Immortality shows up a lot in science fiction and fantasy. It's a popular topic on [industry blogs](https://www.tor.com/2008/08/14/on-immortality/), and was a core theme of the first science fiction novel ever written, Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_. Characters that can (theoretically) live forever and have thus experienced aeons of hsitory abound in fiction, from the vampires that litter paranormal romance to Rick Riordan's Greek gods. Some Science Fiction -- like Heinlein's _Time Enough for Love_ -- chalks longevity up to some combination of "good genes" and "science that needs maintenance." Modesitt's _Forever Hero_ leans more toward the former situation, while stuff like _Altered Carbon_ makes it clear that science (and therefore money) is required. The quest for immortality has fascinated authors and alchemists for centuries, and I'm not really any different: I've written about a character offered the chance to live forever before. %% [[2021-08-18 The Offer (FF)]] %% Scientists like ==who?== think that it's just a matter of time before we conquer aging. People like Scott Alexander think this is probably good; people who have read a bunch of dystopian novels generally think this is bad. One thing I _haven't_ seen many people discuss, though, is immortal _animals._ Scientists study animals like axototls and other animals whose genes might help us "unlock the secrets of immortality," but I haven't seen much discussion about the impact of immortality (or infinite regeneration, or anti-aging capabilities) on real world ecosystems. Surzi is a thought experiment in that direction. This particular story is a microcosm of my feelings about the phrase "we have to try." Taken in isolation, this story could be considered inspiring; a tale of human grit and determination. There are all kinds of studies out there about the value of a growth mindset and how the best thing you can do is not give up. The cultural pressure to "just keep going, you'll get there eventually" really gets to me, honestly. Last month, I set myself the goal of writing 50,000 words. I did not meet that goal, and I genuinely believe that I made the right choice by "quitting" when I did. I was starting to burn out, writing was making me actively unhappy, I was staring at a blank screen for a long time, unable to write, unable to let myself do anything else that would have been productive and made me happy. But that's a low stakes thing. What about high stakes things, like, say, eliminating illness? My mind always goes back to the example of antibiotic resistance. To how trying excessively hard to keep kids from getting sick or dirty can lead to weakened immune systems later in life. Specifically, how taking too many antibiotics can lead to antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria that we have _no_ defenses against — potentially leaving us worse off than we started. "We had to try!" is not always true. Sometimes, not trying is the right choice. It's a hard choice, because it's easy to convince ourselves that if we don't do it, someone else will. Genetic engineering is one example, putting machine learning algorithms in charge of almost literally anything is another. There are huge potential payoffs, and those payoffs are tempting. The people who live adjacent to Surzi's territory stand to gain a lot if Surzi is destroyed or removed. They don't see any significant downsides, and they probably grew up on the same Achilles-esque narratives where all the people who turn aside from potential greatness don't get lauded by the stories we tell, and neither do the people who fail. It's a particularly persnickety form of survivorship bias, and one that frustrates me immensely, because sometimes the only way to win is to choose not to play. But those situations rarely make for compelling storytelling; we get warnings and we get wins but we don't get a lot of "I was warned not to do this, so I didn't, and that was probably the right choice" examples. They're anticlimactic or something. Over here in real life, though, I can't stop thinking of that Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."