A mysterious figure with a purple hat is knocking on all the doors of the houses in your town. When they get to your house, they are answered by yourself and your sister Thalia. They remove their hat and reveal a large red button. They tell you that if you press it, you will become immortal; You will be able to live forever. What do you do? Do you press the button, or do you tell the figure do move on? You can tell that Thalia wants nothing to do with this man, but before you make a decision, let me inform you of the benefits of slapping this button. I am here to show you why immortality is good. Let me illustrate the benefit that immortal you would have to society. Let me show you what you can achieve by your one millionth birthday, and let me put you at ease, to the bad rumours of immortality.
I’m going to start by pointing out the benefit you could create in society if you never died. When factoring in time spent in education and retirement, the average New Zealander only spends 57 percent of their life actually working and creating a net positive gain to society. If you became immortal, this percentage would go way up to a tiny sliver below one hundred, because once you have reached 18, you are in your prime age forever. You also won’t cost the healthcare system with all your old man problems. This is way more efficient than letting people run their usual course of life. Additionally, if we were immortal, we would care a lot more about the future of our planet, as we know we’ll be around to witness it.
You tell the figure that the benefit that immortal you would have to society might not be enough to win you over, so they tell you to think about the benefit that immortality would have on yourself. Your sister Thalia starts to wine. “That won’t be a be a benefit, I’ll have to watch my family die.” The figure sighs. He has heard this excuse thousands of times before. He asks Thalia if she would kill herself if her family was about to die. Think about all the families you could create over the millennia. Isn’t losing a family worth having one in the first place. Think about everything you could achieve by the time you blow one million candles off your birthday cake. You would have been able to master almost any skill you can think of and be whoever you want. Concert pianist, fluent Japanese speaker, famous author, you name it, you can probably be it. Time will answer the questions that all millennials have. You could see where humanity takes us; where does evolution take us? Do we conquer global warming? Will we terraform Mars? You’ll have centuries to procrastinate so you can grow without the constraints of time, and you might even have the time to learn how to not procrastinate.
Your sister Thalia starts to whine again. “But then after the last star burns out and is engulfed by a blackhole, all the immortal people will just be floating around in an empty void for eternity.” The problem with this mindset is that Thalia doesn’t have a good grasp on the word immortal. To be immortal means to live forever, and living does not specify consciousness. Carrots, lilies, oak trees; name a plant and it probably isn’t experiencing thoughts or opinions. An immortal carrot isn’t going to care whether it’s floating around in the void or up a kid’s nose. If ever an immortal finds themselves in a situation where they no longer want to experience consciousness, they can easily give themselves severe brain damage, which will render them in a permanently unconscious vegetative state. Essentially, you don’t have to worry about death, because you can choose when you die.
So why would you not want to be immortal? You will benefit both society and yourself, and you don’t have to worry about eternal boredom because you can just remove your consciousness. So if a figure knocks on your door and produces a purple hat with a red button on it, slap your hand onto that button like there’s no tomorrow, and you might even live to see the day your dad comes back with the milk.
I think I need to make my purpose more clear but idk how
