The Arizona way of death

Sometime in the late 1990s, I was asked to be a token skeptic on a TV show featuring three people who claimed they were immortal. The production team didn’t take them very seriously. Probably no one did, but the three – all Americans – nonetheless managed a tour of the UK media. One producer mentioned salaciously that the trio had requested a hotel room with one large bed. The sanest part of the resulting discussion asked if they were leading a cult. Usually, my goal would have been to avoid arguing about beliefs and say something humorous that might stick in the minds of doubting viewers. But this was one you hoped the audience would mock without prompting. I think it was the medical journalist Caroline Richmond who suggested that if they were so sure they were never going to die they should write wills in her favor. They were oddly resistant to this proposal. Time passed. I forgot all about them. Meanwhile, on the technology scene you began running into people who believed…