May 2017
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May 2017
May 2017
LordVincent
May '17

Honestly, I feel like the "immortality is a curse" trope has been overdone to death, especially in later years :sweat: I have full respect for the fact that it entertains other people, but I feel like the most creative and newthinking approach you could take to this idea is using the advantages of immortality and explore them. One example could be focusing on humans trying to find the solution to the overpopulation issue rather than them being haunted by people going crazy and fighting because of it :thinking: Honestly people are more likely to actually take that approach if it happened irl anyways :joy: People today confuse pessimism with realism all too often!

indagold
May '17

Every entertainment is jackass but more hardcore because people have been alive too long to give a damn about quality content.

Torture becomes 300% more terrible, maybe even a hobby for some people.

All our resources will be gone and we live in a hellish garbage filled landscape.

More people become suicidal due to the desire to die and not being to. Especially if you can catch other diseases, ailments, etc. and you're stuck like that for thousands of years. Maybe immortality doesn't mean immunity or protection from other diseases, or something like emotional torment, going back to the torture idea.

Or you could look at the flipside and being alive for thousands of years changes your outlook on the world and how to deal with things. People become unchanging when they get older, but they're only alive for so long, if longer maybe theres infinite possibilities of what to do with your life and struggles that you couldn't do when you were mortal.

NickRowler
May '17

If I was to write this type of story, I would have a group of people who were trying to find a way to kill the immortal people.

Tho personally, I don't really like the premise. One of the key elements of "outbreak stories" is how the people infected are considered bad and have to be removed from everyone else. Plus a lot have commentary on the government and how they handle the issue. Also, if the infected can't drown, suffocate, get strokes, or seizures, than your infected would seem a little OP to me.

I think you should take time to read and watch different outbreak stories and notice patterns to how they are written. Maybe The Omega Man

GesuGesu
May '17

Mamare Touno's Log Horizon actually takes this "people are trapped in a world where they can't die" and takes it in a positive direction.

As the people realize they can't die, and that trying to see if dying in that world will bring them back to the real world doesn't work, everyone ends up in a state of existential crisis. No one tries to word hard anymore. Basic survival is too easy to accomplish: people can earn enough money per day to feed themselves and stay at an inn.

The main character decides to rebuild society because it's fallen apart due to the lack of motivation in the population, because nothing is worth living for, yet no one can escape through death. He starts creating a proper government to control the people, he starts contacting the "natives" of the land and try to work with them, or end up in a war against them. He tries to figure out the mechanics and laws of the mysterious world they are trapped in.

It's a very positive and fun light novel/manga/anime, considering it's another "trapped in a video game" setting. The author is very well-read on his ability to integrate economics and politics into his works.

It's a story that focuses more on individual characters trying to find meaning to their lives to make it worth living forever, rather than the negatives of "woe is me! I can't die!"

tayo_rafferty
May '17

So you're thinking about a metaphysical virus. Otherwise it would be impossible because matter can't endlessly create itself from nowhere. Regardless, the idea has endless possibilities.

Chroma
May '17

Theoretically speaking, it might not be recreating itself from nowhere. For example, the best real-world case of immortality is Turritopsis dohrnii.

This cute little freak of nature can undergo a process known as transdifferentiation, allowing it to recreate itself just before death again and again and again, effectively allowing it to live forever. This however would make their memories completely erased, but it is possible to keep rebuilding oneself again and again, so long as they continue to consume food.

csufranco
May '17

this is proving to be quite the interesting premise. Maybe I'll look more into it.

tayo_rafferty
May '17
Chroma

That's interesting. Although is it recreating itself if it loses its memory or simply making a copy like a clone or a child? If the retainment of memory is not required to live forever then you could effectively argue that humans live forever through lineage.

Chroma
May '17

They aren't creating a child, per say. It's the same organism. They convert their brain cells to muscle cells or muscle to bone and such. While all their memories are erased (since they create an entirely new brain), but they are the same organism, it ends up being more like reincarnation than childbirth. The same soul brought back in a new, fresh form, with no memory of who they once were.

Kabushi
May '17

Torchwood: Miracle Day dealt with a premise like this. While I thought the season was pretty terrible as a whole, the idea behind it was quite solid, and there was flashes of real promise in specific episodes; especially when they got into the details of how a world like this could exist.

tayo_rafferty
May '17
Chroma

Would you agree that memory is a key part of an specific individual being alive? Based on that premise if someone loses their entire memory permanently then that is equivalent to them dying and therefore not being immortal. I think to be truly immortal you don't have to keep the same body but you absolutely must keep the same mind. The mind - in my argument - being the construct of all your memories, experiences, opinions and interpersonal relationships which would be destroyed if your memory was erased.

Sometimes people have traumatic head injuries and become entirely different, Phineas Gage1 is a great example of this. I honestly think the entire self is within the mind so again if you erase that, even if you able to duplicate the body, you have died.

velldonnabarb
May '17

You've already gotten some cool input.

Might I suggest you watch the twilight zone episode, "One night at mercy" with Jason Alexander. You can watch it on YouTube. It's a little different than your idea but at it's core it's the same: "What happens if death takes a vacation and people can't die?" It's somber and interesting and it may help inspire you.

LordVincent
May '17
tayo_rafferty

Well most of us don't remember most of our lives. If we compare your current self to your past self from 15 years ago, in a moment that you have now forgotten, they will probably not be the same person. Does that mean that you have died? Not really. You just changed, and you just happened to forget most of the moments you lived through 15 years ago. Change and memory is thus generally irrelevant to whether or not it's the same living being/soul.

Chroma
May '17
tayo_rafferty

This is why I love writing so much, because there's so many philosophical differences in perspective. The idea of immortality can change between individuals and I totally see your side, that memories make us who we are. Without them, we may end up being a different person, so are we truly still alive or did we die with our memory? From my perspective, I believe in the immortal soul of a person and that without someone's memory, they are still very much alive.

There's no completely correct side to this, but I have to say it sure is fascinating to here a different side to this!

Devika
May '17

The "has cancer but can't die" thing made me think of Deadpool - that's essentially the premise of his character. He gets so disfigured by the cancer-vs-superregeneration that he tries to hide his face as often as he can behind the mask (though it looks not half as bad in the movie as in the comics, surprise, hollywood doesn't like ugly people).

Many ideas in this thread center around the immortal people being persecuted. I think the very opposite would happen. They'd seize power! I mean - nothing can stop them! They'd find a way to control the virus and the immortality, and maybe find an antidote too. That way they'd have the full power over who gets to live forever, and who dies. I could totally see a nazi-like superiority thing emerging.

Migue
May '17

I have some random toughts on this topic:

I'm thinking that a process of incineration would be very difficult to survive even for an immortal. I mean, if you are reduced to ashes there won't be much stuff to regenerate or repair.

Also, even tough it might be a little paradoxical in a sickless, overpopulated world, but if the virus allows to easily repair (and thus regenerate) tissue the process of cloning would be a lot easier in this scenario.

I don't think that immortality would make douches out of people. There is this trope that if you're unable to die you would become a complete a-hole, but I think that a longer life means you will have a greater time to learn, think and see. Of course there would have to be some kind of conflict but I think that immortality would'nt necessarilly had to lead to a crapsack world.

There was this story in Neil Gaiman's Sandman about a guy who made a deal with Dream to be allowed to live forever, they meet each other every 100 years and every time they meet the man tells what he has gone through, from being filthy rich to being a beggar on the street. If you are going for immortals maybe you should try expanding your story over te course of centuries.

Devika
May '17

Great point! But that'll take centuries for some people... I mean 70 years, or even 90 don't seem to be enough for some people to gain a shred of empathy or wisdom... x'D But on a whole, yes, people will progress further than when humanity has to relearn with every new human. Imagine how far research could come if the scientists can keep working on their area of expertise for essentially an unlimited time! On the other hand, without new people, where will they get new ideas and thoughts..? I can see people becoming stuck in old patterns too.

Mabinogian
May '17

Often people think they need to fulfill their goals before they die, in a world that death is no longer a limiter of the time, people could finish those lists of goals, but at the same time. When you finish that set of goals you need more, and in the end you can end up spiraling into boredom, there is not much to do as you have done everything you wished for, and others simply are unable of finding other interests.

A world without death offers the possibility of making everything you wish to do, but it also opens the door to stagnation when you find yourself unable to feel anything of a thrill. Conflict is often the motor that pushes a story, but you do not got a conflict with death in your life anymore, you just exist.

It becomes a race against your will, can you find what to do with all the time? What goal can you make now that you have all the time? Without the conflict with death you end up seeing your conflicts mostly will be with everyone else now, what if someone is making the same goal as you and even better than you? How are you supposed to compete with someone who has 90 years more of experience than you and will keep getting more?

Is interesting how life can change without death on it. But personally I find it also scary on the sense of how it changes the perspective on many areas.

Migue
May '17
Devika

Oh, of course, theres a lot of bitter old people, but I think some of the bitternes is acompanied by a degree of senility. It may be possible to get stuck on a pattern, but for a scientist or a philosopher a lifetime of investigation tends to lead to different conclusions or ideas compared to the ones they used to have in their youth, people's mindset tend to change over time.

It doesn't mean that all people change or have more progressive ideas over time, there is also people that doesn't change and prefer stick to backwards mentalities. What I mean is that a world without dead would have an impact that may vary from person to person, and it won't necesarilly would lead to a dystopia or an apocaliptic scenario as some are sugesting.