Facebook takes over the Mormon Church

The last Civil War pensioner died recently. She was the natural daughter of a Civil War soldier. Her dad fathered her decades after the war, when he was in his 80s and her mum was a teenager. (Randy bugger!) History is long. Today’s veterans of Afghanistan and iraq will have survivors in the 22nd century, even assuming NO advances in medicine.

Think of it this way. The US soldiers in Afghanistan right now are in the year 2020. Some are in their early 20s. 2100 is 80 years from ow. LIkely that there will be a few centenarians in the bunch. Just like we are now 75 years from WW2 but there are still vets of that war.

Take this one step further. Consider some of these men, and yes there are female vets, but now I’m referring specifically to men. In the 2080s or 2090s suppose some vet in his 80s or 90s marries a young woman and gets her with child. The kid might see the 23rd century. Again assuming no medical advances.

This reminds me of something. In 1979 there was an article in a British newspaper. A old man, a British lord, has died that year. When he was a little kid, he sat on his great grandfather’s lap and listened to his stories of the battle of Waterloo. The great grandfather was a 14 year old drummer boy in the Duke of Wellington’s army.

You know about social networks. Facebook. LinkedIn. Others. Mostly those refer to links between living people. That is slightly and slowly changing as already some members have died. And websites that are social networks are relatively new; less than 25 years.

Extrapolate this. When a social network has been running for centuries and a large fraction of its total user base are dead. What could it look like? In a way we already have it. The geneologies of people, maintained by Mormons and others. To help maintain relevance, maybe Facebook can take over the Mormon Church.

Of course if the Extropians are right all this is moot if we get immortality.