Not only that, but the "cure for dying" will surely be priced such that only the already-wealthy elite of that generation will be able to afford it. It's not going to just be handed out to everyone.
Even if you argue that this would go against the interests of the highest class, what could they do? Technology is pretty unstoppable, and individual actors are usually pretty bad at conspiring together unless there's something in it for everyone involved. Not to mention that there's not even a way to define what specific dollar amount moves you from "wealthy commoner" to the "wealthy elite", especially if taking into account different countries.
Odds are we're talking about a suite of many procedures, some of which are intrinsically very expensive and that humanity doesn't have the resources to provide to everyone. But if it's really cheap...
> The providers will surely want to sell it to the maximum number of customers in all countries.
The maximum profit point isn't likely to be just above that really cheap price. People would be willing to give a significant fraction of their wealth for a magic bullet life extension, and most of the world's population has no wealth. Providers' ability to perform price discrimination isn't going to be perfect.
If it's anything like medical procedures that exist today, it sounds like at least in the US it will be impossible to afford without insurance, and therefore employment. "You can live forever, as long as you work forever" is exactly the amount of depressing I'd expect from real life.
https://www.amazon.com/Buying-Time-Joe-Haldeman/dp/038070439...
There was a followup comic book series, which was decent.
That book popped into my mind; it took two tries to find it with Copilot and I was pleasantly reminded of who the author was.
>particularly the ones where he sets out to kill a Heinlein book
Interesting statement, I'm grabbing those books now.
Recurring revenue is best revenue. Customer's LTV would be only limited by astronomical circumstances like the Sun turning into a red giant.
It will be an spectacle: the true test of how useful wealth is against the Universe, compared to other things like knowledge or wisdom.
This is casting categories of people in very rigid and binary terms. Wisdom and knowledge is not more prevalent amongst the non-elite is it? Isn’t it distributed more evenly?
Iain M. Banks probably said it best. "I mean, your society's broken, so who should we blame?"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/15/iain-banks-the...