In José Saramago’s book ‘Death at Intervals’, everyone in one country stops dying. This leads to thousands of living dead, a mafia forming to sneak people over the border to die and general chaos ensues. Saramago addresses the issue with immortality that no one thinks about; even if people stop dying, they do not stop ageing.
If people really were immortal, they would become characters from a horror movie. People would age into a zombie-like state, incapable of most basic human functions but their bodies would not be able to give up. There would still be car crashes and bungee jumping incidents so people would be chilling out cut in half, flat as pancakes and with bullet holes in them. A world for the immortal is not a world for the faint-hearted.
we would live like sardines on Earth, eternally overheating because the ozone layer would cease to exist.
If people never died then the population could only increase. Overcrowding and global warming would be impossible to stop but because there would be no immediate way to leave the planet (until we manage to make Mars hospitable) we would live like sardines on Earth, eternally overheating because the ozone layer would cease to exist. Ultimately, a world where being immortal was possible would be a dream turned nightmare. And, to be honest, it’s a small world and forever is a long time. Everyone would get bored after a maximum of 200 years.
At least one good thing would come from immortality though. The phrase ‘you only live once’ would be redundant and therefore ‘yolo’ would not be a part of my vocabulary and ergo the source of my eternal shame.