Would you do it?

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If someone offered you immortality in exchange for your singularity, your uniqueness, your autonomy would you comply? If a society offered you complete security, a base income for life, a world where your children would grow up safe – genetically engineered to adapt to even the most harmful effects of the coming climate change would you do it? If you could right now allow your mind and body to be altered by invasive technologies: nano-engineered systems, hybrid pharmaceuticals, and transformative prosthesis if you would only accept this brave new world giving up your freedom for peace and happiness: would you do it? Or, on the other hand, would you refuse, would you remain unique, uncertain, unpredictable, incalculable, unrepresentable, untranslatable and unproductive – singular?

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16 thoughts on “Would you do it?”

    • I laughed reading this thinking of Star Trek’s Borgs saying: “Resistance is futile!” Of course that’s the bad side of the future… there has to be an alternative to this, but listening to people wanting basic income for life… made me think of how easily people might be led into accepting such a dystopic narrative of politics giving up their freedoms and identities for creaturely comfort. Sadly, most would probably do just that if it were packaged differently… with incentives, and luxury homes, etc. In our democratic materialist world people of a certain type would definitely compromise their lives and freedoms for security, comfort, and health.

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      • I just laughed reading that…😂Star trek …. I never put two and two. Your right a lot of people if given the easy way out, would take it. But what’s that saying… nothing truly worth it in life, comes easily

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      • That’s true, but some people don’t want challenges, they want fun and play, health and happiness even if it is fake… it’s like Sloterdijiks’s notions of modern cynicism:

        “I know very well that I’m a slave, but I’m happy. So who gives a shit?”

        It’s like the character in the Matrix film who betrays them for a return to the fake world of the virtual system where being fake is bliss, while reality is too painful for his taste.

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      • Here’s my undying curiousity: why? Is it something society has conditioned us to feel, or is it inevitable that humanity has come to this?

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      • I think its both: we’re susceptible to manipulation, and we are being manipulated. One only needs to read Chomsky for a while to see how many decades he’s been harping on how corporate (info-mediatainment) and government controls, manipulates, and propagandizes us through both literal, symbolic-semiotic, and coercive and non-coercive forms.

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  2. No, I wouldn’t do it. I have stared into the void, and when it stared back I told it to go (insert choice expletive here) itself, and that I will be there when my time is up.

    Until then, I’m going to relish in the gift of humanity that I’ve been given. I’m going to celebrate the incredible odds I beat in order to exist … and the even more incredible odds that my life has been a mostly good one.

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  3. It’s not fair throwing that last question about taking instead being unique, unpredictable, singular, and basically a lot of fun. Without this last question I would actually be tempted by the boredom of immortality.

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  6. It depends. One offering immortality implies the power to bestow it, and that I am mortal. That’s an upgrade. In exchange for what? Politically correct thought? Sure I might go for it. As long as it’s a friendly takeover and they have a good unifying theme song like Coca Cola “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” or Scientology “We Stand Tall.”

    If it’s a God Father offer I CANT REFUSE threat of violence that’s additional incentive. I think I admire individuals that speak or act out against powers that be in such circumstances however I’m not sure of their motivations.

    Why choose a violent death? Is it for selfless or selfish reasons (future rewards)? Millennialist Christians are megalomaniacs, and Jihadists want to get laid. By the third Matrix movie, I was rooting for the machine.

    Perhaps one can influence the Borg or America by becoming an inside member first. Like Saul Alinsky, the “Rules for Radicals” mentor to the Clintons advises.

    And then one must consider living off the grid if one chooses the rebellious non-conformist path. Like how is one going to buy basic necessities? Like Beavis (of Butt Head fame) said: “I need TP for my bung-hole.”

    Rev 13:16-17

    “And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:”

    “And that no man might buy or sell, except he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

    If the Matrix world is real, it is feeding us the Matrix movies, satisfying cathartic needs st home, on demand.

    There’s no place to run and hide on a round prison planet. Stay on the grid. Outside there are mosquitos and snakes, and alligators. And no plumbing.

    And again more importantly, no internet.

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