"'That was just before the antithanatic came along. But of course everybody knew it'd soon be in production. Nobody who was alive would have to grow old.'" (XV, p. 110)
Really? Would the economic and political powers on Earth allow such a major change overnight? They would want to suppress knowledge of the antithanatic and/or to impose major restrictions on its use. Many good reasons would be found why the antithanatic should not be distributed or should only be introduced very gradually. John Wyndham's novel, Trouble With Lichen, is about opposition to longevity.
Any innovation that overturns the status quo is bound to be opposed by the controllers of the status quo. Nothing would be more socially disruptive than sudden access to indefinitely prolonged lifespans for the entire global population. Maybe Anderson could have written a prequel about the introduction of the antithanatic?
(The Time Patrol series could have a novel about the consequences of the invention of time travel and the activities of the Nine "before" the intervention of the Danellians.)
8 comments:
I do see worries expressed about fertility rates well below 2 children per woman causing population decline.
Anyone who thinks that is a bad thing should welcome the antithanatic.
The novel about the activities of the 'Nine' would be hard to make comprhensible.
Imaging a novel set in the 21st century being read by a contemporary of Julius Caesar.
Kaor, Jim!
Actually, I suspect anything like the antithanatic of WORLD WITHOUT STARS is more likely than not to discourage people from having children.
We should not be blase about the demographic catastrophe China, Taiwan, S Korea, and Japan are likely to fake in a decade. A disastrous population collapse on the scale Stirling expects, besides the tragedy involved, will almost certainly bring unprecedented chaos and upheavals, esp. in China. That might tempt the ruthless and brutal Maoist regime in Peking into dangerous adventurism.
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: I don't think it would be possible to suppress the information -- not with normal factionalism. Only a very tightly controlled totalitarian government could do that, and there's no indication of that.
Sean: but if people didn't -age-, the reproductive system would be very, very different.
People would still die, eventually... but the number of children needed to make up for that would be much smaller.
And people could have one child every century or two or three. As long as women had 2 children before they died, population would be maintained.
And if you lived thousands of years, the amount of time necessary to rear 2 children would be trivial, rather than a big chunk of a lifespan.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
You made good points, so much so that I have to think it's more likely than not we could adapt to drastically longer lifespans, if that became a reality.
But I still think the points I made about China to be realistic.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: oh, about China, very much so.
Xi's government has shown some signs of knowing what's going on demographically.
For example, they're wiping out the Uyghurs by drastically suppressing their birth-rate, to a level wall below a TFR of 1 -- lower even than the Han.
So the total population will shrink, but the Uyghurs will shrink even faster -- given the parallel encouragement of intermarriage (by separating nubile women and scattering them through Han-populated areas) still faster than that.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I'm not in the least surprised, esp. when you recall how the Peking regime has also been forcibly "harvesting" transplantable organs from the luckless Uyghurs! What nasty, vile, disgusting creatures these Maoists are.
Ad astra! Sean
The Uyghurs are getting disarmed disheartened & delivered.
I wonder if some high level members of the CPC read Larry Niven's organ bank problem stories, and saw them as an instruction manual rather than a cautionary tale.
Kaor, Jim!
An all too grimly apt pun or play on words! And it's mot impossible some Maoist goon read Niven's stories about those organ banks and was inspired by it. I.e., "Say, we can get some use out of those bothersome Uyghurs, Tibetans, Christians, and Falun Gong by harvesting organs from them!"
Ad astra! Sean
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