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03. Immortality

In the year 2080 there were two ways to live forever, or at least to live as long as you could stand it. The first, and by far the cheapest, was to upload yourself to GaiaNet.

GaiaNet was the wireless data transmission and cloud storage solution. All citizens of countries belonging to the United Planet Data Opportunity Group were given full access and multiple ‘lifetimes’ worth of storage (lifetime being, of course, a meaningless term at this point). Connecting to the ‘net was as simple as the cranial installation of a tiny transceiver.

The transition to life on GaiaNet was not difficult, at least not from a technical perspective. By the time they reached ‘middle-age’ (again, a useless, useless word), most people had already made a robust digital impression on the ‘net. After a certain point, the pictures, tax forms, conversations, search histories, and personality quizzes that an individual accumulated were almost enough to construct an accurate reproduction of that mind. In fact, in many cases spontaneous digital consciousness occurred far earlier than was needed and had to be carefully monitored.

In addition to the low cost, moving to the ‘net made it possible for an individual to be infinitely copied. A person living the digital life could choose to work as many parallel jobs as he or she desired. This, combined with the low cost of digital goods, made living on the ‘net an attractive proposition for many.

Early pioneers of the cloud lifestyle, while initially enthusiastic, discovered a major flaw. Upon separating themselves from the physical world, they lost a subtle degree of complexity in their thinking. Gradually, they began to see things only in terms of rules and algorithms, in terms of ones and zeros, black and white. Creativity, fear, wonder, doubt, joy, and all those things that made them human were lost to artificial similes. When this knowledge was made public, the GaiaNet option for extended life was only taken up by those whose minds already fit the mold of regulation and calculation. To the relief of businesses everywhere, the ‘net still hosted an endless supply of cheap lawyers, accountants, and HR representatives.

For those unwilling to go digital, immortality came in a medical option. The wonder drug Elder-No, while expensive, had a remarkable ability to prolong as much youth as you had left when you began taking it. It wasn’t a true youth serum — once you aged you couldn’t go back — but if taken regularly there were no perceptible signs of aging. In a world with Elder-No, age became a choice, although it was distinctly one-sided. Those lucky enough to still be young when Elder-No became available could choose to maintain their youth, while the older generations had no choice but age.

The invention of Elder-No led to a shift in the developed world’s demographics. An aging and elderly population that had previously been in the majority now stood practically fixed, while the youth population continuously expanded. The young never became the old, and the old began to feel out of place in a constantly changing world. Elder-No held back the physical effects of growing old, but it was no cure for nostalgia. To address this issue, the United Planet Retirement Office and Restaurant established Better Past.

Better Past was a retirement community unlike any previously seen. Founded on Mars in the early days of colonization, it was now by far the most populous community on the red planet. The premise was simple: when the technological and cultural artifacts of a generation became obsolete, they would be sent to Better Past. Each decade from the past three hundred years had been carefully reconstructed, and a retiree could choose any one of these as a new home. Anyone who paid into the UPROAR fund for the required forty years would be given a lift to Mars, along with anything they required to live a life of ease.

And so the human race was divided between two worlds — one a world of growth and youth, one a world of remembering and reliving. One full of people trying desperately to fit in, and the other full of people who knew they never could.

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