Apparently a lot of people. The search for immortality has been around longer than most of us have been alive. Last year, National Geographic published an article about living to be 120 years old. My first reaction was: Who the fuck would want to live to be 120 years old? The guy behind me in the line at the grocery store agreed, which is as scientific a poll as I need to know this is the talk of nutters.

How many years would someone have to work to support that long of a life? Most people are already bored with their jobs. If we had to work twenty or even thirty more years inside cubicles, we might all commit suicide. Which would kind of defeat having the ability to live to 120.

The fact that I think like this shows I am already too old for this society. I sound like a grumpy old man. And I am only in my early forties. Imagine how pissy I’d be 80 years from now.

If I could be 20 years old for 100 years, I might think differently about this.

Russian millionaire Dmitry Itskov does think differently about this. He wants to upload his brain to a computer so his consciousness will be immortal. As sci-fi as this sounds, we’re moving in that direction.

This poses some interesting questions and gives a whole new meaning to living in the clouds, as I assume one’s consciousness would be backed up on a cloud somewhere and possibly duplicated (will that make me bipolar?).

Do I have to be tech-savvy to be able to do this? If I am not tech-savvy (as I said, I am in my forties and I don’t understand why tumblr and flickr refuse to use the letter e and often ask if I need to show real enthusiasm every time I say Yahoo!), will I experience my own hell, a never ending Code 404 Error or a spinning beach ball for eternity?

And would we all get the same speed for our uploaded brains? Or would some people still have dial-up? And would those of us on fiber optics be allowed to make fun of them for being slow, or would that be politically incorrect?

It’s not likely I’ll be uploading my consciousness. But if I do, I sure hope my brain gets a million Likes.