@ Andrew Zimmerman:

What… I don’t even… Foot in mouth.

Anyways, now that everyone thinks I’m a horrible person I’d like to clarify that I was not trying to advocate forcible sterilizations. I think I (stupidly) mentioned it as one of the options lawmakers of the future may potentially to consider (and hopefully reject), but it came out wrong. Sigh…

or even mandatory sterilization for habitual offenders

Lols. Nazi killin time. /me grabs guns.

Luke, whats funny — I actually didn’t see you mention Down and Out the first time I read this entry, I was just thinking of the book (secretly, I think you added that part in after I commented, because I think I would have noticed ;) ).

Anyway, I wasn’t a big fan, I only like his later novels.

@ Luke Maciak:
Pussification is true. Comparing extending lifetime by several decades and forever is stupid. If I could live forever I would run the hell out at the slightest danger. I hope immortality comes with cyborg body included. :)

@ Liudvikas:

Yes, but as I’d mentioned, religious fundamentalism would likely dwindle in numbers and be rendered benign within a few generations. The alternative would just be too tempting. I mean, the choice will really boil down to this: do you want to watch your body and mind slowly fall apart, and then die or do you want to live forever like everyone else.

Unless of course they manage to pass some laws that will forever ban such research. Still, someone will likely develop this technology and the rich and famous folks will just fly out to get their “procedures” done elsewhere – or maybe even move there.

I think it would be easy to fight this in courts though. I mean, how do you argue against procedure that can “extend human life” or “save lives” without framing it in religious terms? I mean, indefinitely extending human life is perfectly ok if you use secular ethic and morality. I think the separation of church and state may help here – at least in US.

Besides, most US fundamentalists already believe that they will be whisked to heaven like tomorrow in the event called “the rapture”. So they will be like sitting in traffic, or taking a dump and *boom* instant heaven. And it is always supposed to happen like next Wednesday, or maybe 3 months from now. So since they are getting raptured into heaven anyway maybe they won’t mind extending their life a bit.

As for the pussification: this is not necessarily true. I mean, I doubt it would really change how people behave. I mean, we live much longer than our ancestors did thanks to all the advances in the medical field, but are we bigger pussies than them?

@ Tino:

Actually, I like the Anathem interpretation: you are all of these copies at the same time. :)

@ Travis McCrea:

I actually read it back in 2005, but never wrote a review. I did review Someone Comes to Tow, Someone Leaves Town though.

@ Zel:

Good point, though I bet that the barrier to entry will be wealth rather than merit. I think immortality will be initially reserved for the rich and famous, then maybe for the top scientific minds. And not because of some concern about entropy but likely because of profits and power.

I mean it will be like the spice. If you control the technology, you can control the people that rely on it – which will be big movers and shakers of this world.

@ copperfish:

Stagnation is a very good point. We would stop evolving as a species and our genome would pretty much become frozen in the current form forever. We would probably have to tweak it manually every few centuries to adjust to changing conditions.

I’m not sure about mental stagnation though. I imagine people would sort of re-invent themselves every once in a whole. Move, change profession, adopt a new lifestyle. Some people would get tired of life and decide to die. Others would have and raise children who could add new ideas to the pool.

I’m with Zel on this one. Immortality is possible but not necessarily desirable. I envision a stagnation of “immortal” society and with that the loss of innovation and ideas. Not a good thing. Of course, given the chance I’d give it a go. If it doesn’t work out I could always commit suicide.

Then again, if we are talking “singularity” and “post-human” my viewpoint is probably irrelevant to judging human behaviour.

I’m also convinced a cure for mortality will be found at some point, but I don’t share your altruistic views of humanity. After becoming immortal, your life span is limited by the point at which the universe dies out, at maximum entropy. As a whole, (immortal) humanity’s primary concern would be to make that point as far into the future as possible.

Now, it’s fairly obvious that human activity is generating entropy (by using natural resources and such). Human-related entropy creation is small compared to the rest of the universe (stars…), but it’s still creating some. Take an immortal human. He will create entropy for the rest of his life, which is the universe’s life, all of which could have been avoided or delayed. Therefore, the more immortal humans there are, the faster entropy is being created. You could say that each new immortal being robs all of the others of some of their life span.

What would be the natural instinct of the first immortal beings ? Prevent others from becoming immortal, or enforce a very strict selective pattern so that only “worthy” individuals, people who would actually do AI research instead of playing video games, are allowed to live forever and contribute. You’d better start working on that PHD ;).

/me sees a “down and out in the magic kingdom” book review coming. ;)

I’ll present ‘Quantum Suicide and Immortality’ for your consideration. In short, if the many worlds theory is correct, all events split the world into multiple copies. “You” are just one of the copies of you in one of those branches. However, you cannot find yourself in branches where your consciousness is eradicated. Hence, for you, there will be no event that leads to your death.

And that is how I plan to survive.

I’m fairly certain that immortality is achievable. Though religious fundamentalists scare me, who knows what will happen if a cure for death was presented. They might go batshit crazy, even crazier than they already are, and wage a war against immortals. Not to mention that being idiot is good for political career, so we might see laws against such research.

P.S. One problem I have with immortality is that if it was still possible to die from accident or murder. Then all the immortals would become a bunch of pussies, because they would have much more to lose.