Living forever, and other sci-fi fun.

Among military personnel, it's relatively well known that, "The last fighter pilot has already been born." The idea is that the technology of flight and war have advanced to such a point that soon the human element will be null and void: robots will be able to do everything people can do, but better.

Obvious next step: robots with boobs.

Potentially, this could mean a great big exodus from the field of battle to the homeland - hell, we could be fighting wars from our sofas. Which is a touch scary, in my personal opinion, though perhaps not as scary as the loss of human lives whenever a jet's blasted out of the sky.

Future Warlord.

Now there's a new, somewhat similar maxim: "The first person to live forever has already been born."

An eternity of lipstick-sporting goths awaits us.

The basic idea is this: if the people currently alive on the planet can manage to survive 20 to 30 years longer, a new drug that lengthens telomeres will be perfected for people. Telomeres are the tandem, repeating chains of DNA at the end of each and every strand you possess. As you get older, and your cells replicate over and over again, those repeats lose parts and get shorter. Shortened telomeres mean less protected genetic information, and that could contribute to any number of aging issues.

Not how DNA actually looks.

This telomere shortening limits the number of times the cell can potentially divide - that potential is, of course, highest at birth. This new drug would make the number of times a cell could divide infinite, extending your lifespan to about 125 actually enjoyable years. Give it a few more years, during which you're livin' the 125-year high life - imagine a world where spine injuries are no big deal,  eyeballs can telescope to see crazy distances, and strokes are a thing of the past thanks to a freaking vacuum - and medical technology will have advanced far enough to render your fragile mortal cells pretty much invincible. And anyone with these wonderful immortal cells...

Immortal. But not this kind of immortal.

I personally find the whole prospect very exciting. I would love to freaking live forever - so many practical applications. So many chances to do all the things you want to do and don't have time for!

All while looking presumably better than this guy.

Of course, there's the haters. "All the people you know and love will die around you." That's assuming you're the only one who's living forever. "You'll run out of money." Sure, if you stop working and become a lazy bum. But if you're working that long, you'll be foremost in your field - presumably - or you could find another career that's cool and new and exciting. "It'll be boring as hell after such a long time." HELLZ NO. Do you know how many amazing freaking sweet things there are to do on this planet?? I mean, there's so much to learn and understand and delve into.

Like watching all seven seasons of Buffy.

And if you live long enough, maybe you won't have to stop at Earth. Final frontier, and all that.
If you think about it, life will be insanely fun in a few years. I mean, if they can deep-fry shit without oil these days, they can do freaking anything.

Sweet, sweet non-fat magic.

Besides which, it's not like you have to live forever. You can skip the telomere drugs, if you want. Or you can start them up and stop them later. I think suicide clubs would become popular. And people would stop treating death with so much goddamn worshipful terror. Call me morbid, I guess, but the whole thing would do wonders for Western death-fixation - any society that condones open casket funerals is pretty sick and needs a new perspective like ASAP.

Cause we need more fucked up shit.

Obviously, there's the flip-side: overpopulation crazy-go-nuts, moral/ethical issues all over the place, an aging population, physical evolution at a standstill for the human race, shit like that. Regardless. It's thrilling. I think I'm going to try my most earnest best to stick around long enough to see what happens. If I'm anything, it's curious.