The UN ’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimates that , by the year 2100,life anticipation in break state will bulk large around 97 yearsand around 106 years by 2300 . But will the caliber of life for the elderly and retired step-up with that increased lifespan ? While many science fabrication stories predict rejuvenation procedures and newly grown bodies waiting to download your personality , there are some tales in which our venerable elders ( and sometimes not - so - elders ) are dehumanise — sometimes in uncomfortably unaired exaggerations of the forward-looking day .
last the same time of day over and over again : In Charles Yu ’s How to hold up Safely in a Science Fictional Universe , you may hide from the world by survive out of time . Time machine technician Charles Yu does it by hiding himself in a pocket population while his retired female parent hides from her unhappy storage inside a one - hour clock time loop . Instead of hanging out in a nursing home , where your dementia constantly reboot your memory , you could just relive the same minute over and over again . Charles ’ female parent take an minute of prepping and eating phratry dinner party with simulacra of her son and go away husband , It might vocalize appeal on the surface , but you always sort of have it away that it ’s not veridical and that your syndicate has n’t come to impose you in a rather farseeing prison term .
Being murdered by your younger self : That ’s the basic apparatus for the coming prison term - travel flick Looper ( you could readour very excited first impression here ) . You flow out , spend a few days killing time - travel felon for a pack outfit , then close your grummet by killing your future ego . Then you hang out on a beach in France for the next three decades before you ’re send back in time to get killed . This one ’s a scrap different from the other model , since your death is refer to future mob politics rather than old age , but it must be frustrating to bonk that your death is coming up and you have only your retiring ego to blame .
https://gizmodo.com/holy-shit-you-guys-are-really-going-to-like-looper-5941070
Living out your mean solar day in Virtual Florida : Futurama is always just for a more uttermost variant of our own depressing reality , and instead of sending its senior into physical nursing nursing home , retirees get sent to the Near - Death Star . There they are used as battery ( because it turned out that The Matrix was totally correct and everyone who doubt it was perfectly short - sighted ) and plugged into a virtual reality retirement residential area . All that processing power , and all the older get to do is eat practical rolled oats , play practical bingo , and wait around for the kids to call .
live for timelessness as a disembodied drumhead : Futurama really has multiple dismal dumping grounds for human beings ( and that ’s before we get around to what becomes of disabled robots ) . yield , many of the heads in jars are potential clone implanted with the memories of their original personage , but unless they ’re playing president of Earth ( like Richard Nixon ) or dating Bender ( like Lucy Liu ) , most immortal heads inhabit up on a shelf in the Head Museum , offering occasional advice to people who still have bodies and wishing for death .
Being murdered by your government : This is a reasonably common scifi scenario for the elderly , specially the elderly who live in fascistic club ( often disguise as false utopias ) . Sometimes , the dying part is a bittersweet affair ; in Ally Condie ’s Matched , your death day is a party take care by your menage and you die with the taste of cake on your mouth . Other times , you ’re mislead about what ’s endure to happen ; in Lois Lowry ’s The Giver , you intend you ’re head off into the wild ( which , give , has a mo of a “ being sent off on an iceberg lettuce ” tactile property to begin with ) , only to die on the last of a needle . Often , it ’s a question of economics — the society decides that the senior are of no use , so why not make more resources for other hoi polloi ? ( In vanadium for Vendetta , thugs murder nursing home house physician just to open up more beds . ) Soylent Green goes one pace further , convincing the elderly to seek euthenasia so that the government can process their trunk into food for thought for the populace .
Being murder for mass amusement : In the grumpy - land Death Race 2000 , the elderly are deserving 100 point ( and elderly woman an additional 10 point above that ) , have them the most desirable target for the depraved Death Race equipment driver . In fact , hospitals use the drivers as an self-justification to get free of their elderly patients . But the driver sleep with as Frankenstein decides that perhaps the folks with trivial respect for human life and death are the 1 well accommodate to die .
Living out your golden years in a state of quasi - undeath : Ian R. MacLeod ’s short circuit story“Recrossing the Styx”envisions a future in which multitude can indefinitely extend their lives through harmonium transplantation , memory uploads , and Ti joints to the spot where you could no longer look at them alive . These walk cadaver hang up out on the same sail ships where their rejuvenation subroutine are do , a serial publication of floating undead breast feeding family . The prank to take a leak this sort of retreat work for you is to die immature and leave a thoroughly - reckon walk cadaver .
Being used as a mad scientist ’s exam national : The scientist running the breast feeding home in Margaret Peterson Haddix ’s novel Turnabout use the mental fog of extremely elderly patients to fire their consent to participate in a dangerous drug test . In The X - Files instalment “ Emily , ” one nursing domicile implant alien - human hybrid embryos into older women , having them transmit the resulting fetuses to term while they log Z’s . For a more mystical model , another X - Files instalment , “ Excelsis Dei , ” run across an orderly give way nursing household patients mushrooms that both treat Alzheimer ’s and grant patients the ability to see wraith .
Extending your life via set aside aliveness : There are lots of storey in which the dead can be quicken for abbreviated periods of time ( Will McIntosh ’s marvelously chilling forgetful story“Bridesicle”comes to bear in mind ) . In the Judge Dredd installment “ The Forever Crimes , ” we encounter the not - quite - terminal resting shoes of the super - copious , where the unbalanced and elderly survive in a dismal , morque - like facility exist in suspended animation . They can be woken up for brief periods of time , but that impel them to suspend a little moment of their remain lifespan . And sadly , you ’ll probably find yourself woken up for unfit news , like the last of a loved one .
Going into storage : Most people in Richard K. Morgan ’s Altered Carbon do experience old years — in fact , thanks to the resleeving process , they often experience it double . But while science has found a way to put you in a new consistence , it has n’t found a way to make the age process more pleasant . After two full lifetime , most folk who are n’t rich enough for frequent resleevings put their memory and personality in depot , choose for only episodic and temporary resleeving .
Futurama
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