You have probably read or heard about the recent advances toward immortality in the news. It happens every couple of years; there is some sort of “breakthrough” in the study of aging, the media overblows it, people lose their shit, nothing interesting (to us) comes of it because that isn’t how basic research works, and then it dies down for a couple of years. Until there’s another discovery, of course.

I know that reading headlines is exciting and telling your friends about them makes you feel smart and important. I get that. This headline will likely come true, so that’s a plus. In your lifetime, too! Immortality, or at least ultra-extended life, which would give the beneficiary long enough to wait for true immortality. Who wouldn’t want that?

You won’t get it though. Nor will I. Most people won’t. Sorry.

What is Immortality and Why would I want it?

In the movies, immortality is a curse. It starts out wicked cool and awesome, but after a while, people around you start to die and you end up alone. You’ll befriend and fall in love with new people and it’ll be great at first, but they’ll die too, leaving you alone again. That’s the classic interpretation of how your time as an immortal being. Scratch that, it’s the depressing, demoralizing, ‘glass-half empty’ stick-in-the-mud interpretation.

What would really happen is that, in the course of making and losing so many friends and loved ones, you’ll become a jaded husk of your former self. You’ll eventually feel nothing for any new people in your life, outside of a very slight and shallow affinity toward them, while simultaneously knowing that their inevitable deaths will ultimately mean little to you.

Eventually, hundreds of years would have passed, and you will tire if the inhuman beast that you’ve become, the distant friends, family, and lovers whom you barely can recall, weigh heavily on your long-frozen heart. You’ll break down for the first time in centuries. An acquaintance (to you) will do their best to console (who they think is) their lover and friend, but they, with their natural lifespan, can’t possibly imagine the turmoil that you’ve experienced. You plead them to listen and believe as you explain your life story to them. The millennia spent alone, surrounded by others. The love and the loss. The fatigue. You’re so tired. You can’t take any more. It weighs on you. It isn’t all bad though. You met them. All that time spent waiting brought them to you. It feels good in a way that it hasn’t in a long time. They take it well. They Understand. They don’t want to leave you, and tell you that, as long as they can help it, they’ll be right here by your side.

It isn’t good enough. They will one day leave you, just like the rest. They’ll be gone and yet here you’ll remain. You can’t take it. It’s been too long. You need to end it. It all ends with a bullet, and sweet relief. Nothing can happen now.

Badass.

Why We (you and I) won’t be Immortal

Immortality is one of those things that people just assume will one day be discovered and soon after handed out to people in the same way that we vaccinate against deadly diseases.
Thing is, have you ever stopped to consider why? Why would governments or corporations, or anyone with power, for that matter, decide to make billions of people live forever? It doesn’t serve them. It wouldn’t benefit any government or any corporation to have their citizens or customers live any longer than they live now. You might say that they’ll have more people to sell to and what have you, but both brands and political parties as already very good at converting new people into customers and voters, so what’s the benefit?

Living forever is great, but these entities are not in the business of doing something for us unless it benefits them. Not going to happen.

Who will be immortal?

This isn’t an article about how immortality is a cursed double-edged sword that preys on humans’ greed and lust for wealth and power. Immortality is something we should all want, but only a select few will get it

Who would those people be? Well, whoever can afford it. It’s immortality, so the drug, procedure, or (more likely) continued treatment will likely cost many billions of our dollars (adjusted for inflation). People will exhaust their entire fortunes, knowing that they’ll have an eternity to build it back up again. It might be such a costly procedure it could even be held back President of the United States unless they can pay for it themselves. After all, what does it benefit anyone to have a President that can live forever? People will vote for whoever says the right things.

Jeff Bezos will be sending your great grand children into the center of the Earth to mine the last of it’s resources before he escapes to another world, the Amazon sign falling from the decayed remains of the White House, the now-useless Amazon Prime dollars blowing in the lifeless breeze from a dying world. He will be forever young while our world lies in ruin and decay, an ode to man’s incessant love of growth and profit at all costs.

So yes, don’t expect to become immortal any time soon. It isn’t meant for you.