The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?

boxed

https://archive.is/RvcQo

breve

> What If They Could? Then they'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

kpmcc

Gonna go out on a limb here and say that old age and dying are actually good, and that many of the problems in Western society are due to people living too long and holding onto power longer than they should / not passing on power and resources to younger generations.

comrade1234

An interesting fictional book that has this idea as part of the story is Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. Imagine if Elon musk and the other ultra-wealthy could live forever and they become even more out-of-touch with reality as the centuries roll on... In the book almost anyone that has lived could live forever but that could never happen with limited resources/space so only the ultra-wealthy are able to. I'd skip the tv show. Also, the books (it's a series) seem to be unfinished? I could be wrong, it's been so long since I read it but it seems like some sub-story about extinct aliens wasn't finished.

fooker

Please read ‘How to Stop Time’ by Matt Haig It’s a beautiful short novel exploring this idea.

techteach00

Thank God they can't buy immorality.

amazingamazing

Why rich and powerful? Everyone, no?

awei

Another good book exploring this idea of not dying is Pandora's Star by Peter Hamilton. Only in this book almost everyone has access to the technology by paying into a rejuvenation fund instead of a retirement one as we have today. It is a pretty realistic exploration of the consequences and benefits of such technology. Good food for thoughts.

PinkaDunka

Altered Carbon on Netflix...

ajb

Hah, so many science fiction books with this premise. Another one: "Drunkards walk" by Frederick Pohl, 1961.

earthboundkid

We don't even know how to get someone to be 130, but sure, let's waste time talking about this.

goolz

Living forever sounds awful. For one, I am extremely curious what happens when I die. Without death, life becomes a hollow shell, or at least I imagine it would, as you would lack urgency.

ks2048

They could make progress on cancer, but the way things are going they'll have to learn how to survive a guillotine as well.

tim-tday

Wealth and power accumulate. They’d end up owning everything.

hpjev

I would have expected better of HN. I agree that wealth and power accumulation are a problem. But the conclusion obviously isn't to have everyone forcibly DIE. If anything, this is an argument to make longevity more accessible. The article is heavily biased against the evil tech billionaires. So much so, that it has to outright lie about Bryan Johnson? His "proprietary longevity routine" is actually fully public. The most important parts aren't some expensive surgeries but 1) regular sleep 2) healthy food 3) exercise. Either you want everyone to live as long as possible, or you want people to die. And if the tech elites scare you that much, remember that longevity protocols protect against death by aging, _not_ assassinations.

lopsotronic

Living systems - hell, complex systems - don't do "forever" real well. You end up adding a compounding amount of energy over time, a "negentropic tax", as the universe tries to untie that complexity into radiation. After a while the compounding energy input of the negentropic tax overwhelms the control mechanisms that feed it into the "preserved" system, and it blows up. It's a common feature across disciplines: content management, biology, programming, maintainability engineering, neural networks, chemical engineering . . I imagine the list is pretty close to boundless. Ha, turns out human knowledge is also a complex natural system. So I guess what I'm saying is only dead things live forever. Which should say a lot about the internal life of the standard tech/finbro. "I want to be just like I am right this second for all time!" Speaking personally, I'm always amused by the Eternal Life pitch whether I hear it in church or on the internet. Everyone gets eternal life. We're surrounded by it, we eat it, we poop it out every day. Our grandfathers are in our lungs, old friends in the leaves of trees, giant parts of your brain die every morning as you wake. Eternal Life is not for the selfish. Something that the Bible thumpers could read for themselves, if they bothered to read the thing.

plomme

To play devils advocate here: could it be a good thing? That way they would be incentivized to think about the long term actions of their actions, like not dying before getting affected by global warming etc. And once aging is understood and solved, maybe it’s possible to iterate on the approach and make it cheaper and more accessible. That would greatly help the aging populations of the west. If you’re around forever I’d imagine you would care more about what people think of you, too. If not your number of enemies would just rise forever.

steve1977

Let's suggest something different. Treat wealth like a game. Whoever reaches one billion has completed the game and has to die. No point in playing further, you made it. The money gets redistributed again to the other players.

Jamesbeam

If they use immortality. Just use Magic. Putinius Disintegratus! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipex_Alligator Poof ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Looks like I’m going to avoid drinking tea in the foreseeable future.