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From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: The Problems With Immortality
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2025 04:56:12 -0000 (UTC)
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shawn  <nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 10 Feb 2025 23:26:09 -0500, shawn
><nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 10 Feb 2025 19:31:51 -0800, Arthur Lipscomb
>><arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
>>
>>>On 2/10/2025 7:22 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>>> BTR1701  <atropos@mac.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hypothetically, how long do you suppose would someone who is
>immortal be able
>>>>> to live a normal life before being found out in modern society?
>>>>>
>>>>> (As to what defines immortal, I'm assuming that telomere wear and disease
>>>>> would be covered, but it is up to our hypothetical immortal to remember to
>>>>> eat, breathe, and avoid fatal bus encounters. So if you are the
>seventh son of
>>>>> a seventh son, try to avoid making contact between a broadsword and your
>>>>> neck.)
>>>>>
>>>>> A hundred or so years ago it would be very easy for an immortal
>person to walk
>>>>> into a village, claim to be 20 years old, stay for a few decades,
>then move to
>>>>> another town and do it all over again. In the U.S. you could simply
>move to a
>>>>> neighboring state and you were basically anonymous since state databases
>>>>> rarely communicated with one another.
>>>>>
>>>>> Even as recent as 50 years ago, there were many gaps in government systems
>>>>> that were especially susceptible to human error. Spy novels liked
>to suggest
>>>>> finding an infant's grave, obtaining the child's birth certificate
>and using
>>>>> it to apply for other ID like a driver licence, because it was
>unlikely that a
>>>>> death certificate for a child that young would have been filed. But those
>>>>> loopholes have been closed off over the years.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now, however, any arrest will enshrine your fingerprints and DNA in
>a national
>>>>> database forever. If you're arrested again 90 years later, questions will
>>>>> arise.
>>>>>
>>>>> As for employment, there's a gray market for jobs but I doubt you'd want to
>>>>> spend eternity mowing lawns or squirting the guac bottle at Taco Bell. The
>>>>> super rich can circumvent a lot of the bureaucracy and someone who
>has lived
>>>>> for centuries may well indeed be super rich. Bribes to doctors and other
>>>>> officials to generate documentation could go a long way, but great wealth
>>>>> brings notoriety and that's the last thing an immortal would want.
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course one could just not try and hide it and take your chances,
>since it's
>>>>> not illegal to live forever, and hope that you can defend yourself
>against the
>>>>> government goons who will inevitably show up to take you in for "further
>>>>> study".
>>>> 
>>>> I'm less worried about the government than some billionaire kidnapping
>>>> me to perform experiments endlessly.
>>>
>>>Is that the plot of a movie?  It sounds a little familiar.  Or am I just 
>>>thinking of a random episode of Highlander?
>>
>>Sound to me like THE GANYMEDE CLUB by Charles Sheffield. It's based
>>around such a group of long lived individuals who become so rich they
>>buy their own asteroid and turn it into their private home so that
>>they avoid all of those issues of people discovering their long lives.
>
>Though now that I think about it, it is more like the idea behind THE
>IMMORTAL, a 70s TV show with Christopher George playing the role of
>the immortal who is constantly trying to avoid becoming known and the
>subject of those endless experiments.

That's the reference!