Recently I became immortal. It started a few months ago when I was doing some research on the Internet. And by research, I mean I clicked on a link that led me to another, then another, until I was reading something written by a stranger with no credibility. That’s how I learn.
Anyway, the stranger with no credibility was writing about some research done by another stranger with no credibility who was giving some chemicals to mice and dogs who themselves have no credibility. The chemical was resveratrol, an ingredient found in red wine. Apparently you don’t get enough of it by being a wino. You have to get it in concentrated form. I forget the details, but I think the first mouse that got the concentrated resveratrol lived 30% longer and started having an affair with Maria Shriver. One of the dogs with resveratrol got a bone and dug a hole so far into the earth he now lives with a family in Sumatra. And he’s so strong he can lick any balls he wants. No one dares stop him.
The reporter with no credibility asked the researcher who has no credibility if humans should take resveratrol. He said no. He wasn’t worried that it would cause harm, but there are no studies showing it would work in humans, and there was some doubt about delivering the chemical in pill form before it broke down and became ineffective. Then the reporter with no credibility asked the researcher with no credibility if he takes it himself. He said yes.
About thirty seconds later I found a web site that sells that shit and bought several pallets of it. I bought a brand called Longevinex because some other sources with no credibility said they might have solved the problem of keeping it from breaking down in pill form.
I’ve been taking the resveratrol for a few months. I don’t know if it’s working, but I got rid of my car. Now I go places by taking huge hops. And when people ask me questions I can’t answer, I kill them by squeezing their heads. Most important, I’ll add about thirty years to my life. Thirty years should bring me to the point where medical science can cure just about anything. If my arm falls off, I’ll inject some stem cells into the stump and grow a new one before dinner.
By then, there will be a lot of old people like me who refuse to die. They will also refuse to work. The immortal slackers will want to collect their pensions and Social Security until the sun turns into a cold dark thing about the size of a penny. No one foresaw immortality. Pension funds and Social Security are calculated on the hope that you will live an unhealthy lifestyle and take a dirt nap at 76. There simply won’t be enough money for all of the immortals.
So whose job will it be to kill all the senior citizens? Someone has to do it. You can bet that the people with jobs won’t want to hand over their paychecks to the lazy-ass immortals that do nothing but hop around town and talk about the squirrels on their lawn.
That’s why you should buy stock in life insurance companies. Those bastards will save a ton of money by never paying a claim. You can bet they’ll work some exclusion language into the policy that says something like “Does not include immortals that hop around town talking about squirrels until some guy working in a cubicle decides to take matters into his own hands.”
By the way, I remind you not to get your medical or financial advice from cartoonists.
Kurt Vonnegut has a short story called, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" in his collection titled, "Welcome to the Monkey House". It gives a possible scenario of living forever if one drinks his "Geritrol".
Dying may be the best thing a person can do for humanity.
Posted by: Jim M | June 22, 2007 at 10:29 AM
Wouldnt that mean you'd work for a longer time? proabably for a lower price? Hell with outsourcing! it'll be the Immortals who's blood the GAP (General American Public) would be baying for.
:) think about it, if you live that long, they'll proabably fix you back to how you were when you were 20!
Age will lose all meaning!! WOW!!!
Posted by: Tejapratap Bollu | June 22, 2007 at 10:25 AM
"I mean who want's those extra 30 years? there will be drugs to keep you hard, but who will sleep with you? Life without sex it, well pointless."
If (only if) resveratrol works, the rest of the average user would be healthier than without it.
So during the rest of your life you might actually get more poontang with resveratrol than without it. :-)
And when you get too old and wrinkled, let's hope there will be spare bodies available and otherwise there will be probably be virtual reality...
Posted by: Jan | June 22, 2007 at 10:22 AM
Controlling our procreation is a very important problem.
If we don't, soon one or all of these things are going to kill most of us: global warmin, peak oil, exhaustion of our natural resources, pollution, food shortages...
Overpopulation is getting worse and worse. Stopping it could be immensely useful in saving the planet from all these problems. This planet cannot sustain an infinite number of people (whatever the Vatican may think).
There are many peaceful solutions, no use killing anyone.
Jan
Posted by: Jan | June 22, 2007 at 10:12 AM
I don't want to live forever, but I'd stop aging any time now, if I could.
-HAL
Posted by: HALiverpool | June 22, 2007 at 10:09 AM
No need to kill anyone.
In order to avoid a population explosion we just would have to reduce the rate at which people are breeding to what is necessary to replace accidental deaths.
Sure, there would be more old people than young people, but that doesn't have to be a problem as these old people would be in relatively good health and still able to lead active lives. If there are too few youngsters to keep the economy running, then the old wouldn't have any choice except returning to doing something productive (except from the very rich but that's nothing new).
The future looks bright, unless fundamentalist morons keep vetoing the very research that could save us from eternal nothingness.
I don't want to die. Ever. I do realise that currently our chances of dying are immensely greater that those of living extremely long. But that doesn't mean we can't try.
When you think about it, man's only serious problem is his mortality, all the rest is insignificant in comparison.
People who don't want to live forever is not a problem, they will die off.
"Physicians will remember me as having been at least in part, responsible for the revolution in medicine in which there is a great improvement to human health and in control of disease through the use of vitamin C and other vitamins. This will include my opponents, although the opponents may have died off by that time."
-- Linus Pualing in his last interview
Aubrey de Grey says it best: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39
(just noticed I'm not the only Jan around here. Hi Jan!)
Posted by: Jan | June 22, 2007 at 10:08 AM
What will all the people eat?
Soylent Green of course.
Posted by: barhu | June 22, 2007 at 10:07 AM
There you go again with those pesky disclaimers @ the end of your posts!
Posted by: AJ | June 22, 2007 at 10:05 AM
Scott, don't worry about being immortal as long as you continue drinking Diet Coke. It contains something called "aspartame", which strangers with no credibility have linked to everything from seizures to cancer (yes, in mice and rats too.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454639/
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/
Posted by: Yuriy | June 22, 2007 at 09:55 AM
I would be buying that (probably worthless) crap right now if I could afford it. Unfortunately, I'm not able to pay for immortality, which is a shame, because I live a very healthy lifestyle. Now I'm off to drown my sorrows in a tin of fudge-covered Oreos.
Posted by: synapticmisfires | June 22, 2007 at 09:52 AM
Um-- improving our quality of life, later in life, is not reaching for immortality. I'll be satisfied if I can read, and move around, and carry on a two sided conversation with other people when I'm an old fogy.
That said, prevention is the best medicine. I am a strong advocate of medical research if the goal is to improve our quality of life at all ages.
Posted by: Penethra | June 22, 2007 at 09:50 AM
I know how to get rid of all
the old people, or at least
the dumber ones who are a drag
on society.
Package an obscure slow-acting
cumulative poison in pill form
and set up web sites with
bogus "scientists" that tell
you it will actually extend
your life (ha!). Recommend
a dosage that'll kill them
on the day they qualify to
receive Social Security
benefits.
Posted by: Mark Thorson | June 22, 2007 at 09:36 AM
"mice and dogs who themselves have no credibility" ?
Scott, you are talking nonsense here. These mice and dogs have no reason to lie to us. They have all the credibility in the world. If they happen to live forever, that's the fact.
Posted by: canajian | June 22, 2007 at 09:25 AM
If they are at the peak of physical health, old folks can/should work.
Like Wolverine (of the X-Men.)
Alternatively, we can do what we've always done. We'll raise the minimum age for benefits until the systems reach actuarial solvency.
Of course, this screws over those folks that don't take life extension procedures or work in dangerous fields... (Mostly the poor and minorities... See http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus06.pdf#027 this shows that currently whites live 4 years longer than blacks... So whites currently enjoy disproportionately Social Security benefits. I fear that immortality would make this financial disparity humungous if the 4 year agerage expands to, say, 500 if whites disproportionately become immortal.)
Posted by: Stephen W. Stanton | June 22, 2007 at 09:06 AM
Simple economics will solve the problem.
If the stuff works, demand will skyrocket. Price will reach astronomical proportions such that only wealthy cartoonists, actors and sports figures can afford it, and the average old fart will die off anyway when social security can't cover the cost.
In the meantime, we'll be stuck with reruns of Rocky MCMXLVII, Alienses's - where Sigourney Weaver plays a robotic grandmother that goes back in time to save herself from taking longevity pills, and the All-star pro shuffleboard championship between 150 year old baseball players.
Posted by: Lego_90 | June 22, 2007 at 09:00 AM
"If there is no Creator, where did this fixation with immortality come from?" Like duh! Being alive is better than being dead. I urge anyone who thinks the Next Life will be better than this one to kill themselves now and get closer to God.
Seriously, we've been "on the edge of immortality" for 50 years now, but never got all the way there. In 1932, mean life expectancy at birth was 63 years. That's why retirement age was set at 65. And stupidly they didn't index it for age inflation. The whole reason social security is in trouble is that benefits ought to start at 80 this year!
Old age isn't one thing. It's a whole collection of things, from senescence of individual cells to buildup and eventual proliferation of pre-cancerous tumors, to brains that become increasingly difficult to reprogram (that is learn). The idea that there is "a" cure is laughable.
If we cure every ailment, then everyone will die in drunk driving accidents, be killed by jealous lovers, or be blown up by terrorists. (Imagine how scary terrorists are if you will otherwise live forever). Only God and the Flying Spaghetti Monster live forever.
Scott, have fun with the reservatrol. It just means you'll die of coronary artery disease instead of cancer (or is it vice versa). In the meantime, you're doing your part to help the economy, spending your earnings from Dilbert to buy some businessman a cadillac which he trades you for capsules full of baking soda. Now who's got pointy hair?
Posted by: functioning moral compass | June 22, 2007 at 08:59 AM
Last night I lay in bed thinking about one of your other blogs and suddenly many thoughts came together to form the following realization:
Humans make up explanations for things they don't understand.
I know this is quite obvious, but it was followed by wondering -- Why do we do that? Is there some evolutionary purpose? Did it help us survive somehow and will it lead to us conquering the universe?
Or does the "imagining" process help us on the road to finding real answers? Is the imagining part what makes us special from other animals???
Why can't we let go of some of our "imaginings" when we find the real answers? -- I already know the answer to that. People are stubborn. Resistant to change. Cows. You could start a club that asserts the world is flat and 100 years from now it would be as big as Scientology, if you did it right.
Anyway...You, Scott, were the first person I thought of to pose this question to.
Posted by: Christine Bayer | June 22, 2007 at 08:57 AM
That is a wonderful idea for a movie. Consider it stolen.
Posted by: Tyler | June 22, 2007 at 08:56 AM
this calls for more money for homeland security....
Posted by: Flabaya | June 22, 2007 at 08:56 AM
only u can write this!!!
hilarious!!! :)
Posted by: Anju | June 22, 2007 at 08:49 AM
If Hillary has her way, she will....nationalizing the health care system would do wonders for streamlining the euthanasia process.
Posted by: spike17 | June 22, 2007 at 08:49 AM
You're just saying that so you can be the only immortal hopping about, aren't you?
Posted by: LyonLee | June 22, 2007 at 08:46 AM
If this prediction of yours ever were to be true, that would mean 30 more agonizing years of Scott. 30 more years of suffering in a cubicle for Dilbert, not to mention poor Asok. I hope by that time the DNRC will be quite a large clan and evolve in intelligence to turn against its creator. I cant imagine the commotion when Dogbert orders his army of supergeeks to attack that small little house in California and steal all the Longevinex tablets for their ultimate evil plan.
BTW, I work in a cubicle and am one of your fans worthy of your pity.
Posted by: Sarge | June 22, 2007 at 08:46 AM
Bah *waves stick*
Posted by: elmindreda | June 22, 2007 at 08:44 AM
I will kill old people. Using my martial art skills. Hay-ya! Old pensioners at eight o'clock in the morning on the bus with nowhere to go, making it hard for other people to reach work. Hay-ya! Grannies at the bank at FIVE o'clock in the morning.
Feel the quickening!
I will live forever.
Or at least as long as there are old pensioners out there wondering aimlessly at the streets.
Hay - ya!
Posted by: Manos | June 22, 2007 at 08:38 AM