>

Or if Billionaires advance their culture enough to switch from gavelkind.
This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.
Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!"
(For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, please read this page.)
Rule-breaking posts may result in bans. >

Mona Lisa and mad hatters. Sons of bankers, sons of lawyers. Turn around and say good morning to the night. For unless they see the sky, and they can’t and that is why they know not if it’s dark outside or light. >

Kurt Vonnegut wrote a short story about his. What made immortality particularly nasty was the fact that the drug only cost pennies. >

Which story, Do you know? >

Counterpoint: longer time horizon for consequences of actions means more incentive for better behaviors, ethics, protecting the earth and ecosystems. Longer lived humans, even rolled out first to the wealthy, means fewer repeat mistakes and a lived experience of history that could be adaptive. As with other medical and mechanical innovations, these may be accessible to nonrich people before very long, as is the case with inventions like refrigerators, pacemakers, or a search engine. >

Oh yeah let’s just hope billionaires provide us poors a nice habitat in their eternal paradise… >

That depends on whether or not they can keep immortality out of the hands of the masses. If there is no fear of death, the little man will not let the ruling class keep him oppressed. >

I would imagine immortality in this case would only apply to not dying of old age. >

Not unless billionaires hord eternal life and make reguler people do the evolving for them >

Transhumanism is an amazing opportunity if we do it right. I think I saw something that they think the first person to live to be 1000 is alive today. I don't know how true that is but don't seem that far fetched >

Why would people want to live that long? >

It's more of a personal wish I guess. I love learning things and since I don't believe in an afterlife or anything I'd rather just live forever so I can keep learning new stuff >

If artists lived long enough, would they paint the same genre of pictures over again or would they move on to another sphere of art? >

Many artists changed over their lifetime, or practiced different forms of art, we have the impression they did only one thing mostly because only their most famous work is talked about.
Also, I think that since a few decades the different forms of art are more accessible than before, so artists change and experiment in more media.. (or maybe we don't have much trace that they did things that weren't recorded) >

what if wealth and lifespan was inversely proportional so poor people lived like 200 years while billionaires lived only a week like a fruit fly >

Communism would suddenly succeed. >

AI will kill all the humans long before we find eternal life on earth. 
Just ask Bender. >

The only ones who will be doomed are the ones who choose the path of eternal life. I'd personally would not take that path. Who knows who will find interest in me, chain my ass up, and use me as sex slave for eternity. >

if you mean the title literally doesn't that mean there has to be billionaires always to keep dying >

I say the opposite.
I have had the opportunity to speak with a couple of billionaires. The attitude they had was that they deserved their incomprehensible wealth, that everyone else deserved to be poor by comparison, and that this was, if not ordained by god, determined by 'their blood'. They considered themselves a superior species, in effect.
But they also had the attitude that they did not have to worry about anything they did to the world. If the oceans died, if the ecosystem died, if the entire planet died to serve their wealth - that is okay. Because they won't live to see it. Because they will be dead before that happens. The only things that matter are things that could affect them. And no - the fact that their children or grandchildren might be affected is not an issue. That is their lookout. They can deal with it, and it again, it doesn't matter, because they won't have to see it or deal with it.
If these rich bastards - and they are psychopaths who lack all empathy, every last one I met and talked to - had biological immortality the issues of the climate and the destruction of the ecosystem would suddenly become Problem Number One and every resource would be committed to solving it all.
Because then THEY would be the ones who would suffer from it. They don't want that. If it affects them, then, and ONLY then, does it matter.
Immortality for the wealthiest would be the quickest way to get the rich psychopaths to save the planet. Because then they would have to care, because they themselves would be affected.
That is how psychopaths think - it's all about them, and only them. >

X for doubt.