Thoughts on Mortality and Its Evasion
An interesting LiveJournal post: "A person immune to the ravages of old age would still not be immune to death; accident, violence, and other misadventure is perfectly capable of ending even a 25-year-old's life. It simply means that person no longer has a cap on the maximum time he can live, if he so chooses. And that's really what it's all about. Choice. ... If you go into the doctor's office, and he tells you that you have a bacterial infection, which will slowly grow progressively worse until it kills you painfully, then offers you an antibiotic pill that will completely eradicate the infection, I bet you'll take it. Even if you don't fancy the thought of living forever. There's an important point in that. Even folks who don't much want to live forever still probably don't want to die today. Or tomorrow. Someday, perhaps, if that 'someday' is held in the abstract; some future time when things no longer seem interesting. But not today. And that's the point. A solution for aging puts the power to choose in your hands. Old age forces your hand; you don't get the choice to see your grandkids graduate from school, or to celebrate your fiftieth anniversary...the choice is made for you. And I don't see how that benefits anyone."