Re: The Problems With Immortality

On 2025-02-11 11:39 AM, Nyssa wrote:

Rhino wrote:
 

On 2025-02-10 10:17 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

Hypothetically, how long do you suppose would someone who
is immortal be able to live a normal life before being
found out in modern society?
>
(As to what defines immortal, I'm assuming that telomere
wear and disease would be covered, but it is up to our
hypothetical immortal to remember to eat, breathe, and
avoid fatal bus encounters. So if you are the seventh son
of a seventh son, try to avoid making contact between a
broadsword and your neck.)
>
A hundred or so years ago it would be very easy for an
immortal person to walk into a village, claim to be 20
years old, stay for a few decades, then move to another
town and do it all over again. In the U.S. you could
simply move to a neighboring state and you were basically
anonymous since state databases rarely communicated with
one another.
>
Even as recent as 50 years ago, there were many gaps in
government systems that were especially susceptible to
human error. Spy novels liked to suggest finding an
infant's grave, obtaining the child's birth certificate
and using it to apply for other ID like a driver licence,
because it was unlikely that a death certificate for a
child that young would have been filed. But those
loopholes have been closed off over the years.
>
Now, however, any arrest will enshrine your fingerprints
and DNA in a national database forever. If you're
arrested again 90 years later, questions will arise.
>
As for employment, there's a gray market for jobs but I
doubt you'd want to spend eternity mowing lawns or
squirting the guac bottle at Taco Bell. The super rich
can circumvent a lot of the bureaucracy and someone who
has lived for centuries may well indeed be super rich.
Bribes to doctors and other officials to generate
documentation could go a long way, but great wealth
brings notoriety and that's the last thing an immortal
would want.
>
Of course one could just not try and hide it and take
your chances, since it's not illegal to live forever, and
hope that you can defend yourself against the government
goons who will inevitably show up to take you in for
"further study".
>
>

If this idea of immortality intrigues you, may I suggest
that some of Robert A. Heinlein's novels might be right up
your alley, particularly his book, Time Enough For Love,
which is set a couple of millennia in the future. The
protagonist, one Lazarus Long, is over 2000 years old and
has seen and done everything, usually several times over.
He's very old and jaded and is ready to die as the book
begins but then rediscovers his zest for life and is set
to go on for another few millennia.
>
Heinlein actually explored this theme in several of his
earlier novels via the Howard Families, a group of people
that just naturally lived longer than other people. This
put them in extreme jeopardy as people with ordinary
lifespans became aware of the Howard Families and sought
to study them to find out their secrets so that ordinary
people could have extended lifespans.
>
Of course if you loathe science fiction, you may want toG
ignore this recommendation. Heinlein is widely considered
one of the masters of science fiction and I think he's a
hell of an engaging writer. I've been a big fan of his
since I was a kid. He died in 1988. (Use a bit of caution
with his last few books which weren't as good as earlier
books.)
>
>

In order for Time Enough for Love to make sense, one
needs to read Methuselah's Children first that sets up
the whole Howard Families saga and how they survived
while hiding their longevity.
 Once that's done, the other books featuring the Howards
and Lazarus Long (aka Woodrow Wilson Smith) will continue
the story.
 Nyssa, who read 'em all last century, but revisits them
and other Heinlein books occasionally
 

Good suggestions! I didn't want to overwhelm him with too much reading but he really would have a better experience with Time Enough for Love if he read Methusaleh's Children first. Fortunately, Methusaleh's Children is pretty short since it dates back to the era of books that told a good story in a single moderately-sized volume. (A massive contrast to today's writers who seem to feel the need to crank out individual books of 1000+ pages that often belong to series of many volumes.)
Of course Time Enough for Love is relatively longer than Methusaleh's Children but is really still pretty manageable at only 588 pages (in my paperback edition).
--
Rhino