Johnny Forever May Be Out There Already.
The Stones had dinosaurs. The Fathers had quills. Neither had a shot at seventy. Neither could actually count on making it past our middle age, or thirty-some years.
Even if they dodged the gauntlet of childhood — a deadly phase that wiped out 40% or more of every generation before the age of 10 — their chances of reaching old age, our old age, say, seventy plus, weren’t great. In fact, sixty was rare. Seventy? Forget it. Practically a myth.
Fast-forward a few centuries to us. We’re far removed from the Flintstones and only a couple of hundred years away from the Founding Fathers — yet we live roughly twice as long, with years to spare.
And that’s thanks to science. And, science, btw, may any minute now announce that somewhere out there, the first eternal human is already live and kicking.
Big feast. Bigger problems. Don’t grab your fork just yet.
A Pseudo-Scientific Mathematical Conspiracy Theory
Johnny Forever was born last Wednesday, right around noon. His official life expectancy? Seventy-some years — a full forty more than his lost genetic cousin born July 4th, 1776.
That is — if Cousin 1776 survived the first brutal gauntlet:
an unvaccinated infancy that wiped out nearly half his generation.
Yoo-hoo!
Now, FYI — just one hour after Johnny blinked at the sun for the first time, a lab nerd (you know, bottle-bottom glasses, lives at the lab, checks home twice a month) had a breakthrough. Boom: a breakthrough that slaps another 25 years onto the human clock.
So, buckle up, because Johnny’s barely a week old and he’s already eyeing his 105th birthday.
But, wait a sec! How many more nerds are out there? Hundreds? Thousands? All sprinting to beat each other to the next big breakthrough, each one ready to slap another twenty-five years onto Johnny’s clock.
Wondering when’s that going to happen? For sure, sooner than you think. One lab month today outruns a hundred Flintstone centuries of rocks, grunts, and cave doodles.
Johnny Is Getting Old — Or Is He?
Soon, the meaning of old will depend entirely on how fast the bottle-bottom-glasses nerds keep grinding.
By the time Johnny hits his prime reproductive years, those guys, the lab nerds may have rubbed the genius lamp a few more times — and Johnny will be staring down his 250th birthday… just 230 years away.
It looks like a scientific triumph. Maybe the greatest ever.
But this coin has a Stephen King–dark half — and Johnny’s not flipping it alone.
There are a lot of Johnnies out there. More born every day.
And each one arrives preloaded with 200, maybe 500 years of needs, wants, and demands.
And I haven’t even mentioned what the politicians would try to do — and undo — with such a massive, fertile ground to subjugate and exploit. Because let me tell you: eternity makes communism look like a minor tax dispute.
Representative Freddy Krueger vs Eternity.
Freddy Krueger will host his own Tonite's Anti-Woke Panic Show to please his master Lord Power. Johnny Forever may get top billing, but Freddy’s the real superstar. That’s for sure. Just your typical political party turned full-blown circus.
But Freddy’s happiness won’t last. Not for long. Because soon enough, there’ll be too many Johnnies out there — and Freddy will be forced to stop pretending and actually do some real work for a change.
Because Johnny Forever guarantees that Freddy’s district will sprout under-the-bridge favelas faster than campaign posters in election season. And of course, the Johnnies crowding those favelas won’t stay quiet. They’ll demand schools. Hospitals. Police. And food. Think, Freddy’s weekly press briefings will echo under the I-95 overpass, flanked by lifelong voters who've survived five impeachments and still haven’t seen a working hospital.
I don't know anyone who would bet for a favela under I95-N or the Turnpike, but the schools, hospitals, and police issues are already there...without the favelas.
Thus, a few Johnnies certainly represent major headaches.
The Present Does Not Foretell a Quiet Transition to Eternity.
Let’s say it happens — I mean, science breaks through. Johnny Forever turns into Johnny x 10,000. Cities swell. Fields vanish. Land becomes the new oil. And, then, panic.
No one dies! Does someone have to stop being born? First, we will learn about reproduction guidelines. Then fertility credits. Then an algorithm deciding who gets to reproduce.
In AmeriKa and France, they’ll dress it up in progressive language: planetary responsibility, bio-stewardship, demographic sustainability. In Zambia or the Congo? It’ll be called something else. Or nothing at all. Just another layer of quiet control.
And as the world shifts — demographically, economically, genetically — will white-majority countries welcome a tidal wave of immortal migrants from the very nations they’ve long ignored, exploited, and written off? Or will Power — the kind that wears suits in D.C. and lab coats in Zurich — decide that some bloodlines just aren’t meant for eternity? Will immortality be rationed, like a designer drug — available only to the deserving, the superior, the already-entitled?
Will forever look like a melting pot or a pressure cooker?
Eternal life isn’t just science. It’s a political bomb — ticking louder than anyone dares admit.