"[color=#1C2837][size=2]Probably less than 1% will ever live long enough to even reach 500 years old ..."
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[color=#1C2837][size=2]"[color=#1C2837][size=2]I'd be interested to see how accidental death and murder would affect the average life expectancy when people live longer than 200 years."
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[color=#1C2837][size=2]I'd heard a study that suggested the average life expectancy would be around 500 if you deleted aging... But if I google "life expectancy without aging", I get either morons extrapolating the increase in life expectancy to infinite and people explaining why that's stupid. So I can't find it.
We could live to be a 1000. No really, a scientist said so.
This is kinda inevitable, technology is advancing at such a rate that we can replace organs, re-write genes, etc..within 50 years.. The bigger question is what will a society of near immortal humans look like? Most people are not gonna like working in a minimum wage job for eternity.. I suspect human society will go through a critical phase change within 20 years due to the advances of life extension technology and the advent of strong AIs.. A phase change meaning a near instantaneous re-ordering of society and social networks, the biggest question is will human society change into a solid, locked into a rigid immutable form, or a gas infinite variable possibilities.. We'll see soon enough..
-ddn
If society, or just people in general, were accepting and objectively critical to advancement and progress, then I would agree with you. The world being what it is now it may take another 75 years to get to that point, if not 100.
This is a common argument, but I don't understand it. Given a choice between being alive (even if that means working) versus being dead, I know what I prefer. And if one hates life so much you'd rather be dead, why not kill yourself now?
People living up to 1000 would be a disaster IMO. Think about it -- you would have to work around 700 years before you retire.
People seem to clutch at the idea of retirement as if it's the only thing that matters in life. But if when I retire I could wave a magic wand and get an extra 100 years of life, then I'd gladly do that even if it meant working again.
But also consider this:
* If we lived ten times as long, you could have a retirement that's ten times as long.
* Who says you have to work that long? Financially it would work out no different to now - you could for a few decades, then take a couple of decades off with the money you'd invested, then go back to work for a few more decades, and so on.
* Moreover, since most people will have paid off their mortgage in what's now a fraction of their lifespan, long term you would financially be far better off.
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? [/quote]Well firstly you contradict yourself - if the 300 year old man is better at the job, then how would things stagnate?
But the same argument applies now - why employ 20 year olds if older people have more experience? The answer is that 20 year olds are cheaper. Also with changing technology, younger people may be more experienced - indeed, older people face age discrimination at least as much as young people.
Same goes for science -- no rotation whatsoever. without fresh minds, we wouldn't get any further, and our civilization would collapse.[/quote]Well this is one area where I do share some agreement - there is a history that scientists tended to be reluctant to accept new ideas. I'm not sure civilization would collapse though.
Another worry would be the risk of a trend towards conservatism - imagine what today would look like politically if you had a large number of voters who were hundreds of years old - people who thought slavery should be brought back, and who would make today's conservatives look like ultra-liberals. On the other hand, if I would be one of those people, and with few new people being born, would we care?
But also consider this:
* If we lived ten times as long, you could have a retirement that's ten times as long.
* Who says you have to work that long? Financially it would work out no different to now - you could for a few decades, then take a couple of decades off with the money you'd invested, then go back to work for a few more decades, and so on.
* Moreover, since most people will have paid off their mortgage in what's now a fraction of their lifespan, long term you would financially be far better off.
If you worked for just 80 years out of your 1000 year life cycle, you could probably have invested enough money to never need to work again (if the economy performed like it did now, which it surely wouldn't). But really, if you lived that long the odds that you would eventually get a job that you loved or start a company would be a lot larger, so having to work more of your life really shouldn't be that huge an issue as you'll be doing more of what you love, not more of what you hate.
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? [/quote] Why do you think it wouldn't encourage entrepreneurship? If people have more time to save up money to start their own company or gain experience in their field it seems like there would be far fewer barriers to entry. If anything I think the opposite of what you say would be true. Of course the economy would probably change drastically because of this, so there's really no saying if it would stagnate, be in a constant state of flux, grow tremendously, or go down in flames.
Same goes for science -- no rotation whatsoever. without fresh minds, we wouldn't get any further, and our civilization would collapse.[/quote]Well this is one area where I do share some agreement - there is a history that scientists tended to be reluctant to accept new ideas. I'm not sure civilization would collapse though.
Another worry would be the risk of a trend towards conservatism - imagine what today would look like politically if you had a large number of voters who were hundreds of years old - people who thought slavery should be brought back, and who would make today's conservatives look like ultra-liberals. On the other hand, if I would be one of those people, and with few new people being born, would we care?
[/quote]
I think today there are far more liberal minds ready to accept changes in thought. It's really another place where we are at a point where there's no saying what we might get caught up on as we're in such a changing time period right now. Very possible that we'd get caught in conservatism, but I think more than ever in recent history our society is more accepting of change.
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