That was a really good article and it expressed my reservations about this particular fantasy scenario so much better than I could even begin to articulate.
It always blows my mind how little forethought most people give to such grandiose ideas like immortality and space colonization, maybe because they really, truly believe that ‘human nature’ is so much better than it actually is.
These quotes in particular resonated:
We’d all like to think we’d reinvent ourselves, re-assimilate, learn and grow along a constantly regenerative learning curve. But most of us wouldn’t. We’re just not cognitively wired for it. We crave stasis, because our lizard brains crave safety and security.
… the law of averages is the law of averages, and people are people, and the vast majority of we humans formed our core values in our adolescences, locked our social and political opinions in our early 20’s. Grudges dig deep.
Imagine it… A functional lifespan of, say 200 years. Working with people who owned slaves. Trying to negotiate international trade treaties to deal with global warming by reconciling voters who watched their brother’s head get spun into a fine red mist by a Boston infantryman or a Georgian cavalryman. Getting funding for stem cell research from voters who grew up believing not only were black people a genetically inferior race, but other versions of white people were, too.
Also from the comments:
I remember being in a sociology class years ago, and the question came up about a hypothetical drug that would essentially enable immortality, and should it be put in the water? Virtually the entire class looked at me like I was insane when I mentioned that it would be a bad thing.
People like to forget that folk/fairy-tales weren’t feel-good entertainment. They were warnings. They were dark and bloody for a reason. People didn’t so much as leave gifts for the fae as make payments in a protection racket.
People can dismissively call it ‘sour grapes’ all they like; I call it being realistic about humanity’s inherent bias and physical limitations, rather than just playing to our unfortunate Dunning-Kreuger tendencies.
There’s nothing wrong with striving to improve the quality of life in general, but maybe a better place to start is by eradicating societal woes like disease, poverty, needless violence and mass starvation…
