How Long Do You Want To Live? 813
Hugh Pickens writes "Since 1900, the life expectancy of Americans, driven by improved hygiene, nutrition, and new medical discoveries and interventions, has jumped from 47 years to almost 80. Now, scientists studying the intricacies of DNA and other molecular bio-dynamics may be poised to offer even more dramatic boosts to longevity. But there is one very basic question that is seldom asked, according to David Ewing Duncan: How long do you want to live? 'Over the past three years I have posed this query to nearly 30,000 people at the start of talks and lectures on future trends in bioscience, taking an informal poll as a show of hands,' writes Duncan. 'To make it easier to tabulate responses I provided four possible answers: 80 years, currently the average life span in the West; 120 years, close to the maximum anyone has lived; 150 years, which would require a biotech breakthrough; and forever, which rejects the idea that life span has to have any limit at all.' The results: some 60 percent opted for a life span of 80 years. Another 30 percent chose 120 years, and almost 10 percent chose 150 years. Less than 1 percent embraced the idea that people might avoid death altogether (PDF). Overwhelmingly, the reason given was that people didn't want to be old and infirm any longer than they had to be, even if a pill allowed them to delay the inevitable. Others were concerned about issues like boredom, the cost of paying for a longer life, and the impact of so many extra people on planetary resources and on the environment. But wouldn't long life allow people like Albert Einstein to accomplish more and try new things? That's assuming that Einstein would want to live that long. As he lay dying of an abdominal aortic aneurysm in 1955, Einstein refused surgery, saying: 'It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.'"
600 years. (Score:5, Funny)
Should be enough for me.
640 years (Score:5, Funny)
Ought to be enough for anybody.
640K years (Score:5, Funny)
Ought to be enough for anybody...
Re:640K years (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep. I think by then, you'll have had enough of watching TV and eating Doritos. The idea of new Nikes just won't thrill anymore, like it did for the last 5 centuries... Maybe then it's time to take a nap, and not get back up.
Seriously. Y'all live miserable lives as it is. Thank God, people die. Without that, there isn't even the glimmer that we'd bother to understand Life.
Re: (Score:3)
If the vampire thing worked, and I could live forever the way I am now...age, looks..etc...I'd do it.
Re:640K years (Score:4, Interesting)
Eliminating aging won't eliminate dying. People are always going to be getting killed one way or another, whether it's some crazy shooter or serial killer, or forgetting to look before you cross the street in front of a speeding bus.
Re:640K years (Score:5, Funny)
Considering how poorly people backup, I don't think that will work.
Re:640K years (Score:4, Funny)
Re:640K years (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of "life" is a tornado of colliding imaginations.
Im not sure if that is as profound as it sounds, but I have to say, it sounds pretty freaking profound, and will seem even more so after a few martini's.
Re:640K years (Score:5, Interesting)
Dying is what makes us real.
Interesting concept. Can you explain *why* you believe this is so?
Most of "life" is a tornado of colliding imaginations.
I don't even know what this means...is that an attempt to be "deep" by going all metaphysical, or what? It kind of sounds like you are suggesting that all of us are just figments of someone/something's imagination. If so, well, that was an intriguing concept back when I was elementary school, but now...not so much.
Everyone thinks they're the ONE exception.
But no in [sic] ever got out of it, ever.
<shrug> But so long as life is interesting and enjoyable, what's the problem? Personally, I'm with cayenne8 on this one. If I'm healthy and fit, then I wouldn't mind having a bit more time here on earth. I'm not saying I'd like to be immortal -- as others have noted, there would still be accidental deaths, and it would suck spending millenia without your loved ones -- but if we could find a way to keep the biological machinery functional for a century or two longer, I wouldn't mind having a little more time to be in my prime before succumbing to the inevitable.
Re:640K years (Score:4, Insightful)
See almost nobody has an idea of what living forever means. So here you are let's say for giggles 45 years old. Who are you a how are you related to the you that was 2 years old? 7? 13? 20? 35? Can you even vaguely imagine what the being that is 1,000,000 years old would be like. Having survived the coming and going of ages, seen mountains rise and fall, watched the process of evolution on life on the planet, experiences 10,000 lifetimes, and expanded consciousness to hold all that experience. He could no longer be called human. Such a being would be profoundly different. His first hundred years no more than a freckle on the mural of personality that would have emerged over that vast gulf of time.
Such a being would not have survived in a single physical body. Bodies are too prone to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. More than likely, such a being would exist in one or more remote bodies with a distributed consciousness over many locations so that the end of any particular local would not end the consciousness of the whole. Perhaps such a being might also launch occasional pods containing complete images of their mind to distant locations to avoid catastrophe by astronomical events. It would take a great deal of foresight to exist for deep time. Again, this would be no timid act. You might well be the only thing surviving your species. You might carry with you the sum information of life on your world. Even if there was a community, over the millennia personalities would merge and migrate, emerge and transform. It would be hard after tens of thousands of years to speak of individual consciousness in such a collective.
Almost everyone here is speaking about the persistence of personality. That is fundamentally different than immortality. A personality would not, could not survive the limits of deep time. The good news, is that what would survive, what in fact might thrive, might transcend personality, might transcend the limits of an isolated or localized concept of self. Such a being would transcend identity.
Re:640K years (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the best lines from B5... (Score:5, Interesting)
-Lorien (Babylon 5, "Into the Fire")
Re:One of the best lines from B5... (Score:4, Insightful)
The only problem is that this is a fictional character, created by an author who'll age and die before 100 like the rest of us. We don't know what a real immortal being would say after thousands of years of life, and we won't find out until we try.
And I don't see why not, either. Dying is the easy part, there are plenty ways out if you get bored.
People not willing to live forever are pussies. (Score:4, Insightful)
Godforbid, they'd have to take responsibility for future consequences of their actions, or endure the pain of changes in the world around them.
There is only one correct answer.
As long as I can!
Re:640K years (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:640K years (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Do you believe in an afterlife?
2. Are you assuming you'd live your extended lifespan in excellent, good, decent, poor, or horrible health?
If it was an extra 100 years of old age, vs an extra 100 years of being 20, I bet the answers would differ significantly.
Re:640K years (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, most immortals will live their lives like Richard Branson does now. Do what you want once you have built up enough capital to support yourself.
If the world does become overcroweded, you have a giant workforce of people with hundreds or THOUSANDS of years of experience who can apply that experience to settling space. This will happen organically, without the need for outside intervention because that is how an economy works.
Re:640 years (Score:5, Interesting)
When my grandmother was 95 she told me "I don't know why everybody wants to live to be a hundred. It ain't no fun bein' old."
As to the "how long is best," I think it doesn't matter. A lifetime is a lifetime, whether it's ten years or two hundred. I'm 60, and I don't feel any older thanI did at 20. Thirty year olds seem like children to me, but a 30 year old to me is like a ten year old to a twenty year old.
I really don't feel like more time has passed now than it did when I was young. From birth to now, your life seems like "forever". Perhaps that's because time gets shorter when you get older. Remember how long it was between Christmases when you were five? Christmas to Christmas was 1/5th of a lifetime! Far longer than a year to me, only 1/60th of a lifetime.
The only difference is that I've seen and done a hell of a lot more.
Re:640 years (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the thing. The "getting old" part is what really sucks.
Any idiot can die.
Death isn't scary. You wanna know what scary is?
Being old and shriveled and constantly in pain while sitting in your own shit and being so senile that you don't remember anything for more than a minute.
Now if there was some way to preserve quality of life. THAT would be a bigger breakthrough than simple prevention of death. Age to sometime between 20-30 and then just stop and stay there (biologically) until you fall over dead. Granted, the ability to retard/stop physical aging that way would, in itself, probably extend life by an unknown quantity (if not permanently).
The way I'm going right now, and all the damage I've done to myself in my life already, if I don't die early, I'll be an old man confined to a bed going "It hurts to live!"
I think I'd MUCH rather take up cordless bungee jumping.
Re:640 years (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never understood this line of thinking. Why do you fear death so much? I welcome it, for when I die, nothing will matter anymore and I won't exist.
Re:640 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I love life, and so far as I can tell I will always want more of it.
But you're right, I deeply fear death too. I do not want to end. I do not want to go. I fear dying but that's utterly secondary to the existential dread of there no longer being a me.
I can't understand how anyone can accept it. I'd like to, because it's not like we get a choice in the matter, but can't.
Re:640 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I'm any great expert on the matter, what with having only one lifetime of personal experience and not even a single death to my name, but I suspect that there is a large part of you that refuses to accept that death is truly inevitable. Once you truly accept that there's nothing you can do to avoid it then accepting the transition itself becomes far less onerous. When the time comes it's a question of do I fight tooth and claw a battle which can't be won, or accept it with good graces and spend my last moments rejoicing that I lived at all. With proper perspective you can even come to see death as a necessary and beautiful counterpoint to life - I've never had to face my own imminent death, but such perspective has offered great comfort in the face of the death of loved ones. If you're interested in acquiring such a perspective I'd suggest studying Buddhism, Taoism, or the like - ignore the quasi-religious cruft that's accumulated on it as you like, I mostly did, the core teachings basically offer an alternative interpretation of reality, identical in detail, but fundamentally different in implication.
Re:640 years (Score:4, Funny)
You've got it wrong... it's my death you need to worry about. I'm a solipsist, so when I die everyone else ceases to exist.
Re:600 years. (Score:5, Funny)
I kid, I kid!
Anyway, if you're afraid of getting bored living a very long time, try stepping away from the TV. I can't imagine ever getting bored.
Re:600 years. (Score:4, Insightful)
I daresay I wouldn't mind putting that to the test. :D
Re:600 years. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've always said I'd like to live at least 500 years. Of course, it would be interesting to be able to stay relatively "young" more or less indefinitely.
Might not be something everyone is interested in but I would love to never feel any pressure to hurry up and do all those things I want to do. I could spend 50 years just reading interesting books. Maybe spend ten years building a house. And thinking more long-term, how about a few hundred years in deep space? You'd have the time...
Re:600 years. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:600 years. (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't find a reference for it, but I remember reading that if you eliminate aging and disease, some actuary worked out that the life expectancy would be roughly 800 years before you die in some kind of accident / murder / etc.
Head in a Jar (Score:3)
Bill Clinton's Head in a Jar: "Hey, sugar cookie. You know, legally, nothing I can do counts as sex anymore."
Gerald Ford's Head in a Jar: "I apologise for his rudeness, ma'am. He gets this way around meaty-looking women."
News Flash! (Score:5, Funny)
99% of people are idiots.
Re:News Flash! (Score:5, Insightful)
99% of people are idiots.
80 years among them is about enough.
Re:News Flash! (Score:5, Insightful)
So you can live forever but you are going to be a vegetable? We can prevent death but not old age? In the 100's of years we won't be able to figure out how to rejuvenate a human body, fix Alzheimer, put a colony another planet, find alternate sources of food, and power, clean our water supply?
We've been able to stop cancer, AID's, Hepatitis, Heart Disease, Lung Disease and countless illnesses from killing us, but we can't do these things. If I lived for a vegetable for 30 years and woke up one day cured. I would be happy. I WILL NOT GO GENTLY INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT!
Oh Right Around ... (Score:5, Funny)
Long Enough (Score:5, Funny)
To see my enemies buried. After that, I don't care.
make more (Score:3)
And, of course, if they ALSO have access to life extending tech, then you're essentially saying "forever".
Re:Long Enough (Score:5, Funny)
To see my enemies buried. After that, I don't care.
I'd hope you'd also want to live long enough to hear the lamentation of their women.
Yaz
Oh, FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Overwhelmingly the reason given was that people didn't want to be old and infirm any longer than they had to be, even if a pill allowed them to delay the inevitable.
Well, it's a good thing that that's not what we're talking about, isn't it? The whole idea is to delay--or if possible, prevent entirely--the things that make us "old" and infirm to begin with. Nobody wants to spend eternity in a nursing home, duh. Spending an indefinite amount of time young and healthy, or even middle-aged and mostly healthy? Sign me up.
cognitive health equally important (Score:3)
It isn't enough to be physically healthy. Setting side the questions of cost and availability, with artificial and transplanted parts plus current biochemistry we could already keep a person mostly-healthy beyond 100. But until/unless we can delay the natural cognitive decline that begins in late middle-age - which can't be fixed with a transplant or implant, or any known medical procedure - what's the point? Who wants to be fit enough to walk a mile to the store, but unable to remember the way home?
Re:cognitive health equally important (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would you think mental fitness isn't part of what's being talked about? Of COURSE that has to be part of what it means. It's about eliminating aging, which includes mental decline as well as other health issues.
So, the proper question is: how long do you want to live, in good physical and mental health?
Sign me up for at least 500 years, please, then ask me again in 400.
Re:Oh, FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't give a shit WHAT it takes. As long as I can still enjoy a song or a book or a video game or a movie or conversation or meals or board games, I want to stay alive. I don't care WHAT you have to do. Strap me to some jumper cables. Anything. Life is a blink of an eye. Death and nothingness is god damn fucking FOREVER and I absolutely DO NOT want to die. Period. And I'll say the same thing if I live to be 800 years old. There is never enough life to live. There is always more of mankind and exploration and science and exploration to enjoy. I would give anything to see what we're doing in a thousand years. To be there and witness all the amazing things we've done and places we're going.
Re:Oh, FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you ever bored on a Saturday afternoon?
Re:Oh, FFS (Score:4, Funny)
Incept dates. Longevity.
I want more life, fucker.
Re:Oh, FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. I'm 58 and have managed to get/stay more physically fit than most people I know in their 30s. I do so because I don't want my later years to be unbearable. What completely blows my mind is that most people I know, when the discussion of an elderly person having serious health issues comes up, will say "I hope I don't live that long", rather than "I hope I stay healthy"...I can't tell you how that attitude makes my skin crawl.
I guess that all part of peoples rationalizations for taking abysmal care of themselves (I've never been able to convince any of my friends to start working out for example)...that "you're gonna die anyway" bullshit. People love to delude themselves into the belief that you can take crappy care of your health, and that it just means that "switch" gets pulled a few years earlier. The reality is that it can mean spending decades of your life being in fucking misery.
All those sorts of attitudes kill me. Indeed...sign me up too!...I want to be healthy and live as long as I can.
A friend's great-grandmother just turned 116. (Score:5, Insightful)
She's supposedly pretty sharp, still there in the mind and still happy. The last part is the most important. I'd rather die happy at 85 than live to 120 in misery.
Re:A friend's great-grandmother just turned 116. (Score:5, Funny)
Game of Thrones answer (Score:5, Funny)
Barbarian: “How do you want to die?”
Tyrion Lannister: “In bed, when I’m 80, with a belly full of wine and woman’s mouth on my cock.”
Re:Game of Thrones answer (Score:4, Funny)
I disagree.
I'd like to die like my father--peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming in terror like the passengers in his car.
I have no fear of death. (Score:3, Interesting)
Keep Paying for Your Spot in Heaven (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a cool thing that happens when you know this life isn't the end: You suddenly stop caring about yourself and just live your life to help everyone else.
There was a cool thing that happened to me when I figured out that the Law of Parsimony indicates that life is the end. I realized that all I would leave behind is other people's memories of me and I stopped being a dick and judging everyone else based on my doctrine. How odd that the biggest inhibitor of being like Christ was being a Christian.
Re:Keep Paying for Your Spot in Heaven (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. I was raised as a "Christian". When I began to research the history of Christianity and the Bible, I became an Atheist. It took about a year of being an angst filled teenage fatalist before I realized that because there's no afterlife I must do as much good as possible in this life as possible to advance our race. Then I created my bucket list of humanitarian projects, and the race to complete them began -- as a Teen. Even if I don't get done before I die, I've already helped more people than my religious relatives ever have. I could die tomorrow a happy man, satisfied with my life's works.
Furthermore, I value life much more than they do. I said something about curbing our pollution problems to my Aunt last week. Her stance was that it didn't matter because it was part of "God's plan"; She'd be in heaven before the future went to hell; And, some BS about the events being signs of the end times and Rapture, and how I needed to go back to church. I told her that she was being selfish, and that she was worsening the planet for her grand children, and all other future people.
I told her that our advances in medicine and science, specifically understanding the brain and machine intelligence, may allow some of us to live thousands or millions or billions of years -- We may some day even be able to scan a dead brain and bring its consciousness back to life. Then I promised her that if she didn't start using the recycling bin and curbside pickup the city provides her, that I would dedicate the rest of my life to bringing her mind back to the future so she could witness the horrors her careless actions had helped bring about.
Despite her being a God fearing woman, I was able to place a new kind of fear in her: The fear of having to live with the long term consequences of her actions. She has seen my AI projects demonstrating uncanny human like capabilities (she called them an abomination), so she knew I was serious. Though she claims her beliefs have not been shaken at all, I now see her recycling bin full instead of empty every garbage day.
Re:I have no fear of death. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I have no fear of death. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are lots of contemporary written records of kings existing, implying that they likely did exist. The records of most gods and demi-god's time on Earth comes after at least a few decades have past, with more information coming out for hundreds of years until the story is formalized. As it stands, the story of Jesus' life is way too similar to numerous other stories about other gods/demigods to be particularly trustworthy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgksXcesXrA [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Re:I have no fear of death. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I have no fear of death. (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite the invitations, neither Jesus or God ever showed up to an event I was invited to. Dawkins did.
Why Einstein? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is he quoted so often? It's like he's some Jesus/Buddha/Mohammed/Hubbard. It's kind of bizarre. He was just a scientist, although a very good one. His accomplishments were in physics, not metaphysics, not morality.
Re:Why Einstein? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a scientist? That makes him better than some sort of Jesus/Buddha//Mohammed/Hubbard. Anyone with a keen logical mind will make greater accomplishements in metaphysics and morality than any peddler of fairy tales.
The key to true morality isn't "what would Jesus do", but "what makes sense and actually works to produce favorable outcomes". By that standard, you cannot do better than a scientist.
Re:Why Einstein? (Score:4, Insightful)
While I agrre with the intent of your post: Mengele considered himself (and was percieved by colleagues) as a scientist, too.
Re:Why Einstein? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then why don't people quote Werner von Braun as a moral authority?
Re:Why Einstein? (Score:4, Insightful)
The latter is better than the former because it's hard to predict outcomes, especially for decisions with long-range ramifications...too many variables involved.
Trying, and sometimes failing, to predict what outcome will be favorable is still better than ignoring the question entirely, which is what people of faith do.
If you follow right principles, you're more likely to get a positive outcome in the long run;
Only through a circular definition of "right principles". You can't know whether they are the right principles until you apply them and see if they bear fruit. Which means you're actually being consequential.
So the questions really is from what source do you derive your principles?
Practicality, and basic arguments of symmetry. e.g. the golden rule is a perfectly secular more. Wheaton's law is a great one too.
Re:Why Einstein? (Score:5, Informative)
He is arguably the most influential thinker of modern times. His accomplishments were in physics but his insight into other areas was acknowledged even while he was still alive. There's a reason it was his signature at the bottom of the letter in support of the Manhattan project. There's a reason he was asked to be the first prime minister of Israel. There's a reason that he's often listed as one of, if not the absolute, most intelligent person in history.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Einstein's accomplishments were in science, but he expounded quite a lot on morality. He didn't win a nobel prize for morality, I'd say that because his moral positions are quoted and recognized by so many people, that means they resonate and because of that he can be considered "accomplished".
Also, I find it ironic that you group Hubbard in with Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed becase I personally consider Hubbard to be a joke in the metaphysics/morality arena.
Re: (Score:3)
Why is he quoted so often?
He isn't quoted. He is just mentioned. And inappropriately, since he is a poor example of someone continuing to make contributions late in life: most of his major contributions were made by the time he was 26 years old.
Re: (Score:3)
Einstein was actually pretty perceptive about metaphysics and morality as well. He may not have been a "philosophical genius" but he generally exemplified above-average wisdom about religion [wikipedia.org] and politics [wikipedia.org].
Now For the Real Question (Score:4, Insightful)
How many of those people believe in an eternal afterlife?
I'm satisfied living forever. And then I get to choose my lifespan.
Depends on the condition of my body (Score:4, Insightful)
If I live to 200, do I spend most of that time with the body of a 30-year-old, or a 90-year-old? If the latter, thanks but no thanks.
Re: (Score:3)
If I live to 200, do I spend most of that time with the body of a 30-year-old, or a 90-year-old? If the latter, thanks but no thanks.
30 year old or 90 year old... you talking about yourself or spouse?
depends on Quality of Life (Score:3, Insightful)
This question is meaningless without defining quality of life. If I can reach 6000, and have the same Quality of Life as I have now (age 47) or even the QOL I expect to have at 67, Im all for it. In fact Immortality, yes please!
If I have to wait in bed in pain from 100 until 6000, than, no way.
Re:depends on Quality of Life (Score:5, Interesting)
Boredom, seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose I can understand some arguments for cutting your life short based on overcrowding, etc., but I think we can get over that with science.
But limited lifespan because of boredom? I mean, have you *seen* this world we live in? If you can't come up with enough different things to do, and see, and explore, and discover, and wonder about to last you thousands of years, you are doing it wrong. That's not even thinking about all the incredible people you get to meet.
Re: (Score:3)
This presupposes that old age can be achieved without a significant decline in one's ability to enjoy the world. I'm sure you can do many fun things at a young age, but if you can't see, can't move without pain, can't hear too well, forget about things constantly, or are in physical pain then you might want to punch an early ticket out of this world.
Re:Boredom, seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
How old are you?
>I mean, have you *seen* this world we live in
I am in my mid-40s and the things that interest me in the world rapidly shrink. I do not want to see most of the Europe as I used in earlier years. I do not want to visit my long-time friends in a neighboring state, because travel is seen as more and more hassle. The only reason for my travel is my son duty of visiting the parents. I do that regularly with a great pain.
I have seen plenty of relatively healthy old people, in whose eyes I read only one desire: to finally end this.
I am still relatively healthy. It's just the grass is not as green anymore as it is used to be, so, naturally, my desire to see new vistas, new man made objects, new people is less.
We are limited in our capacity of learning as we are limited in everything else.
Ask Tony S. why he did it.
Holy crap (Score:5, Insightful)
YOU, sir, need a hobby or three. Badly.
Having reached my mid-40s, I've only begun to explore the things I'd like to do in my life. I find that I'm having to pare back all the interests I have because I just can't find the time for them all. I look at the time I have left and think, "shit, it's going to take me 2 years to complete this project, which means I'm going to be X old before I can even begin this next one."
I've started worrying less about the cost of my endeavors and more about the time commitment. I can always make more money, but damnit I've only got another 20 great years left, another 10 or 15 mediocre ones, and - if I'm lucky - maybe 10 more to do some low intensity stuff while I look for "young" people willing to hang with the "old dudes in the home."
It's a shame I can't buy 10 of the good years you have left, 'cause you sure aren't using them in any meaningful way, it seems.
Re: (Score:3)
The flip-side of the Boredom coin is Future Shock. A substantial number of people find in old age that the world has become alien to them, and don't wish to live in that Brave New World.
Sample bias much? (Score:3, Insightful)
Asking for a show of hands at the start of a bioscience lecture?
Let's see him ask a bunch of 80 year olds how many of them don't want to live past 80... That would be just as biased but I think the answers would be more interesting.
It's easy for relatively young people to say they won't mind dying sometime in the distant future...
Max Age versus Life Expectancy (Score:5, Interesting)
Even 200 years ago you could live into your 80's or 90's as long as you survived past around 10.
I am opposed to age extensions (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. I am in the 30% that is considerate of the consequences of people living a long time.
For a poignant example, look at the current USA. We have an aging "boomer" generation. If you aren't familiar with the problems an aging boomer generation is causing, google is your friend. Now, imagine them living another 60 years. 100 years... FOREVER.
In addition to the problems with resource allocations, the political and ideological bottlenecks immortality, or even jut artificialy ling lives would introduce would be catastrophic. Instead of a progressive civilization, which becomes more tolerant and technologically advanced, we would have an ideologically stilted, recalcitrant population of aged and possibly immortal persons halting all forms of social progress.
I would actually campaign for a shorter, but less labor intensive life than a longer one.
Re: (Score:3)
Like gay marriage, your disagreement with a life choice that does not affect your freedom or anyone else's should be limited to your own actions, and not restrict others.
None of the problems you mentioned are guaranteed to happen in an immortal-ish population. They could all very well be a consequence of senescence, which would theoretically be prevented.
Re:I am opposed to age extensions (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh please. What I'm seeing here in America is that it's the younger generations that are more conservative, and the older ones that are more progressive. Go into any fundamentalist evangelical megachurch; it's absolutely full of younger people (20-30 somethings and their hordes of kids). Then go into the liberal, progressive Protestant churches where they have women preachers, gay preachers, and are constantly preaching tolerance towards those who are different; those churches are full of people who look like they're about to fall over dead from old age, and very few younger people. In my experience, it's usually the young people who are most intolerant of everything. How many elderly muslim Jihadists do you see? None, they're all young men, in their teens and 20s. When people survive to older ages, they realize that life is short and it's stupid to waste your life getting mad about what other people do with their lives. Sure, there's exceptions in both groups (plenty of liberal college students, and Fred Phelps (the WBC asshole, not the swimmer's father) certainly isn't young), but that's the trend I see today. Kids learn their ideology from their parents; when I was in middle/high school, everyone was a Republican, because that's what all their parents were, and they all parroted the same ideology (which, to be fair, wasn't that bad back in those days of the late 80s and early 90s like it is now). It wasn't until they went away to college and hung around with different people that they learned new ideologies from others, not being around their parents any more to have their influence.
Tolerance and progressivism aren't determined by age, they're determined by culture, which changes over time so it's generational. Just look at the Arab uprisings; the young people got tired of their crappy leaders, so they revolted, and installed new leaders. Are these new leaders progressive and tolerant? Hell no, they're all Islamists. Because that's what the young people in those countries are.
Re:I am opposed to age extensions (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that no generation of people stops to consider themselves as a roadblock toward the advancement of the generation that will come after.
Note all the self-directed answers in this thread, for instance.
I don't know about you, but I don't want a person who was born 5 centuries ago battling against me at the polls concerning societal issues, like gay rights, or even teaching evolution in schools. (Note, 500 years ago was in the dark ages. With immortal people, that becomes a stark reality.)
I don't want any generation doing that to aother, becase they refuse to die. Death is necessary.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't want any generation doing that to aother, becase they refuse to die.
Given there's no great hurry if you live forever, I'm thinking geographic segregation might evolve. Think of current day Florida demographics. Imagine a Florida where no one under 100 years old lived there... well we're pretty much there, say under 200 years.
If you have an infinite amount of spare time, escaping to a immigrate into a better land is not quite the priority anymore. So I have to wait for the border guard to screw up and accidentally leave an opening I can run thru. OK so I wait ten years,
Re: (Score:3)
Not what I meant...
Look at it this way, in 500 years, western has gone from:
A de-facto theocratically governed monarchy and subsequent feudal systems (the pope had his fingers in every pie.)
The discovery of the new world, and "right of conquest" type explanations for mass genocide of indigenous peoples.
the renaisance, and the rediscovery of high science and reason.
The transition from monarchy based rule to democratic and republic based rule.
The abolishment of slavery.
The discoveries of first complex chemist
I plan to live forever, of course (Score:3)
but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice.
-- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
MorganLink 3DVision Interview
Stockholm Syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of thinking is basically Stockholm Syndrome writ very large.
Let's say you asked people a thousand years ago, "Would you want to live with a king?". I'm sure the vast majority would have said "no", and come up with a bunch of reasons why that would be personally undesirable and socially perilous. The reasoning is so transparently irrational it's ludicrous.
Talk to a genealogist (Score:5, Insightful)
the life expectancy of Americans, driven by improved hygiene, nutrition, and new medical discoveries and interventions, has jumped from 47 years to almost 80
Talk to a genealogist, its a bogus number. Life expectancy at birth, given that at least half used to die as babies or little kids.
Most birth-death years in my family tree are like 1854-1855 (whoops) or 1853-1930 (a good long while). Not much in between, other than maybe 5% of the women died around childbirth age around a year or so after the last baby. Stereotypical electronics "bathtub curve" plus the danger of giving birth. The main change in the last 200 years or so is if you are born, you'll probably live to age 10, whereas in the olden days if you were born you'd probably die before age 10, but some made it till 80s, just like now.
Morgan Industries answer (Score:5, Funny)
I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice.
-- CEO Nwabudike Morgan, MorganLink 3DVision Interview
(from one of the best games ever made [wikipedia.org])
Euthanasia (Score:5, Insightful)
This recent news story in the UK [bbc.co.uk] Makes me sad. It doesn't matter how long you want to live if you have no legal choices when you want to stop living.
It seems like we give our pets more compassion at the end of their lives than we do our fellow humans.
until humans are intelligent (Score:3)
I'd like to hang around to see if humans, or any descendent species, ever achieves species-wide intelligence. Homo sapiens sapiens certainly hasn't.
Revealed preferences (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, when those pills hit the market, they will all line up to buy it. This poll reveals how people think in "far mode". People enter "far mode" when contemplating events they assume are unlikely or distant in the future... far more is selfless, idealistic. Put the pill under their nose and you'll get a very different reaction.
How do I know? Old people don't massively take their own life, people overwhemingly chose treatment when facing cancer, etc.
It's soothing to imagine one's to be comfortable with death, it makes the whole prospect less absurd and cruel. This is just a protective form of denial, unfortunately, death-ism seriously hampers anti-aging research.
Not that long (Score:3)
Most people would have a conditional answer... (Score:3)
...I know I certainly would. Do I get to live a long lifespan AND be healthy and relatively active? Or do I live a long and ultimately sad and sickly life? I don't want to become a burden on my family. But if I could be reasonably self sufficient then yes I'd sign up for a longer life.
As a geek I would love to see the future just because I think for all of our human failings we will eventually make great strides as a society. I'd love to see the cityscapes and the exciting possibilities the world of tomorrow holds. Most of all I'd like to see us live in mutual respect and not manipulated by political and religious interests. If I could live 200 years perhaps I would see some pretty amazing changes.
If I had a guarantee of 80 or 90 years I know I'd live long enough to see my children become parents. I'd get to see them as adults and see them grow into the confidence of middle age. I might even see my great-grandchildren, which would probably make me wish for more years.
Most of all I want to be a support to my family, which means I at least need to be around until 65 or 70. To see my young children past the mistakes we all make as late teens and young adults, to be a safety net and a caring dad.
Ultimately I'd be happiest if I could just do this job as well as my dad.
Isn't US life expectancy down? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/aug/13/usa.ewenmacaskill [guardian.co.uk]
and here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/life-expectancy-map/?hpid=z3 [washingtonpost.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Know what happens after the global population "levels off" at ten billion?
Re:Longer lifespan = greater population (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
There's no reason the Earth can't support 10 billion, or even much more. The key is, it can't support that many using shitty present-day technology, with everyone driving a big gas-guzzling SUV. Instead of taking the average middle-class American lifestyle as the benchmark, imagine instead large, densely-populated cities with advanced, autonomous transport systems; done that way, it's certainly doable, and the Earth could probably support tens of billions easily, plus others could live on giant space stat
Re: (Score:3)
Not sure you're actually listening to yourself. You say that by the time we can extend human life we'll have the technology to feed the planet. Then you say we have the technology to feed the planet now, presumably we lack the willpower as a civilization to get the job done. Hunger isn't a problem of technology, it's a problem of human nature, and while technology progresses with time as a matter of course, human nature does not. There's no guarantee that solving the technological problem of extending h
Re:No one wants to die (Score:4, Interesting)
Only 1 % choose not to live forever, until the moment they about to die, then they change their mind.
Most people who die at an advanced age really, really want to die. Each of my grandparents, when they were getting to that point, voiced the opinion that they just wished their lives were done with.
Being sick and in pain all the time is not fun. Which, as others have pointed out, is really the problem with the question as worded. It's now, "how long do you want to live while getting increasingly frail?" Nobody wants that. The question is, "how long do you want to live while looking and feeling like a 20-year-old?" The answer to that, universally, should be "forever."
Re: (Score:3)
Imagine you're "invulnerably immortal" you cannot die under any circumstances. Now imagine you're spelunking and several million tons of rock caves in on you, burying you hopelessly under several hundred feet of rock. Oh, and you forgot to tell anyone which particular cave you were planning on visiting. Now imagine any number of other circumstances where you could be trapped, with no hope of rescue and no end to your torment.
Re:120 years - work in Alzheimers research (Score:4, Funny)
"Do you want to live in a society of really old people enslaving the youth in Hunger Games?"
Don't tease me like that.