Item — HN Reader

Nothing particularly glorious about sapience trapped in a permanent bag of flesh especially one with a rather fixed view about the world about it. Never mind dictators; how about:

'The President of Global Enterprises Inc. is today 150 years old and currently holds the record for the longest serving president in the Company's history'.

A cause for celebration?

1 comments

I don't really care if stubborn, old leaders live longer if it means I don't have to worry about my loved ones dying and get to see humanity reach the stars.

Be careful for what you wish for. There’s no guarantee immortality doesn’t result in eternal suffering.

Humans generally don’t like eternal suffering, and will fight against it. That’s a reason to think it won’t happen.

I don't like being crushed by rocks but I can fight against it all I want, a rock that's heavier than me will crush me.

Wait, where did I say that immortality would be mandated!? Of course you'd get to choose when you want to shuffle off the mortal coil.

For me, personally, I don't see that being the case for many hundreds or even many thousands of years at least. I'm nearly 30 and I feel like I've barely lived a blink of an eye.

I feel like that would require society to get pretty chill about suicide. In a world where everyone is immortal-by-default, I can actually see the opposite happening - the fear of death increasing from its absence, and becoming an even greater taboo.

I think such a society would be chill about suicide. An exploration of this idea is found throughout the "Culture" novels by Banks. It's okay to decide when you want to clock out. It's certainly better than being forcibly clocked out against your wishes.

I agree it would be weird at first, but after the first thousand years or so, it would probably become common enough that people wouldn't mind, and the taboo would disappear. Weird, maybe, but at least people will get to live their lives to the fullest and at their own pace.