An exercise in futility?

This is a bit of a stretch in hypotheticals, but what the hell. Actually, I think there's a point in there somewhere, but it's not very important. Anyhow.

Scenario: in 50 years scientists discover a way to extend the average life span to 500 years. That is, barring the usual causes of death such as falling off a cliff or confusing a "High Voltage" sign for "Men's Room". And I'm not sure how they can know that it's 500 years, given that no one at this point has lived that long, but that little tid-bit is folded into the hypothetical nature of this exercise. So, people can live to be 500 years old, on average, if they go through some complicated procedure.

Of course, this will have an indescribable impact on our society. I can sit here all day imagining the effects of this miracle, but I just don't have that kind of time. So, I'm going to focus on a very specific example: prison sentences.

Imagine a murderer who is sentenced today to 200 years in prison. He killed four people from three separate families. In 50 years, the scientists make the discovery of (relative) longevity. Here's the tricky part: the man is in prison, still alive. If he can stay alive for 150 years, he'll be free! Do we allow him to go through the life-extending procedure? On what grounds can we keep it away from him? Is it because the judge decided that while the murderer deserves to die in prison, to illustrate the sever nature of the crime he specified an obscenely long prison term? Do the families of the victims have a say in this? Since the murderer is serving out a specific number of years, to punish him they might try to block the procedure. What if he was serving a life term? Do the families have a valid case, for the same reason of "I meant he should die in prison", to force the state's hand in performing the scientific procedure despite the man's wishes? What if some victims' families want vengeance and others have learned forgiveness? How about if there are no living family members? Does the state pursue the "meaning" of law and not the specific wording? In the same example as above, what happens if the sentence isn't 200 years but life? How about looking a bit further into the future: this breakthrough suggests that in future methods will be discovered to extend human life even further. Can the families of the victims legally keep a murderer alive for an infinite time? If today we can extend life span to 500 years, immortality is just around the corner.

This is the kind of thing I consider while doing laps in the pool. There's not much else to do and I've noticed that I actually swim faster if I can focus on something external, be it the book I'm reading, a specific problem at work or an all-too-strange idea I'm kicking around.

Oh, and, almost as an afterthought, here's the irrelevant point in all of this. Of course, the ultimate point is the intellectual exercise, but, as is often the case, I like to finish a blog entry by concluding that something about the world around us is just plain stupid.

It really puzzles when I hear a person being sentenced to 100 years in prison or four life sentences. What kind of logic went into that decision? If you're contemplating a prison sentence longer than 50 to 70 years (depending on the person), simply give them life. Similarly, why bother with multiple life sentences? Unless you believe in reincarnation and are willing to imprison the worm or the pig that the criminal has become, multiple life sentences are idiotic.


For those who actually see something interesting in this exercise, you can read up on the following subjects:

• The Singularity - the idea born out of science fiction, but now rearing its ugly or beautiful head into the world around us. The concept is that of exponentially accelerating technological innovations and the inconceivable future that follows.
• Doomsday Argument - a lovely concept I stumbled upon while researching a paper in college, the Doomsday Argument uses the population statistics to determine the likely life-span of humanity.
• Jonathan Pollard, link and link - this is a case of a spy who was sentenced to life for a crime that, in other cases, warranted a sentence of usually under 10 years. Take a look at the second link which compares sentences of US spies and whether the espionage was carried out for an Ally or an Enemy. Of the convicted spies only 3, other than Pollard, received life sentences, and each of them spied for an Enemy state, while Pollard was working with an American Ally.