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178 Drake proposed that the number of immortal civilizations would be far greater than the population of all detectable mortal civilizations. As immortals are likely to dominate space, we should concentrate our search on their signals.” Drake returned to this theme in his autobiographical book. Arguing that immortals would want absolute assurance of their safety, he acknowledged that they might conceal themselves, perhaps even prohibiting transmissions of signals that could be detected by other civilizations. He again speculated that a better strategy would be to help other intelligent beings to become immortal, giving them the same incentive for safety. If this were the case, immortals might be extremely active in detecting and communicating with other civilizations.*° Drake recognized that immortals would look differently upon long-term risk.*' We don’t worry about changes in the Sun that will make our Earth uninhabitable a billion years or more from now; we and our children will be gone long before that happens. We don’t worry much about an extinction-level collision with an asteroid that may happen once every 100 million years. An immortal might worry. Drake’s vision has dual implications for interstellar travel. In the techni- cal sense, life extension could make voyages by inhabited spacecraft more feasible. As Clarke put it, extending life spans indefinitely would drastically reduce the size of the universe from the psychological point of view. On the other hand, immortality might lead to a growing disinclination to engage in risky activities. A society without life-threatening problems might be one without the exploring bug, Goldsmith speculated, and this might be a universal rule. Consider our own history. During the early years of the European Age of Exploration, men often joined very risky voyages into unknown waters even when they knew that the odds of getting back were low; if ships did return, half the crew might be dead. Life was short, typically 30-40 years. Why not take chances if you are going to die within a decade anyway? Would immortal humans be that daring? Our own long-lived descendants might abandon Humankind’s outward reach, except through their machines. What kind of society would immortality produce? Almost certainly a conservative one, resistant to change. The conventional wisdom might be frozen into place; there would be no young rebels to challenge it. Imagine the social and cultural consequences of immortals who refuse to retire. If they did retire, who would pay for their pensions? The Galaxy could be sprinkled with immortal civilizations, each ossified into the mold of a past era. Societies composed of immortals might be inflexible in values and culture, reducing their adaptability to change. Immortality interrupts evolution, and adaptation. For such civilizations to actively call attention to themselves, bargaining medical information for their security, seems like a risky strategy. The Why Don’t We See Them?