from Hacker News

Has the First Person to Achieve Immortality Already Been Born?

by dreamweapon on 4/14/15, 4:33 PM with 51 comments

• by scarmig on 4/14/15, 8:49 PM

  I'm hoping the first person to achieve immortality was born at least 29 years ago.

• by melling on 4/14/15, 4:45 PM

  I didn't realize that we've made any progress towards extending the maximum human lifespan. It's probably a lot harder than we think. I guess we're at the point where Jules Verne was in the late 19th century; we like to dream big.

• by iwwr on 4/14/15, 10:17 PM

  A civilisation where people can live arbitrarily long lives may have some interesting consequences. For one, cultural stagnation caused by people with entrenched beliefs sticking around. A lot of social progress and scientific development happens over the dead bodies of the old holdouts.

  Then in the beginning at least there is the risk of extreme social inequality and a gerontocratic ruling class. Only the wealthy will have access to life extension and it may be the wealthy power structures that deny the technology to other people.

  Finally, a civilisation made up of long-lived individuals may become extremely risk-averse, with possible consequences of reduced experimentation, creativity and rebellion. They may also turn out a little like what Larry Niven makes of the Puppeteer race: powerful, cowardly creatures, highly ritualistic, paternalistic and soft-totalitarian.

• by Zikes on 4/14/15, 9:19 PM

  There's a short story of a woman who was a bit of a luddite, but late in life her children and grandchildren convinced her to adopt "upgrades" here and there, until she became almost entirely virtual. She retained much of her humanity, but was able to be in many places at once, "inhabiting" purpose-built bodies, and building up a certain reputation and popularity. Eventually humanity's probes make contact with aliens, and she's chosen to be humanity's ambassador.

  I wish I could recall the name of that story, but it always painted a pleasant picture of immortality to me. Hopefully someone here recognizes it and can share it with us.

• by mhurron on 4/14/15, 9:01 PM

  You won't really know until they don't die.

• by SAI_Peregrinus on 4/14/15, 9:11 PM

  The second law of thermodynamics answers this question with a definitive "no".

• by tenpoundhammer on 4/14/15, 9:07 PM

  Assuming we could keep the human body alive forever, I don't think we could handle it a person would eventually go insane. Also it would get incredibly boring at some point and I imagine the suicide rate would be somewhere near a 100% or at minimum people would allow themselves to die.

  I definitely don't want to live forever.

  So my answer is No, and no one will ever be immortal.

• by cymetica on 4/14/15, 10:37 PM

  This must be done for real space travel that leads to truly inhabiting other "earths".

• by pvaldes on 4/14/15, 10:27 PM

  Yes of course, is an afro-american woman and her name is Henrietta Lacks