“You can’t afford it” Just take a loan, you’ve got all of eternity to pay it back
Yeah, I could see them making people work centuries to pay off the debt, or even worse, it only extends your life by a few years at a time and they turn it into a subscription service
Now you’re thinking with capitalism!
Also similar concept, check out John Scalzi’s Old man’s war, follows that idea
Fantastic hard sci-fi book series. And it didn’t focus on this one high concept but has lots of themes about humanity. PS: Apparently a TV series is under development!
There’s also the terrific book, Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley, a book I bought on a whim when killing time in a college bookstore with a tiny sci-fi section and have since recommended to many people who thanked me for the recommendation.
The concept is that in the future, it is discovered that there is an afterlife, but only a very small number of people can get there naturally. So a medical procedure is developed that allows people to get to the afterlife. However, only the wealthy can afford it. Once their afterlife is guaranteed (things can go wrong, but that’s another issue), they do things like start hacking people to death in the streets to commit suicide-by-cop because what have they got to lose?
No. They transferred their mind to new bodies, called sleeves. They had laws against double sleeving, putting your mind into more than one body, cause that causes all sorts of issues. The tech was basically what you’re stopped to do for computers back up data and when something happens to the computer you put the same data on the new machine. The basic version was local storage called a stack that resided at the base of the neck. That’s why executions killed the person and the stack. The rich had offside backups as well.
This is closer to In Time where the single body was kept alive and they used time to pay for things. The rich had thousands, probably much more, years stocked up. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen it.
Only works for a one time payment, life as a subscription can’t be paid for with a loan. At least not forever.
That would explain Elon Musk being concerned about the Sun engulfing Earth a billion years from now
Except we’ll be able to afford it and even the government will enforce it.
Imagine paying for kids, school, and so on before people can start working and then get like only 30 years of productivity before having to take care of them again for years and years?!
Nah longevity will be sponsored and paid for by any not stupid country. How do we like to live our lives, that’s another matter ofc.
Interesting take. Having well trained immortal slaves means stability. However those slaves may also live long enough to learn to think differently.
longevity will be sponsored and paid for by any not stupid country
Yeah but our society IS stupid. On a larger scale we are acting with the intelligence of a slime mold, always growing towards where food or energy is and nothing else. It’s going to be patented which means monopolies or cartels are going to profit maximize it. Or are you some communist? You tankie??? :D I mean right now medicine and healthcare is for profit in the US which is stupid like you say.
BTW we’re facing the same problem with climate change btw, thousands of improvement to reduce carbon emissions are going to be patented and min maxed for profit. PS: I’m still holding out hope that one day soon we’ll wake up and become sentient as a civilization.
Imagine you’d live long enough that learning all sorts of things is worth while. People might want to become much more educated and versatile and know how to grow their own food, repair, build and maintain their own appliances, know how to build a house, know how to manage a small business. And I think it would (relatively) quickly be followed by “hey we want to live and work in a fun way”.
Right now you can just fool the next generation because they are just as susceptible to a new flavour of propaganda than the last generation.
But yeah you’re right, overall it would be a huge boost to productivity. But it would also be a massive shift in power one way or the other (either enslavement for longevity drugs or empowerment and more desire for long term societal gains)
You are assuming that “immortality” means you stay fit and can continue working.
Maybe in this scenario immortality just means you are alive and conscious, but you lose your mental sharpness and all you can do is lay in bed.
Nah, the ultra rich assholes would still want to wipe their asses with all the resources in the world, just to ensure “the poor and undesirables” don’t get to use it before them.
oh hey that timberlake movie that wasnt called time is money because we live in the enshittified universe