Corrupted Longevity [Horror]

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Huh? I haven't heard that claim. If you tie in enough consequences in like "you will live but your body will become a helpless and painful shell" or costs like "You must consume the souls of others to live" then sure, the odds change.

But I'm not so sure that "virtually no one" will say yes to eternal middle age. It doesn't sound bad to me at all. Am I an outlier?

Middle age isn't the problem. Sure, eternal hellish pain is. But when did that enter the discussion?

Heck, I'm 46 which is technically middle age for humans and I'm in decent shape. I certainly don't have the constant pains so many memes made by modern twenty year olds imply are universal.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I have to disagree. My back pain comes from spinal arthritis, so good living can only do so much. While medication and stretching makes it manageable, I would much rather have my 25 year old body than my 40+ year old body.

Would you rather be dead than your current age? Or eternally have the body of an 80-year-old? Eternally 25 may be more ideal, but eternally 45 (or whatever) is better than the previous two alternatives, unless you simply would rather not live forever at any physical age.

Additionally, so long as the process isn't outright magic (and sometimes even if it is), there would probably be treatments to reverse at least some of the effects of aging. You may not be able to return to being physically 25, but the pain could probably be made markedly more manageable if there's technology that can literally stop you from aging out there.

Interestingly, IIRC, in the web serial The Zombie Knight Chronicles, the reaper Garovel notes many servants (people who have been brought back from the dead by reapers; amongst other things, the reaper can halt the servant's aging process) prefer to reach middle age before having their aging halted, largely because they don't want to be mistaken for some young kid. I suspect some people would do this, but most in our current culture would likely favor being 25 or so forever to a later age.

[AlexanderHowl]

Forever at my current state of health? No, death would be preferable, though I would be willing to stick around for forty years or so to see if anything improved. After that, I would likely stop the longevity treatments, even if it meant certain death, as the quality of life matters more to me than the quantity of life.

The fact that people are willing to put quantity of life over quality of life is one of the foundations of the horror in the scenario. Even when facing a certainty of insanity, people would likely be willing to embrace longevity but would likely be unwilling to regularly visit a psychotherapist. Even if the frequency was once per month rather than once per week, I bet that the overwhelming majority of people would not bother because they would be screaming about violations against their 'freedom'. As they went insane, I expect that the vast majority of them would still defend their decision, even if they were caught feeding their family into the woodchipper.

[ajardoor]

How about a magical Unaging that also inflicts a curse/bane ("blinded", "burns in sunlight", "turned by holy symbols and can't enter holy ground", "cannot tell a lie", "vulnerable to silver", "unluckiness" etc.) into the bargain?

[Black Leviathan]

I think we want to believe the worst in people, that with infinite time we'll grow into selfish monsters. But I think it's much more likely that immortality will give us more and more time to learn the lessons of consequences and the impact of our existence on our environment.

The more likely outcome of immortality would be disadvantages like Laziness, because meh. You not only have enough time to get around to things but you can even blow off necessary obligations because you have time to recover from any mistake you make in life. And if everyone hates you, they're going to be dead in 60 years, and you'll have completely new people to deal with.

Which leads to callous. It would be tough to invest in the well being of mortals after a few generations. You're not seeing the urgency of their lives, you have time to make mistakes with them but, but their anger is just as temporary to you as they are. You don't resent or displike mortals but you don't have the energy to be empathic to their endless short-term mortal ********.

And Daredevil would set in pretty quickly. Not because you need to know how immortal immortal is, but there's an enormous amount of time to fill and so few pressing needs to take care of. The mortal responsibilities you once had no problems with are now painfully booooooring. Can you even imagine an immortal washing their car? That thing is going to be beyond salvation in 30 years, barely the blink of an eye. But you'll hold the memory of jumping that sucker over a draw for centuries.

[AlexanderHowl]

Given how emotions fade, I doubt that an immortal human would care much of what happened fifty years ago. In humans, emotions are often tied to novelty and/or intensity. As novelty becomes rarer and as intensity become weaker, there is no hook that allows a human to care about things for more than a few decades. As they becoming divorced from their initial experiences, they will become divorced from their humanity.

After a certain point, the only source of novelty and intensity will lie in the most horrofic of criminal acts. Torture, rape, murder, they are novel experiences that produce addictive intensity, and immortals will be drawn to them like flies to honey. If they are caught, they will likely have the money to bribe prosecutors, eliminate witnesses, and threaten jurors, so they would likely get away with their crimes until someone puts them down like the monster that they have become.

Imagine going up against someone who has centuries of experience who turns into such a monster. Young women have been disappearing across the city for decades, one a month, and the police always find their skinned corpse a month later. The remains show evidence of savage violations, but the victims were only aloowed to die after being skinned alive. Anyone who comes after the monster endangers themselves, as the monster does not like anyone interrupting its fun, and they will share his victims' torments regardless of their age or sex. The PCs just happen to stumble upon a kidnapping attempt by the monster and happened to see his face, so they will be his next targets because he does not want the interruption of another trial.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

I think we want to believe the worst in people, that with infinite time we'll grow into selfish monsters. But I think it's much more likely that immortality will give us more and more time to learn the lessons of consequences and the impact of our existence on our environment.

The assumption with the topic was that the corruption was for some reason beyond our current understanding. Hence the horror-aspect to it.

Realistically speaking I think being unaging WITHOUT this strange "corruption" would make people who are self-critical, emphatic and good enough at learning extremely competent start gradually overthrowing dictators and 'threaten' to turn the world into a relative utopia more than anything.

Sure, you risk "eternity", but after the melodrama of that is behind you a lot of people will realize that it is a greater risk to leave bad people in charge.

And for functional countries it get exponentially less likely that narcissists and sociopaths get into positions of power because there will be more and more functional people who are able to detect them. Along with the record of bad behavior for 'bad' people being longer.

At some point I think such a society would also recognize that most people can be rehabilitated into functional people. However some people are practically irredeemable for various reasons, but eventually we'll have enough resources available that we can simply isolate them from society by imprisoning them in a pleasant robot playground (VR or otherwise), 'forever', if required. Perhaps one day the centuries old scientists will figure out how to gene-mod so sociopaths don't happen, and the centuries old psychologists have reliable methods for avoiding the 'common' narcissism.

Overpopulation is brought up as an issue frequently, overpopulation truly became an issue you could force people who take the immortality treatment to be sterilized, and sterilize all children at hospitals. That would eventually make any and all new humans a community affair rather than something two humans decide to do. If done properly I believe having adults taking turns working as child caretakers will get better results than what two exhausted parents juggling raising children and their full-time jobs do. For one you could have three different adults always fully rested be available at all times (if needed).

Straight up making people live for centuries would fix a lot of society's issues I believe.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Given how emotions fade, I doubt that an immortal human would care much of what happened fifty years ago. In humans, emotions are often tied to novelty and/or intensity. As novelty becomes rarer and as intensity become weaker, there is no hook that allows a human to care about things for more than a few decades. As they becoming divorced from their initial experiences, they will become divorced from their humanity.

Assuming our (let's call it supernatural for simplicity's sake) corruption deletes memories, yes.

If not, well, being unaging would mean making sure the brain can easily make new connections, something we seem to be on the brink of figuring out how to fix already. Likely these unaging people (if good enough at learning) would develop better memories due to years of optimization. Unimportant information would gradually filter out, but forgetting the first person you were married to or something would be extremely unlikely even if it was hundreds of years ago. Unless there were psychological issues causing you to "block" the memory, in which case it might just be 'inaccessible'.

But I'm going a bit off-topic now. For the setting you proposes corruption is a thing, and indeed that fact alone that disadvantages accumulate due to it would eventually turn everyone into either en emotional rollercoaster, a wreck, or a complete monster.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Varyon

...
Interestingly, IIRC, in the web serial The Zombie Knight Chronicles, the reaper Garovel notes many servants (people who have been brought back from the dead by reapers; amongst other things, the reaper can halt the servant's aging process) prefer to reach middle age before having their aging halted, largely because they don't want to be mistaken for some young kid. I suspect some people would do this, but most in our current culture would likely favor being 25 or so forever to a later age.

I think it really depends on your health when for example, my 46 and how much you care about age related respect and other social aspects.

Other than being (technically in remission) diabetic and balding, my health is better than it was when I was 25. While a hint sad, I'd be fine permanently 46 just not diabetic if I could help it.
If I screw up with tech, no one thinks I'm an idiot or just bad with tech which is the reality. Nah, they just think I'm some "normal" older guy and not judge me too harshly.
I also had lots of issues at 25 other than mere inexperience which oddly "mellowing" with age seems to have helped.

[Flyndaran]

I still think the most likely result of super long lives is the one that plagues us already with just a few decades under our belts. Memory is inherently faulty, but not just in the basic forgetting variety. It distorts around us. We become more important with slights against us and the mistakes of others tending to increase in severity, while our own mistakes often get downplayed or preferentially forgotten. Of course depression can do the reverse.

I know from family that I bullied my brother more than he bullied me. But I literally remember only the incidents he caused. If I lacked such people I trusted to remind me...