Any time immortality is mentioned, the commentary inevitably focuses on the goal itself.<p>This is natural, but also, myopic.<p>The dividends of research into immortality are incremental, but each breakthrough has the same outcome: increased quality of life. Humans become healthier; eventually, we last longer.<p>Yes, at the <i>limit</i>, there are problems with immortality: Sterling's <i>Holy Fire</i> is a great exploration of the problems a gerontocracy could pose, as is Morgan's <i>Altered Carbon</i>. Without older generations dying off, would there be any room for the young?<p>I submit that these would be excellent problems to have, that there is no guarantee we will ever have them, and that the dividends from trying to earn ourselves such problems would be considerable.
So, if we're so close, why isn't immortality capturing public interest yet? Ideas:<p><i>Religion</i> - Among other things, religion's goal is to help people endure the inevitability of death. Thus, to many, this is a solved problem.<p><i>The age divide</i> - Older people have the immediate need, but their ideas about tech are by now set in concrete. The young are open to more radical tech, but dying of old age isn't an immediate threat to them. Nor do these two cultures tend to mix.<p><i>Technological pessimism</i> - There was a lot of overblown technological optimism in the mid-century, but the pendulum has since swung the other way. The word "chemical" no longer has positive connotations in popular culture, for example.
Maybe I’m missing something, but how can immortality, even a theoretical one be achieved? Say you find a way to cure all diseases and reverse aging, you can still be killed or die in an accident. Say you find a way to transfer your consciousness to a machine (ignoring all philosophical implications). That machine can still be shut down and destroyed. All you get is just a longer life, which still ends at some point. And given the fact that it’s not time that actually matters, but the perception of time, one might still view their life as being short.<p>I find the article a bit naive, this question lies deep in the realm of philoshopy. What if technology and life merge at some point? It’s not hard to imagine that technology and life might become indistinguishable in the far future.
The phrase I use is: <i>Technology supports technique.</i> If the technique is to <i>play piano</i>, a well-maintained acoustic piano is the ultimate instrument. If the technique is to <i>play music</i>, a toy keyboard will suffice.<p>What technical studies often lose track of in their quest for perfection is a sense of balanced technique. If you want an immortalized <i>thought</i> you can very nearly achieve that by publishing a book. But an immortal body and mind is at odds with a <i>developing</i> body and mind. When we say immortality we surely don't mean "I can continue to be a glum and unfulfilled soul staring at a screen forever." And yet, with respect to our digital technologies it really is somewhat like that - more and more gets captured and archived. Does life improve? Depends on the measure. We address one set of traumas only to uncover others, at first dismissing them, and then gradually coming to afford them respect. It's extremely common not to recognize how screwed up we are.<p>If we were to say, instead of the preservation of your exact form, you get to be healed of past trauma and remain full of energy, but without controlling exactly where you end up, how you evolve, and maybe forgetting some of your past - would that still be immortal? And if so, then a existing healthy, fulfilled life is very near to that.<p>And I do believe philosophical thoughts like those are where we are going, since we have picked most of the low-hanging fruit leading to material comfort while still guarding it jealously and justifying a deficit in column A by pointing to spectacular achievements in columns B, C, and D. We have to realign the techniques and therefore the technologies to square it up.
Right now, the most effective possible activity to reduce mortality would be work to eliminate excess sugar from the human diet. The most effective avenue for that would be to eliminate it from beverages.<p>Probably we would need to begin treating Coke'n'Pepsi like we treat tobacco: start with required warning labels, ultimately an advertising ban. Lead was a tough nut, but we cracked it. Tobacco was a tough nut, but we cracked it. Trans fats was a tough nut, but we finally got that one, too.
And even if anti-aging tech doesn't come quickly enough, preservation a person for centuries in a restorable manner is technically here today:<p><a href="https://www.brainpreservation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/vitrifyingtheconnectomicself_hayworth.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.brainpreservation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02...</a><p>Edit: I volunteer for the group that published that document
Immortality is totally selfish and uninspiring, and really just a bad comms strategy to recruit more tech progressives. We need a better vision for how it'll make the world more Good and Just, improve lives, and make things more egalitarian, instead of helping privileged people just continue to enjoy their status and wealth.
Mortality is inevitable and necessary. I posit that the purpose of technology should be to reduce suffering. The purpose of technology should not be the redistribution of wealth from the masses to those who are adept at manipulating the systems employed by civilization.