Zero K
Jeffrey Lockhart’s father, Ross, is a billionaire in his sixties, with a younger wife, Artis Martineau, whose health is failing. Ross is the primary investor in a remote and secret compound where death is exquisitely controlled and bodies are preserved until a future time when biomedical advances and new technologies can return them to a life of transcendent promise. Jeff joins Ross and Artis at the compound to say “an uncertain farewell” to her as she surrenders her body. “We are born without choosing to be. Should we have to die in the same manner? Isn’t it a human glory to refuse to accept a certain fate?” These are the questions that haunt the novel and its memorable characters, and it is Ross Lockhart, most particularly, who feels a deep need to enter another dimension and awake to a new world. For his son, this is indefensible. Jeff, the book’s narrator, is committed to living, to experiencing “the mingled astonishments of our time, here, on earth.” Don DeLillo’s “daring…provocative…exquisite” (The Washington Post) new novel weighs the darkness of the world—terrorism, floods, fires, famine, plague—against the beauty and humanity of everyday life; love, awe, “the intimate touch of earth and sun.” “One of the most mysterious, emotionally moving, and rewarding books of DeLillo’s long career” (The New York Times Book Review), Zero K is a glorious, soulful novel from one of the great writers of our time.
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What Hacker News says
- One of Don DeLillo's later good novels is about this stuff (Zero K).
I always think people's attitude toward possible future worlds is interesting. You can see a wide spread of opinion in this thread -- whether you think functional immortality would be a good thing says a lot about who you are. Ditto for colonizing other planets, automating all work, building AGI, and so on.
I suppose I'm on the side of the technologists. I think immortality is probably possible and humans should try to achieve it. But along the way it will mostly be snake oil and cults. And, of course, it's all but guaranteed that everyone in this thread isn't going to make the cut-off.
- > There’s been an explosion in the engine, and the plane is going to crash in 15 minutes. There’s no chance of survival. There is a potential way out—the plane happens to be transferring a shipment of parachutes, and anyone who would like to use one to escape the plane may do so. But I must warn you—the parachutes are experimental and completely untested, with no guarantee to work. We also have no idea what the terrain will be like down below. Please line up in the aisle if you’d like a parachute, and the flight attendants will give you one, show you how to use it and usher you to the emergency exit where you can jump. Those who choose not to take that option, please remain in your seat—this will be over soon, and you will feel no pain.
This analogy is used to obscure rather than to clarify. Preserving someone's body and hoping that they can be resurrected in the far future is something that anyone can understand. So why do we need an analogy?
The article makes many comparisons between medical intervention and cryonics. When considering a medical intervention, one has to consider the likelihood of the intervention's success. My opinion is that there's roughly zero chance that people being preserved will ever be resurrected. I think it's dumb to spend large amounts of money on medical interventions with roughly zero chance of success.
This is what it comes down to: people who pay for cryonics think that there is significantly greater than zero chance that they will be resurrected. I support their right to make that gamble but I think it's a bad gamble. I think that it's a waste of money, that it's selfish, and that people who make that gamble will tend to be people who have led unfulfilling lives because they've been unable to accept things that they can't control.
Maybe I'm wrong. Only with the passage of time we will know whether these people will be resurrected or not. As I said, I'm betting on "no chance in hell".
If you like Don DeLillo, Zero K is an excellent criticism of cryonics.
- For those interested in this stuff, or the "we will preserve your body and resurrect you in some date in the future" technology, I recommend a Don Delillo novel from a couple years ago, title is Zero K.
- You might enjoy Zero K, a Don DeLillo book that is more or less about cryogenic suspension.
- I’m a big fan of DeLillo, but I absolutely hated Zero K - his worst writing by far. It was a vapid, childish presentation of cryonics, dressed up in a bunch of confused themes around vanity and selfishness. I was so excited for DeLillo to write based on that premise, and so disappointed at the result.
- Based on the same limited exposure to DeLillo, I'd agree with you.
"Zero-K" was so boring, I dropped it maybe 75% way through. In general I enjoy both genre and "literary" novels, but Zero-K felt deliberately anodyne: meandering minimalist pseudo-scifi optimized for the sensibilities of the "New Yorker" readership.
