Do You Want to Live Forever?

If you had the option of living forever, would you take it? The tech bros in Silicon Valley are hard at work trying to figure out how to extend human life, presumably to the point where you will just think that enough is enough.

Given the unfortunate infirmities that befall the elderly, it makes sense that people might be looking for an off ramp. Unless they are in Silicon Valley. As it happens, none of the discussions posit an afterlife.

Now, Francis Fukuyama, of “end of history” fame, has suggested that it is not a good thing to worry about living forever. Or better, living substantially longer than our current lifespan.

Of course, the argument against living forever involves bodily deterioration. The older  you get the more enfeebled you get. And if you are barely functional you will need someone to care for you.

It is not exactly an enticing prospect.

Of course, longevity will be touted as a great medical advance. And yet, how much of the good health will be accompanied by debility. If you live forever in a vegetative state or in full dependance on others, will you might soon tire of it.

Mere survival is one thing. Functioning in the world is quite another, especially when your sense of reality has been skewed by the simple fact that you are so much older than everyone else.

The older you get the more your participation in the culture becomes compromised. How well are you, as old as you are, capable of communicating with young people. Surely, their cultural references will be Greek, on both sides of the communicating. And besides, at different life stages you will have different priorities. A young person might be looking to mate and reproduce. An older person is not in the dating and mating game.

As a centenarian you might have difficulty communicating with a teenager or even a twenty-something. You will feel like you are speaking different languages.

Fukuyama explains it thusly:

Among the cognitive debilities that occur over time is rigidity in one’s fundamental outlook and assumptions about life. One’s outlook is usually set relatively early in life; usually by early adulthood you are either a liberal or a conservative; a nationalist or an internationalist; a risk-taker or someone habitually fearful and cautious. There is a lot of happy talk among gerontologists about how people can remain open to new ideas and able to reinvent their lives late in life, and that certainly happens with some individuals. But the truth of the matter is that fundamental change in mental outlooks becomes much less likely with age.

He is not optimistic:

But what will happen if people routinely live into their 100s? You will have an overlapping of generations and increasing social conflict as younger people begin to think differently and demand change, while older ones resist. The problem will not be conflict per se, but a gradual slowing of the rate of social change. Meanwhile, technological change will continue to happen at ever faster rates, requiring ever-faster rates of adaptation.

If the Silicon Valley bros get their way, we will find ourselves in social stagnation:

… life extension will leave us with a world that is more economically and socially stagnant, and in which large proportions of older populations are suffering from some form of debility. 

Meanwhile, we still do not know whether there is an afterlife.