Like everybody before you, you’re going to die. But thanks to modern medicine and health practices, you’ll probably live much longer than your ancestors did. On average, at age 50, you have more years of life ahead of you than your great-grandparents had at age 40. Not just more years of decline, but more years of health. And these changes in life and health expectancy aren’t just happening in rich countries. They’re transforming the world.
That’s now. But aside from bad lifestyles, accidents and such, research into longevity might one day extending lifespan to hundreds of years. Imagine the changes that would incur and require. Issues like health care, population density and so on. And if we reach a point where you die only when you want to, suicide would have to become an accepted part of life. Mandatory birth control? Serial marriage contracts?
So, would you want to live forever if you could? If not, how long? Assume that we’re talking also being able to at the least, push off our current physical and mental health issues of old age until you’re hundred of years old so you are active and productive all that time. Science fiction has dealt with this issue for decades. How would you if it were possible?
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Human society would have to change a great deal before I’d be willing to live forever. Right now, even though we live twice as long as people did 400 years ago, many people lives are extremely hectic and stressful. Would you want to work in a dead-end office job that you hate for 400-500 years?
The only people that would really be happy would be the ones that do work they actually enjoy, and live their lives for happiness and contentment, rather than for money.
As a hobbit, I’m counting on 130 years anyway.
My opinion is that the current system of taking on a new biological unit and the automatic forgetting about the previous one works pretty well. The deterioration process isn’t all that enjoyable, but it is a necessary part of the process no matter how long it gets extended.
Wow! Imagine the cost of a lifetime supply of vigara!
Ok, everyone retires at 65 and then lives forever… or until the pills run out.
#16 – Consolations for your loss. My wife died 12 years ago. Your children need you and you them.
news flash: we already do.
-s
That chart doesn’t mean anything. The infant mortality rate screwed the age down in the 1800 and 1900′s.
We simply increased the average age by decreasing the infant mortality rate. It used to be common for children to die before they were a year or two old. Now we have better machines in hospitals that will keep premature infants alive until they are big enough to survive without machines.
Here’s the deal. If I could have my memory wiped every few hundred years or so and start over (like a reincarnation) I’d consider that. Otherwise it would be like sitting in a waiting room for eternity.
#28 is right. Less babies dying is what brought up the life expectancy age. I think genetically there are people who live long, others don’t. My grandfather is 96 years old, he has been smoking all of his life and still smokes, was a professional boxer, and he’s been deaf since a child. He’s still in better shape than most people in their nineties.
I don’t know how long I would want to live. Have you ever been to a retirement home? It’s a depressing site.
jbensen2
Limp wristed politicization of every topic is lame.
#31…that’s the difference between a having a point of view and a being a partisan. Partisans blame everything on their opposition.
I’ve heard it said that no one really wants to live forever, just an exceptionally long time and in good health and sound mind. The figure they cited for a good, long life was 1,000 years followed by self-immolation. It’s I suppose as if when you live long enough, you finally have your fill of it and realize that there’s something more after death, and you become anxious to experience it. It seems that our current lives are unnaturally truncated, resulting in a knee-jerk reaction desire to “live forever”.
I recall reading a long time ago that the biggest reason for avg life expectancy going up is due to the decline of reported infant mortality.
Naa–its clean drinking water.
I find the older I get, the more curious I am about what might happen next, the “directions” our society will go. The impact of so much technology/science is still in its infancy. I want to know how many dimensions there are. I want to know how life can arise from non living environment. I want to know how consciousness manifests itself. I want to know if consciousness is an analog function or can it be achieved digitally. I want to know if energy can become so cheap as to not be worth measuring. And a dozen more. Only one way to find out: live long enough to see it. Does raise a lot of “sociological issues.” While the tech side is fun and interesting to me, the hooman side is worrying. Power corrupts. I think there is a black hole of oppressive oligarcies waiting for any of various “Dear Leaders” to get in charge.
Immortality could be the greatest threat to human freedom there is.
Hah, hah.
The only people that want to live forever either have a good life to start with or are afraid of death.
For the rest, 30 years is too long.
Cursor_
Lets see..
Live longer?
Work longer?
Slum longer?
Struggle longer?
Fight longer?
You do not think that IF’ we lived longer, they wouldnt WORK us longer?
After retirement they expect us to die within 10-15 years. I hope you know that.
If we could have a Shorter work day, and MORE time with family and friends..it could be better. MORE time to make things BETTER for myself and/or family, and for my future.
Other wise…Piss off.
Olo Baggins of Bywater is very wise. And has a cool name. And probably drinks good beer, which I completely respect.
Drinking good beer and enjoying life is more important than length of life. You can keep a body on ice and it would probably keep forever – but is it having fun? There is much to be learned from Olo Baggins of Bywater.
I think practical immortality would be a great boost for space exploration.
You would have to be fairly long-lived to get very far.
And if you were despairing, waiting for people with deeply stupid ideas to finally just die, you would eventually have to leave the planet since the intensely stupid out number the occasionally stupid by such overwhelming, stifling multiples.*
I do think the discussion is moot at this point but can see that technology will continue to close in on the goal and I think it is a good thing. Eventually, the “Hell Yes!” crowd will inherit the Earth and beyond.
* Although, ambitious psychopaths can disagree.
I would consider it if it was as a totally digital existence as an upload into an extremely high definition virtual environment. No sagging organic body in a pod wired to the Matrix for me. This may explain Fermi’s Paradox about the Drake Equation. Why go anywhere when you can have anything you want, or be anything you want, or do anything you want? Any sufficiently advanced virtual reality is indistinguishable from magic.