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That brings to mind a short story where only those under a certain age were allowed to vote or hold political offices or command position, while the clinically
by logfromblammo 9y ago
That brings to mind a short story where only those under a certain age were allowed to vote or hold political offices or command position, while the clinically immortal elders were still allowed to have advisor and observer roles. It might have been the one with the baby-eaters, but I can't recall now. It also brings to mind the Futurama where Prof. Farnsworth ages out and is forced to move to the retirement planet.
Even our ancestors feared rule by the dead, which is where the rule against perpetuities comes from.
- icebraining 9y agoJonathan Swift wrote masterfully about that in Gulliver's Travels (1726), which is one of best SF works ever written, in my opinion. He describes a nation in which some people are born immortal (called the struldbrug): As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their estates; only a small pittance is reserved for their support; and the poor ones are maintained at the public charge. After that period, they are held incapable of any employment of trust or profit; they cannot purchase lands, or take leases; neither are they allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal, not even for the decision of meers (metes) and bounds.