Immortality will kill us if yon aliens don’t wipe us out first

Having served our sentence here, next time we get to live on a pleasant planet, where everyone is nice and well-mannered, a sort of global Morningside, but with no awful Waitrose or waxed jackets. But, if they crack immortality, we’ll be stuck here.

Did you ever think about that? (Readers’ chorus: “Naw! Better things tae dae.”) We’ll be bored right rigid tae, wearing T-shirts that say: “Been there. Done that. Twice.” However, the good news is that, in extending our lifespans, we’d cause our own extinction. Oh, the irony! You know that’s exactly the sort of cruelly clever stuff beloved of our Lord and Saviour.

Jeff Bezos

Stephen Cave, a philosopher at yon University of Cambridge, told the Times, an alleged newspaper, that a radically extended human lifespan would be “absolutely catastrophic” because it would put too much pressure on Earth’s rubbishy resources.

Dr Cave, co-author of a new book called Should You Choose to Live Forever?, questions whether we are “wise to wish for immortality”. Obliviously not.

The other problem he raises – and this is absolutely, rootin’-tootin’ typical – is that only the rich will be able to afford treatment for the prolonged lifespans, leading to a wealthy gerontocracy ruling the planet. Just as it does now. Pretty sure there’s a film and at least one Star Trek episode on this theme.

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Recently, claims have been made about anti-ageing cures being available in – all together now – 10 years’ time. This “10 years’ time” trope, trotted out for decades about all sorts of cures that never happen, is like a sparkly carrot dangled in front of our donkey-like noses.

I suspect we’ll keep shuffling off at a rate of knots for ages yet and, even if we don’t, evil aliens will exterminate us anyway. This week, it was reported that scientists have identified two possible exoplanets where extraterrestrials – aye, thaim – could have had a five billion year head-start on life on Earth.

Human evolution has largely been about how to kill other species and each other ever more efficiently, and there’s nothing to say aliens from yonder ooter space will be any different.

That said, with five billion years arguably being longer than 10 years, it’s likely they’ll have cracked immortality – and wiped themselves out in the process. Hooray!

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There’s a lot to think about here. But I wouldn’t waste your time on it. Life’s too short. Knowing my luck, anyway, I’d just have exited the community centre, joyfully kicking my heels in the air after receiving my immortality jag when I get run over by a steamroller, an injury from which, at the time of going to press, there is no known cure. Bound to be one in 10 years’ time, though.

Fingers out the till IT’S a fight till the death of the till at the nation’s leading centre of culture and philosophy: the supermarket.

In a desperate bid to defeat the despair gripping shoppers encouraged, if not actually forced, to use cold and censorious self-service checkouts, Tesco is testing “no-scan” cash registers that deploy sensors and cameras to calculate what’s in a shopping basket. In theory, punters won’t even have to take their stuff out, as the machine noses aboot in their shopping. Bit intrusive.

The news came as Markies chairman Archie Norman highlighted a growth in middle-class theft at self-service tills, with well-off shoppers walking out without paying for items that didn’t scan properly, which is roughly 92.78% of them.

He said: “With the reduction of service you get in a lot of shops, a lot of people think: ‘This didn’t scan properly, or it’s very difficult to scan these things through and I shop here all the time. It’s not my fault, I’m owed it.’”

Scandalous! Never mind security goons. Supermarkets need to start manning their doors with clergy.

Self-service tills (Image: unknown)

Meanwhile, one upmarket chain has delighted shoppers by ditching self-service tills altogether. Booths, “the northern [English] Waitrose”, said they were “slow, unreliable and impersonal”. Correct.

Another odd aspect of self-service tills is that the queues are often longer than at proper tills.

Obviously, some people prefer them and, for small shopping baskets, they should have the choice. Another reason to use them is that, reflecting the proportion in the wider population, about one in four till jockeys – admirable people on the whole and heroes of Covid – are psychopathically deranged.

In small supermarkets, such a person might be the only one on the proper tills, prompting shoppers to observe coldly: “Unexpected nutter in the bagging area.”

Five things we have learned this week:
 

Heavy metal hits ’em hard

Not content with terrorising seals for pleasure, Orcas are ramming boats. Mariners, however, have discovered a “game-changer” that keeps the beasts at bay: blasting heavy metal music at them. Harken as the oceans resound to selections from Cannibal Corpse, Life of Agony, Body Count, Napalm Death, and My Dying Bride.

Eating out
The Lord has blessed the Earth with a new virus: the MiniFlayer. It’s not aimed at humans but at other bugs, attaching an appendage to their necks and sucking out their insides. Like the Mind Flayer in US horror drama Stranger Things, it sooks oot victims’ brains. Isn’t nature wonderful?

Red headache
Whisky drinkers have always thought wine-drinking effete. Where’s the gullet-burn? The seared guts? Quite rightly, those who sup the red variety of vino suffer headaches afterwards. Scientists have isolated the chemical causing this: quercetin, the same flavonoid that supplies the health benefits. Verily, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh the pith.

Dither bother
Another group of people that the Lord punisheth are procrastinators, despite it being the decisive who cause most of the world’s problems. A survey found 82% of folk procrastinate, while other researchers discovered ditherers get more colds and headaches. It’s always the decent who suffer.

Jog off
Jogging can be an aphrodisiac, releasing endorphins that put the unwary in the mood for libidinous excess. Yet surely joggers’ appalling habiliments, and sweat, could dampen ardour? The good news is, a brisk walk also works, allowing people to dress properly and maintain proper hygiene standards before committing intercourse.

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