Chapter 16

The idea that we could live forever that is presented in this chapter would drive me nuts. Eventually I think we'd get bored with it. Even if you could stay eternally young during it there are only some many different things that you can experiance. And if nobody died, then you'd have to hope that we either find a way to live in space because we'd run out of room aweful fast. If everyone lived forever and we all continued to have kids, jeeze, we'd be over run with ankle-biters and old geezers in no time.

Eve Forward's first book (Villains by Necessity) was funny and it sort of deal with this. In that book, the good guys have already won, evil has be vanquished, and light reigns supreme. Nobody gets sick, nobody dies, and the earth is facing the worst infestation of butterflies and cute little bunny rabbits in it's history. Which brings us to the very first word of the book, a main character (an anti-hero) screaming "BOOORRING" at the top of his lungs. The book is big spoof on most fantasy books and role playing games like Dungons and Dragons, but the whole time you cheer for the "bad" guys (a thief, a spy, a black knight, an assassin, a sorceress, a druid, etc) as they try to save the world from being "subliminated" into light (ie, if nothing ever dies and everything keeps being born then the world will end in a feel good, fuzzy feeling catastrophe).

Have you ever noticed how most movies where technology seems to make things perfect (you live forever, you're waited on hand and foot by robots, criminals can be arrested before they actually commit a crime, etc) that something about it always goes horrible wrong with the system? I think that's another way of saying that the director/author things that things can never become that perfect without them "sublimiating" in the long run. Or maybe we're just all pessimists at heart.