A good fable, I’m reminded of a tale of the other side of curing aging: The Arc of Scythe by Neal Shusterman. To give a brief overview: A utopia in which humanity has cured permanent death and is managed by an AI, with the role of providing death given to a chosen host, tasked to maintain population growth.
Frankly, it’s a YA series with some disappointing characterizations, but it decently addresses the challenge of immortality on a global scale.
No, not at all. It’s a bit implied, there’s a few references to children only having a single sibling but it’s not a codified rule. Life largely went on as usual, but a lack of death and the benevolent god AI changed things up interestingly.
The three novels take place hundreds of years after the established of the new way of living, there’s interesting insights about the repercussions of a deathless society and what it changes for the more extreme ends of entertainment.
Hmm, not to chose sides too much, but I found it to be a long-winded allegory that only partly succeeds in advancing its argument. I'm skeptical some kind of cheerful fatalism is holding us back, the most obvious objection is that any kind of amazing cure for aging would be very unlikely to reach everyone. And if it did, we'd have to deal with tremendous demographic pressures (which the story artfully dodges at the very end).
> cure for aging would be very unlikely to reach everyone
The story makes the point that governments will be incentivized to distribute the cure to everyone as fast as possible. Considering the US spends 1/7th of GDP for healthcare and the majority of those health problems are age related. Covid-19 showed us that administering something to an entire population in a quick manner can be done and isn't even that costly.
> And if it did, we'd have to deal with tremendous demographic pressures
What kind of demographic pressures are you talking about?
No they will not. Not in the least. Or put it this way, regardless of any incentives you can imagine, the overriding dynamic will be that powerful people will use immortality to remain in power forever, and they will have every incentive to prevent whomever they deem undesirable, unproductive, etc. from getting good health care.
Which is exactly how it works now.
Immortality will not be called immortality, it will be called premium health care. It will be incredibly expensive. It will be a subscription service.
CGP Grey also has a narrated and animated version of the story:
https://youtu.be/cZYNADOHhVY?si=dZcHcDoMM0B2SkEk
A good fable, I’m reminded of a tale of the other side of curing aging: The Arc of Scythe by Neal Shusterman. To give a brief overview: A utopia in which humanity has cured permanent death and is managed by an AI, with the role of providing death given to a chosen host, tasked to maintain population growth.
Frankly, it’s a YA series with some disappointing characterizations, but it decently addresses the challenge of immortality on a global scale.
I've always assumed that overpopulation could be prevented by limiting families to two children. Is this not the case in the novel(s)?
No, not at all. It’s a bit implied, there’s a few references to children only having a single sibling but it’s not a codified rule. Life largely went on as usual, but a lack of death and the benevolent god AI changed things up interestingly.
The three novels take place hundreds of years after the established of the new way of living, there’s interesting insights about the repercussions of a deathless society and what it changes for the more extreme ends of entertainment.
It's good, worth the read.
Hmm, not to chose sides too much, but I found it to be a long-winded allegory that only partly succeeds in advancing its argument. I'm skeptical some kind of cheerful fatalism is holding us back, the most obvious objection is that any kind of amazing cure for aging would be very unlikely to reach everyone. And if it did, we'd have to deal with tremendous demographic pressures (which the story artfully dodges at the very end).
> cure for aging would be very unlikely to reach everyone
The story makes the point that governments will be incentivized to distribute the cure to everyone as fast as possible. Considering the US spends 1/7th of GDP for healthcare and the majority of those health problems are age related. Covid-19 showed us that administering something to an entire population in a quick manner can be done and isn't even that costly.
> And if it did, we'd have to deal with tremendous demographic pressures
What kind of demographic pressures are you talking about?
"governments will be incentivized..."
No they will not. Not in the least. Or put it this way, regardless of any incentives you can imagine, the overriding dynamic will be that powerful people will use immortality to remain in power forever, and they will have every incentive to prevent whomever they deem undesirable, unproductive, etc. from getting good health care.
Which is exactly how it works now.
Immortality will not be called immortality, it will be called premium health care. It will be incredibly expensive. It will be a subscription service.
If not all can have it then no one should?