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I read the scifi book Dancing With Eternity years ago, and while it wasn't terribly good there was one element of the story that really stuck with me. The prem

I read the scifi book Dancing With Eternity years ago, and while it wasn't terribly good there was one element of the story that really stuck with me. The premise is a future where humanity has solved death via transferring consciousness between bodies. As you approach old age, you'd have a new body grown for you, but the process is quite expensive. The relevant bit is this society has organized itself by having people alternate between a life of corporate drudgery, as a cog in the soulless machine, and a life of being a real human. You'd sell your soul for a lifetime of corporate bureaucracy until your body expires in exchange for joy filled freedom in the next lifetime. This is the deal you make to earn your keep and pay for the rebirth process.

denkmoon 5y ago
A 50/50 split between life and death/corporate drudgery would be a godsend.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  We're certainly making progress towards that goal. Used be that people worked until they died. We chose to believe in silly fantasies like heaven as motivation to keep working, because eternal paradise would come after death. Then we started creating schemes like social security, but those were planned such that the age you could start collecting was within a few years of the average age of death. You'd still work most of your life and then maybe have a few years of feeble freedom. Now life expectancies have increased and people are even retiring earlier because we have secure ways to save and invest that plebs in our past never had. But most people still have to backload their freedom after they've lost most of the vitality of their youth. One interesting question in my mind, is whether there is a causation between the belief in the afterlife and the amount of retirement people take in this life. Is the freedom to experience more years free from drudgery causing a decline in the need to believe in heaven, or is the decline in the belief in heaven causing people to check out of drudgery while they can and enjoy at least part of the only life we know we get to experience?
  - burntoutfire 5y ago
    Also, people are joining workforce many years later than they did even 200 years before. So, effectively, people used to work from when they were 10-15 till they died, and now they work 22-65, if that. Effectively we already have an almost 50/50 split between working and non-working years.
    - anonporridge 5y ago
      Kind of. The youth of a lot of people is also a grind of schooling to prepare for a career working. Youth are better off than in the past, but if you're stressing full time studying, that's basically the same thing as working.

denkmoon 5y ago

A 50/50 split between life and death/corporate drudgery would be a godsend.

anonporridge 5y ago
We're certainly making progress towards that goal. Used be that people worked until they died. We chose to believe in silly fantasies like heaven as motivation to keep working, because eternal paradise would come after death. Then we started creating schemes like social security, but those were planned such that the age you could start collecting was within a few years of the average age of death. You'd still work most of your life and then maybe have a few years of feeble freedom. Now life expectancies have increased and people are even retiring earlier because we have secure ways to save and invest that plebs in our past never had. But most people still have to backload their freedom after they've lost most of the vitality of their youth. One interesting question in my mind, is whether there is a causation between the belief in the afterlife and the amount of retirement people take in this life. Is the freedom to experience more years free from drudgery causing a decline in the need to believe in heaven, or is the decline in the belief in heaven causing people to check out of drudgery while they can and enjoy at least part of the only life we know we get to experience?
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  Also, people are joining workforce many years later than they did even 200 years before. So, effectively, people used to work from when they were 10-15 till they died, and now they work 22-65, if that. Effectively we already have an almost 50/50 split between working and non-working years.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    Kind of. The youth of a lot of people is also a grind of schooling to prepare for a career working. Youth are better off than in the past, but if you're stressing full time studying, that's basically the same thing as working.