The Horrible Paradox of Immortality

[james_davis_nicoll]

The first generation of immortals will be the one with no idea how to manage an immortal life and thanks to immortality, they will never go away. Since they are the oldest immortals, they may have a lock on running things.

Hrm. If only humans could alter their behavior in response to their environment.
Mind you, why should the people in charge change their behavior? They must know what they are doing or they wouldn't be running things.

Comments

[silly-dan.livejournal.com]

Only example I can think of might be people who believe all possible wisdom is contained in one book, and learning any more would be dangerous to the soul. I suppose they wouldn't go in for biotech modifications anyway.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Or maybe they _tried_ plasticizing again, only to discover serious drawbacks to this state that are not apparent to children?

[silly-dan.livejournal.com]

Or, maybe tinkering with one's brain is just a lot more expensive than the regular immortality treatment and cardiovascular upgrades which are covered on most people's health insurance.

[space-parasite.livejournal.com]

It's not clear to me that you could easily replasticize a brain to learn new things very quickly and still keep everything that was in it before you hit the SQUISH button. Not an issue with children, obviously.