‘What makes everything meaningful, if you’re always going to live on?’
On this week’s LIVE episode of The Editors, Jim ponders what the implications would be if AI created a “post-death” world.
“When someone dies, we don’t tell them ‘Labor in peace’ — we say ‘Rest in peace.’ We see it as a rest. We see it as an earned end to all the trials and tribulations and ups and downs in life.”
“Death is always painful. You always miss the person, but it can be a relief. It can be a sense that that person is now no longer suffering. And so, in that sense, why would you want to get rid of death? Why would you want to get rid of something that is the central concept of our existence?”
“If you live forever, what makes everything meaningful if you’re always going to live on? Let’s say you’re going to live forever, but the people around you aren’t, and you spend the rest of your life watching other people die — that literally might be worse than death.”
The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.