Re: Could there be a Gnarly Man in current times?

On 10/05/2024 04.25, D wrote:

  On Thu, 9 May 2024, Tony Nance wrote:
 

On 5/8/24 5:33 AM, D wrote:

>
>
On Tue, 7 May 2024, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>

and with modern technology and
communication being what it is, are there ways he could he stay a member
of modern society and also avoid attention?

>
Maintaining fake identities is becoming ever more difficult, I
think.

>
This to me is the most interesting part of the puzzle. Would an immortal be able to hide his secret with modern technology, ID:s and all?
>
If the person stuck to remote, rural villages, I see no problem. But living in a city being a part of society?
>
I guess, if you are immortal and you don't have to eat, it would be a lot easier perhaps.

>
It's not explicit in de Camp's story, but from other parts of the story, one could reasonably infer that he needs to eat, could die in a car wreck, etc. That is, he's immortal in the sense that he's not aging, but he's susceptible to the other stuff we die from. Nothing was said about diseases at all, so that's undetermined.

 If that is the case... then I would be curious about probability of accident if you live for 1000s of years. It seems to me, that if you looked at some actuarial tables, there would be plenty of chances that something completely unlikely would take you out eventually.

Just from a probabilistic point of view, the likelihood of accident will
increase with life-span, although not linearly.
Niven had a interesting approach in "Grendel" (part of his Known Space
setting). Multi-century life spans are possible. As people age, they
actually get better at doing physical things and thus become much less
likely to have accidents.
The social side of this is that some people who do not want to be
identified as old deliberately stumble, bump into chairs, and so on,
hiding their natural grace.
--
Michael F. Stemper
Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be.