Why Immortality is Like Blogging

Tyler Cowen explains.

This comes up in the context of Arnold Kling's question "would immortals be libertarian?" I have a certain number of un-libertarian views about regulations aimed at saving people from death that I would, of course, be happy to drop in a world of immortals. But if immortality doesn't render the concept of "health" or "quality of life" meaningless, then I still see room for healthy doses of paternalism and public provision of health-related goods.

Comments

There would still be reasons to avoid a life that is solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish, even if it wasn't short.

Posted by Petey | May 28, 2007 3:20 PM

Between Arnold Kling and George Masonites, hard to decide in the contest for the more perverse. Quite a bunch of sophomoric jerks feeding off each other, however.

Posted by Jennifer | May 28, 2007 3:26 PM

What could be worse than immortality without health and quality of life?

Posted by Ian | May 28, 2007 3:33 PM

Frankly, If I were immortal, I doubt that I'd have any great urge to worship the free market as the Libertarians are wont to do. I'd hope there would be better ways to employ infinity.

Posted by Primigenius | May 28, 2007 3:48 PM

In other words, libertarians are out of touch with the fundamental realities, such as death, age, and reproduction.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 28, 2007 7:08 PM

Offhand, it strikes me that a society whose people enjoyed a significantly longer lifespan than ours would most likely be more paternalistic than ours in many ways, because accidental early deaths due to lack of paternalistic protections would seem more horrifying, depriving people of much more life than do accidental deaths in our own society.

The expression "his star burnt too briefly, but brightly" might make some sense when applied to an intensely active, daredevil twenty-something in our society. But it would seem grotesquely and perversely inappropriate if applied to a person who died at 25 in a society where people lived to be 700 or 800 years old.

Perhaps such a long lifespan would make people intensely risk-averse. Every car trip on the freeway would seem like a a high-wire act on the razor's edge between paradise and the abyss. I suspect the prevention of early death would become an even more pressing social imperative, and the emphasis on safety and risk-avoidance would be more consuming, and more socially regulated and mandated.

Also, it has always been my impression that changes in life expetancy go along with changes in the intensity of emotional attachment. Societies with lower infant mortality, and consequently lower family size, might see more doting and obsessional paternal devotion and love toward the few children they actually do have. This could also lead to incentives for increased paternalism.

On the other hand, maybe the tediously long and drawn out lifespans would lead to a lessening of human attachment. It is interesting, for example, to ask how these changes in life-span would relate to the human sense of time and memory. Perhaps in such a world, people would sometimes ask "weren't you my sister once?" in the way they now say "didn't we live in the same dorm back in college." And human relationships might all be so haunted by the awareness of relative brevity, transiency and inevitable boredom, that they become less intense.

Although biological transistions like puberty would presumably still occur at the usual time, I imagine the tri-partite division of life-stages into early educational preparation, productive work, and unproductive aged retirement and dependency would be lengthened all around. And if the age of majority is thus moved further out from birth, so is the period of paternal care and responsibility.

Of course, it is very hard to imagine substantial extensions of the life-span which produce corresponding and commensurate extensions in life value and enjoyment without positing some sort of genetically or chemically induced psychological changes in the human personality. It is hard enough enough for many people to stay interested even for even 60 or 70 years.

Finally, here's one way in which vastly extended lifespans might lead to greater libertarianism. The glacial pace of movement toward the point of death, diminshing returns of things that are new under the sun, and decreased sense of urgency and struggle might just lead people to attribute a dreamlike meaningless to it all, say "who gives a fuck", and live without care or regulation.

Posted by Dan Kervick | May 28, 2007 7:38 PM

Immortals? I thought we were talking about "Highlander." Now I'm stuck with the theme song by Queen.

Posted by laborlibert | May 28, 2007 8:17 PM

Maybe I'm being dumb, but I can't imagine what in the world mortality has to do with it. Libertarianism is wrong, both morally and in not modeling markets. What is gained?

It's true that one criticism of the market ideal is that it assumes an equilibrium that is indefinitely postponed. "In the long run we're all dead." But that doesn't mean that our lasting an eternity will smooth things out.

It's also true that markets can't resolve health care, and it'd be nice if we never needed hospitalization, but that's not the same as living forever. Nor is it the only criticism of the libertarian ideal anyhow. Anyone want an education or an affordable home, say? Anyone want to deal with poverty? Anyone aware that the world is warming or running out of oil? Anyone aware that "externalities" like dumping chemicals might leave you not enjoying the quality of your eternal life?

Posted by John Haber | May 28, 2007 9:16 PM

Immortals would be authoritarian.

Because, really, if all the ass****s around you are going to be spending eternity annoying the crap out of you, you're going to want somebody with a gun to crack down on that shit. Hard.

Quality-of-life crimes would probably get you a lifetime in solitary.

Think of a gated community homeowners' association's boot, on your face, for eternity.

Posted by Jon H | May 28, 2007 9:28 PM

Petey: Indeed.
If immortality was a real force, I would imagine that immortals, now lacking the pressure of a terminal life, would be significantly less interested in the economic good (which on an infinite time-line would always be available and seem short term) and more interested in the moral (or, in as much as you see moral and economic as substantially similar: then quality of life or abstract) good. Grandparents always want to give stuff to their grandkids? Imagine a world of nothing but grandparents. If I had infinite time to earn money, I'd be willing to handle confiscatory taxes. Both taxation and income could asymptotically approach infinity even as life did. Also less war (which is neither here nor there) as being killed would be a substantial cost and on a long enough time line memory would fade of glory, making Achilles obsolete. (Or maybe more war, as the loss of an individual life would be less impactful on the society at large. Maybe with limited death options, heterodox economics is a better explanation and the social weight of glory to die in that particular way increases, especially as a benefit to progeny. I don't know about that one).

Posted by justin | May 28, 2007 11:30 PM

I think we should first address the questions that are *really* relevant to modern libertarianism; would *Klingons* be libertarians? And will there one day be like robot chicks that you can totally have sex with? And will they be libertarians? And what would happen if all the /capitalists/ went on strike, huh?

I am absolutely sure that in these and all other hypothetical science fiction scenarios, a convincing argument can be made that libertarianism would prevail. Indeed, I would say that a core part of my personal critique of libertarianism is the phrase "meanwhile, back on Planet Earth".

Posted by dsquared | May 29, 2007 5:02 AM

Kling discredited himself so thoroughly in the introduction that I didn't bother reading the rest.

These days, I tend to think of the issue of the size of government as essentially a power struggle between capitalists and anti-capitalist intellectuals. I don't see how a cure for aging resolves this conflict.

Uhh... yeah, that's the ticket. No one benefits from or supports government programs except those darned all-powerful left-wing professors. Guards, please prepare a padded cell in the Fountainhead Wing for Mr. Kling!

That said, whoever controlled the patent on the medical treatment made immortality possible would become incredibly powerful. Such a situation would inevitably lead to a major power struggle with the narrow elite who profit from the source of immortality and the parasitic class of permanent retirees on one side, and the great teeming masses of mortals on the other side. The result would likely be a social democratic nanny state to regulate immortality and manage the massive economic transition caused by declining birth rates and accumulation of wealth in the hands of 200-year-olds.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | May 29, 2007 10:46 AM

You should read Immortality, Inc.. I'm tellin' ya: it's going to be terrible; watch out for the body snatchers.

Posted by abb1 | May 29, 2007 10:59 AM

Alternatively, you can watch the classic film Zardoz. Not only does this fine piece of cinema explain why immortals would be non-libertarian, but it also features Sean Connery riding around on horseback in a crimson diaper, and a giant floating stone head that dispenses M16 rifles. Not to be missed.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | May 29, 2007 11:14 AM