“You can’t afford it” Just take a loan, you’ve got all of eternity to pay it back
this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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Yeah, I could see them making people work centuries to pay off the debt, or even worse, it only extends your life by a few years at a time and they turn it into a subscription service
Now you're thinking with capitalism!
Also similar concept, check out John Scalzi's Old man's war, follows that idea
Fantastic hard sci-fi book series. And it didn't focus on this one high concept but has lots of themes about humanity. PS: Apparently a TV series is under development!
I never really understood why people called it similar to The Forever War.
The "similar premise" is mostly just acknowledging that relativity is important to space travel.
Wait, Old Man's War has FTL? Or was it important for in-system battles? I haven't read them in a while.
I recently red The Star Carrier Series by Ian Douglas and that has FTL and interesting hard-sci fi battles with relativity effects.
I agree that the forever war is quite different in concept and style, much more esoterical.
OMW uses "skip drives" which are teleportation through multidimensional travel, time dilation is still a bit of a factor, but not nearly to the extent of The Forever War where it's practically the whole idea (as far as the science in the sci-fi goes)
Yeah that's how I remember it. The similar premise is that in both stories people leave earth and go on extended war campaigns.
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There's also the terrific book, Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley, a book I bought on a whim when killing time in a college bookstore with a tiny sci-fi section and have since recommended to many people who thanked me for the recommendation.
The concept is that in the future, it is discovered that there is an afterlife, but only a very small number of people can get there naturally. So a medical procedure is developed that allows people to get to the afterlife. However, only the wealthy can afford it. Once their afterlife is guaranteed (things can go wrong, but that's another issue), they do things like start hacking people to death in the streets to commit suicide-by-cop because what have they got to lose?
Isn't that basically the plot of Altered Carbon?
No. They transferred their mind to new bodies, called sleeves. They had laws against double sleeving, putting your mind into more than one body, cause that causes all sorts of issues. The tech was basically what you're stopped to do for computers back up data and when something happens to the computer you put the same data on the new machine. The basic version was local storage called a stack that resided at the base of the neck. That's why executions killed the person and the stack. The rich had offside backups as well.
This is closer to In Time where the single body was kept alive and they used time to pay for things. The rich had thousands, probably much more, years stocked up. It's been quite a while since I've seen it.
In a sense, but it's a common cyberpunk theme. I remember an old movie called Repo Men with a similar premise, which was based off a pretty dope book, Repossession Mambo.
Its essentially the same premise, but with loaning artificial organs.
Also the plot of in time
I don't even have to click to know what movie it is.
I loved this movie as a kid. Its a little dated now, but still so good.
Only works for a one time payment, life as a subscription can't be paid for with a loan. At least not forever.
I’m sure the sub-prime lenders can find a way.
That would explain Elon Musk being concerned about the Sun engulfing Earth a billion years from now
No that’s just his 12-year-old-on-the-internet reason to sell land on Mars.
Except we'll be able to afford it and even the government will enforce it.
Imagine paying for kids, school, and so on before people can start working and then get like only 30 years of productivity before having to take care of them again for years and years?!
Nah longevity will be sponsored and paid for by any not stupid country. How do we like to live our lives, that's another matter ofc.
Interesting take. Having well trained immortal slaves means stability. However those slaves may also live long enough to learn to think differently.
It all depends on the caveats of immortality.
I'de guess it will all depend on shaped explosive collars and implants. And the suppression of associated jamming technologies.
Nah longevity will be sponsored and paid for by any not stupid country.
So you're saying that only billionaires will be able to afford it in the US.
longevity will be sponsored and paid for by any not stupid country
Yeah but our society IS stupid. On a larger scale we are acting with the intelligence of a slime mold, always growing towards where food or energy is and nothing else. It's going to be patented which means monopolies or cartels are going to profit maximize it. Or are you some communist? You tankie??? :D I mean right now medicine and healthcare is for profit in the US which is stupid like you say.
BTW we're facing the same problem with climate change btw, thousands of improvement to reduce carbon emissions are going to be patented and min maxed for profit. PS: I'm still holding out hope that one day soon we'll wake up and become sentient as a civilization.
Imagine the profits having a workforce that never retires.
Imagine you'd live long enough that learning all sorts of things is worth while. People might want to become much more educated and versatile and know how to grow their own food, repair, build and maintain their own appliances, know how to build a house, know how to manage a small business. And I think it would (relatively) quickly be followed by "hey we want to live and work in a fun way".
Right now you can just fool the next generation because they are just as susceptible to a new flavour of propaganda than the last generation.
But yeah you're right, overall it would be a huge boost to productivity. But it would also be a massive shift in power one way or the other (either enslavement for longevity drugs or empowerment and more desire for long term societal gains)
Corporations will pay for their employees' immortality, with a clause that said immortality belongs to the employer and if the contract is terminated they can revoke it retroactively.
You are assuming that "immortality" means you stay fit and can continue working.
Maybe in this scenario immortality just means you are alive and conscious, but you lose your mental sharpness and all you can do is lay in bed.
True, but the ongoing biotech revolution is aimed at repairing, so rejuvenation. Not just trying to just keep people alive like it is now.
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Nah, the ultra rich assholes would still want to wipe their asses with all the resources in the world, just to ensure "the poor and undesirables" don't get to use it before them.
Gods, you couldn’t pay me enough to live forever. I’m looking forward to dying.
Living forever is a curse for sure if you have no way out
But living as long as you want in good health is for sure pretty awesome
oh hey that timberlake movie that wasnt called time is money because we live in the enshittified universe
Usual caveat: Only the Americans can't afford it. Everybody else would get it courtesy of their govts
Africa exists?
...can we trick today's rich to believe this is real so we can all benefit?
The other equivalent of this is a carbon capture technology that actually works. It's also far-fetched from what we know yet.
But the day it exists, capital will pour into it since it's a way to get paid by subsidies for the rest of your life. And all you need to do to also to grow that sector is burn more fossil fuel and it works so long as government can tax people more. It's kind of like having both the poison for the whole world, and the cure, and demanding ransom (while being paid for the poison).
First before carbon capture we would need to ban coal power plants
That puts too much blame on individuals instead of the system. These aren't bad apples, the system isn't broken. The system works as intended, it's just that most of us are on the losing end. Also: there is no alternative.
The alternative is called socialism.
I would specifically want the Mutualist kind, not the Marxist one. Direct stakeholder ownership helps keep things from being too bureaucratic and prevents a top-down power grabs.
The system is broken, though. It's unsustainable in the long term. There are alternatives.
I hope you know I don't disagree with you. The system is unsustainable for sure, we need a new one. It can't be fixed because there is no "fixed" or good or green capitalism (hence it's not broken because it was never meant to be sustainable). My last sentence was a Thatcher quote I quoted ironically.
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