Back in March 2018, our RUSUK blog asked the question: if someone invented a pill that would make us immortal, would we take it?
Eight years later, we have decided to ask ourselves the same question. Has anything changed?
Well, nothing has changed for me.
I would still have to be convinced that I wouldn’t age, that my brain was capable of taking in trillions of years of knowledge and, whilst I was never going to die, that I would not get any debilitating illnesses. What’s the point of living for ever after getting some form of dementia in the first few million years of eternity?
I don’t waste my life worrying about when I am going to die, so knowing I will never die, frankly, is no bonus whatsoever. Catchphrases would develop like: “Always put off today what you can do tomorrow,” because there will always be a tomorrow.
My fears about immortality also include not wanting to risk anything, ever. Imagine a motorbike accident leaving you with one leg and paralysed, for eternity. What fun. It would make people far less willing to be firefighters, police officers, or take any job that entails danger. I suspect that many people are prepared to take those risks partly because they know that, however badly things turn out, they will eventually die anyway.
And one of the great things about death is that it guarantees that evil people will eventually get their comeuppance. Can you imagine Hitler, Stalin, Vlad the Impaler or Pol Pot, dare I include Trump and Putin, living for eternity?
I have also always found the idea of spending eternity in heaven rather an unsavoury prospect. The thought of endlessly worshipping a creator, day after day, for ever and ever, doesn’t exactly fill me with enthusiasm. And even if heaven offered something rather more interesting, surely there must come a point when you run out of new and creative things to do. Eternity is a very, very long time.
Philosophy professor Shelly Kagan of Yale believes there are no pros to the prospect of immortality, only cons. His main point appears to be that he simply cannot think of anything he would want to keep doing after trillions of years. At some point, he will eventually have tried everything there is to try, and immortality would become a curse for all eternity.
If you had a machine which gave you the best orgasm you could possibly imagine every day, he argues, eventually you would get fed up with it. It never gets better, and you’ve had a zillion years of it. (Can I borrow it sometime?)
On the other hand, some might argue that technology can evolve infinitely, as can humans and indeed the universe. The human mind is designed to constantly search and explore. So how on earth could anyone ever get bored?
As my American and Russian friends may say: “Immortality, bring it on!” Nah. Not for me.
And there is another reason why my answer might be even more emphatic today than it was in 2018. I genuinely believe the world has become a darker and more unpleasant place in the intervening years. There are some wonderful things about our planet, of course, and some wonderful people in it, but I’m not sure I would want another hundred years here, let alone immortality. And I certainly wouldn’t want to bring children into a world in which I increasingly wonder what sort of future they will inherit.
I read somewhere that if we excluded ageing as a cause of death, it would be quite realistic that we could live to around 700 years on average before eventually succumbing to some other event which killed us. And that brings me, happily, to exactly the same conclusion I reached eight years ago.
I don’t mind living for a few decades longer. Yes please, thank you very much. But basically, I want to live only as long as I want to. No longer.
Once I have got everything I’m able to acquire out of life, surely that is the time to get out.
The immortality pill – take 2
We decided to re-visit this topic again because things have changed sooo much since the first article came out in 2018. The world is not the same place and the future suddenly looks dark.
Would I change my answer? Nobody wants to volunteer for Mad Max in real life. Of course, for a first step I went back and read what I wrote last time. I’ll argue that the next year will be pivotal and will begin to play itself out over the next few weeks.
- Will Trump steal the US Election when he loses?
- Will Russia implode financially?
- Can anything stop Netanyahu’s imperialism?
- Will Iran control the world’s oil supply after Trump?
- Can AfD take over Germany?
I can go on and on, but you already know how bleak the world looks right now. Why would you want to live a life controlled by Oligarchs?
Asking an American this question in October of 2026 is also a little sus. In three weeks we will know if the United States will return to democracy or continue on the path towards oligarchy. Today, religion, skin color, and bank account balance are factors in how the US Government treats you. I’m not sure my European friends appreciate the depth of the anger. Snide little remarks about how we voted Trump into power are no longer received with grace. If Trump can steal it he will and I believe there will be blood if he succeeds.
So, would I take that little pill? I honestly don’t know today. Down one path is civil war, starvation, and Tech Bro paradise; down the other path is democracy, equality, and maybe Democratic Socialism. Dear Europe, unless you’re ready to bring your judgmental asses over here and die, shut the fuck up.
The immortality pill – take 2
Back in 2018, I wrote that I would have chosen to take it, to enjoy several bright and dramatic lives, ranging from a pirate in the Caribbean to a scholar covered with the dust of their books.,,
Well, I don’t see now any single reason why I shouldn’t take this pill today.
Just like I put in in our last week’s blog, there is no afterlife, no karma, no hell, and no heaven. We all enjoy our success and pay for our mistakes during our lifetime, there’s nothing after it. And nothing before it.
So, as our movie has just one part, let’s make it an exciting series. Let’s live more and more lives, learning lessons from our mistakes, recalling memories from the past lives and having enough optimism for your future life projects – in case your current live doesn’t make it.
Yes, I want to live many lives. OK. Even without memories of the past ones, but with a knowledge that I will live another life. Another chance. Another dawn…
Can you recall the final scene in the Point Break?
I’ll see you in the next life!