Also there’s a massive philosophical quandary in there too.

If people could live for much longer then they’re likely disincentivised to procreate due to worries of overpopulation and then, in one way of thinking, you’re hypothetically depriving a line of offspring of lifetimes they’d otherwise have if you’d had what we consider a normal lifespan now.

Yes I realise there are probably an infinite number of takes on this, I’m just pointing out one possible way of looking at it for the sake of saying not all technological advances have universally positive outcomes.

> you’re hypothetically depriving a line of offspring of lifetimes they’d otherwise have.

I don't want to open a can of worms, but... about 40 milion people are aborted each year...

Not to speak of the zillions of eggs and sperms that are deprived from combining with each other.

And the mathematical amount of genetically unique people that can ever live...

I think a majority of the people who want to live "forever" are the types of megalomaniacs who want to populate the earth with their own kind of uber mench, and will actually have more children than an average person.

You read too much fiction. There are millions of people who would love to just live their life.

The vast majority of healthcare spending is incurred at the end of life, because when death really approaches, almost everyone wants to avoid it. People who are explicitly pursuing immortality are just thinking on a long-term basis instead of only reacting once they face the reality of mortality, in their impending death.

But amongst the popular left, there seems to be an aversion to competency and rationality, as they are symbolically linked to high status and social dominance. And so those who work deliberatively to end the scourge of aging and illness from humanity are—due to their displaying a rational results-oriented mindset—disdained.

> we will have eternal dictatorships

I can't agree. We can have eternal dictatorship now. Nothing prevents it except other people, therefore people will prevent eternal dictatorship just as now (with various results).

Anyway, Im ready to accept this risk.

We cannot have them though? The leaders die and the resulting fights over succession is what keeps us out of eternal territory.

These maniacs didn’t have enough time to accrue enough mass to become power black holes, but give them a century or two to work with..

I don't know.. we have dinasties where direct ancestors of the ruler rules the country for generations, no?

That happened indeed and I don't think it was pretty. Although you get some exceptions, like maybe a few of the Antonines. (That didn't end well with Commodus.)

Nah, the fact that even emperors die is a good thing. No dynasty lasts forever, because after the first few generations, assets get diluted, someone spends the money, descendants fight, etc. An aristocracy that lives forever would be very hard to remove because those factors would be greatly mitigated.

Immortal emperors may produce shorter-lived dynasties, as it means no changing of the guard to provide the dynasty with fresh blood.

Rulers, set in their ways, will take a government down an increasingly non-viable path.

Not just dictatorships.

We already see the advantage age provides when building influence for US politics.

Eternal youth != immortality; given accidental and deliberate injuries and deaths, the "half life" (feels wrong in this context) is about 1000 years.

As for dictators: it's not like guillotines stop working.

What will keep dictators (if eternally young, or their offspring if not) in power forever is competent and obedient AI manning the police and army.

Source on the half life number?

Similar, I recall hearing 2k years on some program. No source. The idea was that accidental deaths will happen. On mobile, but you could look up accidental death records to get the rate and then project out average lifespan.

Still, that is averages. A cruel despot may never leave their palace fearing death and will always have security. They will have less opportunities for accidents.

Percent of all deaths that are caused by injuries: 7.85%

Current global median life expectancy: 75.2 years

LE/I%: ~958 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat...

Same but assuming we can avoid transport accidents, ~1354 years.

Interesting to see hard numbers for this, I always felt like those LOTR elves living for 10,000 years in a war torn world is laughably improbable from a statistical perspective.

Tolkien's elves were also (somewhat?) magic, and the designated firstborn of the creator god Ilúvatar with various gifts, seemingly including awareness and dexterity exceeding anything a human could ever do.

The people going after "eternal" life right now are people with access to practically unlimited funding.

They are immune to guillotines operated by peasants.

The only thing they don't have protection against is Government forces. With their armies of lobbyists, and other bought influence they have, they are also, largely, protected against those as well.

> The people going after "eternal" life right now are people with access to practically unlimited funding.

Yup, and they'll only know their methods are safe if they get the rest of us to try it out en mass.

> They are immune to guillotines operated by peasants.

> The only thing they don't have protection against is Government forces. With their armies of lobbyists, and other bought influence they have, they are also, largely, protected against those as well.

What makes them different from the French royal family, who basically were the government?

> They are immune to guillotines operated by peasants.

You don’t need guillotines, you just need one junkie at the right time.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11941061/Tech-exec-...

"Science progresses one funeral at a time" comes to mind as well.

Also, people’s mind simply worsen as they age, and I don’t mean senility only. We are not made for living too long, and the elderly are already the most commonly targeted group for populist propaganda by political parties. Reflexes worsen, the past will become rose-tinted, etc.

We will also have eternal opposition activists and leaders. The effects of immortality on politics will fall on everyone equally.

I have never liked this mentality in discussions around immortality that essentially boil down to "I would die if it meant people I don't like can die too." "A bad actor living for a long time would make our quality of life lower" is usually the given reasoning, but do you know what quality-of-life rock bottom is? It's being dead! Once you are dead there is absolutely no good to ever happen to you ever again! And the counter for this is then usually "well what if I like being dead," which is great for you, but I and many many others happen to very much dislike the idea, and your stance would drag us down with you.

That's all without even mentioning other benefits like cumulative knowledge of multiple lifespans being contained in one person allowing for new scientific breakthroughs.