Why Longevity is a Mistake

There are two reasons why longevity is a mistake. The first is a personal reason.

Imagine the average person. A majority of people in the world are stupider than that and there's another portion of people who are even stupider than that. This may sound all highbrow and looking down my nose, but just ask anyone who's worked retail and you'll find so little faith in humanity, you'll see where I'm coming from. Imagine there were a whole ton of people who seriously believe that the world is flat, that Singapore is a city in Tennessee, an electric guitar is just an acoustic with 50,000 volts running through it and then gave them perfect healthcare and, on top of that, make it so that they couldn't die of old age.

These people would no longer have to worry about Charles Darwin and his idea of natural selection and could do whatever they want. And what will they do? Breed and raise stupid children. George Carlin made this point and said the best way to deal with this is to take the warning labels off of everything and let natural selection to do its job.

Without it, the stupidity in the world would grow. First, geometrically. And then, exponentially. That is how we'd end up with a world like Idiocracy. Or something even worse than the book, Super Sad True Love Story.

So many people in Super Sad True Love Story are materialistic and focus on health, youth, attractiveness, even credit score as a way of claiming status. I mean, a bald spot on his head affected one of the main character's, Lenny, Net Worth and could push him into a realm of poverty.

The second reason, which is more personal and more scientific in nature is that the human mind just could not survive that long. The hippocampus can only create and store so many memories. The brain isn't something that can store an infinite amount of information; it's a hard drive. And like a hard drive, it can get full.

But, even if that weren't an issue, you'd also have to deal the fact of going insane. For someone who can live forever, years could pass in the blink of an eye. You'd never be able to form relationships, you'd have to watch everyone you ever knew die, and if that wasn't bad enough, try to keep yourself entertained. There's only so much you can do after a millennia to keep things entertaining.

Even where we are now, we are not yet ready for something that could extend a person's life well past 100 years, let alone indefinitely. And the people of Super Sad True Love Story were truly not ready.

They are a futuristic society with advanced technology where, supposedly, you can live forever with a program and the only thing the average American needs to worry about is their Net Worth. Yet, if you don't meet the right class criteria, born the wrong race, are not attractive, don't have a good job, no job at all, or were just unlucky enough to be someone growing old, you can become a "Low Net Worth Individual" who the government will ignore, right up until the point that you are silenced for speaking out. Super Sad True Love Story is a dystopia of the worse kind: the one where people aren't aware that it even is a dystopia.

Eunice, the main character's love interest, knows things are bad in the US when she tries to help the Low Net Worth Individuals, but she hardly considers it a dystopia. Even when it's looking her right in the face, ready to come up and bite her.