|
Easy choice. There's no way I would want to live forever.
Imagine being thrown into a bare prison cell for the next thousand years. Just a bare, empty room. You can never leave. There's no internet, no tv, no books, no form of entertainment or distraction of any kind.
That's what living forever would eventually lead to, as the universe approaches complete entropy and heat death. All matter would eventually break down into waste head, subatomic particles, and low grade background radiation. And you, floating in space, all lone (yes, there are others, but how do you stay with each other without solid matter to anchor you, and without air to carry voice, to communicate?)
Now if we change that to be live for a very, very long, but finite amount of time with eternal youth and perfect health, then hell yes, I'd do it. John Varley's Nine Worlds stories are basically set in such a universe--medical technology has advanced to the point that everyone is eternally youthful, gets to choose and change their sex at will, gets to choose their physical form if they don't want to be human. The most common causes of death are suicide and murder; there is no such thing as death by natural causes.
I'd kill to be able to live in such a situation.
|