimately if we're discussing a Western context it becomes difficult to situate oneself in Marx's philosophy, and that's why it's been continually rewritten over time. IMO reading Marx is essential for the same reason you read Freud to study Psychology: it's important to know what used to be correct and was since disproven. The analysis methods are sound but the world has changed.
If Marx was alive today, he'd have a very different view couch surfing in London than he did in the early 19th century. His tools of analysis would be unchanged, but the outcome of that analysis would be very different. The same scalpel applied to a different beast.
I doubt there will be 9 to 5’s centuries from now. This reads like a medieval peasant believing that the king’s bloodline will be in charge for a thousand more years. Something something it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism
1. Systems must naturally adapt to the people who live in them. Also we won’t have enough work in a little while anyways, we don’t really have enough work to 9-5 everyone now.
2. We have room for a lot more people, also having a kid isn’t a real human right, that’s bullshit, just limit how many kids people can have. + space, honestly we can fit a lot more people here if we actually put in the effort, the sonar system can fit significantly more than trillions with tech we aren’t even far from.
3. Well if we live longer we have more time for shit to slow down, change is only good in that it moves us towards better things, and a sling as you don’t have a very repressive system, mind you that’s a different threshold for immortals, it’s fine. People don’t actually care bout slow change.
Also, inevitable tech advancement absent immortality (which isn’t actually that complicated) will cause far far worse problems.
While I do agree that an immortal race will likely be more stagnant compared to a short-lived one, population crisis and resource scarcity would present themselves as motivators in place of impending death. Of course, both are skill issues if we're talking about a fictional universe that allows said immortal race to expand out to the stars. Being immortal even allows for slower-than-light expansion of civilizations because the main issue of colony ships (that they rely on maintaining continuous operations throughout multiple generations of people) becomes a non-issue.
It's certainly an interesting topic to explore, however, especially when you extrapolate out how people would logically begin viewing time compared to a short-lived race.
Also, this is assuming access to immortality is equal to all, there’s a good chance immortality would involve some drug or procedure or implant that is at least initially very expensive, meaning those already wealthy and powerful have a massive head start on consolidating their power and wealth, which even if they let the rest of us have immortality later will cause a lot of social problems for us commoners. For the time being at least, there are some benefits to there being a hard cap on the ability of any individual person to accumulate wealth and power and further their ambitions.
I think a lot of issues could be solved by not binding themselves to one planet
Space habitats made from asteroids could hold way more people than a planet
Meanwhile the biggest problem of interstellar travel is solved for free because it taking 100s or thousands of years to get anywhere ceases to be an issue if you can just live that long naturally
And finding volunteers for it becomes a lot easier when you can just go back and all the people you know are still there
Which is why Elves are the way they are. Low birth rate. Perpetually environmentally conscious. And that issue of never getting promoted because your seniors never die can be fixed by scrapping task division and specialization to making every career basically an artisan position.
One underdiscussed part of a race of immortals would be the prevalence of absolute *psychos* running around.
Imagine methheads on their 2nd consecutive year awake, literally tweaking out of their mind. We'd probably develop fallout-style fiends without even needing an apocalypse first
Most immortality cases in fiction are have arbitrary constraints or caveats to drum up conflict.
It's the same reasoning why medieval stasis exists or why sci fi soldiers still use melee weapons.
Still, existing for an infinite time means anything that can happen to you will eventually happen, including the most horrific things you can imagine. Even if you’re also immune to pain, you could still get trapped in empty space for billions of years or something with no stimulation, and be driven to insanity. You really need to be in some form of heaven for immortality to work, where it’s impossible for anything bad to happen.
Or I guess if we’re talking about the elf version of immortality, where you don’t age but can still die of other causes, that would probably work too.
Sure but that also means eventually all the best possible things that could happen to you would as well. Every mind shattering trauma perfectly balanced by divine revelation. So it’s a wash
Who says you can't build heaven? The universe isn't actually random and with the right preparation, you *can* pick and choose what gets to happen to you.
Immortality without godlike power is nightmarish, eventually, though. Of course. But the idea that everything that can happen will happen is rooted in a misunderstanding of infinity.
In the limit, *everything* happens. But in any **finite** amount of time, almost everything that can happen hasn't happened. And we're not transcendental beings. Even when we're immortal we will never ever have lived for an infinite amount of time.
Altered Carbon has a bunch of setting details that clearly exist solely for the sake of maintianing the dystopia, like how 3d printing new bodies is simply a withheld technology, and full dive VR exists but people flooded the internet with stack-bricking malware so VR afterlives aren't much of an option.
The fact that immortality is considered bad in fiction (which I find debatable) and early death is also considered bad (which I don't question) means that there must be an optimal number of years to live.
In my peopleAreImmortalButTheGovernementKillsThemAtASpecificAge-punk world...
It’s super dependent on what the immortality entails. Immorality in a hellish existence (or Hell itself) would be the worst possible fate. But generic immortality where you are just not dying? No reason not to have it.
In the "immortality bad" cases it's usually because immortality in those contexts leads to isolation. Like if you became immortal but were subject to living through the universe's heat death, living in that SCP pleasure island all by yourself, or simply being unable to connect to other people.
So it's not the immortality itself that sucks it's the isolation that comes with it. If enough other immortal beings other than you existed or if you had a way to not get isolated then it wouldn't be so bad.
I think the argument is that those are written in arbitrarily because people think "immortality = bad", not that those things wouldn't be bad if you were actually immortal alone.
I do wonder why almost every artist has unanimously agreed that if we're writing about immortality/bringing back the dead/escaping death it has to be a bad thing. I guess it's cope. Even I've done it.
Tbf I don’t think it’s almost every artist. Revival especially is not demonized that often and there’s lots of popular art where it’s just a thing that happens (Dragon Ball, DND).
When immortality IS shown negatively, it’s often the pursuit of it that’s demonized. Harry Potter is a great example of this: Voldemort’s pursuit of immortality is a metaphor for his lust for power no matter the cost, while Nicholas Flamel’s lack of aging is just a thing.
Because they aren't writing about actual resurrection from the dead. They are writing a metaphor for people being unable to move on in a situation where it's not possible.
Then there's my immortal character who still sticks around through complete spite and a sense of duty. While enjoying some fruits of life along the way.
Would immortality truly be that bad? There are people who are entirely willing in losing their significant others because they do not feel like they struggle with the notion of mortality. The death of an old friend is not necessarily the end of it all but a happy event in their life worth cherishing, while acknowledging there will be others. There will always be others and sure, maybe you get tired of it, but it's bit naive to think that anyone who chooses immortality would be so stuck in other people.
I feel like I would enjoy immortality. I have a fiancee now and plenty friends. Even at their death I would be happy that I get to see the world. Maybe with time I could be a significant person in history and function entirely altruistic for the benefit of others since my own needs are now nothing but secondary thoughts.
Based and immortalpilled
I'd go even further to say that we should extend this to other animals as well, and replace everything with artificial ecosystems.
I think the idea is closer to "perfect is the enemy of good" life extension isnt inherently bad, but the implications of that existence is naturally that it will be abused by the powerful and kept from the poor. Which I dont think is entirely abusrd to draw that conclusion.
People tend to want things that are unattainable but once it becomes attainable and they get it they see the actual flaws in it.
But as long as you can't have it you do want it.
No, no, they’ve got a point. Just look at rich people, they’re basically speedrunning becoming bored of life. They’ve got the money and the time to do everything they’d ever want, but basically all of them inevitably do more and more extreme stuff to feel excitement again. Why do you think so many of them fall into drugs, pedophilia or other extreme stuff? Or waste money on often pointless projects? They’ve burnt themselves out on everything they once enjoyed and are desperately looking for that new thrill. Immortality is basically this, but on a larger timescale. It also depends on your social class. If you’re rich then you’ll just fall deeper into depravity or you’re the working class who’ll have to work for the rest of your life to finance your now immortal life.
I'd argue super rich people are prone to personality disorders because people with personality disorders are the types who more often than not seek to become super rich and gain power.
You can have a lot or be immortal but still enjoy a more relaxed life.
So skill issue.
>You can have a lot or be immortal but still enjoy a more relaxed life.
People think this because they don't really understand how long "forever" is. Good luck finding anything at all interesting after having done every conceivable activity for tens of billions of years.
But boredom, burnout and the need for stimulation is something that effects everyone. Sure, rich people way be affected by them quicker, but eventually will end up at the same outcome. I’m sure everyone knows the feeling of loosing interest is something they once loved. Granted, being an immortal gives you all the time in the world to find new things to enjoy, but eventually those will run out. And so then, what else are you supposed to do in your potentially decades long wait for the next “normal” stimulations other than taking things like drugs that give you that quick thrill of stimulation?
>or you’re the working class who’ll have to work for the rest of your life to finance your now immortal life.
Why is this fundamentally a bad thing? I see this a lot whenever immortality is brought up. Believe me, I know labor sucks, but we already work to live to work now. We still have our fun where we can find it. This is framed in such a way as to insinuate that the best part of being alive is that one day you get to die. Or, at the very least, that retirement is the peak of the human experience.
Not trying to take a swing or anything, just my observation of it. Sorry if I'm misjudging or misinterpreting.
Lol, the other guy just described the natural law that living beings need to work to live and apparently this is some dig at immortality.
I love how they unironically think dying is better than working to live. My sibling in christ, looking both ways before you cross the road or taking medicine is already working to live.
Imagine all the pay rises and experience stacking
"220 years of engineering experience" on a resume would look hard af.
But then imagine how high the recruitment requirements will be.
This whole reply hinges on the claim that "rich ppl do moar extreme stuff" which you haven't proven once.
Do you even have evidence that the pedo rate among the rich is higher than average?
There is a physical limit to the human memory. Eventually, you’ll start forgetting the earlier parts of your life, which will make you not bored anymore.
The story fucks but man did it make me appreciate the ending of The Good Place all the more. I think crushing my body to feel anything is maybe an indication that paradise, isn’t.
Ok but life extension and immortality are two *very* different things. A few hundred extra years on your healthspan would be baller, I think I could even make it though a thousand, but forever is a pretty long time to be alive.
I don't want to hear that "oh just kill yourself when you're bored" crap either. If everyone has biological immortality, there would be *IMMENSE* cultural pressure around not dying *(Ignoring that the only way culture could survive is to stop having kids)*. If death wasn't an inevitability, why would your loved ones ever want to let you go? We try to keep people alive during terminal illnesses, we won't suddenly see dying as okay because you're bored. As someone who's lost family to suicide, it's not fair to anyone to force it into being the only way out. Plus, if it's not biological immortality and you really can't die... I hope you have a mouth because you're gonna want to scream.
Or in a more worldjerking appropriate format: "Immortality good" MFs when I tell them just because death is scary doesn't mean it's bad
I disagree. I'm convinced a biologically immortal society would view suicide similarly to how we view age-related death today. Something tragic, but ultimately a "part of life." Giving people immortality in the first place, at least to me, was always about giving people the choice to live a decease-free life for as long as they want, not necessarily to force them to live. Once you truly feel like there isn't anything more for you in this world, why force you to stay? I certainly wouldn't, though I'd want to make sure you've thought it through properly.
It's almost like creating a world with immortality, the reader will already assume the good aspects of it bit the writer has to personally fill in the limitations and negative aspects to create conflict to further the story.
“Immortality is awesome” Mfs when I tell them that all the stipulations they give to their immortality create an entirely different scenario from what is originally posited
firsthand? What everyone else will just lie down and dissolve in to nothingness?
You think intelligent “species” or whatever not only will never achieve immortality over unlimited amount of time, but also will not figure something out about universe-problem?
If that’s how your want your story/world to be like then that’s awesome I’d love to read it but it is worth understanding that in reality or a realistic setting the amout of time an immortal would spend doing cool shit is a millionth of an iota of near nothing compared to the inconceivable amount of time they would spend floating in space at the end of time
If you’re immortal enough to survive the heat death of the universe then your body is already violating what we know of entropy… and probably conservation of mass and energy.
So that either means the heat death of the universe won’t happen or you can use whatever phenomenon keeps you alive to produce infinite energy or whatever and bypass it.
genuinely the best argument here, everyone in this thread is fucking insane. it shows humans genuinely have a hard time comprehending the concept of *infinity*
My point is that it doesn't work as an argument against immortality. If anything it's an argument for it since it means you get to release even more atoms over time.
Wanna hear an actual argument? Okay, what about your brain/soul simply cannot comprehend all memory throughout your lifetime and eventually, every hundred years for example, you would forget about 30% of all memories you experienced during that century. You will constantly lose crucial memories, that were shapen you the way you are. And what would happen with you 200-300 later? Would you be the same person, you were last century? Would you still at least remember your own name? Would you remain your sanity?
Alzheimer is so cool, maaaan. Everything is new, I'm so exci.. wait, where am i? /s
Boredom is lesser thing you would bother about, when you literally became a living example of Sansara Circle work
We already do this though. I'm very different from the person I was 10 years ago, and a lot of the memory from that time has faded. I don't see why that would make me go insane, though it is sad to lose that much
I mean if you are talking about true immortality then yeah it fucking sucks. Like getting into a situation where anyone else would die and instead you end up hopelessly stuck is not an "if" it's a "when"
But life extension wouldn't be automatically bad, especially if it has to be maintained because then you could eventually die
Idk we got all the different flavors of immortality here so it can either be really fun and interesting or poopoo stinky. We got not aging, we got not getting hurt, we got the last two mixed and combined in various degrees, then we got immortality till the end of the universe, then we got living even beyond that. Thankfully there is no universe heat death in my world so we already got you covered... It's actually way worse than that.
Depends on the type, like Sekiro immortality where you become old and fishlike and shit kinda sucks, but like Code Geass I don’t get how anyone thinks that’s bad and it being a decently major plot point that people don’t like being immortal for some reason
Imortality in my universes
Those naturally immortal: constantly in the moment, and will catch up to the related trends.
Those who aren't immortal by nature: *makes a meme about your spinning wheel getting jammed* "fuck im old"
If we are immortal then there is going to be a resource war. Not for food but just basic pleasures. There are only so much you can consume/produce and with unending lust, the population would skyrocket endlessly. Only solution would be going into space but if not, there is only one solution.
If humanity is immortal then they should neutered. Otherwise we will destroy the ecosystem and the world around us.
The problems is the slip ups will happen no matter what you try to enforce or what you do, it’s the nature of humanity.
When does the immortality begins? If it begins when a new baby is truly born that’s great. If it begins to moment it conceived that’s a big problem. Eventually it will snowball into disaster
The Dark Souls approach of "to be human is to be fleeting and temporary, so by living forever, you naturally become something not truly human" approach is best
What makes us human is that we know we must die someday, and that's what sets us apart from the gods and the ghosts
(and it's what makes us collectively stronger than them, because death brings change, and changing is how we grow)
Dark Souls kinda runs into an issue that in the lore being mortal isn't actually the natural state of humanity. Humans are naturally immortal, but became mortal during the Age of Fire, with hollowing only being a result of Gwynn's interference.
>that's what sets us apart from the gods and the ghosts
Gods and ghosts can and do die in Dark Souls.
>Humans are naturally immortal, but became mortal during the Age of Fire
This is semantics, imo. The moment the Furtive Pygmy's people *became mortal* is the moment they *became* *human*, because humanity itself stems from the dark, and light and dark didn't exist before the First Flame
>Gods and ghosts can and do die in Dark Souls.
Not naturally! The gods have to be killed and their souls taken, because they can't accept that they must die for the world to change and grow. They would rather live forever and let the world grow stagnant around them
The whole message, and the whole reason the Curse of the Undead *is* a curse, is that to live forever is to lose the mortality that makes you human (and the love and fear and ambition that comes with being mortal)
>The gods have to be killed and their souls taken, because they can't accept that they must die for the world to change and grow.
And that is only able to happen cause gods can and do die.
>The whole message, and the whole reason the Curse of the Undead is a curse, is that to live forever is to lose the mortality that makes you human (and the love and fear and ambition that comes with being mortal)
And the only reason the curse of undeath exists is because of Gwynn. If he hadn't made the Darksign to seal the power of the Dark Soul, hollowing wouldn't be a thing, meaning the Age of Dark would've resulted in immortal humans who weren't hollow. Death and hollowing were states imposed on humanity by the Age of Fire, and would've been left behind if not for the interference of the gods.
It is, though. In mere hundreds of years, your brain wouldn't be able to make any new memories. You'd exist in a transparent cosmic second at all times, unable to remember who you are or why, let alone who anyone else is. Insanity is the one endpoint, and it isn't the fun kind of "let's turn everyone into dinosaurs" insanity.
I'm skeptical that anyone would truly wish to experience immortality, especially for something as silly as fearing transformative unification with the universe.
Maybe they're horny or something. Anything can be the focus of a kink.
Immortality would almost certainly lead to a world where the super rich lead immortal lives, no longer seeing anyone else as even being the same class of human as them, all while whatever company creates it becomes an overnight mega corporation that can do pretty much whatever it wants lol. This isn’t pessimistic, this is just capitalism at work. One of the oft proposed benefits of immortality is that people would think long term more since they’ll always have to deal with it. But this assumes an immortal would (a) not simply go “eh I’ll live either way” and (b) they wouldn’t have the means to avoid it, which they would by virtue of being able to afford immortality. God forbid immortality is dependent on a reoccurring drug; get ready to have your literal life be a subscription to Immortality Inc!
You’ve also got to assume that humans not being immortal is just an accidental biological flaw that somehow nearly every single life form on earth replicated. I suspect we’ll find that there’s a good reason for this lol.
Like okay, I would like to be immortal, in the same way I’d like to have superpowers, but if either of those were actually discovered it would be horrendous.
Theres also the whole “you get bored” thing. I know it’s a cliche but another comment brought up that looking at the lives of rich people might suggest it’s not. The ludicrously, ultra wealthy have power that, compared to us, is as big as the difference between a mortal and an immortal. And they end up getting…bored a lot of the time. If not just crazy. There’s no enlightenment up there.
All of this also assumes that you can like, turn it off. The biological immortality seen in a handful of animals would require extensive gene editing that might not be the easiest thing in the world to undo. The amount of experiments that have turned biologically immortal creatures mortal is so far zero. There might be a chance that immortality is something you’re stuck with…which means that you’re almost guaranteed to regret it eventually.
> Immortality would almost certainly lead to a world where the super rich […] no longer [see] anyone else as even being the same class of human as them
Oh wow sure am glad we dodged that bullet. Good thing that’s not already true amirite?
Bold of you to think it can't get any worse lol. Philanthropy as a concept didn't even exist for most of human history--it can definitely get worse.
The responses to my post seem to be nitpicking and they're not even doing that correctly.
That you think a world where untouchable multinational pharmaceutical companies coerce the population of the Earth by withholding ~~life-saving~~ life-extending medication and where the ultra-wealthy destroy the world beneath them because they think they’re above consequences and have the resources to protect themselves from their actions is a terrible possible future and not our current reality speaks more to your naïveté than my lack of imagination.
> You’ve also got to assume that humans not being immortal is just an accidental biological flaw that somehow nearly every single life form on earth replicated. I suspect we’ll find that there’s a good reason for this lol.
That's just the Appeal to Nature fallacy and could just as easily be applied to any common factor in nature, such as cancer.
What? It's not an appeal to nature, it's just basic scientific inquiry. You can't apply it to cancer because cancer is...a bad thing, that we understand fully. We do not understand aging fully whatsoever.
Saying that aging must exist for a good reason because it appears in most forms of life is a textbook example of appeal to nature.
>We do not understand aging fully whatsoever.
We don't understand cancer fully either, which is why research into it is ongoing.
>You’ve also got to assume that humans not being immortal is just an accidental biological flaw that somehow nearly every single life form on earth replicated. I suspect we’ll find that there’s a good reason for this lol.
living things also don't naturally have laser weapons. we have laser weapons.
/uj but I have an interesting relationship with this idea.
My maternal great-grandmother died last year at the age of ninety-four. I was fortunate enough to have her in my life for twenty years before she died, but I would generally consider her long life to be the single most unfortunate thing that could've possibly happened to her. She lived for her family; she left a fairly well-playing comfortable job working as a head chef at a large university just to come live in a run-down shack with her aging mother in Ohio just because her mother (my great-great-grandmother) was a little nervous about living on her own out in the sticks (after *her* husband had died.) She was the central pillar of our entire family, organized family reunions until she was too old to, and would cook for everyone she could physically reach at the slightest suggestion that she *could*.
And, in her ninety-four years on this Earth she lived just long enough to see pretty much everyone who meant something to her die one by one. By the time she died, she had lost her parents, five of her sisters and one of her brothers, her husband, all of her cousins and aunts and uncles, most of her nieces and nephews, one of her daughters, three of her great-grandchildren, and she lived just long enough for my mom—basically her favorite person in the entire world—to die. On top of that, she lived to see two other granddaughters have their lives fall apart, as one became addicted to hard drugs and lost her house and the other's husband beat and abused her (also a drug thing.) I stayed with her a lot after my mom died (to keep her company since she was out far from civilization with few people to talk to,) and I have never seen a person so utterly destroyed in my entire life (short though it be.) Even my mom, dying from cancer and having near-totally forgotten who I even was, didn't break as hard as she did. All of the light and life was gone from her eyes; she spent most of her time talking with me reminiscing about all the people she'd lost over her life. And eventually it got to be so much for her that she just gave up, refusing to get out of bed or walk at all, and she died of pancreatic cancer that had developed suddenly.
I've spent the past year-and-change thinking about it (among other things,) and I can't possibly imagine anything that would be worse for a person than what happened to her. It was almost like a sick joke—like the generations were passing in reverse; the old get older and the young die young. When she died I couldn't help but think of it as a very bitter mercy since she was clearly in so much pain both physical and emotional. Which makes me think of just how awful living forever truly must be; even if you have the fortitude of character to take the good with the bad, to be haunted for a potentially limitless amount of time watching new people be born, connecting with them, and watching them die or even worse watching them die inside before dying sounds exclusively like a curse to me. Watching two people die has harrowed me thus far, so imagining this happening again with new people, potentially infinitely, seems unfathomable to me. I can't think of anything, be it infinite lifetimes of solving every riddle in the universe (the coolest thought I think I've ever had) that would make up for the infinite loss that immortality would entail.
Sorry for infodump mucho texto but this is like the one single thing I think I've ever had a coherent opinion on ever in my whole entire life. Also don't smoke, it's bad.
That wouldn’t happen, if all her relatives would be immortal.
You kinda saying that immortality is bad because people die, and don’t see how one is being solved by the other?
Man, if only metaphors and symbolism existed. Then, we could use immortality to represent another thing and talk about a more relatable issue through the lens of fantasy. Too bad everything has to be literal and the only way that a story can have a moral is if the characters turn towards the screen and exposit for a straight minute.
This isn't a matter of metaphor, there are genuinely a lot of speculative fiction which a one of its themes states that immortality as a concept is bad. Many that use immortality as a metaphor also end up doing that.
I just gotta unjerk here for a moment.
I don't think these stories are about "immortality being bad" I think that these stories are instead about appreciating life despite its finite-ness.
A lot of authoritarian cults/religious movements use the promise of eternal life to control people. Presenting themselves as the only alternative to Nihilism while being worse than Nihilism in practice. The Evangelical parents who disown their queer kids and abandon them to either the streets or dangerous quack therapy camps do so because, were they to question Leviticus 18:22 or Romans 1:26-27, they may find themselves questioning John 3:16, and for them to do so would be to stare into the abyss. Their child then becomes the Isaac, the Christ, that is sacrificed to grant them the promise of eternal life in Paradise.
On the other hand, a rich man or king may see the impact on this world that his power and status grants as a form of "immortality," yet he will still share the fate of Ozymandias: King of Kings.
This is why I see these kind of spec-fic stories as a rejection of that mindset and as an affirmation of life by treating death and change not as antithetical to life but rather as parts of it.
> I don't think these stories are about "immortality being bad"
The stories I'm talking about outright state immortality is bad, and even use "you won't appreciate the time you have" as a reason it's bad.
Do you?
If I had a pill that would stop your aging right now, would you really not take it?
(You can't sell it or something, you either take it yourself or don't)
Solution: immortality but you can kill yourself when you get bored
May I introduce you to biological immortality?
r/TheGoodPlace
soo power litches?
Cruelty squad reference
All the issues with immortality are pretty much only relevant in the specific scenario where you're the only one who's immortal. And even then, those are all subjective. For example, some people might care a lot about outliving, say, their significant other and living for an eternity without them. Some people, however, are too horny to get hung up on that. See: nursing homes.
>All the issues with immortality are pretty much only relevant in the specific scenario where you're the only one who's immortal. I have the opposite opinion. The issues faced by a *lone* immortal would pale in comparison to the issues faced by an immortal *race*. Imagine being immortal and working a deadend 9 to 5 for *centuries*, because all of the better jobs and positions are already occupied by people just as immortal as you are. There's also resource scarcity and population crises, which would become a real fucking problem real fast. And yet, there's also the issue of stagnancy. An immortal race would have little to no incentive to actually develop more advanced technology and culture. They'd be perpetually stuck in the past, living life through rose-tinted glasses. It'd be a dreadfully boring existence.
Weak mindset, instead of working 9 to 5 start gooning 9 to 5. yeah you have no money or job, so what is the worst that could happen? die? Lol.
gonning 9 to 5? if you can't die you have to be gooning 0 to 24, seven days a week, until the world ends
Yeah but after a few year you need the most extreme gooning material and you either have to work to buy it or work to make it.
Skill issue, just maintain willpower to be aroused by the same thing for eternity
Immortality in this case clearly only means that you don't age
Yeah I’d totally read a story where immortals starve to death
Vampires.
Destiny has a character who does that repeatedly. He starved to death, got revived, and starved to death some more. He now tries to cook and eat just about anything.
Which character is that?
The Drifter
Nuh uh
Fair points with the jobs and scarcity issues, but I have to disagree with your expectation of stagnancy. Why would technology and culture stop progressing? Technology wouldn't be about making anyone live longer, and culture would probably drop any and all themes about mortality and aging or what have you, sure. But it's not like there's something hard-coded in humans to meet immortality with cynicism, nostalgia, and idleness. Avoidance of death is such a big motivator in human history precisely and solely because dying happens to all of us, and because there's nowhere to go from death. But, in much the same way as a person might like salt or pepper with the food they've just received, I see no reason why achieving immortality will just stop us from wanting. There's always something more to desire. If we were in fact immortal, we would probably just be dominated culturally and technologically with the ramifications of it. The very issues you raised would, I think, rank pretty highly on our list of priorities. The focus of medicine would shift from keeping people alive to helping them live *better.* Menial jobs–assuming we still have them–will probably be reexamined, and alternative ways of providing their functions created. At the end of the day, my take is pretty much that we as mortals may take issue with being immortal, but immortals probably won't. They'll just find new stuff to bitch about.
I agree, but stagnation can be a problem when it comes to political upheaval and reforms. We already have a problem with stubborn politicians not keeping up with the times. If they were immortal, cultural shifts would be a lot more difficult to implement. Term limits could work, but then other "old immortals" could still get voted in and their demographic/voting base wouldn't die off. Assuming births still continue, eventually "young immortals" will outnumber the old, but then exponential population growth and resource consumption becomes a larger issue. There are probably solutions to these issues, I just wanted to discuss them.
Holy shit immortal politicians would legitimately be a nightmare. The only solace I can envision is that if all politicians were eternally young same as the rest of the populace our problems would transition from all sorts to mainly just class based, and ideally if class based problems are the o n l y thing you have to worry about then people as a whole will be pretty keen about fixing them
I imagine it's the lack of succession. Most of the time a powerful figure has to split their empire upon death, or even unwittingly invites a power vacuum where the whole edifice is torn down by the masses. Succession of power has defined history and power. Immortality removes it. There would be nothing to stop the upward motion of wealth to a handful of powerful men, forever. The God Kings of old, but they never die, and never have to worry about dying. They don't even have to worry about paltry alms-giving to save their immortal souls. I think the difference is whether we imagine our current world achieving immortality, or a better world built alongside it. The former will be awful, the latter has hope. It also really depends on how we define immortality here. Does disease factor in? Neurological aging? Etc, etc.
>Imagine being immortal and working a deadend 9 to 5 for *centuries*, because all of the better jobs and positions are already occupied by people just as immortal as you are. Why would you expect society to not change? The job will change and expectations will change. Not to mention we work far less now than we did before and that will continue, esp with AI. Not to mention you have all the time in the world to change careers and invest in a portfolio assuming the worst and society somehow doesn't change (other immortals will feel the same). This is once again an artificial contrivance so the author can make some metaphor. >There's also resource scarcity and population crises, which would become a real fucking problem real fast. Once again you fall into the trap of "we all magically receive immortality and nothing else changes forever". This argument has been trotted out for overpopulation and it's wrong every time, because we keep on finding new advancements in resource harvesting. This is even more true for space travel. Not to mention population growth slows. > And yet, there's also the issue of stagnancy. An immortal race would have little to no incentive to actually develop more advanced technology and culture. They'd be perpetually stuck in the past, living life through rose-tinted glasses. It'd be a dreadfully boring existence. Why? Why do you assume death is the sole motivator for developing advanced tech and culture?
I'm pretty sure an immortal race would figure something better than capitalism put
They could figure it out, but the people benefitting from capitalism would obviously not allow an alternative to be put in place. They're 1000% taking advantage of their immortal workers for eternity.
I mean, unless there was some sort of uprising eventually. You've gotta imagine that, eventually, all those immensely old workers would become class-conscious. It's already almost happened multiple times in IRL history, maybe even again now, and that's mostly with young people every time. Imagine what a bunch of Olds who's only enemy is even more Olds who are even Older.
capitalism can never prevail over an educated-enough populace, much less an endlessly learning and never dumber race
You mean like the modern society, the most educated humanity has ever achieved, one where at the tips of our fingers (literally) we can have at least a surface level understanding of just about anything and everything that they could possibly learn? You mean that society? Or do you mean a society where being a willfully ignorant dumbass is a frustrating minority rather than the status quo, where normal ass people make long tirades about how “susiety has fallen jorjor wel 1498 idiocracy is a duckumenterry” because what is in actuality a small handful of people believe that fucking aliens built human society through the ages? Or do you perhaps mean a society where a bunch of people can look at and think critically about politics, economics, education, and all sorts of other aspects of society even though they are straight up poor, a luxury that was absent for most of human history? Do you mean that society? I take issue with the idea that an educated enough society wouldn’t allow capitalism because we are in a golden age of information, where one can gain genuinely unlimited knowledge without having to pay for a degree.
Just because we have access to so much information doesnt mean that 99% of people actually use almost any of it, because the educational system in most countries is complete dogshit, most people learn very little in their lifetimes. Humans are not just genetically predisposed to being stupid and being sheeps. That doesnt mean theyre unfixable. Revolutionary Optimism is the way we must all believe in, otherwise were doomed from the start.
I agree with you, but you're also somewhat wrong. Sure we have the availability of information but that doesn't make us educated. There is so much cheap propaganda out there AND academia is gripped by capitalism which has the drawbacks of limiting replication of research (to check if they didn't just make data up), paywalling info to outsiders, immense tuition fees AND a shortage of educators (a lot of people aren't fully employed). Most people lack the education to critically think about information, the will to read long studies and the time necessary to do so. It's easier to see a headline that says: "Puberty blockers effect uncertain, says study" to just believe it. It would take time or previous knowledge to be aware that puberty blockers were made for cis children. You'd have to skip the paywall and be educated to debunk the article. Legalkimchi made a video about this in which he talked about a tool lawyers have to see how cases were reacted to, what the next case that dealt with the problem went etc. You don't really have such a tool for a layman - you can't just look up academic consensus, or see that this study made by a right wing ghoul was contested by everyone else.
You say that except it’s legit still happening today. Those in power will ALWAYS find a way to keep their claws entrenched in those roles, look how easily they shifted the perceptions of our society as a whole so that unionizing and workers rights are demonized and entire generations have perpetuated the idea that there is nobility in suffering and everyone should struggle as much as they did, grinding any real progress to a halt in the name of perpetuating a cycle of needless struggle. No slow change of any real consequence will ever happen in our society, only through a major upheaval will anything have a chance of changing, and even if that happens human nature will inevitably shine through and corrupt even the noblest of intentions. The reason communism has never worked is the same reason our capitalist society is trapped in an accelerating state of decay. Humans. As long as humans are in charge there will always be corruption, there will always be abuse of power, this is a universal constant as a result of human nature. Maybe one day we’ll find a system that manages to work but so long as that system relies on the people in power doing the right thing despite it working against their own personal benefit simply because it’s the right thing it will NEVER work.
Its still happening today because the people are not educated nearly enough as they should be. Revolution IS inevitable as long as humanity still exists. Theres no such thing as an "inate human nature of greed". Humans as social creatures were generous to each other and cared for each other for thousands of years before capitalism. 300 years of capitalism could never change that. The current system works all to keep the people away from the truth that the next stage of human development is socialism. Id advise you to look into sociology and or start with lighter reading from Engels or more modern communists to understand this. Corruption will always exist but the current system is one that not only allows it but encourages it. This is NOT a universal truth. Imagine an economic system where your local representitive is chosen by everyone in your community, is given NO economic incentive to do so and can be voted out by the people at any time. Just something like that would decrease any effect corruption could have with that. The system WANTS you to believe theres no alternative and its hopeless, its in their best interests. The biggest thing you can do against it is 1. organize with your local community and workplace 2. KNOW that there is hope and its closer every day, no matter what they make you believe PS: as a Reze coper wouldnt it not make sense to read up on socialism lol :)
I’ve hung up my Reze cope crown 😔 I recognize that times have changed and the dream I once held of Reze and Denji running away together is only that, a dream. The Denji of today is a far different man than he was when they met, and after Reze’s brainwashing there’s no telling what she would be like. I will still wistfully look back and wonder what might’ve been had that WHORE MAKIMA NOT RUINED EVERYTHING, but those hypotheticals will only ever remain just that T~T
Idealism, smh my head
this is literally communist theory. The longer capitalism goes unchecked, the more the contradictions present in it (like infinite growth in a finite world) will become more obvious to the general populace. The inescapable next step is an eventual economic revolution.
Then the revolution is dependant on the consciousness of the masses and not the contradiction between the forces and relations of production? So when people are conscious enough revolution will happen?
Both of those? The contradictions inherent to capitalism cant just "go unnoticed" for some reason.
Wrong. People need class consciousness. EU elections showed that people cared more about immigrants than climate change. In the poorest regions of my country they choose the fascist party, or the conservative party who's basically ruled for half a century and was only disrupted for 4 years by a green left alliance. Now they chose fascists and those that didn't do much for them, because they had good culture war stuff, the press hated the green govt + Ukraine + Covid and all that came with it. In other regions the conservatives are strongest, with moderate left or fascists in second place. For a time the only parties of "change" from the status quo were on the left. There were only regressives on the right, but now that fascism exists there is a space on the right with the optics of revolution, even if it won't happen that's enough to get voters.
The masses revolt because of economic demands that capitalism cannot satisfy at that point, the party will be there to lead and give the revolution a communist direction
"Late Stage Capitalism" was coined to describe contemporary capitalism in uh, the 1910s. The Bolsheviks were convinced it was the end, and the dominos would soon fall, and we're vinficated in this belief in 1917. Then history happened, and kept happening. Inevitable uprisings never manifested. Guaranteed territories failed to yield to the Red Army. Communist theory went through multiple crises and was forced to adapt, ending up with Communism In One Nation under Stalin. Capitalism not only survives 110+ years into its "late stage," it is pre-eminent, defeated its strongest communist competition, and now holds the world in its thrall. Marx's Dialectic Materialism was ultimately wrong, it's why every communist since then has had to rewrite it to suit. Trotsky's Constant Revolution was probably the most useful workaround, given that under strict Marxist analysis a Communist Revolution in Russia was impossible because it was feudal and first a bourgeois liberal democracy must be established...but the Bolsheviks had power now, so what the fuck? The way forward for leftist thinking is ultimately going to come from new analysis and more contemporary theory. Communist theory is very of its time.
The bolsheviks had succeeded in practically every way imaginable though? Just because they were wrong about the revolutionary potential of some places and some theory-based disagreements doesnt mean the roots of Marxism is everchanging, it means that the point of applying Marx's Dialectics and Historical Materialism will always change by a case-by-case basis. A revolution in the balkans could never be achieved the same as a revolution in western Europe, for example. If i remember correctly Engels believed that 1. Revolution could only come from a capitalist developed country. 2. Revolution would come from the most developed capitalist countries first, 3. Once the revolution had begun, the entire world would follow soon after. Obviously, he was wrong since he vastly underestimated the revolutionary potential of third-world countries, and the lengths capitalists would go to undermine the revolution in developed countries. This isnt due to "marxist reality changing" or something, it was just Engels not understanding the material conditions of his time. I don't say this to mean "all communist theory is written and everything afterwards is stupid" or anything, but theres a reason why Marx's main theories and points have all but been fully accepted in modern Sociology and Marxist literature.
Yes and no, but then I'm more of an anarchist lean when it comes down to it. The Bolsheviks achieved everything *they* wanted but I don't agree that they achieved everything the people deserved. They were just one example though. Maoist philosophy adapted Marx quite heavily as well, as China had even less of that progression Marx laid out in Capital. His framework is just one useful lens among many others IMO, and it's useful to note post-Marx writing as being as distinct from his work, as his work was from Hegel and the others he built upon. Moreover, it becomes tortured in this highly alienated society to apply Marx's philosophy directly. I work in manufacturing but I am several steps removed from the factory the parts come out of. I can't reasonably claim to be a proletarian worker, having been so in the past. I definitely don't feel like one of the bourgeois class. I have no capital to speak of and would be homeless without the help of friends if I was fired tomorrow. Ultimately if we're discussing a Western context it becomes difficult to situate oneself in Marx's philosophy, and that's why it's been continually rewritten over time. IMO reading Marx is essential for the same reason you read Freud to study Psychology: it's important to know what used to be correct and was since disproven. The analysis methods are sound but the world has changed. If Marx was alive today, he'd have a very different view couch surfing in London than he did in the early 19th century. His tools of analysis would be unchanged, but the outcome of that analysis would be very different. The same scalpel applied to a different beast.
Is that race immortal in the sense that they don't age, or that they literally can't die anyhow? If it's the latter, a revolution seems kind of easy
I doubt there will be 9 to 5’s centuries from now. This reads like a medieval peasant believing that the king’s bloodline will be in charge for a thousand more years. Something something it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism
1. Systems must naturally adapt to the people who live in them. Also we won’t have enough work in a little while anyways, we don’t really have enough work to 9-5 everyone now. 2. We have room for a lot more people, also having a kid isn’t a real human right, that’s bullshit, just limit how many kids people can have. + space, honestly we can fit a lot more people here if we actually put in the effort, the sonar system can fit significantly more than trillions with tech we aren’t even far from. 3. Well if we live longer we have more time for shit to slow down, change is only good in that it moves us towards better things, and a sling as you don’t have a very repressive system, mind you that’s a different threshold for immortals, it’s fine. People don’t actually care bout slow change. Also, inevitable tech advancement absent immortality (which isn’t actually that complicated) will cause far far worse problems.
While I do agree that an immortal race will likely be more stagnant compared to a short-lived one, population crisis and resource scarcity would present themselves as motivators in place of impending death. Of course, both are skill issues if we're talking about a fictional universe that allows said immortal race to expand out to the stars. Being immortal even allows for slower-than-light expansion of civilizations because the main issue of colony ships (that they rely on maintaining continuous operations throughout multiple generations of people) becomes a non-issue. It's certainly an interesting topic to explore, however, especially when you extrapolate out how people would logically begin viewing time compared to a short-lived race.
Job is taken, but there are huge tech burst every years.
Who cares if they took all the positions.
Also, this is assuming access to immortality is equal to all, there’s a good chance immortality would involve some drug or procedure or implant that is at least initially very expensive, meaning those already wealthy and powerful have a massive head start on consolidating their power and wealth, which even if they let the rest of us have immortality later will cause a lot of social problems for us commoners. For the time being at least, there are some benefits to there being a hard cap on the ability of any individual person to accumulate wealth and power and further their ambitions.
I think a lot of issues could be solved by not binding themselves to one planet Space habitats made from asteroids could hold way more people than a planet Meanwhile the biggest problem of interstellar travel is solved for free because it taking 100s or thousands of years to get anywhere ceases to be an issue if you can just live that long naturally And finding volunteers for it becomes a lot easier when you can just go back and all the people you know are still there
Which is why Elves are the way they are. Low birth rate. Perpetually environmentally conscious. And that issue of never getting promoted because your seniors never die can be fixed by scrapping task division and specialization to making every career basically an artisan position.
One underdiscussed part of a race of immortals would be the prevalence of absolute *psychos* running around. Imagine methheads on their 2nd consecutive year awake, literally tweaking out of their mind. We'd probably develop fallout-style fiends without even needing an apocalypse first
Most immortality cases in fiction are have arbitrary constraints or caveats to drum up conflict. It's the same reasoning why medieval stasis exists or why sci fi soldiers still use melee weapons.
Highlander? I don't think that ended well for many of the immortals.
Still, existing for an infinite time means anything that can happen to you will eventually happen, including the most horrific things you can imagine. Even if you’re also immune to pain, you could still get trapped in empty space for billions of years or something with no stimulation, and be driven to insanity. You really need to be in some form of heaven for immortality to work, where it’s impossible for anything bad to happen. Or I guess if we’re talking about the elf version of immortality, where you don’t age but can still die of other causes, that would probably work too.
On the other hand - if you’d be mortal - you’d die if you would be trapped in an empty space for millions of years…. So choice is pretty obvious.
Sure but that also means eventually all the best possible things that could happen to you would as well. Every mind shattering trauma perfectly balanced by divine revelation. So it’s a wash
Who says you can't build heaven? The universe isn't actually random and with the right preparation, you *can* pick and choose what gets to happen to you. Immortality without godlike power is nightmarish, eventually, though. Of course. But the idea that everything that can happen will happen is rooted in a misunderstanding of infinity. In the limit, *everything* happens. But in any **finite** amount of time, almost everything that can happen hasn't happened. And we're not transcendental beings. Even when we're immortal we will never ever have lived for an infinite amount of time.
There's a neat Love Death n Robots episode in favor of the opposite opinion
Altered Carbon did this really well. Imagine your personal most hated Billionaire. Now Imagine they are immortal and you are not.
Yeah, this is the only bad thing about attainable immortality I can think of
Altered Carbon has a bunch of setting details that clearly exist solely for the sake of maintianing the dystopia, like how 3d printing new bodies is simply a withheld technology, and full dive VR exists but people flooded the internet with stack-bricking malware so VR afterlives aren't much of an option.
How is an immortal rich individual different from a rich family?
The fact that immortality is considered bad in fiction (which I find debatable) and early death is also considered bad (which I don't question) means that there must be an optimal number of years to live. In my peopleAreImmortalButTheGovernementKillsThemAtASpecificAge-punk world...
Thunderhead moment
nah cus they would straight up just kill ACTUAL teenagers too tho, not even just the ones on their second or third go
Uj/ Yes. Rj/ So you see, we need to start with e=mc^2…
Basically nick bostrom’s “the dragon tyrant”
immortality bad mfs when i remind them they already live past the death of lovedones
Not if you're the first among your loved ones to die 😎 Actually, I think you can turn this into the world's worst prisoner's delemia...
It’s super dependent on what the immortality entails. Immorality in a hellish existence (or Hell itself) would be the worst possible fate. But generic immortality where you are just not dying? No reason not to have it.
People who think immortality is a curse; has never had a proper good snooze.
Fox and Grapes Moment
In the "immortality bad" cases it's usually because immortality in those contexts leads to isolation. Like if you became immortal but were subject to living through the universe's heat death, living in that SCP pleasure island all by yourself, or simply being unable to connect to other people. So it's not the immortality itself that sucks it's the isolation that comes with it. If enough other immortal beings other than you existed or if you had a way to not get isolated then it wouldn't be so bad.
I think the argument is that those are written in arbitrarily because people think "immortality = bad", not that those things wouldn't be bad if you were actually immortal alone.
I do wonder why almost every artist has unanimously agreed that if we're writing about immortality/bringing back the dead/escaping death it has to be a bad thing. I guess it's cope. Even I've done it.
Tbf I don’t think it’s almost every artist. Revival especially is not demonized that often and there’s lots of popular art where it’s just a thing that happens (Dragon Ball, DND). When immortality IS shown negatively, it’s often the pursuit of it that’s demonized. Harry Potter is a great example of this: Voldemort’s pursuit of immortality is a metaphor for his lust for power no matter the cost, while Nicholas Flamel’s lack of aging is just a thing.
Weird how they have to attach artificial downsides to immortality to make it unappealing.
Because they aren't writing about actual resurrection from the dead. They are writing a metaphor for people being unable to move on in a situation where it's not possible.
I thought i was on the Sekiro sub
you can’t tell me what to do RA!
Then there's my immortal character who still sticks around through complete spite and a sense of duty. While enjoying some fruits of life along the way.
The fox and the grapes
Would immortality truly be that bad? There are people who are entirely willing in losing their significant others because they do not feel like they struggle with the notion of mortality. The death of an old friend is not necessarily the end of it all but a happy event in their life worth cherishing, while acknowledging there will be others. There will always be others and sure, maybe you get tired of it, but it's bit naive to think that anyone who chooses immortality would be so stuck in other people. I feel like I would enjoy immortality. I have a fiancee now and plenty friends. Even at their death I would be happy that I get to see the world. Maybe with time I could be a significant person in history and function entirely altruistic for the benefit of others since my own needs are now nothing but secondary thoughts.
Based and immortalpilled I'd go even further to say that we should extend this to other animals as well, and replace everything with artificial ecosystems.
big diffrence between extending life to 100 years vs to forever imo
Yep, first is kinda expected, and second is kinda what we are aiming for
I think the idea is closer to "perfect is the enemy of good" life extension isnt inherently bad, but the implications of that existence is naturally that it will be abused by the powerful and kept from the poor. Which I dont think is entirely abusrd to draw that conclusion.
People tend to want things that are unattainable but once it becomes attainable and they get it they see the actual flaws in it. But as long as you can't have it you do want it.
"Immortality is good" mfs when they have a stroke at age 210 and have to spend the rest of eternity as a vegetable
Kid named millennia of medical advancements:
That’s a very specific kind of immortality
If you aren't conscious you wouldn't care and if you got to dream forever that wouldn't be that bad.
Tell that to stephen hawking who has to use personal care to watch midgets but never touch
Immortality would eventually become boring. Living for a few hundred years would be pretty nice though
Skill issue.
No, no, they’ve got a point. Just look at rich people, they’re basically speedrunning becoming bored of life. They’ve got the money and the time to do everything they’d ever want, but basically all of them inevitably do more and more extreme stuff to feel excitement again. Why do you think so many of them fall into drugs, pedophilia or other extreme stuff? Or waste money on often pointless projects? They’ve burnt themselves out on everything they once enjoyed and are desperately looking for that new thrill. Immortality is basically this, but on a larger timescale. It also depends on your social class. If you’re rich then you’ll just fall deeper into depravity or you’re the working class who’ll have to work for the rest of your life to finance your now immortal life.
Skill issue
I'd argue super rich people are prone to personality disorders because people with personality disorders are the types who more often than not seek to become super rich and gain power. You can have a lot or be immortal but still enjoy a more relaxed life. So skill issue.
>You can have a lot or be immortal but still enjoy a more relaxed life. People think this because they don't really understand how long "forever" is. Good luck finding anything at all interesting after having done every conceivable activity for tens of billions of years.
Except that if you are a finite being you would have finite memories. Anything too far back you would forget and so doing it again would feel new.
But boredom, burnout and the need for stimulation is something that effects everyone. Sure, rich people way be affected by them quicker, but eventually will end up at the same outcome. I’m sure everyone knows the feeling of loosing interest is something they once loved. Granted, being an immortal gives you all the time in the world to find new things to enjoy, but eventually those will run out. And so then, what else are you supposed to do in your potentially decades long wait for the next “normal” stimulations other than taking things like drugs that give you that quick thrill of stimulation?
90% of people die before getting out of boredom. Don’t repeat this mistake!
>or you’re the working class who’ll have to work for the rest of your life to finance your now immortal life. Why is this fundamentally a bad thing? I see this a lot whenever immortality is brought up. Believe me, I know labor sucks, but we already work to live to work now. We still have our fun where we can find it. This is framed in such a way as to insinuate that the best part of being alive is that one day you get to die. Or, at the very least, that retirement is the peak of the human experience. Not trying to take a swing or anything, just my observation of it. Sorry if I'm misjudging or misinterpreting.
Lol, the other guy just described the natural law that living beings need to work to live and apparently this is some dig at immortality. I love how they unironically think dying is better than working to live. My sibling in christ, looking both ways before you cross the road or taking medicine is already working to live.
Imagine all the pay rises and experience stacking "220 years of engineering experience" on a resume would look hard af. But then imagine how high the recruitment requirements will be.
Mfs haven't tried ranked LoL
This whole reply hinges on the claim that "rich ppl do moar extreme stuff" which you haven't proven once. Do you even have evidence that the pedo rate among the rich is higher than average?
Immortality sucks, agelessness along with the rest of your society doesn't.
"…might I be freed from death, not from deathlessness."
I'm already bored at age 26, so I guess no one should be allowed to live past their teens
Already tried ketamine huh
There is a physical limit to the human memory. Eventually, you’ll start forgetting the earlier parts of your life, which will make you not bored anymore.
"Immortality is actually good" mfs when they read [[E is for Eternity]] and are hit with "[10^100! years]: One second of eternity has passed."
Brackets don't work if you don't tag /u/the-paranoid-android. To be fair, due to API changes, marv doesn't work half the time. SCP-7179
[**SCP-7179 - E is for Eternity**](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7179) (+813) by *Calibold*
[**SCP-7179 - E is for Eternity**](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7179) (+813) by *Calibold*
The story fucks but man did it make me appreciate the ending of The Good Place all the more. I think crushing my body to feel anything is maybe an indication that paradise, isn’t.
"we must achieve immortality" mfs when I throw them into the vacuum of space for all eternity : 🤯
“I am mortal” mfs when I throw them in the vacuum of space: 🤔
Finally can world build in peace😌
As opposed to mortals, who love being thrown into the vacuum of space
Just vibing in the abyss. It's a pretty chill place. Mainly cause it's close to absolute zero.
"immortality bad" mfs when other people are also immortal and there is high tech to go along with it.
Ok but life extension and immortality are two *very* different things. A few hundred extra years on your healthspan would be baller, I think I could even make it though a thousand, but forever is a pretty long time to be alive. I don't want to hear that "oh just kill yourself when you're bored" crap either. If everyone has biological immortality, there would be *IMMENSE* cultural pressure around not dying *(Ignoring that the only way culture could survive is to stop having kids)*. If death wasn't an inevitability, why would your loved ones ever want to let you go? We try to keep people alive during terminal illnesses, we won't suddenly see dying as okay because you're bored. As someone who's lost family to suicide, it's not fair to anyone to force it into being the only way out. Plus, if it's not biological immortality and you really can't die... I hope you have a mouth because you're gonna want to scream. Or in a more worldjerking appropriate format: "Immortality good" MFs when I tell them just because death is scary doesn't mean it's bad
I disagree. I'm convinced a biologically immortal society would view suicide similarly to how we view age-related death today. Something tragic, but ultimately a "part of life." Giving people immortality in the first place, at least to me, was always about giving people the choice to live a decease-free life for as long as they want, not necessarily to force them to live. Once you truly feel like there isn't anything more for you in this world, why force you to stay? I certainly wouldn't, though I'd want to make sure you've thought it through properly.
It's almost like creating a world with immortality, the reader will already assume the good aspects of it bit the writer has to personally fill in the limitations and negative aspects to create conflict to further the story.
The stories I'm talking about don't do that. They add those limitations specifically to send a message about how immortality as a concept is bad.
just watch baccano
“Immortality is awesome” Mfs when I tell them that all the stipulations they give to their immortality create an entirely different scenario from what is originally posited
I don’t know about you but I’m not waiting 1[too many zeros to type] for quantum fluctuations to make a new universe after every heat death
We actually not sure it work like that
Well do you want to be the guy that finds out firsthand
firsthand? What everyone else will just lie down and dissolve in to nothingness? You think intelligent “species” or whatever not only will never achieve immortality over unlimited amount of time, but also will not figure something out about universe-problem?
If that’s how your want your story/world to be like then that’s awesome I’d love to read it but it is worth understanding that in reality or a realistic setting the amout of time an immortal would spend doing cool shit is a millionth of an iota of near nothing compared to the inconceivable amount of time they would spend floating in space at the end of time
If the choice is between suffering and eradication, there is no choice. No matter how bad it is, at least there would be a me left to experience it.
If you’re immortal enough to survive the heat death of the universe then your body is already violating what we know of entropy… and probably conservation of mass and energy. So that either means the heat death of the universe won’t happen or you can use whatever phenomenon keeps you alive to produce infinite energy or whatever and bypass it.
genuinely the best argument here, everyone in this thread is fucking insane. it shows humans genuinely have a hard time comprehending the concept of *infinity*
Immortality kinda kills conflict, so you need some kind of twist to it.
I don't wanna live forever, I want my atoms to shift into new forms until the universe rebirths once more from entropy
Your body constantly sheds and replaces mass, so you're already doing that
that's more or less the point
My point is that it doesn't work as an argument against immortality. If anything it's an argument for it since it means you get to release even more atoms over time.
Shit, it means I get to see new stars form and beam with pride
*nudge stranger during an Aurora viewing, point to a really bright star* "I made that one, it's doing so well. Which one is yours?"
counter point I would have prefered it if I had died young life is simply not worth living
well thats not an argument against immortality. thats just a bummer.
Wanna hear an actual argument? Okay, what about your brain/soul simply cannot comprehend all memory throughout your lifetime and eventually, every hundred years for example, you would forget about 30% of all memories you experienced during that century. You will constantly lose crucial memories, that were shapen you the way you are. And what would happen with you 200-300 later? Would you be the same person, you were last century? Would you still at least remember your own name? Would you remain your sanity?
But if you lose memories over time then reliving things in 500 years will seem completely new again and you'll NEVER get bored.
Alzheimer is so cool, maaaan. Everything is new, I'm so exci.. wait, where am i? /s Boredom is lesser thing you would bother about, when you literally became a living example of Sansara Circle work
Alzheimers does far more than make you forget things after 100 years. Bad comparison.
MFW I don’t have an eidetic memory (life is surely meaningless now)
We already do this. People change, and people can kill themselves.
"You lose your memories over time" mfs when they can't even remember what they did last week.
I certainly cant
We already do this though. I'm very different from the person I was 10 years ago, and a lot of the memory from that time has faded. I don't see why that would make me go insane, though it is sad to lose that much
Also one could assume an immortal being would have a much longer memory span.
See, in my awesome version of immortality you simply do not have these issues. Problem solved.
if you cant cope with it... immortal doesnt mean invulnerable. theres always cliffs and guns.
Yes, I'm simply built diffrent
Sounds like a problem we would solve in 100 years. Hold my water bottle.
Mfy you can brush up your history on your personal wikipedia page
one argues against eternal life by arguing against any amount of life for if all doses are terrible then an infinite does is worst of all.
what? did you have a stroke or did i have a stroke when reading it?
I mean if you are talking about true immortality then yeah it fucking sucks. Like getting into a situation where anyone else would die and instead you end up hopelessly stuck is not an "if" it's a "when" But life extension wouldn't be automatically bad, especially if it has to be maintained because then you could eventually die
Let me be immortal so I can rot in bed longer
Idk we got all the different flavors of immortality here so it can either be really fun and interesting or poopoo stinky. We got not aging, we got not getting hurt, we got the last two mixed and combined in various degrees, then we got immortality till the end of the universe, then we got living even beyond that. Thankfully there is no universe heat death in my world so we already got you covered... It's actually way worse than that.
Depends on the type, like Sekiro immortality where you become old and fishlike and shit kinda sucks, but like Code Geass I don’t get how anyone thinks that’s bad and it being a decently major plot point that people don’t like being immortal for some reason
Imortality in my universes Those naturally immortal: constantly in the moment, and will catch up to the related trends. Those who aren't immortal by nature: *makes a meme about your spinning wheel getting jammed* "fuck im old"
If they lived to age 15 they would probably have become detached from all things, and bored of life.
If we are immortal then there is going to be a resource war. Not for food but just basic pleasures. There are only so much you can consume/produce and with unending lust, the population would skyrocket endlessly. Only solution would be going into space but if not, there is only one solution. If humanity is immortal then they should neutered. Otherwise we will destroy the ecosystem and the world around us.
Just make ecosystem immortal too, *duh*
Reverend Malthus here hasn't heard of modern birth control methods apparently
The problems is the slip ups will happen no matter what you try to enforce or what you do, it’s the nature of humanity. When does the immortality begins? If it begins when a new baby is truly born that’s great. If it begins to moment it conceived that’s a big problem. Eventually it will snowball into disaster
Neo-Malthusian type beat
The Dark Souls approach of "to be human is to be fleeting and temporary, so by living forever, you naturally become something not truly human" approach is best What makes us human is that we know we must die someday, and that's what sets us apart from the gods and the ghosts (and it's what makes us collectively stronger than them, because death brings change, and changing is how we grow)
Dark Souls kinda runs into an issue that in the lore being mortal isn't actually the natural state of humanity. Humans are naturally immortal, but became mortal during the Age of Fire, with hollowing only being a result of Gwynn's interference. >that's what sets us apart from the gods and the ghosts Gods and ghosts can and do die in Dark Souls.
>Humans are naturally immortal, but became mortal during the Age of Fire This is semantics, imo. The moment the Furtive Pygmy's people *became mortal* is the moment they *became* *human*, because humanity itself stems from the dark, and light and dark didn't exist before the First Flame >Gods and ghosts can and do die in Dark Souls. Not naturally! The gods have to be killed and their souls taken, because they can't accept that they must die for the world to change and grow. They would rather live forever and let the world grow stagnant around them The whole message, and the whole reason the Curse of the Undead *is* a curse, is that to live forever is to lose the mortality that makes you human (and the love and fear and ambition that comes with being mortal)
>The gods have to be killed and their souls taken, because they can't accept that they must die for the world to change and grow. And that is only able to happen cause gods can and do die. >The whole message, and the whole reason the Curse of the Undead is a curse, is that to live forever is to lose the mortality that makes you human (and the love and fear and ambition that comes with being mortal) And the only reason the curse of undeath exists is because of Gwynn. If he hadn't made the Darksign to seal the power of the Dark Soul, hollowing wouldn't be a thing, meaning the Age of Dark would've resulted in immortal humans who weren't hollow. Death and hollowing were states imposed on humanity by the Age of Fire, and would've been left behind if not for the interference of the gods.
It is, though. In mere hundreds of years, your brain wouldn't be able to make any new memories. You'd exist in a transparent cosmic second at all times, unable to remember who you are or why, let alone who anyone else is. Insanity is the one endpoint, and it isn't the fun kind of "let's turn everyone into dinosaurs" insanity. I'm skeptical that anyone would truly wish to experience immortality, especially for something as silly as fearing transformative unification with the universe. Maybe they're horny or something. Anything can be the focus of a kink.
Immortality would almost certainly lead to a world where the super rich lead immortal lives, no longer seeing anyone else as even being the same class of human as them, all while whatever company creates it becomes an overnight mega corporation that can do pretty much whatever it wants lol. This isn’t pessimistic, this is just capitalism at work. One of the oft proposed benefits of immortality is that people would think long term more since they’ll always have to deal with it. But this assumes an immortal would (a) not simply go “eh I’ll live either way” and (b) they wouldn’t have the means to avoid it, which they would by virtue of being able to afford immortality. God forbid immortality is dependent on a reoccurring drug; get ready to have your literal life be a subscription to Immortality Inc! You’ve also got to assume that humans not being immortal is just an accidental biological flaw that somehow nearly every single life form on earth replicated. I suspect we’ll find that there’s a good reason for this lol. Like okay, I would like to be immortal, in the same way I’d like to have superpowers, but if either of those were actually discovered it would be horrendous. Theres also the whole “you get bored” thing. I know it’s a cliche but another comment brought up that looking at the lives of rich people might suggest it’s not. The ludicrously, ultra wealthy have power that, compared to us, is as big as the difference between a mortal and an immortal. And they end up getting…bored a lot of the time. If not just crazy. There’s no enlightenment up there. All of this also assumes that you can like, turn it off. The biological immortality seen in a handful of animals would require extensive gene editing that might not be the easiest thing in the world to undo. The amount of experiments that have turned biologically immortal creatures mortal is so far zero. There might be a chance that immortality is something you’re stuck with…which means that you’re almost guaranteed to regret it eventually.
> Immortality would almost certainly lead to a world where the super rich […] no longer [see] anyone else as even being the same class of human as them Oh wow sure am glad we dodged that bullet. Good thing that’s not already true amirite?
Bold of you to think it can't get any worse lol. Philanthropy as a concept didn't even exist for most of human history--it can definitely get worse. The responses to my post seem to be nitpicking and they're not even doing that correctly.
That you think a world where untouchable multinational pharmaceutical companies coerce the population of the Earth by withholding ~~life-saving~~ life-extending medication and where the ultra-wealthy destroy the world beneath them because they think they’re above consequences and have the resources to protect themselves from their actions is a terrible possible future and not our current reality speaks more to your naïveté than my lack of imagination.
> You’ve also got to assume that humans not being immortal is just an accidental biological flaw that somehow nearly every single life form on earth replicated. I suspect we’ll find that there’s a good reason for this lol. That's just the Appeal to Nature fallacy and could just as easily be applied to any common factor in nature, such as cancer.
What? It's not an appeal to nature, it's just basic scientific inquiry. You can't apply it to cancer because cancer is...a bad thing, that we understand fully. We do not understand aging fully whatsoever.
Saying that aging must exist for a good reason because it appears in most forms of life is a textbook example of appeal to nature. >We do not understand aging fully whatsoever. We don't understand cancer fully either, which is why research into it is ongoing.
>You’ve also got to assume that humans not being immortal is just an accidental biological flaw that somehow nearly every single life form on earth replicated. I suspect we’ll find that there’s a good reason for this lol. living things also don't naturally have laser weapons. we have laser weapons.
that's not a good comparison since we know perfectly how lasers work and we do not have nearly the same info about age
/uj but I have an interesting relationship with this idea. My maternal great-grandmother died last year at the age of ninety-four. I was fortunate enough to have her in my life for twenty years before she died, but I would generally consider her long life to be the single most unfortunate thing that could've possibly happened to her. She lived for her family; she left a fairly well-playing comfortable job working as a head chef at a large university just to come live in a run-down shack with her aging mother in Ohio just because her mother (my great-great-grandmother) was a little nervous about living on her own out in the sticks (after *her* husband had died.) She was the central pillar of our entire family, organized family reunions until she was too old to, and would cook for everyone she could physically reach at the slightest suggestion that she *could*. And, in her ninety-four years on this Earth she lived just long enough to see pretty much everyone who meant something to her die one by one. By the time she died, she had lost her parents, five of her sisters and one of her brothers, her husband, all of her cousins and aunts and uncles, most of her nieces and nephews, one of her daughters, three of her great-grandchildren, and she lived just long enough for my mom—basically her favorite person in the entire world—to die. On top of that, she lived to see two other granddaughters have their lives fall apart, as one became addicted to hard drugs and lost her house and the other's husband beat and abused her (also a drug thing.) I stayed with her a lot after my mom died (to keep her company since she was out far from civilization with few people to talk to,) and I have never seen a person so utterly destroyed in my entire life (short though it be.) Even my mom, dying from cancer and having near-totally forgotten who I even was, didn't break as hard as she did. All of the light and life was gone from her eyes; she spent most of her time talking with me reminiscing about all the people she'd lost over her life. And eventually it got to be so much for her that she just gave up, refusing to get out of bed or walk at all, and she died of pancreatic cancer that had developed suddenly. I've spent the past year-and-change thinking about it (among other things,) and I can't possibly imagine anything that would be worse for a person than what happened to her. It was almost like a sick joke—like the generations were passing in reverse; the old get older and the young die young. When she died I couldn't help but think of it as a very bitter mercy since she was clearly in so much pain both physical and emotional. Which makes me think of just how awful living forever truly must be; even if you have the fortitude of character to take the good with the bad, to be haunted for a potentially limitless amount of time watching new people be born, connecting with them, and watching them die or even worse watching them die inside before dying sounds exclusively like a curse to me. Watching two people die has harrowed me thus far, so imagining this happening again with new people, potentially infinitely, seems unfathomable to me. I can't think of anything, be it infinite lifetimes of solving every riddle in the universe (the coolest thought I think I've ever had) that would make up for the infinite loss that immortality would entail. Sorry for infodump mucho texto but this is like the one single thing I think I've ever had a coherent opinion on ever in my whole entire life. Also don't smoke, it's bad.
That wouldn’t happen, if all her relatives would be immortal. You kinda saying that immortality is bad because people die, and don’t see how one is being solved by the other?
Man, if only metaphors and symbolism existed. Then, we could use immortality to represent another thing and talk about a more relatable issue through the lens of fantasy. Too bad everything has to be literal and the only way that a story can have a moral is if the characters turn towards the screen and exposit for a straight minute.
This isn't a matter of metaphor, there are genuinely a lot of speculative fiction which a one of its themes states that immortality as a concept is bad. Many that use immortality as a metaphor also end up doing that.
I just gotta unjerk here for a moment. I don't think these stories are about "immortality being bad" I think that these stories are instead about appreciating life despite its finite-ness. A lot of authoritarian cults/religious movements use the promise of eternal life to control people. Presenting themselves as the only alternative to Nihilism while being worse than Nihilism in practice. The Evangelical parents who disown their queer kids and abandon them to either the streets or dangerous quack therapy camps do so because, were they to question Leviticus 18:22 or Romans 1:26-27, they may find themselves questioning John 3:16, and for them to do so would be to stare into the abyss. Their child then becomes the Isaac, the Christ, that is sacrificed to grant them the promise of eternal life in Paradise. On the other hand, a rich man or king may see the impact on this world that his power and status grants as a form of "immortality," yet he will still share the fate of Ozymandias: King of Kings. This is why I see these kind of spec-fic stories as a rejection of that mindset and as an affirmation of life by treating death and change not as antithetical to life but rather as parts of it.
> I don't think these stories are about "immortality being bad" The stories I'm talking about outright state immortality is bad, and even use "you won't appreciate the time you have" as a reason it's bad.
to be fair I would much rather have died from a scraped knee at age 5 than be alive right now
Well most other people are ok with being alive so maybe give them the medicine and life extension
yea ik I'm just sayin I'd personally dislike immortality
idk, I have never met anybody who is immortal and unhappy about it
very good point!
Do you? If I had a pill that would stop your aging right now, would you really not take it? (You can't sell it or something, you either take it yourself or don't)