... Not to mention that we already aren't set up for people to live as long as they do, let alone twice as long.

Part of the problem there is not the lifespan aspect but the aging and the idea that people should retire. Humans are not married to the idea and having a society without the concept of retirement is in our behavioral toolkit, so to speak. As far as I know the idea of pervasive retirement didn't show up until the 19th century.


The idea of living to 1000 is more about eliminating aging as a physiological concept.

But what I find interesting is what it would do to human skill, intelligence, etc. Basically there would be a class of people with centuries of experience and hindsight, without terrible brains.

I decided I like this idea personally just because there never seems enough time to do the things I'd like to. Obviously everyone still dies; I recall one study in the 90s that suggested that people would have an average lifespan of about 500 years if you eliminated aging because of accidents, disease, etc. (And we're still fighting that perpetual war against microfauna.)

But even 200 is a damn long time if you're effective.

You can plan with that as well as you can with 20; you can say "I'll just be an engineer for 50 years and I'll try writing after that" as well as you can say "I'll just go to school for 5 years", both with the same universally accepted caveat that you might get hit by a bus tomorrow, but that's OK because you can't really plan around that anyway.

I'd like to feel like I could, potentially, spend 20 years on Titan for the Full Effect even if the flight time is 7 years in cryosleep (or whatever) and know that people will probably still be around when I return.

But obviously it's not for everyone, and I think a lot of folks if they went for it would, eventually, get tired of it and off themselves or go off the anti-aging regime.

People living up to 1000 would be a disaster IMO. Think about it -- you would have to work around 700 years before you retire. Or even more, knowing how greedy some can be. And I guess the population would dwindle as well, coz as long as they have healthy bodies, they have time to have kids, right?

Economically, it would be a great hinderance too. Same old people would run the same old companies and things would stangate. Why give a job to a 20 yo, when you have a 3 century man who has more experience and wisdom, and whom you know so well?

Same goes for science -- no rotation whatsoever. without fresh minds, we wouldn't get any further, and our civilization would collapse.

Oh, it's 4.30 PM, time to run home. Life is too short to stay overtime at work.

I'll offer a countering viewpoint. What if Einstein had had the chance to live to 200? or even 1000? What could he have come up with?

We suffer from an astounding amount of thought-waste. Think about it, we have to train every new human from scratch. We waste 20+ years just giving each human a basic knowledge framework to fill a specific role in society. Add 5 to 10 years to yield an expert (PhD) in an intensive discipline. Then they spend 30 or 40 years making use of that investment, all the while accumulating invaluable experience, and then they retire, and we as a society have to spend 25-30 years training their replacement -- only, that replacement won't have acquired the experience that can't be taught.

It's not just about knowledge or skills, it's about wisdom. I have a hard time imagining someone who's been around for 700 years being as immature and irresponsible as the monkeys that currently inhabit our political offices, for instance.

>>I'll offer a countering viewpoint. What if Einstein had had the chance to live to 200? or even 1000? What could he have come up with?

I'll offer a countering viewpoint to your countering viewpoint. Your only looking at it from one angle. There are numerous possibilities. Considering he was one of the major person in creating atomic bomb, most probably he would be working for the military trying to create something that would destroy a whole continent.

LMAO. Now you've shown an amazing amount of ignorance. I suggest you look up Einstein and what he stood for.

See, in 700 years you'll probably have learned not to make such silly comments based on absolutely no facts at all.

[quote name='Zethariel' timestamp='1309962647' post='4831795']
People living up to 1000 would be a disaster IMO. Think about it -- you would have to work around 700 years before you retire. Or even more, knowing how greedy some can be. And I guess the population would dwindle as well, coz as long as they have healthy bodies, they have time to have kids, right?

Economically, it would be a great hinderance too. Same old people would run the same old companies and things would stangate. Why give a job to a 20 yo, when you have a 3 century man who has more experience and wisdom, and whom you know so well?

Same goes for science -- no rotation whatsoever. without fresh minds, we wouldn't get any further, and our civilization would collapse.

Oh, it's 4.30 PM, time to run home. Life is too short to stay overtime at work.

I'll offer a countering viewpoint. What if Einstein had had the chance to live to 200? or even 1000? What could he have come up with?
[/quote]

I was just going to reply, what if Tesla lived another 100 years. Everyone would have endless, free, mobile power.

As far as the work thing goes, I don't think anyone would NEED to work 700 years. I mean if you're smart and you save, 30-40 years of work generates enough assets to be self-sustaining. So basically you'd still work till you're 65, but then you'd go on a 950 year retirement.

We'd have to curb birth rates though or we'd be in a sh*tstorm real quick. It would be a good time to propose my corporate sterilization/birth application idea.