OpEd Piece on Extended Life Expectancy

daksis writes "CNN has posted an OpEd piece from the New York Times that raises some interesting issues. With the current advances in biology, we as a society are facing the real possibility that "immortality" could some day be the norm. What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?"

Comments

population

[mjmalone]

"Would one dare do anything so risky as carouse, drive a car, hit the ski slopes, if three hundred years of life would be thereby imperiled?"

I think this is a stupid comment, why would anybody be less likely to risk their life just because of their potential logevity? Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?

I think the more interesting point, and one the article failed to mention, is where are all these people going to live, what are they going to eat, and who is going to pay for 240 years of retirement? With the population of earth already increasing rapidly extending lifespans to three times their current level would have a huge impact.

Oh yea! And what's going to happen when we run out of IPs for them all!?

Re:population

[garyok]

I think this is a stupid comment, why would anybody be less likely to risk their life just because of their potential logevity? Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?

Uh, yeah they are. Check out Liberia, Ethiopea, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Afghanistan, ...

Re:population

[Transcendent]

and who is going to pay for 240 years of retirement?

No one... that's why they're not going to retire for 240 years, but work for at least 200.

Imagine the type of skilled labor you could obtain over 200 years... More and more people will become highly (and i mean highly) trained specialists in whatever they do. This would allow for ever-increasing advanced in science, medecine, and technology which would appear to "boom" in the first century of this kind of "immortality".

I, for one, would love to see this kind of thing happen.

Re:population

[s20451]

Maybe not three hundred. But what if the number were a millon? An immortal being (i.e., one for whom there was no such thing as a natural cause of death) would probably be very risk-averse. Some have claimed that this is the answer to the Fermi paradox, which wonders why evidence of extra-terrestrial life is not everywhere. If alien civilizations discovered immortality first, then why would they risk life and limb in something as reckless as space travel?

Re:population

[Efreet]

If you'll live to be 5000 you have a good reason to delay having kids...

In any event, hundreds of years is a *long* time, and there's a lot of space in the solar system.

Re:population

[siskbc]

Uh, yeah they are. Check out Liberia, Ethiopea, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Afghanistan, ...

You'd think g'parent would have actually seen that line coming. Of course you live riskier (say, war) when you figure dysentery is going to get you any day anyway.

Re:population

[Ominous Coward]

Well, I think people would retire later, but also, I think that the actual life expectancy wouldn't grow as much, because health advances will only go so far as to offset the more dangerous things we do to ourselves.

Though fiction, I think Futurama and Transmetropolitan both show pretty well how people will act in the future. Still violent, still stupid, but soon people can be even more careless with their health. Why stop smoking when you can just have the anti-cancer trait?

Transplants might extend our lives a bunch, but brain damage will be the limiting factor. Replacing the brain-cell will do no good, because it won't have the memories of what it replaced. Now if we can do computer back-ups of brains, then we're going somewhere.

Re:population

[Lord_Slepnir]

who is going to pay for 240 years of retirement?

Everyone else who is working for 760 years of thier life. One of hte benefits of living longer is that you could also be healthier and work longer.

Re:population

[goldspider]

"and who is going to pay for 240 years of retirement?"

Why you and I are, of course! Isn't that what our socialist governments have convinced us should be done?

Social security in teh U.S. has proven that working people cannot support 25 years of retirement, let alone 240, but that isn't stopping our governments from confiscating more and more of our wealth for the sake of sweet Grandmas everywhere. Once the money is spread too thin, we can all be impoverished together! Doesn't that sound nice?

Maybe living forever isn't such a good idea! Socialism isn't any better.

Re:population

[Anonym0us Cow Herd]

and who is going to pay for 240 years of retirement?

I think you are overly optimistic. Corporations will find some way to work us to their advantage.


where are all these people going to live, what are they going to eat

And what makes you think that so many people will get this privilege? Last time I checked, the peon to CEO ratio is very high.

Re:population

[Lord_Slepnir]

Oh yea! And what's going to happen when we run out of IPs for them all!?

NAT

Re:population

[jericho4.0]

Because sitting in one place for a million years is really, really boring?

Re:population

[YetAnotherAnonymousC]

Imagine the type of skilled labor you could obtain over 200 years... More and more people will become highly (and i mean highly) trained specialists in whatever they do.

There's the optimist! And here I am worried that my specializations won't be relevant five years from now... =)

Re:population

[realdpk]

Rather than continuing to promote specialization over those 200 years, I'd like to see people branch out in to new fields.

Specialization is one of the top problems with jobs here - we have people who are on unemployment who complain about not being able to find a job in their field, who don't even look outside their field. Unions are also a problem here - they seem to work under the idea that people will have the same jobs their entire lives. 30-40 years is already a long time - 200 years is approaching insanity.

Re:population

[RyanFenton]

Actually, this very same sentiment will likely be the motivation that brings about many advances in biotechnology.

It's not too hard to imagine a system where your memories reside in several locations, redundantly backed up, with your body replaceable.

Then people can go on the ski slopes, hit a few trees, engage in a friendly sword-fight, etc., so long as they have a spare body lying around, ready to be awakened when the current one wears out.

Ryan Fenton

Re:population

[geek42]

What I think you might have missed is the bit about overpopulation. It doesn't matter how skilled a populace is, if there are ten times as many humans as the planet can sustain, we're all screwed regardless.

Re:population

[bluprint]

even more careless with their health. Why stop smoking when

If smoking had no negative affects (either because of genetic engineering, or because of a "magic pill", or whatever...) it really isn't that careless of an act, now is it?

Re:population

[broller]

And if you were immortal, you would have no need for unmanned spacecraft or highly advanced communications? This may explain why an immortal society wouldn't space travel, but doesn't explain why there is no evidence.

And in 1000 years you think space travel will be seen as reckless? We're still babies of space exploration. Most people don't consider driving a car or flying a plane reckless.

Re:population

[PeteyG]

"Would one dare do anything so risky as carouse, drive a car, hit the ski slopes, if three hundred years of life would be thereby imperiled?

Or better yet, would anyone wage war? Would anyone commit terrorist acts?

If you think about it, the people who take the most big risks are usually teenagers. The people with the most life ahead of them. This isn't a big deal, I don't think.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah .... great think about the average burn-out is something like 5 years for any given job ... 40 carrier moves in a life time.

One thing the article completely misses, however, is that brain deterioration tends *not* to be solely due to aging. Alzheier's disease is closely linked with the accumulation of plaques and tangles that foul up the neuro chemistry and wack the neurons. Keeping cells from dying of "natural old age" won't avoid that problem. So sure you can live to 600, but the last 500 will be in a cognition free stupor.

Re:population

[Theatetus]

There's an interesting question... as a card-carrying generalist (yes, we can get jobs), will the kind of stuff I do become more important in an immortal world, or will people simply give up on trying to bridge vastly differing specialties?

Re:population

[technomom]

If we have a lifespan of 5000 years, how old you will have to be to no longer be a kid yourself?

JoAnn

Re:population

[DuckWing]

The issue of earth's over population is a myth. It was proven not too long ago that the entire population of the earth could fit into the state of Texas, providing each individual with 2000 sq. ft. of space. We are not over crowded.

That said, people like to live close to major cities, and so forth, so yes some cities are over crowded, but if we just allow ourselves to expand out, we'd have lots of room and to spare.

Personally, I don't believe we'll ever achieve this kind of longevity. The environment changed after the flood of Genesis. The pre-flood world allowed us to live for almost a millenia (Enoch was 969 yrs old, Noah 965 yrs old or so). Sorry, but it won't happen.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is a stupid comment, why would anybody be less likely to risk their life just because of their potential logevity? Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?

Actually, yes. How many 12 year olds are in the military in the 1st world? How many people in the 1st world disregard the danger of a disease that will most likely kill them "in 10 to 15 years"?

When the life expectancy is only 30, why would you care about contracting a disease at 15 that will kill you in 15 years? It would be the equivalent of a 75 year old American man diagnosed with stage 1 prostate cancer. Yes, it might kill him in fifteen years (it typically grows very slowly), but he's already 75. Chances are he'll die of somethign else first.

That being said, I think that ideally we will solve the worlds food needs first, then figure out ways to improve quality of life and life expectancy among the worlds least fortunate, and once all countries are on a little more equal ground, then work on extending all our lifespans.

You know who is goign to hate this the most, right? The investment industry. Put $1,000 into an account for your son when he is born, and make it a trust that he can't break into until he's 200. Would 190 billion dollars be a nice 200th birthday present?

JD

Re:population

[American AC in Paris]

I think this is a stupid comment, why would anybody be less likely to risk their life just because of their potential logevity?

Ever wondered why so many people quit smoking? It's not all about saving money, ya know.

Now, if you live somewhere where the life expectancy is 35-40 years, why not keep smoking if you can afford the cost? It's not like you're going to last long enough to die of cancer, and you probably enjoy smoking a fair amount...

Re:population

[Azureflare]

Man, I don't know what you're talking about, if people are old and crufty for 200 years, I for one want no part in any society like that!

Even if you can solve the problem of physical decay, how long do the neurons in the brain last? New neurons cannot be created, only new connections can be made...People would probably die of brain death, while their bodies were in perfect health. I think it's kind of silly to think that we should strive for immortality. What are you going to do with all those years? Can you seriously imagine what it would be like to work for 200 years, as opposed to 65? That's more than 3 times the current retirement age!

We will all have to face death one day, and promises of immortality are just a waste of time and energy.

Re:population

[QuantumFTL]

I think this is a stupid comment, why would anybody be less likely to risk their life just because of their potential logevity? Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?

Actually I think it's a valid psychological point. A lot of individuals rationalize their dangerous behaviors in that they are going to "die sometime" anyways. The more you have to lose, the less likely you are to take a risk.

I think the more interesting point, and one the article failed to mention, is where are all these people going to live, what are they going to eat, and who is going to pay for 240 years of retirement? With the population of earth already increasing rapidly extending lifespans to three times their current level would have a huge impact.

Those are indeed interesting questions. First of all, the assumption that people would continue to retire in their sixties if their lifespan extended is rather silly. People used to have a life expectancy of 40 years, but we certainly don't stop working at 40 now. Provided the quality of life is high ehough for them to be useful, I know plenty of elderly individuals who'd love to be productive again. Medical technology should allow them to be much more fit, robust, etc by then anyways.

As for where everyone is going to live, have you ever been to Wyoming? There's literally *TONS* of space, we haven't even come close to saturating earth spatially, not to mention skyscrapers will continue to be larger/taller.

As for what they are going to eat... underground farming is a possibility, and it's quite possible with the help of organic synthasizing implants the food intake required by a human could be drastically reduced. Between that and organic recycling technology, there's no reason a household could not eventually be a closed loop system that only required energy input (recycling water/organics). It's what astronauts do already!

As for the growth rate... A lot of developed countries have populations that are barely growing, or are shrinking even. As technology becomes more and more inexpensive and pervasive, developing countries will be able to catch up. Between this and advanced technology (much of which is coming from the space program, of which I am a part) I think a lot of these problems are solvable.

The biggest issue (which you didn't mention) is where are we going to get the energy for all of these people? I mean, there's theoretical power sources that could handle it, but will they be around in time? Controlled fusion perhaps, or maybe giant solar collectors in space... I predict that between biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics and computer science, in a hundred years the only real commodities left will be energy and information (from which anything else can be derived).

Yes there's plenty of interesting problems we will face as we head into the later part of the 21st century, however I am confident there will be equally interesting solutions. 10+ billion people have a way of overcoming difficulties. That is, if we don't kill ourselves first.

Oh yea! And what's going to happen when we run out of IPs for them all!? I'll sell mine on eBay for a ton of money, and stop wasting my time on slashdot ;)

Re:population

[BobTheLawyer]

hint: the story of Noah cannot be read as a science textbook. St Augustine worked this out 1,500 years ago - you're rather late to the party.

Re:population

[pascalb3]

By tinkering with two genes, scientists have produced roundworms that live six times as long as normal. The catch is that the worms are unusually sluggish ? imagine the globe as a nursing home for sluggish Methusalehs.

While the article states hearts, lungs, and other organs may be reproduced by pigs, it mentions nothing of the brain. So if the physical body slows down as it gets older and older, what about the mind? Some parts remain young -- I believe the kidney replaces its cells every couple of days, keeping it constantly young -- and those that don't can be replaced by the pig organs. Through this, the body may remain forever young, but the mind will continue to degrade.

Since the article states the roundworms became sluggish the older they get, just think of how decrepit the brain will become. Therefore, these 'highly-trained specialists' you mention will instead be 'highly-trained imbeciles'; think of all the mental ailments that come about the older one gets (e.g. alzheimers). Until a breakthrough in human genetics to actually REVERSE the aging process, slowing it will only produce limited benefits with outweighed consequences (famine, overpopulation, etc.)

Re:population

[IWorkForMorons]

Ah yes...as if it's not already hard enough for me to find a new job...

Programmer Wanted. Must have 100+ years experience in object-oriented programming, 50+ years as Senior Developer.

I wonder if they'll start coming up with new levels of experience? Senior Programmer...Guru Programmer...UBER Programmer...God-like Programmer. As if programmers egos weren't big enough...

Re:population

[mt2mb4me]

and anyways, it was Methusalah that lived to 969 not Enoch, hence the articles refrence, "methusalian"

Re:population

[geekmetal]

Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?

YES

But the question that strikes to me most is that when you are living at the age of 300 or whatever the number (over 100), how likely is it that your body becomes a medium for some wild disease to move from animals to human beings?

Re:population

[kisrael]

And if you were immortal, you would have no need for unmanned spacecraft or highly advanced communications? This may explain why an immortal society wouldn't space travel, but doesn't explain why there is no evidence.

Maybe like Larry Niven's "Pierson's Puppeteers" race--they're scared! They realize there might be some big bad aliens out there that they don't know about, so they take great care not to broadcast or probe to the big wide galaxy or universe...

Re:population

[Tungbo]

No problem with risks.

By the time the immortality technology becomes practical, it should be easy to grow several brainless clones for spare body parts.
We'll keep the brain encased in shockproof gels
and than we can go play Rollerball. Wheee!

Re:population

[Cyno]

Exactly. There aren't enough jobs to go around, and we're unwilling to make more or to provide for eveyone, so in the end we'd end up starving when we couldn't work to make money. We'd probably die at 70 or 80 anyway, unless we were rich.

This bring about a new form of social class. A class that is priveleged to live a much longer life than those in poverty.

If something like this happened I would expect the poor people to have yet another bloody revolution and chop off a bunch more people's heads. We seem to enjoy this more than progress.

Real progress? Learning what "to love" really means. It ain't sex, folks, although that does make more people. Its caring for those people and taking care of them when they are incapable of taking care of themselves. And then its hoping that if we give then freedom and the right environment that they will love and help take care of us when they are able. It isn't capitalism, working for an honest buck, or anything else that will save us.

Love is our only chance, if this technology prolifterates. But I think we'll turn to war, some serious wars with serious weaponry, before that'll happen.

Re:population

[trikberg]

I think there's something about that in some book by Tolkien. Something about how elves are peaceful by their nature as war is really the only thing that would cut their life short. Mortal men on the other hand are more reckless and wage war left and right as they will die "soon" anyway.

The elves showing up at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers (the movie) is also a much greater sacrifice as they are essentially giving up eternal life by coming to the aid of the mortals.

Re:population

[Cyno]

Besides all of that, I just want the cybernetic implants that make me one hell of a killing machine. Think of it. We could be playing UT for REAL!!! :)

Re:population

[rikkards]

Hopefully we will get lots of people being specialized in hairdressing and phonecleaning then we can send them off to crashland on other planets on ships

Re:population

[emuman_de]

Imagine the type of skilled labor you could obtain over 200 years... More and more people will become highly (and i mean highly) trained specialists in whatever they do. This would allow for ever-increasing advanced in science, medecine, and technology which would appear to "boom" in the first century of this kind of "immortality".

I know many programmers, that are not able to learn any new programming language or programming paradigm, but are still stuck with cobol or fortran. Many people don't want to learn new things.

Imagine a 200 year old cobol programmer. And don't expect a "boom".

Re:population

[orkysoft]

Wernstrom: "Face it, Farnsworth, you're over the hill. It's time to leave science to the hundred-twenty-year-olds."
Farnsworth: "You young turks think you know everything! I was inventing things when you were barely turning senile."
Wernstrom: "Haha! Go home before you embarrass yourself, old man! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a nap before the ceremonies."

(C&Ped from Gotfuturama.com)

Re:population

[Transcendent]

Rather than continuing to promote specialization over those 200 years, I'd like to see people branch out in to new fields.

That's the way to go for the working class, but what about the scientists or that make the discoveries that form the back-bone of tomorrows technology in which the engineers design and take to it's limit?

Take specialists from multiple fields with 150+ years of research behind them, have them work together and share ideas freely... just imagine the type of genious that would be it's output.

I myself wouldn't want to be stuck in the same job for over 200+ years. My passion is knowledge and would naturally span over as many different type of work and study as I could find.

Another possibility that would arise from that kind of lifespan would be to colonize other planets in our solar system or beyond. I'd gladly spend 50 years on a ship (not those little capsules... I gotta live there, ya know) to help out in setteling around a neighboring star.

Re:population

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Even if you can solve the problem of physical decay, how long do the neurons in the brain last? New neurons cannot be created, only new connections can be made...

That's actually been shown to be false, although it used to be believed. Neurons are born throughout life, particularly in certain parts of the brain- there are stem cells in the human brain.

Indeed, indications are that depression is caused by insufficient neurons being produced; antidepressants seems to increase survival of the new nerve cells, as well as raising serotonin levels.

What are you going to do with all those years? Can you seriously imagine what it would be like to work for 200 years, as opposed to 65? That's more tha 3 times the current retirement age!

Well, if you can save up enough money you can live off the interest indefinitely. About a million bucks is in the ballpark.

Re:population

[PD]

Illogical argument. There is no flaw in the system, it just has be adjusted to cope with the current conditions.

Sort of like how a little thing called the Constitution has been adjusted over the years to cope with current conditions.

Re:population

[KReilly]

How long they live? Or what the quality of their life is? I think that the later of the two is the real reason for extreme actions

Re:population

[Otter]

This whole thing is wild-ass speculation based on some new findings about C. elegans senescence and telomere regulation. Obviously if you're thinking about the lifestyle of people with a 300 year lifespan, it matters whether the aging process will be scaled proportionately or if you're looking at 230 years past reaching the state of a normal 70 year old. Right now, it's one sci-fi model versus another.

In general, Nicholas Kristof was an excellent reporter who was turned into a sub-mediocre columnist. At least this is a better use of his time than conducting a vendetta against Steven Hatfill or insisting that Sami al-Arian is a wrongly-persecuted apostle of tolerance.

Re:population

[socrates32]

Statistically speaking, if there were no natural causes of death (not just old-age, but disease as well) we would only have an average life expectancy of 250 years. Accident, suicide and various form of homicide kill LOTS of people. Most deaths are not the result of bad health, but bad judgement or bad luck.

Re:population

[peretzpup]

You know, this sort of life extension might actually significantly retard scientific progress. The dying off of the 'old guard' is often a precondition for the widespread propagation of genuinely new ideas.

Re:population

[swagr]

Most people that make any significant contributions to their field do so before they're 30.

Re:population

[HardYakka]

I agree! Why here in the 7th century, we serfs rarely live past 20 years. I hear talk of try to "extend" the lifespan to more than 70 years!

What would you do with all those years? That's more than 3 times the current retirement age!

I think it's unnatural to live past 20 - anyone older than that should do us a favor and kill yourself - you've outlived your usefulness!

Re:population

[dreadnougat]

Surely in science your skills won't all become obsolete (ok so stuff gets automated, etc), especially general thinking and logic skills. Unless we start using computers to think for us :(

Re:population

[grakwell]

I'm extremely sure that in 9000+ BC, they used the same year (365 and 1/4th days) as our Gregorian calendar (which was created in the 16th century). The ages make a lot more sense if you understand that a biblical "year" is 1 Moon Cycle (28 days). Why, my great-grandmother lived to the ripe old age of 1317! Noah ain't got nothing on Granny.

Re:population

[PSaltyDS]

Oh yea! And what's going to happen when we run out of IPs for them all!?

No sweat! Microsoft's new IPv2006.Net, while incompatible with all non-microsoft hardware and software, will provide a 16 Peta-address block for every city block on the planet. It will, therefore be implemented by the new UN office: World Addressing Helpfullness Hierarchy (WAHH). We can then have a population of trillions and STILL have internet connected toasters! (Whew, I feel better now.)

New from O'Reilly "SCO in a Nutshell", or more affectionately known as "The Weasel Book."

Re:population

[dreadnougat]

I'm no economist, but how many people living off of interest could the economy support?

Re:population

[geggibus]

If smoking had no negative affects (either because of genetic engineering, or because of a "magic pill", or whatever...) it really isn't that careless of an act, now is it?

No, then it would become just another bad habit..

And imagine the abstinence of a N*100 years of smoking..

Re:population

[kendoka]

Well, the population explosion tends to be in 2nd and 3rd world countries such as Brazil. In many of those countries there is an economic incentive to have children for the labor they can provide for the family; this is the inverse of much of the Western world where children are expensive and cannot be used for labor.

We might be spared an initial population explosio since this technology I assume would only be available in 1st world countries, where the number of children produced by a couple is 1.8-3? (an old stat, does it include out-of-wedlock children? dunno)

There might have to be some Methusulah(sp?) legislation to limit the number of children these people can have, etc.

Re:population

[Zathrus]

Interesting bits on the neurons and depression... if you happen to know of any texts geared toward the layperson on this, post them if you would.

Well, if you can save up enough money you can live off the interest indefinitely. About a million bucks is in the ballpark.

Depends... that relies on several things. First, that you can beat inflation with your returns, and by a healthy margin. In most of the industrialized world this hasn't been a big issue for the past 50 years, but it's far from a certainty. If inflation goes above 3-4% it becomes much harder to maintain the percentages (yeah, some of your investments will also rise in returns, but not all of them, and odds are not enough of them to make up the gap). Second, that the economy is stable enough to provide high returns for the majority of the time period. You can afford to lose money some years, or spend more than your gains, but it has to turn around fairly shortly (5-10 years). Otherwise the damage you do to your principle will get too large to overcome easily.

In general it's advised to live off 5% or less of the principle. The stock market has a long term (over ~90 years) return of 11%, so use that as a basis. That doesn't include inflation though, or localized downturns, so cut that in half to counteract them. A $1M principle will give you a yearly income of about $50k -- which is a pretty darn good living wage, even for a couple (at least currently). How much you actually need to live off of, however, depends on factors like how much debt you have (including mortgage and other long term debts), how many kids you have, and how you want your lifestyle to be (at $50k/yr for two people you're not going to be dining out a ton or driving new cars very much). It would, however, let you live without working and doing pretty much whatever hobby you wanted... within reason.

Re:population

[br0ck]

Just looked this up because the claim that the entire popluation could live in Texas sounded funky and found that it's actually 1217 sq feet per person.

Re:population

[maxume]

Whoever proved that wasn't really that smart. I don't think they gave much consideration to the following things: Shit, Water, and Refuse. People dump pretty much everyday, need lots of fresh, clean water, and throw out lots of garbage. If everybody is moving to Texas, let me know, I am gonna stay put, and not shit in the river.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, maybe their life expectancy calculates as shorter because they endanger their lives.

Re:population

[JudgeFurious]

Very true but then they are on a time limit aren't they? If the "deadline" (heh) was pushed back then maybe they would make significant contributions well into their 230's or so and then slack off for the remainder of their lives.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you can save up enough money you can live off the interest indefinitely. About a million bucks is in the ballpark.

But only if there aren't too many people doing it.

The money isn't meaningful in itself, it's just a way of allocating resources. If the position becomes that a small minority are producing all the goods and services and the rest are living off of them then expect either for the economy to sort itself out through inflation pushing up the wages of the actual producers and reducing the real value of the savings people are living off or else for a revolution to occur.

By and large people aren't stupid. A minority living off the majority can be sustainable but if instead the majority are "retired" and "living off their savings" then expect the minority, who are actually producing everything, to snap.

Re:population

[meringuoid]

It was probably most explicit in Asimov. The Spacer culture had achieved great longevity, and had therefore become rather cowardly. They remained on their fifty worlds with their hordes of robot slaves and declined the challenge of galactic expansion. The Settler culture, a second wave of colonists spreading out from Earth, rejected both robots and long life, and swarmed clear across the Galaxy. Earth itself was destroyed by the Spacers, but all this did was drive the Settlers further onwards.

As for Puppeteers, which someone mentioned elsewhere on the thread: their cowardice probably came from their ancestry as grazing animals. The Pak are just as long-lived, and they are no cowards; neither are humans, who live indefinitely with the aid of boosterspice, and who have smashed the kzinti on four separate occasions and (on behalf of the puppeteers) explored an exploding galactic core and the Ringworld, guarded by the most powerful weapon in the known universe. Humans learn paranoia as they grow old, yes - we see the contrast between Louis and Teela, for instance - but it doesn't seem the same as Puppeteer immortality.

And the Elves? Nobody could ever accuse them of cowardice. Feanor himself declared their aim: "We are threatened with many evils, and treason not least; but one thing is not said: that we shall suffer from cowardice, from cravens or the fear of cravens. Therefore I say that we will go on, and this doom I add: the deeds that we shall do shall be the matter of song until the last days of Arda." He was right.

Given long life, we'll probably consciously rethink our attitudes to danger. If I make a habit of something for eighty years, it probably won't kill me, but if I keep at it for two hundred it might. But our instinctive attitude to risk will probably remain set at the 80-year level, because that's what's in the DNA.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

At least we'll have plenty of COBOL programmers prepared for the year 10000.

Re:population

[Thuktun]

Yeah .... great think about the average burn-out is something like 5 years for any given job ... 40 carrier moves in a life time.

A job and a career are not equivalent. One may have many, many jobs in a particular career.

Re:population

[lone_marauder]

More and more people will become highly (and i mean highly) trained specialists in whatever they do.

Wouldn't the resultant increase in the rates the 200 year old plumbers charge pretty much absorb all the economic benefits?

Re:population

[FroMan]

Yeah, but wouldn't you know it, we'd probably be wiped out by some virus floating around on a telephone while ark B settles earth.

Re:population

[xThinkx]

500 years of cognition free stupor? SIGN ME UP!

Re:population

[captredballs]

Maybe they don't get to choose whether their life is endangered or not...

Re:population

[the_2nd_coming]

well, if you have ever seen extreme engineering on the discovery channel, you will see that the Japanese are looking at the population problem by making something similar to archologies from sim city 2000. very cool stuff.

Re:population

[JudgeFurious]

My God! I can't even imagine the horror involved in spending 200 years trying to get these morons to stop trying to punching the monkey or to stop opening every single attachment they get sent in Outlook.

Kill me, please.

Re:population

[in7ane]

Once again you've been fooled by causation. Take crime and war for example, life expectancy is reduced because of it, not that people engage in these activities because they have a low live expectancy. And either way, I doubt that potential life expectancy figures as the main driving force behind your decisions if you are living in one of the countries you mentioned (ok, maybe preserving your life does, but then again outside factors largely determine your success in that).

To address the change in risk attitudes if your life expectancy is longer - yes, if you are rational, you should be more risk averse since you have more to loose. But who says that people are rational?

Re:population

[Oz_mjk]

That very same thing was done in Robin Cook's Abduction . It's a good read. It involves a civilisation of first generation humans, those who evolved before a catastrophe wiped out all life on earth. They resorted to living underground, beneath the oceans. Their bodies were genetically engineered to be nearly immortal and every few hundred years, they transferred their minds into a computer to be later re-implanted in a new body. I think this sort of thing is possible, but certainly not with todays technology.

Re:population

[goldspider]

"There is no flaw in the system, it just has be adjusted to cope with the current conditions."

Is that the new, less-offensive way to say "Grab your ankles, we're raising your taxes again."?

The system is not only flawed, it's fundamentally broken. There inevitably is a point where those who take from the system far exceed those who put into it. It's a vicious cycle.

As the number of those who take from the system grows, the more that those who put into it have to pay into the system. The more they have to pay, the fewer who can afford to do so. They join the ranks of those who take from the system, and those remaining have to pay more, and so the cycle continues.

It's only a matter of time before socialist economies start collapsing under their own weight. I just hope the U.S. goverment changes it's out-of-control social program spending before that happens.

For a preview of what's to come, take a look at California!

Re:population

[dreadnougat]

What age group gets in the most reckless accidents? (~20) Who has a larger amount of time left to live, on average, an 18 year old or a 40 year old? On the other hand, maybe growing up with no concept of death will only most people much more reckless.

Re:population

[killmenow]

...but the last 500 will be in a cognition free stupor.

Mmmm...500 years of drunkenness. Me likes.

Re:population

[dreadnougat]

Who would be content to let somebody else live while they die, just because that other person has their memories? Unless your consciousness just magically warps over to that other person (your backup) when they body that it happens to be inhabiting dies.

Re:population

[lone_marauder]

Most people that make any significant contributions to their field do so before they're 30.

Ever heard of Galileo, Hawking, or Einstein?

Either you are a historian devoted exclusively to the lives of Mongol warlords, a fan of boy bands, or a Microsoft astroturfer. Which of the above I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.

Re:population

[Gunzour]

Huh? What do you base that statement on?

Re:population

[Efreet]

That may be true, but whats the point of new discoveries if we aren't there to know about them?

Actually, one way to solve this might be for people to switch specialties every once in a while. Someone going to biology from physics won't have many preconceptions, at least compared to old biologists.

Re:population

[Chris Abernathy]

Actually, with people leading longer lives, more people will have the opportunity to train in multiple disciplines. This would help scientific progress as people find ways to combine ideas from very different fields of study.

Re:population

[Efreet]

Depends on progress in automation.

Re:population

[xThinkx]

"Can you seriously imagine what it would be like to work for 200 years, as opposed to 65?"

I see it this way, there are two reasons why people retire: 1 - they are tired of work 2: - they are unable, or hindered in their ability to work. Those people who don't like their jobs would probably fall into category 1, they would become tired of work. However added longevity including improved quality of life (21 forever if you will) would give these people the option to switch fields. With good investments you could probably take 30 or so years off between switches. This would create a scenario where you could have three different careers and retire three different times. For the other people who retire because of physical limitations due to age, hopefully the deterioration which prevents them from continuing could be eliminated and they could stay happily at their jobs.

With extended lifespans the workplace would adapt I'm sure. Vacation times may be measured in years, for every 10 you work you get 1 off, who knows what is possible. Something this article neglected was the added factor of biotechnology. Assuming that conventional medicine could keep you mentally and physically at 21 for all of your years, you would still probably forget memories from a few hundred years ago. However, the very real possibility of implants exists, so you may have all of your memories stored on a convenient .25' x .25' 80 exobyte implant.

I say cheers to immortality, then again I'm also an atheist and a nerd.

Re:population

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Everyone who has enough money; by definition. Note that if too many people try to do this you get inflation which self regulates.

Re:population

[LoFat ByLine]

"Would one dare do anything so risky as carouse, drive a car, hit the ski slopes, if three hundred years of life would be thereby imperiled?"

I agree this is a stupid (or at least poorly-considered) comment, but for a different reason: People routinely imperil decades of their lives doing exactly those kinds of things now, why would we expect the prospect of additional decades, or even centuries, to change this kind of behaviour?

"Oh gee, when I only stood to lose 50 years I used to drive like a lunatic, but now I stand to lose 250 years, it's just not worth it!"

A substantial fraction of the population already thinks they're immortal (ie impervious to harm), real immortality won't change that.

Re:population

[luzrek]

I know that the God comment is supposed to be a joke, however one might want to consider the implications of immortality linke to technology. For example, access to high level medical procedures is already strongly linked to money. Certainly the first few people who are going to have access to "immortality" technology are going to be the super-rich and super-powerful. They will be able to use their extended lifetimes to further accumulate wealth and power. What is to keep these people from effectively becoming like gods-on-earth? If something akin to a "brain-transplant" this may become a little too much linke SG1.

Re:population

[spamchang]

they will, just only overseas, where all the jobs will have been shipped off to by then.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

Like, for example, you could become a highly (and I mean highly) trained specialist at cleaning the fry vat.

Re:population

[Bobman1235]

I think this is a stupid comment, why would anybody be less likely to risk their life just because of their potential logevity? Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?

Uh, yeah they are. Check out Liberia, Ethiopea, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Afghanistan, ...

This is Insightful? Where exactly is the insight? Of course people in third world countries are more likely to do things that endanger their lives --first because most of those things they HAVE to do to survive (you don't see any Afghani's out bungee jumping), and second because the QUALITY of life is piss poor. If you took two people, gave them both a great life, but told one he would most likely only live to 40 and the other that he would live to 80, I don't think they'd act differently...

There's just way too many other factors at play to judge people's actions in third world countries based solely on life expectancy.

Re:population

[Gilgaron]

Overpopulation and overcrowding are different things :) Without nitrogen fertilizers we've already exceeded the farming output of the Earth, only technology has allowed the population to continue to grow. Logistics is the main problem for feeding the world today. If for the sake of argument, we accept your biblical literalism, it should be possible to create preflood conditions again. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read Aesop's Fables and take everything literally so I miss the point of the stories entirely.

Re:population

[Paul d'Aoust]

ha ha! you couple of karma-whores!

Re:population

[Clockwork Apple]

Call that the "Soylent Green Effect".

Re:population

[xThinkx]

When you consider lifetimes of 1000 years, this could make for one great "pyramid" retirement structure. Assuming people still pop out kids around every 25 years, by the time you die, you would have around 39 generations under you. If you figure that you have 2 kids, and each of them 2 kids, etc., that leaves you with

• 2 kids
• 4 grandkids
• 8 great grandkids
• 16 great-great-grandkids
• 32 great-great-great-grandkids
• 64 great-great-great-great-grandkids
• all the way to ...
• 549,755,813,888 (38 great) grandkids.

So if ONLY THE LAST GENERATION of your family gave you $1 a year, you'd be a multi-billionaire. More realistically, assuming $100K/year is a very comfortable retirement, your investments would only have to last you 16 generations, or 400 years, then you could just collect from your descendents.

The only downside I could see to this is christmas cards and family reunions would be a BITCH.

Re:population

[hackrobat]

Imagine the type of skilled labor you could obtain over 200 years... More and more people will become highly (and i mean highly) trained specialists in whatever they do.

Well then I hope Linus and team go on to live for 200 years.

By the time this happens, Mozilla will have collected so much mass that it'll take a month only to build =)

Re:population

[Shazow]

Indeed, imagine what kind of advancements Einstein could have made if he had an extra 200 years to his life.

- shazow

Re:population

[Cpt_Kirks]

Now if we can do computer back-ups of brains, then we're going somewhere.

That's what I want, Matrix style immortality, but with *ME* in control.

All the fun you want, in any form. Space exploration? Just send a partial copy of your intellect and personality in a probe.

Want interaction with the "real world"? Upload into a robot body (make a backup, first).

Re:population

[TClevenger]

"74 years ought to be good enough for anybody."

-Bill Gates

:-)

Re:population

[renoX]

> Most people that make any significant contributions to their field do so before they're 30.
Einstein's most significant contribution: generalised relativity, was made between 1912 and 1915, and he was born on 1879.

Which means when he was between 33 and 36 years old, yes he made other discory before he was 30 year old, but generalised relativity is really his "chef d'oeuvre" IMHO.

Re:population

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Interesting bits on the neurons and depression... if you happen to know of any texts geared toward the layperson on this, post them if you would.

I think at this stage it is just a theory; I'm not sure exactly how much experimental support it has; but there is some, and it explains things that otherwise aren't understood- for example why it takes 5-6 weeks for depression to lift (it probably takes that long for the neurons to install themselves); also why exercise seems to help (exercise seems to increase neuronal production too.) But I don't think it is the dominant theory.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the more interesting point, and one the article failed to mention, is where are all these people going to live, what are they going to eat, and who is going to pay for 240 years of retirement? With the population of earth already increasing rapidly extending lifespans to three times their current level would have a huge impact.

We've barely scratched the surface of our planet's human sustaining potential. The majority of the earth is uninhabited or very very sparcely inhabited (read wild). All famines that exist right now are created politically, a farmer's worst enemy is overproduction. Overpopulation is as much of a hoax as is global warming with very selective evidence presented to support the claims. Environmentalism seems to want to reduce the world to a pre-industrial state (which could not support the current population). This is good? I, for one, think people are fundamentally good and come before anything else you can find in the dirt, in the ocean, or in the air. Let them live forever, perhaps we will have a better understanding of history and fix our mistakes in getting along.

This world could easily support many many times the current population without any crouding issues.

Re:population

[Nept]

I don't think so. We're not talking about slowing down the ageing process, but just extending life expectancy. With the end result that we'll end up with a lot of really, really, really, really old people - who are completely incapable of doing anything.
Instead we'll end up with more rest homes than schools, and not only will the young be obligated to support their grandparents, but their great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, great-great-great...etc.

Sounds bloody brilliant.

Re:population

[tool462]

This would allow for ever-increasing advanced in science, medecine, and technology which would appear to "boom" in the first century of this kind of "immortality".

This is one way of looking at it, but I'd be concerned that progress might stagnate. I read somewhere that most of the major contributions by scientists happen at the beginning of their career: in their 20's and 30's (I think the common tie was pre-marriage).

I'd be concerned that with the longer lifetimes, more people would strive to maintain the status quo. The influx of young hooligans turning the world upside down would have a much smaller impact if they are only a tiny portion of the population.

Further, if we quadruple our life-expectancies, we will in effect quadruple the earth's population. I'm not sure how long Earth could support 24 billion people. Do we then enforce a mandatory death age a la Brave New World (I think) or mandatory sterilization a la China?

Re:population

[axxackall]

1. Most? I would say some, hard to say many (without saying how many), but noway most... Were did you get your statistics from? Some urban legends?
2. People who do contribute the best before 30 may have a very brief education *AND* their contribution did require any serious education - that will be fixed by a very serious competition that would require a very serious (mean years of) education to make anything significant that the society will ever notice;
3. ... *OR* they did not have to contribute anymore after they've got enough (for retirement) payment for their brief contribution - that will be fixed by a very hard competition once beter educated and more skiled people will make more significant (read: more payable) contributions;
4. Once the amount of knowledge of the humankind will increase the amount of time to learn and understand it will increase as well and that will increase the amount of years required for even basic education;

Re:population

[pmz]

...will the kind of stuff I do become more important in an immortal world, or will people simply give up on trying to bridge vastly differing specialties?

If you can remember the variety of things you've done over the last 200 years, then hats off to you. I can barely remember stuff from last week--so much for being a generalist in the immortal era.

Re:population

[SubjunctiveSam]

Ever heard of Galileo, Hawking, or Einstein?

Yes, and it was Einstein who said in 1942 "A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so."

When Albert first published his special theory of relativity in 1905, it did not include the famous E=MC^2. He added it to another publication of it later that year. He was 26.

In 1971, Stephen Hawking suggested the creation of mini black holes following the big bang. These mini black holes might contain billions of tons of mass, but have the volume of an elementary particle. In 1971, Stephen Hawking was 29.

Galileo conducted his famous experiment where he dropped bodies of different weights from the tower of Piza sometime between 1589 when he was appointed chair of mathematics at the University of Piza as a result of his theorems pertaining to centers of gravity, and 1592 when his anti-aristotlean veiws caused him to lose this post. Galileo was born in 1564, making him somewhere between 25 and 28 years old during that time.

Your mentioning of three great men who made significant contributions to science before the age of 30 proves that it is possible, but the grandparent poster is still right. Most scientists at least, who make very important conttributions to their field do so before the age of 30.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, so Thomas Kuhn says, anyway. The top article on ESR's blog right now just happens to be an argument against this particular idea.

Re:population

[David Hume]

Once again you've been fooled by causation. Take crime and war for example, life expectancy is reduced because of it, not that people engage in these activities because they have a low live expectancy.

The causation can work both ways. Indeed, it may create a self-reinforcing loop.

Crime and war probably reduce life expectancy. (I say "probably" because there may be times where the refusal to engage in crime or to wage war reduce one's life expectancy. There are times when those who do not steal food starve to death. There may have been people who died in the Holocaust who would have survived had they fought, or fought sooner.)

However, the perception or belief that one is going to "die young" or "die soon" anyway can cause someone to engage behavior. I've listened to interviews with young gang-bangers who were convinced that they were going to die before they were 30, so they might as well go out having "fun" -- even if that "fun" involved stealing a car, ripping off a liquor store, etc.

Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. The firm belief that one is destined to die before age thirty causes a person to engage in behavior that both reinforces that belief and greatly increases the probability that one will in fact die before age thirty.

Enaging in risky behavior when one believes one has relatively little time left can be perceived to be rational. Today, if somebody is 50 years old, and decides to go sky-diving for the first time, he is probably risking only 20 years of life and future enjoyment. However, if in the future the average life expectancy is 250 years, a 50 year old who decides to go sky diving for the first time is risking much, much more. The cost-benefit analysis is completely altered.

I wish I could remember the episode, but I seem to recall a Twilight Zone episode where the main character either was immune to death from natural causes, or was just days away from achieving immortality. As a result, he wouldn't leave his room. He was terrified by the thought that he would die in a stupid accident.

Re:population

[Zachary Kessin]

Think about what it would do to the job market, nothing good. As a relative young person (30) I have lots of people who have more experience than I do, but sooner or later I expect they will retire and make room for me, as I will for the next gereration. But instead of getting out of the way for the next generation if they stick around it means that it will drasticly change the way a lot of things work.

Elizabeth Moon wrote some novels about what this would do to the navy. If the US navy could instead of getting 25 years out of a Senior Master Chief get 85 years, it would totally screw recruitment as it would close off all avenue for advancement.

That being said I would love to live for a very long time.

Re:population

[anantherous coward]

I would love seet it too. I am older and have young children. I would love to know that I would live long enough to know my grandchildren

Regardless, Did not Einstein say: a person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so. I recalled seeing this in the comments on an earlier /. article about the effects of marriage and family on creative genius.

Such longevity, I am afraid, could lead to cultural and technological stagnation as older conservative factions hold on to the reins of power and suppress new ideas and new innovations.

A modest increase in age, however, could allow people to delay family and child rearing enough to permit them to make thier mark while young and single. One can hope.

Re:population

[RyanFenton]

That is, unless we learn that we aren't really the same physical "being" throughout our whole lives. That sense of "you" may just be one atom that switches to the next one every few milliseconds, compeltely replaced after two days, whatever. In the future, perhaps the "you" that matters, even to yourself, will be the informational you, the "you" with continguity of memory from event to event.

Or perhaps not.

Ryan Fenton

Re:population

[letxa2000]

To address the change in risk attitudes if your life expectancy is longer - yes, if you are rational, you should be more risk averse since you have more to loose. But who says that people are rational?

Perhaps. But I don't think that such decisions come down to "how many years of life am I risking" as much as "I am risking not being alive tomorrow." When you make a decision regarding a dangerous activity I don't think "Well, I wouldn't have done this 30 years ago, but now that I only have probably 20 years left to gamble, what the heck."

In fact, people generally do more life-threatening, foolish things when they are younger. That's partly due to the immortality one feels being young and also due to a lack of judgement--but everything I've seen in life suggests that people become more risk-averse as they grow older and have less time left rather than the opposite being true.

Re:population

[Rudeboy777]

Think in more general terms man. Of course nobody will care about your ASP.NET or Solaris skills then, but think about the amazing algorithm analysis or compiler design skill you could develop over that period of time. Personally, I'm jealous.

Re:population

[WinDoze]

$50k -- which is a pretty darn good living wage, even for a couple

Maybe if you want to live in flyover country. 50k doesn't cut it on the east coast (nor the west from what I hear).

Re:population

[EvilTwinSkippy]

You fail to take into account enlightenment. Someone doing serious work for a few centuries would attain a highly evolved state of conciousness.

You would have to re-work tenure rules though. Putting up with a deadbeat is okay for a few decades. A few centuries WOULD be a drain on resources.

Re:population

[pmz]

I wonder if they'll start coming up with new levels of experience?

Actually, with immortality, time becomes very very cheap. The professional programmer might just become obselete, as there would be no rush to do anything. Why create a system for electronic banking, when it is only a 30-minute walk to the bank to do transactions in person? Sure, electronic systems would exist on a certain scale--but the thresholds are much higher when time is no longer equated with money.

Re:population

[ATMAvatar]

Well, if you can save up enough money you can live off the interest indefinitely. About a million bucks is in the ballpark.

Given the current economy, my bank gives out somewhere around 0.25% interest. With simple interest, that leaves me with around $2500 a year. Figuring for continuously compounding interest doesn't give you much more for the year. Care to share how one may live off of that?

Re:population

[Catbeller]

"Overpopulation" doesn't refer to merely land area. Tho Asimov did some simple calculations once, and showed that every square foot of the Earth would be covered in humans in less than 3000 years. The entire universe, and every atom in it, would be converted at the same present growth rate in humans in about 6000 years, if it were possible to absorb everything, everywhere.

"Overpopulation" is what happens when problems start overwhelming solutions. Problems: disease, starvation, malutrition, species elimination, overgrazing, desertification, water shortages, political panic against the have-nots, atmospheric damage, atmospheric warming, garbage accumulation (HUGE problem), education underfunding, oceanic destruction... All of these problems inevitably trigger wars as people struggle to find a way out that doesn't involve changing their habits, such as using too much oil, too much water, or worst of all, having too many babies. Men on Horseback inevitably convince people that they merely have to attack [insert enemy here] and all will be well.

Nothing expands forever. Cancers try, and they fail. There is always a limit. At the very least, there are always consequences. Best case scenario in the short term is turning the entire planet into a Trantor, just to service the people already living.

The problem is simple arithmetic. Humans hate arithmetic applied to their babies, but it is so anyway. The human race is doubling in size every 35 years or so. This simply cannot happen indefinitely. Let's break it down:

2003 : 6.5 billion.
2038 : 13 billion.
2073 : 26 billion.
2108 : 52 billion.
2143 : 104 billion.
2178 : 208 billion.
2213 : 416 billion.
2248 : 832 billion.
2283 : 1,664 TRILLION.

Keep running the expansion. It soon goes into the quadrillions, then quintillions. In less than 3000 years, give or take a millenium, the sum of all the mass of the human race exceeds the mas of the entire planet. In a few dozen more generation, the mass of the universe is exceeded.

No matter how much you throw tech at the problem, at some point the system will go unstable. The human race cannot keep increasing at the present rate, or even a fraction thereof, without utter breakdown.

I would think that the fundementalist belief that the world will end soon is the crux of people's indifference to the problems we face. A majority of the world believes that God will end the world soon. So why bother?

I'm not kidding. Major long term planning by political leaders, especially in the U.S. is being conducted by men and women who are banking on God ending the world.

Re:population

[xThinkx]

While you bring up a good point, one would hope the world would adapt. Desalization plants could easily bust out the water issue, and as for human waste, when treated it can actually be recycled as fertilizer (however current methods of this are horrible, as they treat everything that comes out of the sewer, including all the non-shit shit like toxic chemicals, heavy metals, oil, etc and that stuff is a lot more dangerous than shit shit), and as for trash, let's hope that we can break ourselves of some of the disposable society and go back to things like drinking out of glasses and washing dishes, and maybe recycle the rest.

Re:population

[borgboy]

You cite a marginally valid point, but lose all credibility with that ad hominem attack on the grandparent.

Re:population

[axxackall]

On a second thought, with this guy you don't have any chance to make more than one contribution :(

Re:population

[Compuser]

Humans are lazy. Nuff said...

Re:population

[Omestes]

Please note that parent used the qualifier "MOST", by citing a couple exceptions you don't prove the MOST people make contributions after 30, or life a life full of acheivement. And, too be really truthful, Nobody except physicists give a rats ass about Hawkings, he does nothing for anyone except those theoretical types. Doubtful that his ideas will ever translate into something useful for the common man. And in reality MOST people never make a signifigant contribution in any way at all. Most people exist to keep their office chairs from floating away, and with life extension they will keep them chairs earthbound for 200 more years, YAYYY Productivity!

Not related to your comment: I really doubt that extended life will be good in the case of specialization. Right now you have to be retrained/updated every 2 years or so in some industries (more in others, I'm sure). And if tech continues to advance at the rate it is, these long-lived people will be on the ball for a year, then spend the rest of their lives behind the times. Look at the majority of pre-digital people (Boomers, and down), the adoption of new ideas/technology is low once your reach your 40s. So we'll have billions of people completely ignorant of advances for 190 years. Thats a long time for the VCR timer to be blinking.

Also, with an extended retirement age, what of those who refuse life extension, out of religious or moral grounds, or those who can't afford it? Are they then expected to work until their 90's as well? Or do we just leave them in the dust?

And what of the fact that we'd be in direct competition with our children, grand children, g.g.children, ad naseum? Isn't this an ethical dillema? You'd have children, only to strive for them to be lower on the totem pole than you, trying to steal resources from them for your own benefit... Something wrong with that.

What of the old buggers who refuse to EVER leave power? We'd have ideologues in congress for 200 years, instead of just 100 as it is now. This leads to a static policy system, stagnation.

What about jobs, period? If we can't even supply jobs to those alive now, how can we supply jobs to a world where there are BILLIONS more people?

What about youth discrimination? The old will rule the world, leaving the under 50 crowd to be a vast underclass.

So many problems.

Bad idea, the whole life extension thing.

(gasp, I just said something "new and futuristic" is a bad thing on /.! I *must* be a flamer)

Re:population

[xThinkx]

..."thinks they're immortal (ie impervious to harm), "...

I believe the word you're looking for is "invincible", you're welcome

Re:population

[HeyLaughingBoy]

One of hte benefits of living longer is that you could also be healthier and work longer.

You really think that working longer is a benefit of living longer? What ever happened to enjoying the time when you're not working? I would imagine the bigger issue is how to work the same amount of time and still support myself in 100+ years of retirement.

Life (even if I live to be 300) is still too short to be spent working. Wine. Women. Song. That's worth living 300 years for.

Re:population

[afreniere]

Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?

Absolutely! Ever heard "life is short" as an exhortation to "just do it" and not worry? Many people who don't expect to live a long time are far more likely to partake in risky activities such as drug abuse, unprotected sex, and various sundry other dangerous things. Of course this is a vicious cycle because all of these things actually decrease life expectancy as well. And certainly some of those things are a product of the improverishment under which they live. But there is a specific increase in cost per risk that comes with a given longer life expectancy. A rational person who could expect to live 200 productive years is not going drive like a maniac.

However this comes to another interesting point - not everyone is rational, especially in their youth. This may turn out to be a limiting factor in our life expectancy. As our medicine improves, it may not effectively increase our life expectancy, especially if we can still have children at late teens or twenties. Studies have shown that selective pressure falls off rapidly after the first few offspring. Extrapolating from that, one might suppose that the improved medical technology will simply enable new and more extreme risk-taking instead of longer lifespans. We can also expect that there certainly there will be a variety of reactions, including those who attempt to maximize their lifspan at all costs, including those who take a very long and leisurely time at finding their mate. And yes, I do realize that selective pressure takes many generations to have any effect, but we are talking about the somewhat distant and very distant future here.

As a final point, I think we have misjudged the challenges that face us in the field of longevity enhancement. Whilst the technology is indeed improving at an exponential rate, I suspect the cost per additional year of life expectancy also goes up at a similar exponential rate, if only due to the laws of thermodynamics and difficulties of maintaining order in such a complex system that is full of hacks and workarounds and crazy multifunctional interrelated action pathways - an system that, for humans, has essentially never had any feedback beyond the 50-year mark. A graph of average current medical costs in relation to age as they currently stand could be very educational, and I think it would bear out my point. As a result, my prediction is that we will see only a linear increase in life expectancy.

-Ansel.

p.s. I might be so bold as to suggest a study (perhaps it is already being done) where we start breeding mice for longevity. Keep them from breeding until the very end of their productive life cycle, and keep pushing that envelope until their lifespan becomes years longer. Then study the resulting "immortal" mice and see what they've done to adapt...

Re:population

[PD]

Illogical argument. The system will adjust to meet the new conditions. Are you really having difficulty imagining the obvious way that the system will adjust to meet the new conditions? Your ranting is not an argument, and you've given me no reason to believe that your characterization of social systems is accurate. People like you have been saying that societies with social systems will collapse for decades, and guess what: they haven't collapsed.

OK, I'll tell you the answer. The retirement age will go up. Simple.

Re:population

[guacamolefoo]

Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?

Yes. The French are much more likely to smoke than Americans.

GF.

Re:population

[computechnica]

By that time all programming jobs will be taken by primate programmers
The future is in banana farming.

Re:population

[garymcg]

Either you are a historian devoted exclusively to the lives of Mongol warlords, a fan of boy bands, or a Microsoft astroturfer.

You forgot Porn Star.

Re:population

[xThinkx]

"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read Aesop's Fables and take everything literally so I miss the point of the stories entirely."

I'm glad someone else said something along these lines, I was tired of being the asshole who debunks the bible

Re:population

[mttlg]

Take specialists from multiple fields with 150+ years of research behind them, have them work together and share ideas freely... just imagine the type of genious that would be it's output.

You do realize that this is just a variation on the "lock a dozen vicious animals in a room to find out which is the strongest" theme, right? After all, of those "150+ years of research," maybe 20 would be spent on actual work, with the remaining 130+ being spent defending the work from all other ideas, regardless of their validity.

Maybe some people could continue innovating for over a century, but the vast majority would either reach the limit of their abilities or lock themselves into a particular (and probably somewhat flawed) mindset long before then. Add to that the amount of education required just to understand the after dinner conversation of the lucky few, and you'll have a system that is incredibly resistant to change.

The one big unknown in all of this is how well someone would be able to learn at the age of 200 vs. 20 or 12. Part of this would be purely biological (the brain's ability to process new information over time), but another part would be psychological (the person's willingness to accept new ideas after spending decades learning other ideas, regardless of how the new relate to the old). Advances in teaching methods could also make it possible to keep children up to speed with the latest knowledge from the multicentenarian intellectual elite (at a casual, not technical, level), creating a huge knowledge gap between generations.

In other words, if you're planning a 150 year career, neuroscience is probably a good place to start.

Re:population

[zapp]

I disagree... I think atleast 2 different outcomes are more common:

1. People get bored with their jobs, and move on to another field.

2. Over that span of time societal needs will change and jobs will be eliminated while new ones rise.

Either way, throughout a person's life they would work in a wide variety of fields.

And that still doesn't cover where they live and what they eat. I think we have too many people right now as is.

Re:population

[Zathrus]

Huh... guess I don't live on the East Coast then. I lived quite comfortably here on ~50k. My salary has grown since then, but if needed I could cut back to that level. Even with my wife.

Mind you, it'd take some lifestyle changes, and we might have to sell one car and buy one with lower monthly costs (loan, insurance, gas, maintainence), but it's certainly possible. Hell, there are people who raise a family of 4 on less than $50k/year, even in NYC, SF, or LA. Not at a level I'd consider "pretty darn good" at that point, but it's doable.

You realize, of course, that a combined family wage in the $60k area puts you solidly in the middle class, while $100k+ puts you in upper middle class. There are a lot of frills that people think are essential that are nowhere near that.

Re:population

[edp]

"... why would anybody be less likely to risk their life just because of their potential logevity?"

Because they have more to lose. The value of a wager with $10 to gain and $1000 to lose changes if it becomes $2000 to lose while the win amount and the probability stay the same.

Few risks can be measured exactly, but the values involved do affect decisions. For one thing, even if the human propensity for risk taking did not change, the number of people who avoided risk more would increase, because they would live out their longer lives while the risk takers died at a relatively higher rate. Then societal feelings about risk would move a bit away from risk-taking.

And although you cannot calculate most risks and make a mathematical decision, dreaming about a long retirement can influence your decisions. "Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?" I would expect so. On average, of course, not every specific individual. Why would you think that a person's prospects would not influence their decision making?

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

De l'eau, fuquephace

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

He doesn't lose credibility, just possibly a measure of respect for his general character, which happens to be unrelated to the argument he makes.

Re:population

[CrowScape]

Imagine the type of skilled labor you could obtain over 200 years

Of course, you're assuming the human brain has enough capacity that experiance doesn't cap out well before 200 years. It would kind of suck if, in order to learn anything new, you had to first forget something.

Re:population

[peretzpup]

Neat article, but I think that my assertions were a good deal more tentative than the version of Kuhn presented in it. Also ESR restricts his attention to counter-examples from 20th Century physics and biology, acknowledging that Kuhn appears to be on to something with regard to the "soft sciences." Now I don't know what counts as a "soft science" for him, but it seems to me that the AI field, for example, would probably benefit from some culling.

Re:population

[Efreet]

I doubt that even in that case it would take more than 60 years to be considered an adult. Diminishing returns for experience vs. maturity seem to kick in pretty swiftly.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh yeah. Brilliant. And if everyone has 549 BILLION grandkids, how do you suppose that will impact the quality of life on this planet? Paper gains, material losses. Your money would be worthless.

Besides, when's the last time you gave your parents or grandparents any money? Much less some old fart from 38 generations ago who has so many descendants he's never had the time to meet you? Uh-huh. That's what I thought.

Most of the comments on financial management in this thread so far are seriously stupid. You don't support a population by printing more money, people... how many times do I have to tellya!!!! The more people you put into comfortable retirement, the more productivity you have to squeeze out of a smaller workforce and/or machines (which consume energy and have environmental impacts by the way).

It's about balance folks, not about living off interest. *sigh* this is exactly the kind of thinking that caused the dot com era to get all wacky.

Re:population

[dasmegabyte]

Well, 50k is not so bad when you consider the following:

1) Your house is paid for. Your student loans are paid for. I mean, you wouldn't be so crass as to save up a million and then not pay off your debt, would you?

2) You don't need to get a loan for expensive purchases -- you can use a portion of your principle. This can be fairly big. Rates are absurdly low right now -- i've seen car rates at 4% -- but even with that 4%, on a three year loan on a 30,000$ car you're spending 1900 or $50 per month on interest. You reduce your monthly "allowance" from the principle to reflect this loss, but you're still up $50 per month over us shlubs paying for their cars.

3) Because you have cash on hand, you can afford to get a lower deductible for your insurance. Not that you necessarily have to do this, but the difference is often a 50% reduction.

These are pretty big things...housing and transportation are the biggest numbers in everybody's checkbook. My monthly budget for "food, folks and fun" would be nearly one and a half times larger if it weren't for these three things. And I'm living quite comfortable on a bit more than $50k NOW.

Re:population

[Tingler]

Wouldn't the resultant increase in the rates the 200 year old plumbers charge pretty much absorb all the economic benefits?

Eeeww! 200 year old plumber asscrack. I think I'm going to be sick.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. Automation by itself tends to produce more expenses and dependencies. It depends a lot more on sustainable productivity. Automation by its nature also has critical points of failure that depend upon a steady "food" supply, e.g. material resources.

Re:population

[Verne]

The problem is that each (38 great) grandkid, has just as many (38 great) grand-daddies wanting their damn dollar.

Fortunately, by the time this happens, inflation will have meant that the kids will be getting a few billion in pocket money every week, so they should be able to afford it, it just won't be much when it get's to you....

Verne.

Re:population

[InferiorFloater]

Of course, if *everyone* has saved up 1 million or whatever, and intends to live off it for the rest of their 200+ years of life, you run into an interesting conundrum - who does the work? If every class in our society ends up not contributing to the workforce for the majority of their lives, then it's likely (just from my intuition) that the system would collapse.

Of course, this assumes that life-extension would be available to everyone. In all likelihood, the treatments would be prohibitively expensive, creating a near-immortal, super-wealthy elite. I would imagine that at some point, the elite would realize, as the treatments became available to the common man, that it would be in their best interests to keep immortality from the working class.

Who's written about this? It sounds like a fairly apparent sci-fi premise.

Re:population

[peretzpup]

By "we" you presumably mean "you." Some of us actually care about future generations.

Re:population

[geek42]

Mmmmmm... mmmm.... tastes like chicken!

Nothin' says lovin' like soylent in the oven!

Re:population

[Cro Magnon]

Actually, after being around for a few hundred thousand years, I'd start taking risks out of sheer boredom!

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear atheist nerd,

You may not be aware of this but God has already solved the immortality problem. Furthermore, in the interests of pursuing sustainable architecture, He has introduced a mandatory recycling program for our lovely planet. Some of us don't quite get the point but some of us do.

Sincerely,

em

Re:population

[maxume]

That would all help, but I have reservations that you would be able to come up with the neccasary energy to recycle all that stuff and desalinate water, and still fit what, 6.5 billion people into Texas. The United States at its current population is at quite a reasonable density. Doubling it will be ok. After that, I feel like things are going to go downhill pretty quick.

Re:population

[maxiste_deams]

No one will pay for 240 year of work as retirement ! It will be better to understand that money will be useless because everybody will be able to live longer thant expected !

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

A question that strikes me even more is whether the earth will survive for another 100+years. Here's just one of the zillion doomsday theories.

Re:population

[Chris Y Taylor]

"First of all, the assumption that people would continue to retire in their sixties if their lifespan extended is rather silly."

That won't stop the AARP from trying it. Retirement age isn't being increased to keep up with life expectency yet, at what point are we going to start?

Re:population

[FingerDemon]

I don't know if anyone reads the Sci-Fi author Elizabeth Moon, but she brings up these issues in her "universe" of books. In her books, it is the older generations refusing to turn over the reins to the younger that cause unrest.

Unfortunately, while it is an interesting dynamic tension in her stories, she doesn't seem to have come up with any great solutions. In every book it comes up and its like, "Yeah... that's still a problem." Hehe

But I'm probably being too harsh, I don't have any solutions for this either.

As for the achievement before 30 issue, I would submit that a great portion of this has to do with the increasing brain development up to the age of (someone knowledgeable correct me if I am wrong or out of date on this) about 25. After that you either don't get new neural pathways created or they are created much slower or more inefficiently. Something like that. I can't remember exactly 'cause I'm pushing 40. But it would make sense why if people didn't crack their big idea yet, they would be fighting an uphill battle after 30. But presumably, if they are extending our lives to 240 freakin years, they can also help us to keep our brains young and alive with freshness. If so, that 30 year figure would lose at least some of its meaning.

There might still be an issue of laziness. If someone hasn't gotten off their ass in 30 years, they aren't going to. But my money is on brain development as the major reason that breakthroughs occur most often before 30 or not at all.

Re:population

[teeker]

Or think of how it would affect our government...do you think the people of the US would put up with it's government detaining people and putting them in camps without representation or a public trial if they could personally remember things like the roundup of innocent Japanese Americans during WWII?

well...I guess this *is* the US, but still, you get the point. A lot of people forget the past atrocities of their government after a single generation passes.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

unless somehow those people manage to work 10 times as much and produce 10 times as much food. Current agriculture production could easily handle 9 times the current population, but we're nowhere near 100% efficiency.

Re:population

[Espressoman]

Then stick around...

Have a think about the expectations you have of your life; consider the possibility at least that you may not actually be able to estimate your life expectancy, and adjust accordingly.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason people tend to make contributions to (say) Physics early in life is because as they get older, they get more responsiblities. Wife... Kids... Mortgages. And less inclined to spend the hours upon hours necessary to push yourself right to the edge of whatever field you happen to be involved in.

Now, there may be some deep physiological changes happen after 30, but my explanation has the advantage of being really simple... and really obvious.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than continuing to promote specialization over those 200 years, I'd like to see people branch out in to new fields.

There's one guy i can think of who didn't need hundreds of years to branch out: Gauss

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

you do realize that $100K+ a year puts you in that sinister group known as "the top one percent of income earners." That means you are far-far out of the MIDDLE class.

Re:population

[op00to]

Rent on decent non-sprawl-development 3 bedroom house in New Jersey:
$2400/month

$2400*12=$28800/yr

$28800/$50000=0.576 or a little over 57% of total pre-tax income spent on housing.

Most experts claim you shouldn't spend more than 33% of your after-tax income on rent or mortgage.

You claim to live "frugally". More power to you. Average rent for a very simple 2 bedroom apartment in NJ is around $1600-$1800. That works out to about 38% of your pre-tax income spent on rent alone.

This is before taxes, of course.

Let's not forget clothes, food, care for the children...And I won't even mention auto insurance.

Like the parent said, it's not enough. You're either living in a magical dream world, or you're talking about living in the middle of a cheaply built, sprawled out cookie-cutter development off of a highway next to a strip mall and a walmart in a cornfield somewhere.

Re:population

[Espressoman]

I disagree. People will not cope with extended longevity unless they are psychologically equipped to deal with it. Part of that will be being adapted to rapid change; holding on to the wonder and passion experienced by young people now. Remember that if your lifespan is indeterminate, then whatever age you are, you are probably pretty 'young'.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone doing serious work for a few centuries would attain a highly evolved state of conciousness.

I'm not so sure that this is what age brings for most people.

Most of the people of my parents' generation that I know seem to have got stupider as they've grown older. By the time they reached 60 they were already little more than robots, in terms of behavioural and conceptual repertoire.

I'm talking about a narrowing of the perceptions and a hardening of the attitudes, an increasing tendency to depend upon evaluations and decisions made decades ago and all left almost entirely unexamined since then.

People who think for a living, and maybe even all people who have passed a certain threshold in terms of either education or intelligence, may escape this fate; but it is all there is, for the common run of humanity, when they reach late middle age.

Re:population

[thasmudyan]

Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?

Actually, yes. Most poor countries value a human life at much less compared to industrial nations. I suppose because there is so much dying going on all the time, you really have to start supressing the importance of death or you will go crazy. (A madness which in turn, possibly, results in killing sprees and such which are quite common in the third world.)

It's a horrible spiral because the less you value life, the more people you kill, which makes other people value life even less, and so on...

I think the more interesting point, and one the article failed to mention, is where are all these people going to live, what are they going to eat, and who is going to pay for 240 years of retirement?

With that high a life expectancy there should really be no retirement *at all*, because the very reason for permanent retirement would cease to exist.

Re:population

[kelleher]

1) Your house is paid for. Your student loans are paid for. I mean, you wouldn't be so crass as to save up a million and then not pay off your debt, would you?

If I'm going to live for 250+ years, why wouldn't the bank offer me an 80 year mortgage? Same for student loans etc... If everybody can live a long time short-term rates should go to hell. Imagine CDs only offered in 10 year increments and to get a decent 3% return requires a 50+ year lock.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

But our instinctive attitude to risk will probably remain set at the 80-year level, because that's what's in the DNA.

What's in the DNA, if anything, is probably much lower (think 30, 20, even 10), as the life span wasn't very high 1 million years ago, and we haven't evolved that much since. Only a hundred years ago the life span was about half of what you suggest (and still is in many parts of the world). Surely you don't suggest our DNA is radically different from what it was during the turn of the century?

Still, we do think of the 80 year level, and if this shows anything at all it is that we have the ability to adopt to new situation much more than the gene fatalists would have it, and that reading too much into the DNA makes for both faulty conclusions and unwarranted pessimism.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

2283: that should have been billion or 1.664 trillion

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a little bit optimistic considering how soon alzheimers sets in. Even that aside, can you remember everything you learned about 10 yrs ago? 5 yrs ago? how about 40, 50, 100, 150 yrs ago? I dunno about that. Maybe a 2-300 yrs longevity would allow us to live multiple careers and fulfill the what if I'd become a Biologist instead of CompSci type of questions. I know I'm interested in several fields and it will take me at least 200 yrs to explore those interests. But really, learning and self advancement is perpetual and I'm sure any one of us could go for much longer than 200 yrs with no lack of new discoveries and things to explore.

Re:population

[QuantumFTL]

That won't stop the AARP from trying it. Retirement age isn't being increased to keep up with life expectency yet, at what point are we going to start?

I'd assume that babyboomers retiring just might impact the system enough that it's re-examined.

A lot of things in life aren't dealt with until they actually cause problems. Doubly so for teh government. Make this an election issue, and I promise something will get done.

Besides don't a lot of the people on slashdot think the government is conspiring to control their lives more and more every day? If so... by the time retirement age is a problem, our dictator will have something done about it.

Re:population

[WolfWithoutAClause]

If you're dumb enough to lend your money to the bank for 0.25% APR then you probably aren't smart enough to make a million in the first place.

Re:population

[garyok]

This is Insightful? Where exactly is the insight?

If it's anywhere, it's in the understanding that life, and the way people live their lives, is not there to provide you with a moral at the end of the story.

Re:population

[danila]

The society is much faster to react. If this to became a problem, we would develop mechanisms to compensate for this in just a few decades. There is simply no way we are going to have "old guard" ruling the science for millenia.

Re:population

[kapok_tree]

Let's consider... what is the "typical" life cycle of a researcher? Well, okay, at leas tin the US, you go to schol from the age of 5 on until 17 or 18 and graduate from high school. You go to college, get your undergrad degree at 21 or 22. Then, finally, you go to graduate school. this is the point where you're *finally* able to do research. In fact, you might be spending as much as 90% of your working hours on research. By the time you're 28 you've got a Ph.D. and a cool thesis under your belt.... and then what? There are two options: you can stay in academia, or try your hand in the private sector. If you do the former, odds are decent you'll get a professorship somewhere. As a result, you'll be in charge of 3-10 grad students and teaching classes - hence, you'll be doing research, at best, 30% of your time. In the priate sector, you'll be in a similar boat - spending as much time mentoring and managing as you do research. By the time you're 40, you may well NEVER be in the lab. I think we can see that general trend in just baout every field - somewhere between 30 and 40, you're likely to make the transition to being management. Sure, there will be exceptions, but as a general ruel your "pure" contributions to a given field will happen before then. So what does this mean in relation to increased lifespan? My first guess is that we'll see far slower advancement. Gone will be the days of the 35-yr-old technology director. Your director might be in his 100s or more, and promoting anyone under 50 to management would be seen as reckless. On top of that, I think we're also going to see increased mobility between fields. Who here would want to be working in the same field for a century? For two centuries? For a millennium? I expect that it will be typical for a person to devote a few decades to this or that field, then retire from there and move on to something else. After a while, you won't be considered educated until you've got an entire alphabet behind your name. I don't see the rise of super-specialists; I think we're going to see the rise of super-generalists.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

This would allow for ever-increasing advanced in science, medecine, and technology which would appear to "boom" in the first century of this kind of "immortality".

I have a feeling that the one single "boom" of military advances will make all the other advances suddenly... seem.... so..... very...... quiet.......

Re:population

[kapok_tree]

There will, I suspect, always be those who say "Couldn't I have done something better with those 30 minutes than just walked to the bank?" I don't think a longer lifespan will change that - I'll still want those 30 minutes.

Re:population

[kapok_tree]

There's really only one way to find out for sure... we'll have to test. I've not seen anything to indicate that there's some special "elan vital" that would need to be transferred int he case of body replacement. Who's to say that if you got killed and all your memories were transferred to a replacement body that you wouldn't still be you? There's been an awful lot of speculation, but thus far no experimentation.

Re:population

[lobsterGun]

You numbers may have been right 40 years ago, but recent data indicates that the rate of population growth is decreasing.

Modern statistical methods estimate that the poulation will plaueau at 10 billion in 2150.

The sky is not falling. Move along.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

You're assuming that the system of which we are part isn't self-regulating. It is. There are controls which tend to reduce the growth rate. If nothing else, income and education reduce the growth rate...

Re:population

[kmilani2134]

It has been several centuries since we last saw people who knew a fair amount about nearly all subjects. A few centuries ago, they were called Renaissance Men. I am guessing, that if our lifespan increased by several hundred years we would once again have people who know quite a bit about a wide assortment of subjects.

In recent times, scientists have been working with interdisciplinary teams to achieve new breakthroughs. I can only imagine what scientific breakthroughs would occur with the dawn of a new age of renaissance men.

Re:population

[GlassHeart]

Most people that make any significant contributions to their field do so before they're 30.

I'm aware of the statistical basis for your assertion, but I'd just like to point out that our society has a rather warped sense of what "significant contributions" constitute.

Linus Torvalds started work on Linux at a young age, and he's world famous for it. It will probably be the most "significant" contribution in his life. He is likely to do many more interesting things with his life, but they will probably be less "significant" by the standards we use. Similarly, Steve Wozniak is remembered for the Apple computer, Dennis Ritchie for C, and so on. This kind of oversimplification is bad enough for the non-technical crowd, but it's downright saddening to see it here.

Many "little people" make very significant contributions to society for the entire duration of their careers. Even the famous people continue to work past 30, and continue to contribute useful things to society. Moreover, many of the "significant contributions" you refer to are discoveries whose time had come. If not Edison, then somebody else would've invented the lightbulb shortly after. If not Einstein or Darwin, then someone else. They deserve credit for being there first (and for often enduring the inevitable criticisms), but I wish there was a more balanced credit given to all the little people whose silent work made the "significant contributions" all but inevitable.

Re:population

[dreamchaser]

The vast majority of scientific breakthroughs are done by younger, up-and-coming scientists, not by the graybeards.

There's a saying...if a graybeard old scientist tells you something is possible, however unlikely it sounds, listen to him. If the same man tells you something is impossible, he's probably wrong.

People tend to get hidebound as they age, and have an increasingly hard time thinking out of the box.

Re:population

[smallpaul]

Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?

Yes, I have observed that people in the third world do in fact take many chances (driving without seatbelts, driving drunk, smoking like chimneys, unprotected sex, eating food without worrying about its nutrition, flying dangerous airlines) that are frowned upon in the rich world. I do think it is quite rational to realize that if you have a pretty decent chance of dieing of malaria, seatbelts are sort of non-essential. Plus, safety and health costs money.

Re:population

[Mal-2]

Actually some of the best work is done by people who work at one specialty until they solve some problem they're obsessed with, then immediately go on to a new field because they are "burned out" from the intensity of attacking a very narrow field for several years.

After three or four of these field changes, it is not unusual for a person to become truly interdisciplinary, acquiring not just the knowledge but also the skills and thinking methods of each of those disciplines. This can (and does) lead to some interesting cross-fertilization. Imagine the innovation someone could profit from if they had 25 years experience EACH in programming, sculpture, applied medicine, and biology. Think of the FPS that would result!

There comes a point in any field where you aren't learning at the prodigious rate you did at the start, simply because (1) you run out of known things to learn, and (2) acquiring truly NEW knowledge takes a long time (and usually a lot of money).

Mal-2

Re:population

[promethean_spark]

Actually we've already begun to slow down and will settle at something like 11 billion sometime around 2050. As people get more civilized, they have fewer children. Europe's population is actually shrinking right now, and the US isn't going up or down. As the lesser developed countries mature, their fertility will drop as well. Moore's law for medicine suggests that in 2020 we'll be adding a year to the average lifespan every year. Moore's law for technology suggests we'll probably have unlimited virtual space to live in.

Re:population

[lone_marauder]

The Einstein quote is compelling, but when you compare it to this:

That fellow Einstein suits his convenience. Every year he retracts what he wrote the year before. Einstein - 1915 - age 36

It becomes obvious that even he had some regard for his post age 30 work. Most of the important clarifications and refinement of relativity occurred later in his life, so it appears even he was wrong about himself. Galileo's most significant contributions to science revolved around the invention of the telescope (1610 - age 46) and the resultant discovery of the Galilean moons.

I'll agree that most scientists who contribute meaningfully to science get started by age 30, but it is obvious that this is not a time limit at which those contributions cease.

Re:population

[Mal-2]

If you've got $1m in usable assets, why would you WANT to carry any significant amount of debt, unless you think your investment returns will beat interest? It seems to me that you'd want to pay for a house directly, rather than at any variable (and therefore unpredictable) rate... of course if you can get the money at 5% because they KNOW you will pay it back, maybe you CAN get more than 5% return on it.

At the very least, you wouldn't be carrying any high-interest debt because it would be so obviously advantageous to just pay them off. Why RENT money when you already OWN it?

If I had a million dollars, I'd set up a business that would not require me to run it after it gets going. That way it doesn't MATTER if I get tired of it, I can just hire someone to take care of it for me, and still get my cut. (Of course, this only works if the business is doing reasonably well.) Just look at all the companies that have outlived their founders, and you'll have plenty of evidence that says a company can survive after its owner doesn't care any more.

Mal-2

Re:population

[The Spoonman]

Oh yea! And what's going to happen when we run out of IPs for them all!?

Nicely done. Beautiful! Hillarious! Spectacular! Okay, it wasn't that funny, but I did LOL. :)

Re:population

[Alpha_Nerd]

And they thought I was crazy when I started building my nanoization machine for humans...

Re:population

[pod]

In fact, people generally do more life-threatening, foolish things when they are younger. That's partly due to the immortality one feels being young and also due to a lack of judgement

I don't think that's it either. As you get older, you have more invested in your life. You have kids, a wife, and a mortgage to look after. If you've been skydiving all your life, one of these days you'll think to yourself, before jumping out of the plane, 'shit, I could die, I really shouldn't die, I can't afford to die (literally)'. You have too many people depending on you being there tomorrow, and it's not just your sorry little ass at stake anymore. When you have kids, your priorities tend to change a bit.

Re:population

[Lord Ender]

"Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?"

Yes.

Think suicide bombers, mercenaries, etc. You just don't get many of those in the "first world."

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

200 years may also give Americans enough time to learn to spell properly. It's your native language for fuck's sake!

Re:population

[pod]

I don't think that's how time works. In my experience, people get 'stupider' as they age. They get set in their ways, resist change, don't absorb and assimilate new knowledge and skills as easily, and have more and more trouble thinking 'outside the box'. The brain isn't wired for this. If I was to live 250 years, I'd probably go insane long before I hit 150.

Re:population

[schnitzi]

Maybe not three hundred. But what if the number were a millon? An immortal being (i.e., one for whom there was no such thing as a natural cause of death) would probably be very risk-averse. [...] If alien civilizations discovered immortality first, then why would they risk life and limb in something as reckless as space travel?

Nope, I disagree. People would go along with their day-to-day routines as they always would, without any greater risk-aversion. It's fairly common to live to 100 now, but the knowledge that this is possible doesn't make people live any more carefully.

A lot of science fiction writers like to envision some new technology causing a sea change in people's attitudes around the world. The truth is that we're creatures of habit and instinct, and despite what Star Trek suggests, recklessness and bigotry and cruelty and any other negative human trait you can imagine will survive indefinitely long into the future.

Re:population

[Catbeller]

Statistical analysis? What has that got to do with it? SA can't predict how people have kids. All you can do is watch what they do, and perform your arithmetic accordingly.

The growth rate is slowing, not stopping. And I highly suspect the reported birth rates.

And ten billion is almost twice the number alive today. Where will they live, what will they drink, what kind of damage will they do to the biosphere? Say goodbye to the major fauna. Say helo to constant war, or failing that, tight government control will be necessary to keep everyone from each others mtaphorical throats.

It doesn't matter what the rate of growth is. Halving the growth rate only puts the problem off a couple of decades.

Let's set the doubling rate at 70 years, which is WAAAAY wrong. It's closer to 35-40 years. But, see:

2003: 6.5 billion
2073: 13 billion.
2146: 26 billion.
2216: 52 billion.
2286: 104 billion.
2356: 208 billion.
2426: 416 billion.
2496: 832 billion.
2566: 1.664 trillion.

Keep growing, you get the same results eventually.

CAN this growth occur, I think you're asking ultimately. No, of course. That's the point. The growth is stopped by the usual processes. Plague. War. Starvation. You're seeing it happen in Africa, on a far smaller scale than it could.

Re:population

[bluGill]

Most people don't survie retirement as well as they think. I don't have a link, but appearently, if you reitre at 65 and live to 67 odds are you will live past 80. All those people who retire and are dead in a year are bringing the expected lifespan down (about 76 now IIRC).

In other words most people won't quit working. They will try retirement, and find they can't live without enforced human interaction and will go back to work providing those basic services for the folks who can stand to live without the other benifits of a job. Things like human interaction, and a feeling that you are needed.

Re:population

[Tokerat]

What if we live longer but age the same rate?
I'd hate to see what 200 felt like then. Hell, I'm not even looking forward to 30.

Re:population

[goldspider]

Well, I don't know about you, but I for one am insulted by the fundamental socialist notion that a government beaurocracy can take care of me better than I can take care of myself. I am insulted by the socialist notion that I cannot (and should not) survive without the assistance of the government. Forced dependence is a form of slavery, and a free society has no room for wealth-confiscation and redistribution system of government.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, all of the world outside of the New York City metro area isn't a vast cornfield. Shocking, I know. Really though, it isn't. Now assuming you've got a million in the bank and are still foolish enough to continue to rent what you could do instead is choose to live somewhere else. Somewhere where the cost of living isn't ~ %180 of the average in the U.S. Let's say that instead you live in Pittsburgh, like I do. The cost of living here is about %101 of the national average, though housing is a bit lower. Now granted it isn't the east cost NYC-Boston-Philadelphia-Baltimore-D.C. megalopolis, however it also isn't a cronfield. It's the 26th largest metro area if I remeber correctly from the 2000 census. There are about 2.1 million in the area. My rather large 2 bedroom apartment near CMU, Pitt, Downtown, and a few other smaller colleges is $795/month with heat.
In short, don't be so narrow minded. I seriously doubt that there is nowhere else where you can live on a reasonabley large income. Heck, that average U.S. income is what, $27,000 or so. Stop whining about having a mere $50,000 a year pitance. Geez...

Re:population

[jargonCCNA]

Not necessarily. Have you ever heard (much of) the Unabomber Manifesto? He's actually really intelligent and what he's on about is machines and computers taking over the places of humans. Think of him as the last guy to plug into the Matrix and it's his spirit that fuels the resistance.

Re:population

[PD]

Actually, social security CAN take better care of you than you can take care of yourself. The world tried it your way for thousands of years and guess what: it sucked.

-people could not retire at all, ever
-people valued boys more than girls, because boys were needed to earn money to take care of parents. The devaluation of half of society was sick, and frankly, you're sick to desire it (or just ignorant if you never realized it)
-you're obviously off-kilter if you think social security is forced dependence. Not everyone will have enough money to support themselves when they are too old and sick to work. Do you propose that we just kill them?
-Free society doesn't just protect the rich, that's an oligarchy. A free society protects all citizens.

So, thanks for yet another batch of emotional arguments. Insult has nothing to do with it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it's not good for society, and YOU in particular.

Re:population

[connect4]

you are confusing cause and effect.

Re:population

[jargonCCNA]

"Remember the time we found out how much beer I could drink? I forgot how to drive!"

Re:population

[bninja_penguin]

Don't forget, with the current copyright/patent laws, my great grandchildren may have a chance at something from this century going to public domain, but if someone were to live to be 300 years old, then add the 99 years or whatever after that, and holy shit, the human race would see an ant be President before anything passed to the pulic domain!!

Re:population

[Efreet]

That might be true, but sufficient automation does mean that we won't have to spend as much time working, regardless of other considerations.

Re:population

[caerus]

The theory that anti-aging medicene is for the rich only may be TOTALLY wrong if studies by a San Francisco based pharamceutical company pan out. Ceremedix is a new company that is testing a protein in human clinical trials in Scotland that is said to be able to extend life to 120-160 years. The protein comes from, gold fish brains.. It's name is ependymin and it is technically what is known as a 'brain derived neurotrophic factor'.... whatever.. the upshot is that it is a NATURALLY occuring and easily isolated protein that reduces the damage of aging. It is the equivalent to eating 30 POUNDS of vegetables as it causes the body to beef up it's defences... especially in an aging body as a younger body already has good levels of antioxidants in it. Because it is a naturally occuring substance, pharmaceutical companies haven't touched it because it wasn't 'patentable'. Ceremedix is willing to make the 'small dough' however and the pill will be very affordable as an over the counter supplement... if/when it is released.. Do you think maybe there's some room for optimism here?

Re:population

[Tyreth]

How can we predict one way or the other? How do we know, given 300 years, an individual won't change their view drastically? Or that it's rather certain types of people who engender change, rather than certain generations?

There's just too many variables and speculations to adequately predict. Someone can come up with an elaborate prediction of the future, but ultimately we all know something completely different could happen. All we can do is wait until afterwards, then review and comment on what took place.

Re:population

[Tyreth]

Chances are I'll be modded flamebait, but for curiosity factor I once calculated what the population of the earth would be today if we assumed two humans (Adam & Eve) 6,000 years ago, and a 1% growth rate (very modest).

Today's population would be: 1.69540200147367e+26

Of course, there are obvious problems to this from the start - population growth fluctuates. Adam & Eve would have had more than just a fraction of a child (39 people after 300 years), etc.

Anyway, for evolutionists or creationists there's an important point here - you can't take straight population growth and assume it will continue constantly - which I think was your original point.

War, famine, food shortages, space shortages, culture and more all have an effect on population rates, and at different times in history too. I think that if people were to live hundreds or thousands of years, in many ways we would regulate ourselves (though not necessarily). For example, when space is small, living costs for property should increase, discouraging people from having more children than they can handle. People will have differing opinions. We thought education would remove prejudices, but it doesn't. Imagine hundreds of years of stubborness, wars could reach spectacular levels with feuds raging hundreds of years, with the same people behind pulling the strings. Population has been reduced in the past, it will happen again.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

Robert Heinlin said it best in "Time enough for Love". SOmething like '$300,000 invested in low risk deposits for 500 years with interest compounding quarterly comes to exactly nothing'. At these kinds of time periods you would have to deal with shifts in Government and public opinion that might result in your money being nationalised away from you. The long-term stockmarket returns mentioned previously are based on returns from indices like the S&P. Companies drop out of these indices as their market capitalisation drops. So if you'd invested in the index in the 1940s (say) most of the companies that made up that index would have gone bust by now.

ALso you're fogetting the wider effects that these kind of investment decision might have. OK, if I get the immortality pill and tell the rest of you to go to hell, I might be able to sustain long-term, higher than inflation returns throughout my 1000 year lifespan. But if this stuff is available to anyone with the means then there are going to be thousands (millions) of others looking into similar investment strategies.

Demand raises prices, so my returns (and everyone elses) would drop. So probably I'd be screwed.

May be you would be able to make a living off the stock market, but you would have to do it by being smarter than everyone else and that is a job like other jobs, as any Wall street trader could tell you.

Re:population

[nickco3]

Take specialists from multiple fields with 150+ years of research behind them, have them work together and share ideas freely... just imagine the type of genious that would be it's output.

It doesn't work that way. Take a look at The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S Kuhn. Just about every really revolutionary advance in the sciences is made by somebody in their 20s. As scientists become older and more conservative they become stronger supporters of the existing theories. Even Einstein and Newton, probably the two most radical scientific thinkers, fall into this pattern.

Older scientists tend to support the dominant theories which are often quoted as sources of authority. ("But that violates Bungle's First Law!"). New experiments are performed in their shadow, often seeking to support them, extend their range, but only very, very rarely to contradict them. Teachers and texts maintain the dominant theories, the peer review process prevents anyone from straying too far.

As contradictory data builds up, the major influences on choosing a new theory include: established scientific customs, esthetic
factors (which theory is the is the most 'pleasing' or 'elegant'), whether or not any popular analogies can be found, unpredictable imaginative leaps, and of course the aging and dying of conservative scientists.

It is likely that having immortal scientists would go a long way towards halting scientific progress altogether.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Rich people tend to be obsessed with making even more money, thus motivating them to work (not neccessarily usefull work, but work nonetheless).

2) As technology improves, less and less people are actually needed to do work. That's why unemployment is so high nowadays. So, I'd assume that, eventually, machines (robots) would do the menial labor and people would do the administrative tasks.

Re:population

[batemanm]

If not Edison, then somebody else would've invented the lightbulb shortly after.

From what I remember of history, Edison didn't invent the electric light bulb he perfected the vacumn technique. A man named Swan made the first electric light bulb in 1879 but he had trouble with the vacumn later that year Edison sorted the vacumn. His bulb lasted for 40 hours. A year later in 1880 he had a bulb that could last for 1500 hours and he began marketing it. In 1910 Coolidge invented the tungsten filament which increased how long the bulb could last.

So depending on what you want from an electric light bulb it the 'inventor' could have been any of the three Swan, Edison or Coolidge. In fact Swan filed a law suit against Edison for 'stealing' the idea. Edison wasn't really an inventor he was more the head of a research department.

More info here here here and some info on the law suit that Swan filed against Edison.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

That's if the Judjment day doesn't come.

Judgment Day: The end of the world. It's today, about 3 hours from now.

Re:population

[McWilde]

The first ten million years were the worst. Then, the second ten million years, they were the worst as well. The third ten million years were the worst. - Marvin the Paranoid Android, after being left on Frogstar World B until the End of the Universe.

Re:population

[jellyfish_green]

Yes, but teenagers consider themselves to be immortal (or, to clarify, invulnerable) and their parents stupid. As attributed to Mark Twain:

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

So they're not likely to properly weigh the risks.

Re:population

[BobTheBooser]

Galileo's most significant contributions to science revolved around the invention of the telescope

Sorry to be pedantic but Galileo did not invent the telescope. The telescope probably came from the middle east somewhere. It was a new invention at the time, he just did the novel thing with it of looking up

Re:population

[bheer]

Not just funny, +1 Insightful. I don't buy into the idea that long-lived beings would be more risk averse. If anything, they may actually be less risk averse because their medical tech would probably be more advanced than ours and they would judge the risks to be less.

Example: today most folk have an average life expectancy of 75+, compared to mid-40s in the middle ages (IIRC). On the other hand, I feel there are *more* who are into risk-prone leisure activity today than there were in the middle ages: bungee jumping, full contact combat, and so on. The lack of risk/challenge in everyday life has to be compensated somewhere, after all.

Re:population

[cfuse]

Take specialists from multiple fields with 150+ years of research behind them, have them work together and share ideas freely... just imagine the type of genious that would be it's output.

It is widely know that the greatest scientific minds have on average made their 'greatest' discoveries prior to the age of 30.

Re:population

[cfuse]

If alien civilizations discovered immortality first, then why would they risk life and limb in something as reckless as space travel?

You obviously haven't seen Jackass. Aliens with infinite lifespans have all been killed due to their extreme sports addictions.

Re:population

[Woodrow Wilson Smith]

As has been shown time and again this is not true and in fact there is a population implosion at work in most industrialized nations. The population bomb is an old theory that is only true in a very limited set of circumstances but anywhere women are empowered with education, civil rights (especially over themselves) and economic freedom the reproduction rate diminishes as quantity of offspring is secondary in most parents mind to quality of life and offspring. In fact designer kiddies could make most of obsolete while we are still alive. Seriously though, there are current studies by the UN that show the correlation between birth rate and the factors I suggest. "I. WORLD POPULATION TRENDS The world population reached 6.3 billion at the beginning of 2003 and is projected to grow to 8.9 billion by 2050, according to the medium variant (table 1). In that variant, total fertility at the world level is expected to decline from 2.83 children per woman in 1995-2000 to 2.02 children per woman in 2045-2050, and the expectation of life at birth is expected to increase from 65 years to 74 years. As a consequence of the expected reduction of fertility, the population growth rate is projected to drop from 1.35 per cent per year in 1995-2000 to 0.33 per cent per year in 2045-2050." World Population Prospects The 2002 Revision (PDF) http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2 002/WPP2002-HIGHLIGHTSrev1.PDF I suggest a review of CURRENT population studies not 19th century myths may be found here: http://www.un.org/esa/population/unpop.htm United Nations Population Division Department of Economic and Social Affairs

Re:population

[cfuse]

I'm not kidding. Major long term planning by political leaders, especially in the U.S. is being conducted by men and women who are banking on God ending the world.

I think that they rely on the fact that God looks down on his cherished children and says: "I think it's time for another plague. Or, maybe a holocaust, or a earthquake or a flood"

Seriously, nature is always there to kick you in the jewels - the more people there are, the more likely that something will come into existence to remove some of them from the planet. Remember, we are way overdue for a global pandemic. And when it does arrive, it will spread like wildfire in large highly populated areas. Problem solved.

Re:population

[Zathrus]

I usually don't bother with AC's, but Heinlein was a moron on this point.

No, if you invested in the 1940s the stocks you choose then would by and large not be the same stocks you'd choose now. Who ever said that you get one chance and you have to stick to it forever? No investment advisor worth their salt would give such idiotic advice. As far as sweeping social changes - I covered those as a risk. You have to watch for stuff like that and move your monies accordingly.

Re:population

[Zathrus]

My lord. What amazingly bad logic.

First off, NY/NJ isn't the only place to live. There are a ton of places that are quite affordable and are still East Coast. Or West Coast. Or mountainous. Or whatever floats your boat.

Rent? Forget it man... you're never going to retire with that kind of mindset. It's called a mortgage. And if you have $1M in savings then you've already bought the house -- odds are 10-20 years or more prior. You're certainly not paying $2800/mo in mortgage P&I, taxes, and insurance.

I'm not living in a magical dream world, nor am I living in anything even vaguely resembling the housing you describe. It's a shame that your horizons and experiences are so limited... but maybe you'll learn.

Re:population

[pmz]

"Couldn't I have done something better with those 30 minutes than just walked to the bank?"

A 30 minute walk can be very rewarding. For example, my favorite job of all time was the one where I lived only one mile from work. I walked to work every day, rain or shine. It really beats being stuck in traffic for 30 minutes stuck next to 1200 watt losermobiles and asshole tailgaters.

Re:population

[DuckWing]

oh ye of little (no) faith. It can indeed be read as a science text book. Science has proven the Bible, not disproven it.

Re:population

[DuckWing]

Yes that is correct, my bad. I had the wrong person. Enoch didn't die at all, God took him.

Re:population

[DuckWing]

Give me a break! NO, a Biblical year is NOT 28 days. It may not be our 365, but it's not 28. 28 days may be 1 month, and there were 12 months 28x12 = 336 days.

Re:population

[Clockwork Apple]

I need to get my eyes checked, cause I read that as.....

" Mmmmmm... mmmm.... tastes like CHILDREN! "

Re:population

[JimFromJersey]

From Holland (I think) based on optical discoveries that had some level of origination in the Arab world. This information was later placed in books that were in turn stored at the library in Medina (sp?), Spain when it was under Moorish control. During the crusades this city was taken intact and the works were sent to protestant Holland. Read James Burkes "The Day The Universe Changed" for the complete (and more accurate) story.

Re:population

[caerus]

It usually comes as shock to most people to find out that the overpopulation argument is totally unfounded and untrue. It goes against our intuition, after so many years of having it hammered into our heads, that the opposite is actually occuring. Birth rates are declining!

The latest statistics released on global population growth indicate that the birth rate is, far from increasing exponentially, declining world wide. Especially in developed countries we find birth rates BELOW replacement (about 2.1 children) and those countries need to actually IMPORT people to keep the numbers steady. Canada has the lowest replacement rate of 1.2. It is predicted that the population of the US will level off by the year 2050. Even Mexico has adjusted it's birth rate to around 2.5 down from 7 in recent times.

Something that people don't quite yet realize is the widespread decline in the fertility of humans. Possibly due to environmental chemicals, Europe has seen a drop in male fertility by 50% and areas in Canada are reporting similar figures. It may be that the challenge will be to keep our species ALIVE through future technolgies and children will treasured above all other treasures.

See a thread about at this and many other topics regarding the effects of extreme life-extension at

debunking the overpopulation myth

for further proof and information regarding this dangerously untrue assertion.

caerus

Re:population

[goldspider]

"Actually, social security CAN take better care of you than you can take care of yourself."

I don't know how you live or what kind of job you have, but I know I can do far better than $250/wk, thank you very much.

-people could not retire at all, ever

And thanks to social security, they can? More likely it's because they were able to save/invest responsibly and prepared for the future. Not that that's hard to do, compared to social security, where you usually get back LESS than what you out into it. Not what I call a wise investment.

-people valued boys more than girls, because boys were needed to earn money to take care of parents. The devaluation of half of society was sick, and frankly, you're sick to desire it

What are you talking about? What government entitlement program do you think changed that sentiment? When did I ever suggest that men were more valuable women? Stop trying to bolster your weak argument by putting words into my mouth.

-you're obviously off-kilter if you think social security is forced dependence.

I don't have the option to not pay into it, do I? I call that forced.

Not everyone will have enough money to support themselves when they are too old and sick to work. Do you propose that we just kill them?

If they can't live within their means and prepare for the future responsibly, that's not my fault nor my problem. I have no problem with donating to charity VOLUNTARILY (and I do), but the government has no right to confiscate what I have earned and give it to someone else.

-Free society doesn't just protect the rich, that's an oligarchy. A free society protects all citizens.

Socialism has nothing to do with protecting everybody equally, unless you equate "protection" with "subsidies". It is a system that punishes the successful and rewards the unmotivated. It tells people they are too stupid to make decisions for themselves.

"The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself." -Benjamin Franklin

Re:population

[PD]

I don't know how you live or what kind of job you have, but I know I can do far better than $250/wk, thank you very much.

I live in one of the more affluent areas of Austin TX. There is a small chance that you make more money than me, but I wouldn't bet on it. Anyway, that's not an argument, and it means nothing.

And thanks to social security, they can? More likely it's because they were able to save/invest responsibly and prepared for the future. Not that that's hard to do, compared to social security, where you usually get back LESS than what you out into it. Not what I call a wise investment.

Social Security is not an investment. When you argue against something, it would help you to know what it is you are arguing against.

What are you talking about? What government entitlement program do you think changed that sentiment? When did I ever suggest that men were more valuable women? Stop trying to bolster your weak argument by putting words into my mouth.

The words were mine, and they were not attributed to you. If you're not familiar with the very positive social effects of Social Security, then that's a point of ignorance on your part. There's many other positives; I only mentioned one. You don't have to take my word for it. If you study what you are arguing against, you'd be able to learn the same thing.

If they can't live within their means and prepare for the future responsibly, that's not my fault nor my problem. I have no problem with donating to charity VOLUNTARILY (and I do), but the government has no right to confiscate what I have earned and give it to someone else.

Ahhh, the old "taxes are theft" argument. That argument is incorrect, because you've benefitted greatly from social services, and now you don't want to pay for that benefit. The government DOES have the right to tax you, and force you to pay. Your option is to either change the system, or move. The system as it stands now has the right.

Socialism has nothing to do with protecting everybody equally, unless you equate "protection" with "subsidies". It is a system that punishes the successful and rewards the unmotivated. It tells people they are too stupid to make decisions for themselves.

That's not an argument, it's word play. Address the problem without all the rhetoric.

Re:population

[Anonymous Coward]

People used to have a life expectancy of 40 years, but we certainly don't stop working at 40 now.

They didn't stop working at 40 back then, either.

In fact, in many cultures, there was no such thing as retirement. You just kept working until you died.

Re:population

[lobsterGun]

I'm not an expert on population growth, which is probably why the United Nations doesn't come to me when it needs estimates.

The people that they do go to say that you're probably wrong.

Take a look at their web page and judge for yourself.

Re:population

[warkrime]

I wish I could remember the episode, but I seem to recall a Twilight Zone episode where the main character either was immune to death from natural causes, or was just days away from achieving immortality. As a result, he wouldn't leave his room. He was terrified by the thought that he would die in a stupid accident.

What happened in the end?

What would we do?

[dirtydiaper]

So no more Mortal Kombat?

This guy knows!

[Cybrr]

Alex Chiu

Re:This guy knows!

[Anonymous Coward]

In your sig, that should be "loose their spelling".

Re:This guy knows!

[Anonymous Coward]

Either way works, but that would be more logical. I'll replace "spelling" with another commonly misspelled word.

Re:This guy knows!

[Dark Lord Seth]

Man, that guy is a nutter. I decided for once to give the rest of his website a good deal of attention and it was... Well... Fun! Fun in a "What the fuck is wrong with this guy?" way, really. His "world corporation" idea is fun to read, even if you skip his constant shameless plugs for himself. I thought the guy was smart enough to exploit the stupid and gullible people into buying his silly contraptions, but now that I've read his story which ends in a cross-over between the future according to Slashdot (as in, corporationism and plutocracy) and the Bible. Very cute, though I expected something about body thetans and donating money to be saved as well.

Either that or the guy is a really clever and obsessed troll!

Re:This guy knows!

[Havokmon]

Please consult your doctor if you have a heart problem or if you are pregnant before using this device.

HA! So you can't live forever if you have a heart problem or have kids?

Re:This guy knows!

[Anonymous Coward]

from the site:

"Full of graphics and animated GIF's. ... Must read!"

<zealot type="png user"><zealot type="must kill animated gifs!">
hah! he won't have eternal life if I kill him first!
</zealot></zealot>

And this looks worse / stupider than Jeff K's stuff:

http://alexchiu.com/philosophy/corp.htm

Methinks his website is an evil device to make people who don't buy his stuff suicidal...

How to spend eternity?

[Shwag]

Then I can spend the rest of eternity getting first posts!

Re:How to spend eternity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well at least you will get plenty of attempts, but for now: YOU FAIL IT!

Re:How to spend eternity?

[Anonymous Coward]

let's work on getting it right before you plan to spend an eternity doing it.

Best summary of my position:

[Dr. Manhattan]

"Personally, I've been hearing all my life about the Serious Philosophical Issues posed by life extension, and my attitude has always been that I'm willing to grapple with those issues for as many centuries as it takes." - Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Re:Best summary of my position:

[ctr2sprt]

Whoa, isn't that the Tor guy in charge of publishing Robert Jordan's books? I had no idea he was that quotable!

Sci Fi covered it first?

[umrgregg]

There are some great SciFi books/series that deal with extended life-spans and the societal issues that arise from such an issue. The first that come to mind are Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series (humans use genetic massaging to prolong their lifespan; initially for the rich) and Larry Niven's Ringworld series (an alien race in the series has extremely long life spans and therefore everything is built for caution). Aside from being excellent books, they offer some insight to the topics in the article, and some ways we should avoid (Robinson) handling or handle (Niven) if the situation arises.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[Upphew]

Also good book involving immortality is Richard Morgans Altered Carbon.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[L. VeGas]

Jonathon Swift did it before Sci Fi.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[umrgregg]

But of course. It's just he doesn't do it through the eye of modern genetics. :)

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[Telastyn]

Fantasy too. Tolkien's elves [and their derivatives] are one of the better examples of immortality influencing culture.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[B3ryllium]

As did the book Tuck Everlasting.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but that's fake.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[The_K4]

I would recomend "The Age of Spiritual Machines" by Kerzweil. It deals with this issues much better. The Ringworld series is good, but I found the Mars books really really boring.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[the_consumer]

Don't forget Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire. One of his best.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[TwistedGreen]

What are you talking about? Ringworld is a terrible novel. I don't see why it's so glorified... Niven can't write. From a literary standpoint, Ringworld sucks.

Sure, it may have some interesting ideas, but it also has some very stupid ideas (genetically lucky people), all tied together with a poorly-written excuse of a story. The plot is dry, far too predictable, and unoriginal.

Do yourself a favour and don't waste your time--there's much better hard sci-fi out there. Greg Bear, for instance. If you want readable sci-fi about future social systems, see his novels Eon or Slant.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[Galvatron]

I also enjoyed his Schismatrix stuff, though it was an earlier work.

RE: Sci Fi covered it first?

[Moriarty]

Brian Stableford recently wrote a six book future history centered around human attempts at life extension. It takes 500 years to get it right with people in different times either assuming there will be life extension treatments awaiting them when they age or knowing that they are doomed to be the last generation of mortals. I've read the first three and I can't really do justice to it here, but they cover overpopulation , desperate space colonization attempts, and a Capitalist Cabal that ends up owning the world through stock market manipulation. One of the later books, Fountains of Youth is the 500 year diary of a emortal name Mortimer Gray. He is famous for writing a History of Death where he tries to understand the mindset of past mortal humans and the various ways they coped with knowledge of death.

The series consists of four entertaining books: The Cassandra Complex, Inherit the Earth, Architects of Emortality, and Dark Ararat. There are also two big idea books: Fountains of Youth and The Omega Expedition (you need to read these in order because FOY has a big suprise at the end).

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[fermion]

All the greats have dealt with this issue, many in an idealistic way, assuming that space travel is easy enough to spread the population amongst the cosmos. One example that comes to mind is Frederick Pohl "Outnumbering the Dead." Of course, as many have mentioned, many authors use extended life as an assumption or plot device. K.S. Robinson has both actual and metaphorical longevity. Heinlein also uses this extensively in his later adult oriented novels.

The thing that most of these miss is how efficiently we kill each other, especially when resources are scarce. A recent movie with this theme is "28 Days Later"(I am talking about the military people trying to kill the men to get the women). We already have older people consuming an extraordinary amount of resources to live a few more years. There is backlash against this, and it will increase. The most likely consequence of immortality, unless it is achieved very cheaply or results in people wanting much less stuff, will likely be the routine killing of the weak and otherwise useless portion of society to make room for those deemed more worthy. This is already kind of done in an informal way.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[umrgregg]

I wonder how much this would ease anxiety of traveling long distances in time through space. What's 500 years skirting around the solar sytem if you live to be 6000? Imagine even with near light speed travel.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[meta-monkey]

I'm a sci-fi freak and I've got to agree with you...maybe Niven has some good ideas, but I've never been able to get more than 75 pages into one of his novels. They're so poorly written, with uninteresting, cliched characters, and moronic imagery. I never tried Ringworld, so maybe it's not quite as bad as the others I started to read...

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[timeOday]

The CNN article itself is sci-fi. To talk of remedying all the causes of aging and death when we don't even know what they are is just wishful thinking. After picking the low-hanging fruit (food supply, infectious diseases) progress on thornier issues (cancer, alzheimers, arthritis) has been incredibly slow and expensive, in treatment is still a smaller factor than genetics and prevention.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[centauri]

they offer some insight to the topics in the article, and some ways we should ... handle (Niven) if the situation arises.

If achieving immortality means that we have to become a race of congenital vegitarian cowards who are fiends for ten-decimal-point accuracy, perhaps we should pass.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? Surely Asimov got there before most of these with his robot novels...

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[thenightfly42]

Jack Vance wrote "To Live Forever", which includes a population limiter. You can live your natural life if you choose, or enter the program and your life span is set to (if I recall correctly) 80 years. You then have to "give enough back" to society to be granted the next 20 years, and there are 5 levels before immortality. When your time is up, you are killed.

The interesting ramifications come in when people realize that their "slope" (good deeds versus time) isn't going to reach the next plateau. Often leads to mental breakdown.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[jqpublic]

Covered even earlier with James Blish's Cities in Flight. Extremely long lives makes century-long space flights to nearby stars amenable to a single lifetime.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[nadadogg]

It could always turn out in a Logan's Run fashion, where you dont have to be old to die, just no longer a useful contributer to society.
Bums? Gone.
Killers? Gone.
500 year old doctor? Ok
so on and so forth.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[seaan]

I'd also recommend Gibson's "Holy Fire". It took me a while to get through it for some reason, but it does a nice job of investigating just this topic - what happens when technology can extend human lifes.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory classic Star Trek reference: "The Mark Of Gideon"

"Odona, can you...remember why your people dream of being alone?"

"Because they never can be. - Why ?"

"What makes it so impossible to be alone?"

"Because there are so many of us. So many.
There is no place,
no street,
no house,
no garden,
no beach,
no mountain that is not filled with people.
Each one of us would kill...
in order to find a place alone to himself.
Yet would willingly die for it,
if they could."

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[kapok_tree]

Another one to think about is Cyteen by C. J. cherryh. It doens't cover immortality, but it does deal with the increased lifespans made possible by anti-senescence drugs. That's probably got more significance in the near-term. Most readers aren't goign to be in the position to have their children genetically altered for immortality - but WILL be able to get anti-aging treatments. In _Cyteen_, Cherryh describes a society where households slowly transition from one generation to the next in a far more planned method than currently happens.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[Mal-2]

The first book that comes to my mind would be Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love", and in fact all of the "Future History" books. There, the naturally (though selectively bred) long-lived were forced off the planet as the rest of the world changed the rules to suit their own interests, and ultimately came after the Methuselahs with a "final solution" plan in mind. Hence the Diaspora, which caused the galaxy and beyond to be populated only by naturally long-lived people. Meanwhile, earth itself was left to degenerate, just as it would have had the Methuselahs stayed.

Mal-2

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[Anonymous Coward]

The puppeteers didn't build for caution because they were long lived!!! They did it because supposedly, their scientists had proved that they did not have souls, and therefore, could not enjoy an afterlife. DUUHHHH!!!

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[Ragica]

Thank God there's someone here that remembers the TRUE classics (previous reference to Swift notwithstanding).

I still remember the first time i saw this episode as a kid... it was absolutely brilliantly executed. What was brilliant in the story telling was the contrast that was set up. While the theme ends up being overpopulation, in fact most of the episode is played out by just two people, with a whole starship to themselves.

Brief synopsis for those who may not remember:

Kirk wakes up on the Enterprise. But strangely he is alone. No one else there. He wanders the decks trying to find any trace of anyone.

He finally does find comes across a single woman also wandering the decks... much of the episode is taken up with him trying to figure out what role she plays in the strange events, and how they came to be there all alone.

So most of the episode has these two people in this vast space. But towards the end (spoiler?) the view screens go up revealing the most horrific crowd of people looking in: the whole enterprise had been recreated on this planet for Kirk and this woman... despite the planet apparently being so overcrowded, due to science having achieved virtual immortality, that probably the term "elbow room" had no meaning there.

But why did the government of this planet take all this space to build an entire (seemingly) working replica of the enterprise? How does it relate to the population problem?

Watch the reruns!

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[Pixies]

I'm a sci-fi freak and I've got to agree with you...maybe Niven has some good ideas, but I've never been able to get more than 75 pages into one of his novels.

I've read two of the ones he did with Pournelle and they were extremely good. Hrrrmm.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[cfuse]

humans use genetic massaging to prolong their lifespan; initially for the rich

Like any of those poor bastards in Africa are ever going to see this tech applied to them.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[Eric Smith]

but it also has some very stupid ideas (genetically lucky people)

Wow, thanks for clarifying that for me. I knew that the idea was very unusual, but I'm not smart enough to be able to completely write if off as stupid. It always seemed to me that since we don't really know with complete certainty that the collapse of quantum wavefunctions can never be externally influenced, that unexpectedly biased outcomes to "random" occurances might be possible. After all, that's what it would take for a person to have "luck". Apparently Greg Egan's novel "Quarantine" must also have some "very stupid ideas".

all tied together with a poorly-written excuse of a story. The plot is dry,

<sarcasm> Yes, there's just nothing interesting in the novel at all. </sarcasm>

far too predictable

<sarcasm> Right. It was immediately obvious from the first page exactly what would happen. </sarcasm>

, and unoriginal.

<sarcasm> I know exactly what you mean. There were just so many other novels that covered exactly this same concept and plot before. </sarcasm> Of course, I've never been able to actually find or identify those novels.

C'mon, it's fine to say that you didn't like the novel, but your criticism of it is extremely weak. Maybe you could cite some examples to support your assertions of "completely predicable" and "unoriginal".

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[mfrank]

WTF? The three main races in Niven's Known Universe are humans, puppeteers, and kzin. Omnivorous primates, herbivorous herd animals, and carnivorous felines. Evolution dictates how they behave. Puppeteers are cautious because they're intelligent *sheep*.

Re:Sci Fi covered it first?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was one of the obviously low-budget episodes. It sucked almost as hard as "The Empath."

The worst part was at the end, when there was this (supposedly) endless line of people who were stepping up the contract the disease -- but it was actually the same five or six people walking in an oval, with part of the oval off-camera.

Obligatory

[QuantumFTL]

Here goes my first attempt at cliche hording.
without even reading the friendly article, I can already accurately predict (based on my education, which is mostly from slashdot):

• This means we might actually be around when Duke Nukem Forever is released.
• Each one of us has a chance with Natalie Portman... Think about it, a nonzero probability (except for you, Cowboyneal) integrated over an infinite time... I can dream at least...
• In Soviet Russia, forever lives for YOU. Perhaps if we reconstruct Soviet Russia we will be able to figure out what this means.
• SCO and/or Jeff Bezos already have a patent on immortality. They blatently disregard God's prior art.
• Think infinite hot grits. Yum.
• With all the time in the world, we no longer have to only "imagine a beowolf cluster of X".

Sounds like a blast to me.
Oh, wait, forgot... we can argue about BSD dying unto eternity as well (and perhaps Apple too).

Cheers,
Justin

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Prior-art for immortality is impossible. God might die any moment now.

Re:Obligatory

[proj_2501]

How can we argue that for eternity? BSD and Apple will be dead within a year!

Re:Obligatory

[Fweeky]

hot grits

Will someone please tell me wtf hot grits are? Every time I read it I think of someone heating gravel over a fire...

Re:Obligatory

[QuantumFTL]

Oh, I forgot a to mention a few other things:

• We get to read the same slashdot stories posted over and over. and over. ad infinutum (ad nauseum?) Perhaps this means the "Mysterious Future" won't be mysterious any longer?
• CowboyNeal will be elected president, as people will realize he's the smallest of the jokes at the polls. (well, comedy wise at least!)
• CommanderTaco will use a spell checker, at least once. Maybe.
• Last but not least... I predict a minimum of 3 /.ers will read the article before posting.

Cheers,
Justin

Re:Obligatory

[khallow]

If you had lived in the center of human civilization, the US Southeast for any length of time, you would know that "grits" are cooked corn mash often flavored with butter, honey, raisins, and other things. It's a true New World food being a traditional way to prepare and eat corn perhaps ever since corn was first domesticated. I think they're disgusting. :-)

Re:Obligatory

[Hatta]

You're close, it's ground corn, AKA hominy. Next time you're south of the mason dixon line, stop at a waffle house for breakfast. They're especially good with honey.

Re:Obligatory

[Doom Ihl' Varia]

Grits are a traditionally Southern breakfast food. Remeber that gooey stuff they ate in The Matrix? It is kind of like that. People tend to have a love/hate relationship towards it. I personally love them. The "hot" part of "hot grits" is a bit redundant because grits are usually eaten hot. Kind of like specifying "cold ice cream".

Re:Obligatory

[jdray]

I can't believe that you forgot:

1) Put an amazingly small amount of money in the bank at an amazingly small interest rate.

2) Wait for an eternity.

3) Profit!!!

Re:Obligatory

[tarius8105]

Oh, wait, forgot... we can argue about BSD dying unto eternity as well (and perhaps Apple too).

Does this mean we have to put up with you being a BSD troll for eternity?

One big change...

[magicsquid]

Should we all become immortal, I suspect a lot more people will be using a lot more Viagra.

Re:One big change...

[1nihilist1]

Wrong. With all the advances in genetics, and micro-biology everyone will have large wangs which are constantly hard. Unfortunetly this will put alot of spam companies out of business. This will be known as the spam crash of 2028.

Re:One big change...

[FroMan]

Nah, I think we'll all run around chopping heads off people until there is only one. Then they'll get the "prize", which means they can read everyone elses thoughts, until a couple weirdos sent by this evil overlord try to come and kill him who will be very old until he kills the goons, which then he will become young again, then have sex with some lady off the street who hates him, which will cause them to fall in love, then they will work together to get rid of the "shield" and then kill the uber overlord and then he will the the only one again, until three other imortals are dug up from somewhere in asia and he has to kill those, and get the "prize" yet again.

Re:One big change...

[pmz]

Should we all become immortal, I suspect a lot more people will be using a lot more Viagra.

Or any drugs, in general. Unless suburban sprawl, the inner city, and crappy government are disbanded along with the rise to immortality, there will be many many very frustrated and depressed people looking for an escape. Also, imagine having to wait for four weeks in line at the DMV, just because it litterally costs you nothing to wait that long. After all, you are immortal. Immortality coupled with bureaucracy will probably be hell on earth, literally.

Re:One big change...

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. I first read that as "immoral", and yet the sentence didn't lose its context ;)

Re:One big change...

[Bios_Hakr]

Aside from sexual relations, I wonder how interpersonal relations will hold up. Being married to one person for 50+ years is already too much for most people to take. How many marriges will last for 200+ years?

Highlander.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess we would all be running around chopping each others heads off then.....

I think it's great!

[L. VeGas]

It just gives me more time to subjugate all humans and rule the earth with an iron fist.

Now I have time to watch some TV first.

Re:I think it's great!

[JudgeFurious]

Pardon my choice of language but I think my very first thoughts on your post would be the most appropriate.

"Fucking priceless."

Bravo man, seriously take a bow.

Re:I think it's great!

[pmz]

It just gives me more time to subjugate all humans and rule the earth with an iron fist.

It could be that mortality is nature's way of telling all of us, "Give someone else a chance." People can be very stubborn. Imagine if the rise to immortality is coupled with a rise of World War II style fascism that lasted forever.

Well, the birthrate would decrease

[Anonymous Coward]

As people would no longer feel the need to have immortality in the form of children, and also as they realize the resources required. Second, either government suppport for the elderly would need to drop dramatically, or people would need to work longer parts of their lives. Third, there'd be a lot more shows like Golden Girls on TV.

hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that include stopping aging too? I don't think anyone will sleep with me when I'm 210.

Re:hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is different from your current situation how?

Re:hmm..

[Saige]

Though this comes across as a joke, it's a very important issue to consider.

After all, if we don't bother to stop aging, then someone living for hundreds of years isn't going to enjoy that much of it. What good is living when your body is fragile and weak?

Adding on to one's life expectancy isn't worthwhile unless it comes with a significant decrease in the rate of aging, or at least the ability to temporarily reverse it. (ie taking a 70 year old body, and making it as good as at 25 again, for it to age back to 70, and repeat)

In general, when people talk about long life spans, usually slowing/stopping/reversing aging is implied.

life expectancy

[IFF123]

it's all as usually overhyped.

Life expectancy relates to two things: natural factors (body wear, desease...) and other (car hitting you at 90 MPH, you jumping from 20th story window).

While "breakthrough" research can get rid(or minimize) the impact of natural factors (through medicine), the other factors are still unchanged (mostly).

Please correct me if I am viewing it incorrectly.

Re:life expectancy

[maxume]

What if two of the breakthroughs are cloning and a method to back up your conciousness or whatever it is that makes you you? At that point, a new body, with a restored backup of you is going to pretty much be you, minus a little bit of experience. I realize that these are pretty far off at this point(ie cloning isn't easy yet, and rapid growth of clone isn't even thought of yet, and we don't know jack about the soul/brain/conciousness), but they are pretty much the end all of your question, because if we get those things, then what? Altered Carbon, a somewhat recent slashdot book review has an interesting take on the whole thing, and I have read other stuff that deals with it, though the titles escape me.

Re:life expectancy

[MagnaMark]

Actually, humans are more likely to die from old age than from "other" causes. This is indicated by a "Type 1 Survivorship Curve".

Other species, such as those with predators, don't tend to die as much from old age.

Of course, there are other "natural factors" besides aging that kill us off.

Re:life expectancy

[threephaseboy]

At that point, a new body, with a restored backup of you is going to pretty much be you, minus a little bit of experience.

Such as, the experience to remember to turn off the gas? or that the gun is actually loaded or some such?
I could see some people getting stuck in an infinate loop with these :)

Re:life expectancy

[wizardmax]

As they get rid of the natural factors, the stress factor in the work place is growing. This can be seen in Japan and US where people are chronically overworked and do not take some or all of their alotted vacations. Stress from work is known to kill.

Re:life expectancy

[IFF123]

keep reading slashdot at your current rate, and the stress from work isn't going to be a problem :)

2 possibilities

[bfioca]

It seems like, faced with potential lifespans of hundreds of years, people would fall into one of two categories: either completely paranoid and afraid of any scenario that could cause death, or more and more careless and risk-taking as hundreds of years of life go by without incident.

Re:2 possibilities

[Mantorp]

as long as we figure out a way to backup our stacks which will enable us to jump in to new sleeves when there's organic damage to the old ones we can become risk taking to the point of recklessness.

100 years to retirement?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to work 100 years or more before retirement. Not.

cool

[Boromir son of Faram]

How awesome would it be to be thousands of years old? Remember El Ron, "I remember killing Soron a thousand years ago! I remember when man failed!" That shit was tight. The Highlander and Vampire: the Gathering are also where it's at.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

L Ron Hubbard died some time ago.
Oh, you mean _Elrond_ and _Sauron_. Sorry. I got a little confused there. :)

Re:cool

[dreadnougat]

El Ron: a Spanish counterpart to Elrond? :)

Funny you should mention this

[Raul654]

Queens University in Belfast did a studying linking your major in college with your life expectancy. Scientists and Engineers live the longest next to pre-med. Sweet.

Re:Funny you should mention this

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly why you should do a degree in science and work in the medical research field --'ssuming you're a geek.

Re:Funny you should mention this

[spuke4000]

From the link:
Liberal Arts and Social Sciences: ... Overall, their risk of death was 42 percent higher than the medical students.

Sweet, a liberal arts major has a 42% higher chance of dying than I do. I'm glad I did all that work in school now.

Re:Funny you should mention this

[Mike1024]

Hey,

Scientists and Engineers live the longest next to pre-med. Sweet.

What's more, lawyers and liberal arts types die first.

Maybe there is justice in the world after all.

TWAJS

Michael

Re:Funny you should mention this

[Darlock]

> Scientists and Engineers live the longest next to pre-med

Ok, my question is: What do those medical students know that we don't? I would guess *Don't goto hospitals*

Re:Funny you should mention this

[blahtree]

The study's results can be summarized like this: smoking equals a short life. Your degree doesn't matter so much as whether you smoke or not. No way you're going to live to 600 and be a smoker : )

Re:Funny you should mention this

[Anonymous Coward]

We have a secret handshake that assures we receive better medical care than the rest of you plebes. As it should be.

Re:Funny you should mention this

[cpeterso]

This makes sense. I bet a greater percentage of liberal arts majors and lawyers smoke than engineers or doctors. Google, where are these numbers?? :-)

Lemme seee....

[GeneralEmergency]

...100 more years with the DMCA, Patriot Act, the MPAA and the RIAA getting meaner and stronger?

Slashdot too?

Tough choice. I'll get back to you.

Re:Lemme seee....

[Reorax]

Well...I suppose the DMCA would last 997 more years. (998 if you count 3001 as the start of the millenium.)

yeah... not?

[digitalsushi]

if you could pop a pill that would make you never die from something biological, the *average* age you would live to be is about 600, after you calculate in train wrecks, falling down stairs, car crashes, and well, anywhere you can kill yourself mechanically or chemically. Given that's the average, that means some lucky 10 percent would be seeing more like 6000 years, and some unlucky folks getting their 60, or worse, 6! I really wish I had a source for that number, but if it is indeed roughly corect, then someone can just do whatever math is required to decide for themselves. Sorry I dont have a link...

Re:yeah... not?

[Efreet]

In 300 years we can probably expect the chances of dieing in train wrecks, etc to go way, way down.

Re:yeah... not?

[Angry Toad]

I saw someone reference these numbers in a seminar once, but I can't for the life of me recall where they came from. Apparently they were estimated from life insurance actuarial tables after removing all age-linked causes of death (heart disease, cancer etc).

One way or another I firmly expect they'll announce a cure for death about five minutes after they tie the tag on my toe.

Re:yeah... not?

[Chris Burke]

One way or another I firmly expect they'll announce a cure for death about five minutes after they tie the tag on my toe.

That'd be great! You're already in a hospital, and they've detected your condition very early!

Now if they discovered a cure for being -about- to die five minutes after they tie the tage on your toe, now that would be ironic. ;)

Re:yeah... not?

[Hatta]

if you could pop a pill that would make you never die from something biological, the *average* age you would live to be is about 600, after you calculate in train wrecks, falling down stairs, car crashes, and well, anywhere you can kill yourself mechanically or chemically. Given that's the average, that means some lucky 10 percent would be seeing more like 6000 years, and some unlucky folks getting their 60, or worse, 6!

That's not how averages work. Just because you know the mean doesn't mean you know the distribution around the mean. A population with a mean foo of 100 could have half the population with foo=101 and foo=99, or half the population could have 0 foo, and the other half 200 foo. The best you can do is assume a normally distributed population and use the empirical rule, but this still requires that you know the standard deviation. The empirical rule states that 68% of the population is probably (it's empirical) within 1 standard deviation of the mean; 95% within 2; and 99.7% within 3 standard deviations. If you cannot guarantee a normal distribution you can use chebychev's rule which is guaranteed to apply for any distribution, but doesn't tell you quite as much. Chebychev's rule most simply stated is: for any distribution the number of scores between the mean and N standard deviations is at least 1-1/k^2

Re:yeah... not?

[khallow]

This is correct. I independently calculated the same number. Basically, take reciprocal of the accident/murder/suicide death rate as referenced in US actuarial tables and you get roughly 600 years. It's hard to compare across countries. For example, Pakistan has a much more dangerous automobile traffic, but that is balanced against less vehicles on the road. So I don't know how the life expectancy would vary across the world.

Another key factor is that there's a lot you can do to improve your life expectancy in an immortality situation. First, don't kill yourself. Second, avoid dangerous situations. Drive only when you have to, no risky activities like sky diving, your home can be designed to reduce significantly the risks of falling, drowning, fire, and electrocution. You can purchase better security against murder. In other words, if you can afford it, you can reduce significantly your chances of dying in an accident or similar event.

Re:yeah... not?

[jared_hanson]

My life expectancy better start going up real quick. It is going to take me a while to figure out what you just said.

Re:yeah... not?

[Michael Crutcher]

Umm.. except that science isn't going to stand still. If science has figured out a way to allow your cells to divide forever (with the associated fixing of the natural errors that will occur) science has also probably figured out how to reattach your head to your body after its been ripped off by said train.

Re:yeah... not?

[CGP314]

Now if they discovered a cure for being -about- to die five minutes after they tie the tage on your toe, now that would be ironic. ;)

No, it would be ironic if he was the one to find the cure. What you describe is just very sad.

Re:yeah... not?

[Chris Burke]

Or if he was in the study to test it. Or if he was at the hospital where it was invented.

But I still think dying 5 minutes before a cure is announced is ironic.

Re:yeah... not?

[promethean_spark]

>if you could pop a pill that would make you never die from something biological, the *average* age you would live to be is about 600, after you calculate in train wrecks, falling down stairs, car crashes, and well, anywhere you can kill yourself mechanically or chemically. An we thought safety standards now were crazy! We'll all probably just curl up in matrix-esque pods and go about our buisness in a virtual world where we bounce instead of splat.

I don't know about you

[prostoalex]

But I am planning to insult every person in the Universe.

Re:I don't know about you

[meta-monkey]

You're a jerk, prostoalex! A real kneebiter!

Re:I don't know about you

[lordcorusa]

But I am planning to insult every person in the Universe

Yes, but in alphabetical order?

Re:I don't know about you

[roman_mir]

ProstoAlex, best deffence is offence, so here goes: In Soviet Russia every person in the Universe insults Alex.

A eto uje ne prosto!

Re:I don't know about you

[Jeff DeMaagd]

But I am planning to insult every person in the Universe.

What is the life expectancy of a person that insults a Mafia Don? Or Cthulu for that matter?

Population Control

[tevenson]

I doubt this will happen. We would overpopulate the Earth FAR to quickly unless a system was started that limited the number of children you could have (probably one per 4 generations) if everyone lived 600 years.

Of course, after about 250 years I might be sick of life and just end it all myself. Suicide_rates++;

Re:Population Control

[Ominous Coward]

A single immortal might get sick of life and end it. If all were immortal, life would change, and there'd be much more to do. Boredom wouldn't be a problem anymore.

If we could lvie forever..

[Repton]

...then perhaps the rich and powerful would start actually caring about the environment, seeing as they're more likely to live to see the long term effects of their actions.

Re:If we could lvie forever..

[profyaya]

my sentiments exactly...

Re:If we could lvie forever..

[maxume]

Seems to me that they would continue to care mostly about their personal environment, and do fuckall for the rest of the world. I certainly would, had I the ability, make sure that I lived in a pristine, beautiful setting. Who knows if I would worry to much about you though?

I do think that the rich/powerful would become even more rich/powerful, and would probably start to think of themselves as seperate from people of lesser resources, which would likely lead to the different attitudes about personal/world environment...

Re:If we could lvie forever..

[El]

I think the problem is that too many of the rich and powerful beleive the rapture/battle of Armegedon is going to end it all in a few years anyway, so why bother doing anything about the environment. (Yes, I know this sounds insane, but I can't think of any other explaination for thier actions.) In that case, telling them they can live to be 600 isn't going to do any good.

Re:If we could lvie forever..

[pmz]

..then perhaps the rich and powerful would start actually caring about the environment, seeing as they're more likely to live to see the long term effects of their actions.

No, they would just colonize one of the nicer moons of Jupiter. Earth would be the slums.

Re:If we could lvie forever..

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that too many of the rich and powerful currently give a ton of money to organizations that are raping you of your rights under the guise of environmental protection.

So, if they cared any more about the environment you wouldn't be able to enjoy any of the open areas in the United States.

Re:If we could lvie forever..

[cfuse]

...then perhaps the rich and powerful would start actually caring about the environment, seeing as they're more likely to live to see the long term effects of their actions.

You've obviously never spent any time with the rich and powerful. They already live the longest and don't give a damn.

Five miles through the snow

[crmartin]

You-all will have to listen to me tell stories about the Old Days, with punched cards and 256K of RAM in a cabinet the size of a refrigerator, for a lot loner.

Oh, that's just great!

[dmuth]

Oh, that's just great!

Now when people go Christmas shopping, they'll have to buy Christmas presents for their grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, great-great-great-grandparents, great-great-great-great-grandparents, great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, and the list goes on and on. People will go brankrupt and the economy will collapse, the horror!

(This is a joke, for the humor-impaired)

Re:Oh, that's just great!

[Theaetetus]

Now when people go Christmas shopping, they'll have to buy Christmas presents for their grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, great-great-great-grandparents, great-great-great-great-grandparents, great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, and the list goes on and on. People will go brankrupt and the economy will collapse, the horror!

... unless, of course, you work in retail! ;)

-T

Re:Oh, that's just great!

[pmz]

Christmas shopping

I predict your scenario wouldn't happen, because everyone will realize just how rediculous the commercial aspect of Christmas is. If anything, everyone will just gather for a reunion of thier 15,000 extended family members and actually celebrate Christmas, for once.

Re:Oh, that's just great!

[aSlowOldGuy]

Well, you DO receive gifts from your kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, great-great grandkids, great-great-grandkids, great-great-great grandkids and so on.

Sort of a wash. (Or at least a major re-gifting opportunity)

Re:Oh, that's just great!

[Anonymous Coward]

My god! A joke for the joke-impaired? Oh the humanity!

Re:Oh, that's just great!

[cfuse]

What's less amusing is that unless the current family structures change and enforce long family lines then it is quite possible that you could end up sleeping with a great .... great grandparent. Yuck.

immortality

[Anonymous Coward]

Immortality will only be for rich people.

Poor people and workers are disposable humans.

Re:immortality

[Efreet]

Only until economy of scale makes it cheap. After all, dentistry used to only be for rich people, and now everybody gets to have their cavities drilled!

Re:immortality

[Saige]

Extrapolating from some numbers, they estimated that within a few decades life-expectancy would be increasing faster than real time, making everybody effectively immortal.

You don't have to live until they discover immortality. You just have to live until they're able to extend your lifespan quicker than you are aging. That's the point where you can become effectively immortal - or more accurately, with an unbounded lifespan.

You can never really claim "immortality", as that would suggest that you can never, ever die. It would take a lot to get to the point you can safely claim that. Just as long as life expectancy grows faster than your age, you don't have to worry.

Re:immortality

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya but only poor people and workers die in wars so eventually you'll get killed in one war or another...

Re:immortality

[h4x0r-3l337]

Thank you for restating in different words what I already said. I'm not sure why you did it, but I'm sure it was well-intended and served some higher purpose.

Re:immortality

[Saige]

You're right. I realized that after I posted. I was intending to add something to what you said, though I managed to do nothing but say pretty much the same thing.

Respone

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry you're probably going to get modded down for that comment, because it's true and pretty damn insightful.

Immortality would be useless without

[DRWHOISME]

getting more intelligent. We need to increase brain power with age. That would be a worthwhile goal. Pills to make those nueral networks retain memory and increase logic processing would be just as important. Turning all women into supermodels for life would be a major breakthrough also !

Damn...

[lacerus]

... I can't of the mandatory SCO joke for this one. Stupid Article!

Crystal Ball say

[Anonymous Coward]

Increased murder rate!

Zing!!!

Possible solutions?

[earthforce_1]

Larry Niven's ringworld series addresses the effect of near immortality on society. Having a baby requires a government permit, which is only issued to exceptional individuals, or the very, very lucky.

Of course, we had better figure out a way of getting off this stupid rock en masse, once we develop immortality.

Re:Possible solutions?

[TwistedGreen]

Larry Niven's ringworld series addresses the effect of near immortality on society. Having a baby requires a government permit, which is only issued to exceptional individuals, or the very, very lucky...

...which results in genetically lucky people, who can slip through even the stickiest situations unscathed.

What a ridiculous book.

Re:Possible solutions?

[evilWurst]

It kind of depends on the exact type of immortality we get. "Physically 20 and fertile forever" would be a massive problem. "Physically an extremely healthy but infertile 50 forever" would pile up the population an awful lot slower, and this version is a lot closer to what we're approaching now than the miracle eternal youth version. We'd have a century to work something out before it started getting seriously bad.

Other factors buy us more time. The Earth is not a single continuous habitat, as far as human society is concerned. There are subdivisions which keep local population problems from becoming global, because the rapidly-growing populations are no longer able to freely spread worldwide - there aren't any open borders anymore. Some regions will hit the max population their land can sustain much earlier than other regions.

Other checks on free population growth still exist and aren't tied to standard life extension science. Life extension won't neccessarily cure HIV or cancer. Malnutrition in developing countries is very harsh on child survival rates. War - especially at a technicalogical level of WW2 or later - massively hinders population growth, and the type of immortal we're talking about is just as easily killed by a bullet as you or I. Losing a few million of your most fertile men and women in a war impacts your population and economy for decades.

Not so sure...

[Ratphace]

...that many of us would want to live that long. I mean, think of how hard it is to stomach half the pinheads on this planet right now as it is, and then magnify that by a factor of 5 or 6 for the longer life spans... :)

Pretty spooky!

Quite clearly

[Cranx]

Quite clearly: cannibalism.

Re:Quite clearly

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm buy into tomato futures now!, lots of ketchup will be needed.

Re:Quite clearly

[Cranx]

I highly doubt Canada will be taking over when everyone is immortal; ketchup probably isn't the best bet.

Boredom and despair would abound

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm 30, and life already sucks. I couldn't fathom living to be a few hundred years old.

And I wouldn't want to live in a world where someone evil like Jack Valenti couldn't get cancer and die.

Why

[Timesprout]

is it that as soon as someone mentions we might live a couple of years longer immortality gets bandied about. Until we can cure every last disease and ailment on the planet immortality, even if it were possible would be pointless.

But what kind of life? Super Gerosome anyone?

[Channard]

Well, maybe not immortality as such but will this really improve life for people? I'd suspect that initially extended life expectency will become the exclusive dominion of the rich, so we'll see Hugh Hefner still cavorting up at the PlayAlien mansion.

But even if extended life expectency became standard for all people, unless the way the world works changes one hell of a lot, would you want to live forever? Working 9 to 5 for two hundred years doesn't sound too appealing to me.

Plus there'd need to be major clampdowns on population growth, or we'd be in Kurt Vonnegut terrority particularly sharpish. Money would be better spent on improving the lives of those for whose lives are so filled with suffering, death is a release.

Re:But what kind of life? Super Gerosome anyone?

[Channard]

Money would be better spent on improving the lives of those for whose lives are so filled with suffering, death is a release. I mean people for whom poverty and hunger is a day to day occurance. Not Goths.

Re:But what kind of life? Super Gerosome anyone?

[Efreet]

To answer your comments,

I'd suspect that initially extended life expectency will become the exclusive dominion of the rich

perhaps at first, but new medical techniques have a way of trickling down to the masses after a while. I mean, now even poor people have glasses!

But even if extended life expectency became standard for all people, unless the way the world works changes one hell of a lot, would you want to live forever? Working 9 to 5 for two hundred years doesn't sound too appealing to me.

You can thank your lucky stars that you weren't a farmer in the dark ages, then you'd really have to work. Working hours have been going down pretty consistantly over the centuries. Now we usually don't even have to work on Saturdays.

One Social Impact

[Anonymous Coward]

What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?

Slightly longer intervals between Slashdot polls.

Finishing

[Dark Paladin]

Assuming that the individual is in decent health and not a 200 year old husk of skin kept alive by machines - I think I know what I would do with immortality:

1. Finally finish Xenogears (which, after over 6 months of playing, I'm still working on. How long is this game, anyway?)

2. Try every possible combination of Jelly Belly Jelly Beans. (Hm - Mint Pineapple Peanut Butter - yup, that sucks. Check off the list. Now lets try Vanilla Chocolate Pepper! No...)

3. Recreate the movie Gone with the Wind frame for frame using my specially trained gerbels. (Once I figure out how little Rett is going to carry Scarlet up the little mouse stairs.)

4. See Sakura Taisen finally ported to English, or barring that, have the universal translator chip implanted into my brain.

5. Watch Neon Genesis Evangelion and have the final episodes of the TV series plus the two movies actually make some sense.

Wahahahaha! Oh, I'm kidding - EVA make sense. My bad.

6. Finally shoot Pac-Man: The Movie.

7. Go to space. With my wife. Close the hatch for some privacy. Get our space freak on to the music of "Thus Spoke Zarathrusta" (the 2001 music) for our own "docking manuevers".

Just some ideas off the top of my head to do with immortaility.

Re:Finishing

[meringuoid]

4. See Sakura Taisen finally ported to English, or barring that, have the universal translator chip implanted into my brain.

Try this:

4. Learn Japanese.

Re:Finishing

[threephaseboy]

5. Watch Neon Genesis Evangelion and have the final episodes of the TV series plus the two movies actually make some sense.

Wahahahaha! Oh, I'm kidding - EVA make sense. My bad.

Woah. I actually thought you might be sane until I read that.

Re:Finishing

[Hatta]

I'm hoping sometime between now and 3003 I'll finally get that damn Amulet of Yendor.

Re:Finishing

[retro128]

Scratch Pac Man the movie off the list. Apparently another immortal is already on it.

Re:Finishing

[shaper]

7. Go to space. With my wife. Close the hatch for some privacy. Get our space freak on to the music of "Thus Spoke Zarathrusta" (the 2001 music) for our own "docking manuevers".

Now, there's a Freudian slip! I am pretty sure it's Zarathustra, no thrust involved, at least not the kind you're implying. Wow, you could start a whole series of jokes playing on "thrust" in "space" or a porn version of 2001: A Space Odyssey with background music by Nietzsche and the Zara Thrusta's!

Re:Finishing

[Anonymous Coward]

Insult everybody, alphabetically.

Re:Finishing

[Strandman]

7. Go to space. With my wife. Close the hatch for some privacy. Get our space freak on to the music of "Thus Spoke Zarathrusta" (the 2001 music) for our own "docking manuevers".

Speaking of which; it's incredibly difficult to have sex in zero gravity, you would just bounce off each other. (No, not from experience =)

In other words, you would look like two fish trying to copulate on land, or in space.
Hey, Bill! Wanna go space fishing tonight? Now that would have been real cool.

Re:Finishing

[evilWurst]

If I'm remembering right, Xenogears has about 55 hours of gameplay. Less if you're a die hard RPG player and you skip things, more otherwise. I think I took 60.

Re:Finishing

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds more or less right.

Took me about 85 hours. 84 of which felt like they were spent on that one damned jumping puzzle (anybody's who's beaten it will know what I'm talking about).

Re:Finishing

[Beliskner]

If we lived forever, Bill Gates would say, "I'll fix all the bugs in my software within the next 10000 years, no hurry"

biggist impact...

[Ian 0x57]

there will be a whole whack load of 280 year old virgins reading slashdot.

Re:biggist impact...

[tarius8105]

there will be a whole whack load of 280 year old virgins reading slashdot.

In the future, the slashdot effect will be used in military campaigns as a "Shock and Awe" effect.

Ha right.

[grub]

With the current advances in biology, we as a society are facing the real possibility that "immortality" could some day be the norm

Haha yeah right.. I'll be happy if I make it through today thanks to this fucking hangover.

Perpetual Copyrights

[Tussinator]

"What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?"

Perpetual Copyrights. Life of the Artist/Author plus 969 years, once the Methuselah Copyright Extension Act is passed.

Stupid space program?

[Anonymous Coward]

What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?

None if the yahoos at NASA would release the warp drive from area 51.....

Gotta love this quite:

[PK_ERTW]

"Our life expectancy will be in the region of 5,000 years" in rich countries in the year 2100, predicts Aubrey de Grey, a scholar at Cambridge University. (This is, of course, a great prediction to make because none of us will be around in 2100 to mock him if he's wrong.)

Perhaps we can save the article for our kids. That way they will be around to mock him.

I mean, come on - the life expectancy is gonna go up by over 6000% in the next 100 years. Someone neads to mock this guy.

PK

New Slashdot poll!

[mblase]

What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?

(_) Phenomenal demand for Viagra-like drugs
(_) Constant griping about lost domain names
(_) Malicious trampling of the entire organic food industry
(_) Bill Gates valued at over $964 trillion following release of Microsoft Office 2099
(_) "Spy Kids 3,542: We're Not Out Of Puberty Yet"
(_) CowboyNeal assassinated by moderator after posting a dupe for the 29,630th time

yea.. I can see it now..

[joeldg]

companies will want 80 years to retire.
projects that take 20 years to complete.

at least I will have time to finish this project I am working on now that seems to be taking until I will be 80..

grandpa programmers unite!

Coping with it *not* happening

[kisrael]

Despite all the promising technologies, I think we have to admit there's a decent chance all of the people reading this will be dead in a century or two.

So if you don't believe in the afterlife (or you might but you're not positive) and the idea of maybe not living forever really bothers you, I've put togther a document that might help: Dealing With Mortality: A Skeptic's Guide or: Kirk's Big Fun Pages O' Inevitable Death .

When I wrote it, I thought it might be the most important thing I had ever written (maybe I still feel that way) and that's why I've been plugging it via my .sig ever since.

Re:Coping with it *not* happening

[maxume]

Ok, I'm only 23 and my take on the universe probably change just about everyday. But I have a couple things to say about your speil. First off, stop trying to be profound, you will have much better luck being profound. Now something a little more thoughtful; At the very least, you can justify your existence, your reason for being, with the thought that you are here simply to figure out why you are here. Life exists to understand itself. Worst case, you don't, and you cease. Oh well, it is pretty much inevitable, immortality ain't gonna happen, at least not in any absolute sense. A quote from Van Wilder: "Worrying is like a rocking chair: It's something to do, but won't get you anywhere."

Re:Coping with it *not* happening

[kisrael]

Man, don't know why my post rated an "offtopic".

Anyway, I'm not really trying to be "profund"--I was having moderate but disruptive anxiety attacks, and by thinking about the issues and learning about certain materialist philosophies, I was able to calm myself down. I wrote it down so I could retrace those steps in the future, and publicize it in a very limited way so that other people who are having similar problems dealing with it might find it useful.

What Can We Expect?

[techsoldaten]

Well, it stands to reason the richest, most prestigious individuals would be the ones to achieve immortality and then seek a monopoly over the technologies used to maintain it, functioning as a natural obstacle to those who do not enjoy similar privledges in life. The main thing I would expect to see, were immortality to become possible:

Windows 40,0000, the 64-googleflop operating operating system.

One thing...

[FrostedWheat]

If people start becoming immortals, a lot of people will start loosing there heads.

Also many people will develop a bad Scottish accent.

Overpopulation

[evenprime]

If people are living that long, overpopulation will get ugly. Imagine a situation where laws are required that make china look liberal; i.e. a lottery to determine who can breed...

I'm not sure why anyone would want to live that long anyway.

Re:Overpopulation

[Dr. Manhattan]

I'm not sure why anyone would want to live that long anyway.

So, what date have you picked out for dying?

Re:Overpopulation

[Anonymous Coward]

If people are living that long, overpopulation will get ugly. Imagine a situation where laws are required that make china look liberal; i.e. a lottery to determine who can breed...

What overpopulation? Last I drove down the highway I found mostly empty land, with literally nothing there. There's plenty of room. Maybe if we all start having 10 children we'll start to feel a little cramped several generations down.

Of course, if we can live forever, what's to prevent 50 or 100 children in the course of a few hundred years? We might actually need to build ocean colonies.

Not once have we had the mass deaths from lack of food that overpopulation would cause, lack of food is (to date) political.

Re:Overpopulation

[caerus]

The overpopulation time bomb is a social myth that is so entrenched in how we think no one ever thinks to question the truth of it. The reality is a shocker. We may instead need to have invitro fertilization in the future to keep the species alive. With a population of about 290 million the US is assumed to be growing and that it will double in size sometime this century. The facts are that it won't.. and the world is in the same situation. The latest demographics at the from the UN show declining birth rates ALL over the world. Typically you must have 2.1 children to keep the steady state. This isn't happening in the developed world with the effects leaking into the developing world as well. The US, Canada, Japan, Western Europe and all of the Soviet Union all have declining birth rates with Canada the lowest at 1.52. Mexico has gone from about 7 children to 2.9... and they're a DEVELOPING country.. Male fertility in Europe has gone down by 50% in the past 20 years and the trend is occuring in the US and Canada as well. The cause is enviromental pollutants, pesticides and herbicides in food. This can account for part of the decline in birth rate however other factors such as sex education and yes... even economic affluence seem to affect the number of children people have. Overpopulation with because of life-extension is NOT going to be a problem.

Reversing Memories

[wsherman]

Reversing aging of the brain is problematic because if you reverse the "aging" you also erase the memories (which are just accumulated patterns of the neurons).

By the time it is possible to deal with that problem, it will also be possible to transfer the neural patterns representing memories to things like patterns of energy permeating space.

And it will also be possible to change one's emotions so that one is pure happiness or pure goodness or pure evil. So, essentially, by the time we have immortality we will have become gods.

Good luck...

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, the odds of having some sort of fatal accident by the age of 150 is greater than 60%.

Impact?

[Chromodromic]

What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?

Slashdot comment counts measured in the tens of thousands and lots of "Karma: Irrelevant"

What would be the average life span?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the body never aged, what would the actual average lifespan be then given that eventually you would die from some tragic injury? You may not get sick and die but you could be blown-up, burned-up, etc.

Some people would live for 10,000 years but others only 20. What are the current death rates from accidents and what would the graph of lifespans look like based on current numbers?

Re:What would be the average life span?

[homer_ca]

Although it's an unrelated field, it's not hard to imagine that if our technology were that advanced, we would also have invented things like robots to do hazardous work, body armor for snowboarders and motorcyclists, and a greater emphasis on safety in the design of all things.

that would be great!

[Beatbyte]

Then I could hear about SCO for the rest of eternity!

If people live to be centuries old and drive...

[Torgo's Pizza]

I soon predict that the first thing to happen is that people will start avoiding farmer's markets completely.

Re:If people live to be centuries old and drive...

[Anonymous Coward]

you sick fuck

Re:If people live to be centuries old and drive...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it?

Re:If people live to be centuries old and drive...

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm helping!

http://www.kstp.com/article/view/108305/

Re:If people live to be centuries old and drive...

[LordKronos]

I don't get it?

Neither did I, but a google search for "old people farmer's market" brought up this:

http://us.cnn.com/2003/US/West/07/16/farmers.mar ke t.crash/

86 year old woman plows through a farmers market ...kills 9, injures 54.

Re:If people live to be centuries old and drive...

[LordKronos]

Ooops...I meant man, not woman. And it looks like this was more than just a one time freak occurrence:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92942,00.htm l

A 79 year old man plows through another farmer's market just 10 days later. Looks like farmer's markets really are a bad place to be.

Re:If people live to be centuries old and drive...

[Anonymous Coward]

Click this link which will take you to the myriad of news articles detailing the sudden increase of old people deciding to crashing cars, namely farmer's markets. Last year it was shark attacks, this year it's old people running into things.

Re:If people live to be centuries old and drive...

[Anonymous Coward]

you soon predict?
please go ahead and make that prediction.
our local farmer's market is packed every time and the produce is all top quality.

I don't believe it.

[_PimpDaddy7_]

I know I will be long dead before this immortality stuff may appear, but....

I don't believe it. We are carbon based beings. Carbon eventually deteriorates(sp?).

I read once where silicon has a similar molecular structure like carbon and we were silicon based then we could live MUCH longer.

How do they go about maintaining the carbon in our bodies?

Re:I don't believe it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't figure out if you are joking or not, so I'll risk it and answer seriously.

You get carbon from the food you eat. You replace most of the atoms in your body on a regular basis.

Not that that matters, because carbon decays very slowly (rarely).

Carbon and silicon are atoms they have atomic structure not molecular structure.

Carbon molecules do break down, but that's a normal part of the body processes, not aging.

I maintain my carbon body by eating, drinking, and breathing. Sometimes I move a little too. I think that's how they will continue to maintain human bodies.

I'm not trying to sound sarcastic. I'm just very confused by your questions.

Bacteria "live" forever, they don't have problems with carbon.

You can't just swap silicon for carbon. They can form similar bonds, but the chemistry would change drasticly. --
me

Re:I don't believe it.

[Christopher Thomas]

I don't believe it. We are carbon based beings. Carbon eventually deteriorates(sp?).

I read once where silicon has a similar molecular structure like carbon and we were silicon based then we could live MUCH longer.

How do they go about maintaining the carbon in our bodies?

Simple carbon compounds will last indefinitely. Complex carbon compounds won't. The same applies to silicon or any other element you want to build people out of. Think of this as an effect of entropy, if you like.

You keep a person healthy forever the same way you keep a bridge in operation forever - by repairing and maintaining it.

The body's self-repair systems are good, but not good enough for an indefinite lifespan, and some parts of the body's construction were just not designed for indefinite maintenance (the lens in your eye is a good example). In order to give people a very long lifespan, we're going to have to change and extend our self-repair mechanisms to handle the problems that they miss at present, and unless we want to act out Gulliver's Travels a little too well, we're going to have to tweak our body structure too so that all parts can be maintained indefinitely (unless we want regular surgery to replace bits that stop working).

I personally think we'll achieve immortality by porting ourselves to computer systems before we solve all of the problems of biological immortality, but that's by no means a foregone conlcusion.

In summary, longevity and aging work considerably differently than you seem to be assuming.

Re:I don't believe it.

[zenyu]

I don't believe it. We are carbon based beings. Carbon eventually deteriorates(sp?).

Are you serious? You're worried about the carbon turning into Boron and Helium? Most of your Carbon molecules will be just fine at the last gasp of the universe billions of years hence.

Are you worried about the molecules breaking down? Your body is constantly remaking and repairing itself. I doubt you have very many of the molecules you were born with. Silicon isn't any better really, neither is germanium, tin, or lead, all bond pretty much the same and are really more likely to decay into other elements than carbon; not that you really have to worry about that.

How do they go about maintaining the carbon in our bodies?
Your body does that quite well, that's sort of the basis for carbon dating and all that. While you are alive you constantly replace your carbon atoms, maintaining a balance of carbon-12 and carbon-14. Once your dead the process soon stops and you start to contain more and more carbon-12 and less and less carbon-14. (i.e. you lose enough weight that your granny might start to worry about your health.)

Re:I don't believe it.

[|/|/|||]

Uh, basically all of the material in your body is constantly being replaced. You have a lot more carbon in your body now than you did when you were born, so where did it come from? You ate it.

The material that you are made of does not matter. This carbon atom or that one, it's all the same. Your structure - the way you arrange those atoms - is what counts. You are information.

Re:I don't believe it.

[El]

Carbon eventually deteriorates

Self repairing mechanisms don't deteriorate. You think the molecules of your body now are all the same ones that were in your body when you were born? No, they are constantly getting replaced.

Re:I don't believe it.

[evilWurst]

Yes, carbon bonds break.

You forget that living things are patterns more than a permanant physical structure. Our actual raw material is constantly being replaced. The food you eat is not just energy, it's also building blocks... and the stuff you void out the other end is not just the part of food you don't use, it's also used bits of yourself being thrown away.

Re:I don't believe it.

[RatBastard]

I personally think we'll achieve immortality by porting ourselves to computer systems before we solve all of the problems of biological immortality...

And that's no kind of immortality. All that you've done is make a carbon copy of brain. You are still going to die. The you that exists right now, the one in your body, will still die. What will be left is a doppleganger. It may not know the difference, and thanks to your inevitable death, neither will you. But again, you will still be dead.

Any form of immortality that does not preserve the brain you are in is no form of immortality at all.

I've been saying this for 20 years!

[farrellj]

As computer type technology and Bioscience merge, we will eventually see something like Moore's Law in regard to biology. And we should learn the lessons of Science Fiction before we unleash this technolgy...

ttyl
Farrell

First thing as an immortal

[Anonymous Coward]

As an immortal, the first thing I will do is become my own church and get tax exempt status.

I'd do lots more stuff

[Zorkerman]

"Would one dare do anything so risky as carouse, drive a car, hit the ski slopes, if three hundred years of life would be thereby imperiled?"


I think if I can requisition a couple of pigs to regrow a whole new me, I'd drive much faster and double black diamonds fooey-- lets talk base jumping without a parachute. Hell if they were cheap enough, perhaps we could save money on cars by not putting brakes in them, and just swap a couple organs around whenever you hit--whatever you hit.

Soc. Sec.

[jaciii]

And you thought Social Security is in trouble now? You haven't seen anything yet.

A basic assumption so far

[anzha]

Looking at the posts that come before my own, it seems that there is a basic assumption that there would be a 'forever young' situation: no aging and always in your 20s or 30s. Is this necessarily the case?

Look at those -now- that have lived to be over 100. Their quality of life is piss poor. As a matter of fact, most people's quality of life past 70 is pretty bad compared to their half century younger versions of themselves or quarter century younger versions, for that matter. That's just their physical health. Then shall we, the /. community, start discussing how many seniors begin losing their minds to alzheimers, senility, etc.?

If it means living forever, but being an invalid the whole time, um, forgive me, but count me out. The winter of my life will hopefully be blessedly short and my mind intact through it all as it stands. If they come up with UberYoung Disney Magic Drug(tm), then, maybe, if they have the comparable medical regeneration, we'll talk about immortality.

Re:A basic assumption so far

[tedrlord]

Well, generally the idea is to extend the useful lifetime by slowing the aging process while you are young. It would in fact be a lot easier to make a person live as a 20 year old for many more years than to make someone live as an 80 year old for a few decades. Just give them a few super-antioxidants or whatever, as well as some medications that aid in cellular regeneration, and they'll stop getting old so quickly. When they're already old, the stuff won't likely help so much.

Re:A basic assumption so far

[Saige]

Looking at the posts that come before my own, it seems that there is a basic assumption that there would be a 'forever young' situation: no aging and always in your 20s or 30s. Is this necessarily the case?

It is a necessity for any practical life extension technology. Maybe not staying 'forever young', but what about seriously slowing down the aging process, or perhaps allowing you to regenerate your body back to 25, letting it age to, say, 70 again, and going back.

In some ways, I guess this is implied because the way the body ages, it will eventually "fall apart" at some point and put a limit on life extension without increased "youth" time.

Re:A basic assumption so far

[scharkalvin]

Well not EVERYONE. I'd still get in a plane piloted by Chuck Yeager. Bob Hope and George Burns were very spry until their last few years of life.

Re:A basic assumption so far

[Anonymous Coward]

Hugh Hefner

No explanation necessary.

Re:A basic assumption so far

[zapp]

I believe the assumption is based on the following...

There are 2 ways to look at "medically prolonged life": Canceling the cause of aging, and fixing things when they go wrong.

If you cancel aging, then your body should be able to keep itself in the state it is in at the time aging is stopped.

If you just fix things as they go bad... then yes, there's gonna be a lot of old farts around, and I don't want to be one of them.

Re:A basic assumption so far

[crazyphilman]

We who grew up in the eighties used to say, "Live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse". Words to live by...

Re:A basic assumption so far

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to rent a little farmhouse, owned by a lady next door who was over 100. Until she broke her hip at age 102, she worked in her garden every day. She seemed to enjoy life pretty well.

Take a look at the book The Okinawan Diet. A lot of Okinawans live to 100, and they stay pretty fit, too. For Y2K celebrations they put on a demo match between a 35-year-old boxing champ and a 95-year-old karate master. The old guy won by knockout. He modestly told interviewers that his opponent was just too young and inexperienced to win.

Then there are all the old Tai Chi guys...I've got a biography of one, describing how at about age 80 he attempted a backflip, landed on his head, and walked off muttering that he wasn't a young man anymore.

Crappy diet and exercise habits will ruin you, but age itself ain't so bad.

Re:A basic assumption so far

[zx75]

Sorry, but try to get your facts straight. People who live to be over 100 usually have very good quality of life, that is why they've lived that long!

Most people who suffer from poor quality of life do not stay alive perpetually on machines, they are the ones who die of 'old age' or sickness in their sixties and seventies. The people who live into their 100's are usually active and are well off, its only once they suffer an accident or some incident that will end up likely putting them in their grave.

My great-grandfather died a few years ago at the age of 97. He stopped farming and moved into a retirement home in his late 80s because he figured he had worked long enough, and his son (age 60) then took over the farm from him. His only major complaint, before a fall broke his hip at age 95 and confined him to a wheelchair, was that he was no longer able to walk 10 miles a day, and was down to 1.

Growing old does not necessarily mean growing infirmity.

Re:A basic assumption so far

[danila]

And what if immortality will come in 40 years and eternal youth in 80 years? Does it mean "goodbye, anzha"? Personally, I would agree to suffer for 40 years, because eventually my old age would be cured.

You don't want that, nobody forces you. Even better, you can end it all today, just take a pair of nails and use the electricity from the socket, kindly provided by your utility supplier.

Re:A basic assumption so far

[cfuse]

Due to poor parental choices on the genetic manipulation front everyone will look like either Justin Timberlake or Britany Spears. Because everyone is 'beautiful' science completely regresses and a new stone age is born. Kill me now.

Most people don't die of old age

[53x19]

Anyone watch the news? People are dying from being inactive, bloated, lazy, fatasses. Our lifetime expectancy would probably increase by 10 years, with existing technology, if we simply took care of ourselves.

Not quite forever...

[useosx]

I read somewhere that statistically the maxiumum you can live is around 500 years. Eventually, no matter how hard you try, you will get hit by a train. On a side note, a friend of mine once stayed at a clinic somewhere for some tests, and the only rooms they had left were suicide-proof. He said there were no edges anywhere and other weird stuff. So maybe if you lived in one of those, buried in the ground somewhere, you could make it to 600 years.

Re:Not quite forever...

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out Final Destination 2. There's a girl living in a padded room for just the reason.

Re:Not quite forever...

[Dark Lord Seth]

Eventually, no matter how hard you try, you will get hit by a train.

So, basically what you're saying is, that even if I sit my arse on the moon, dig a tunnel down to the core, (why not? time enough!), fill up the entrance and structurally reinforce the lunar core, it will all be useless because the day I turn 500 I'll STILL get run over by a train?

Re:Not quite forever...

[useosx]

Yes. The rail companies may be failing and weak now, but in 500 years they will be unstoppable. MWAHAHAA.

Re:Not quite forever...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you might wanna grab a snack or two for your birthday.

Re:Not quite forever...

[John Hasler]

You misunderstood what you read. In the absence of age and disease the average lifespan would be about 600 years for _everyone_, including those who are already 600 years old.

> ...you could make it to 600 years.

And those who did so would, on average, make it to 1200. And those who made it to 1200 would, on average, make it to 1800. And so on.

Re:Not quite forever...

[Mostly a lurker]

Eventually, no matter how hard you try, you will get hit by a train

Actually, eventually there will be a fix for this. Consider nanomachines that can take a complete molecular scan of your body and store it somewhere. This scan would be run each night. Further, consider technologies able to reconstruct you from your backup, in the event of some kind of catastrophic failure. This may come within the next 100 years.

Backups

[Efreet]

I definitly think this might be a problem for the first few hundred years, but sooner or later we'll probably figure out how to make backups of our minds, so if we do happen to get nuked or something they'll be able to grow us a new body, and we'll be back on our feet in no time.

The nice thing about living a long time is that the tech we can expect to see goes way, way up. Future medecine and cybernetic/genetic engineering will probably make it much easier to survive disasters as well.

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd expect space exploration (read: more habitable planets) to become a higher priority in that event.

Let Us Pray!!

[dirtydiaper]

This is great but does it mean we will not be able to tamper with the old people!?!?!

who wants to be old forever?

[Anonymous Coward]

What we need is the ability to stop aging at a young age, not prolong being old forever.

People who live to be 90 are young for 1/3 of their life and old for 2/3's. Already 90 is too old as it is.

The key is to always be 25 forever, not get more and more decrepid!

This is a guaranteed global disaster....

[msafar]

I've heard that over half the people that ever lived are alive today. That would mean we're doubling the Earth's population every 70 years or so. We are facing a disaster with the current population -- I can't imagine what will happen with 12 billion people alive.

Though I'm healthy, and therefore can afford to think about this in the abstract, I think that after you're about 60 years old, you shouldn't be thinking about heart/lung/kidney transplants and other heroic measures.

Re:This is a guaranteed global disaster....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not my problem since most of those 12 billion people will be in China and third world countries. Face it, the poor like to fuck.

Re:This is a guaranteed global disaster....

[msafar]

It's called "Global Warming"; check it out. It's called Super Virus. It's called water pollution. Genetically altered foods.

True, it probably won't affect you; judging by your comments, you're probably a Republican, and all the Republicans will be sipping hydroponic wine in their underground bunker.

Life Expectancy and Change of life

[chia_monkey]

Here's something interesting to ponder. Way back in the day (oh, you know, a few centuries ago), life didn't change much. You didn't have all these technological and social advances that you have now. Coupled with the fact the average life expectancy could be a mere 30 years, one would pretty much see the exact same thing for his entire life.

Zoom to the 20th century. We see advances every year now. Hell, just think of when we (oh damn, did I just date myself?) had the Atari 2600 and we thought we were the shit. Now the PS2 and XBox blowing all that to hell and back...and every kid has one. Cars. Planes. Anything electronic. Compare it to ten years ago and you laugh. And now we're living three times longer.

I myself think it would be kind of scary to live to be a couple centuries old when life changes every three years (and will probably be every year in 50 years or so). Maybe growing to be 100 back in the 1600s would be cool...you'd see a couple changes...but now...it's just a scary thought.

Re:Life Expectancy and Change of life

[biotechnician]

The worst part of adapting to change is being able to adapt to change itself. The old people of today lived in a rather less exciting life, especially rural people. Even with the advent of world wars, television, plastics, life didn't change all that much 90 years ago. Things were good, but they weren't blinding speed change. If you grew up in a world constantly changing, being old and accepting change is going to be a HELL of alot easier. Besides old brains lack the same balance of neurochemicals as young people, much of that subborness comes from the aging disease itself.

This question could take a lifetime to answer...

[JVert]

So why not just wait till we have a few lifetimes to spare before we start to worry about it?

Lifetax

[demo9orgon]

Face it, when death is no longer profitable for governments, life has to be.

If you had to give the govt. a massive "death-tax" portion of your estate every 100 years (or whatever they settle on) there wouldn't be anything wrong with this. Of course, as time goes on that time period will change as new laws are passed that favor the old/wealthy.

Personally, I'm still waiting for new technologies that make transplants risk-free and stable so new laws making speeding in a car, defrauding shareholders, and falsifying reports that lead to wars are death-penalty offenses.

That way, I can commute to work by bicycle and all the poor idiots in cars can happily be harvested while wealthy business owners and politicians can just feign ignorance and live the good life. This way all those car-crash victims can do us all some good. Have a heart, would you like a lung with that?

(tents fingers)
Excellent

People Need to be able to die

[kevin_conaway]

Reminds me of an obligatory family guy quote:

People need to be able to die!
(cuts away to Titanic scene where Jack is drowning)
Jack: *begins to drown* You know what? I think im going to be ok!
Rose: Oh Jack! Now we can get married and everything you promised! Jack: Yeah about that, I was pretty sure I was going to die uhhh...cause theres this girl in New York and its getting kind of serious. But thanks for letting me draw you naked! I still cant believe you let me do that!

suicide parlours

[macho]

the kurt vonnegut story "welcome to the monkey house" dealt with this. five generations were living in the same house waiting for each other to die so they could have their own room. the government offered free "voluntary suicide services" on every street corner where you could get a lethal injection from a pretty lady. worth checking out.

Re:suicide parlours

[Anonymous Coward]

Booth: Please select mode of death: Quick and painless, or slow and horrible.
Fry: Yeah, I'd like to place a collect call...
Booth: You have selected slow and horrible.
Bender: Great choice!

Booth: You are now dead. Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop!

Re:suicide parlours

[Lord_Dweomer]

"the government offered free "voluntary suicide services" on every street corner where you could get a lethal injection from a pretty lady. "

Is that kinda similar to the suicide booths in Futurama?

"You are now dead. Thank you for using stop and drop. Americas favorite suicide booth since 2008."

Re:suicide parlours

[HBergeron]

Yeah, it seems like everything in hip scifi these days is borrowed from KV or PKD, even the not so hip (see my sig). Not a bad thing, but I'm always worried about these kids I loan their books to accusing Dick or Vonnegut of ripping off some idea they saw in a movie or video game.

Longevity and birth control

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously if everyone is living until 600 years of age, there's going to have to be some sort of check on the rate people are born. The only idea that comes readily to mind is 2 children per person and then mandatory sterilization.

Of course, depending on how everyone spaced out their children you could end up with a sister 100 years older than you, with your mother 200 years younger than your father. How's that for awkward?

Re:Longevity and birth control

[Razor Blades are Not]

Hell, you could end up with a brother who is 100 years older than your *mother*.

I think there was a Philip K Dick book called "Outnumbering the Dead" that dealt with this scenario. The number of people currently alive outnumbered the entire number of people who had died throughout time. There were also a few "ephemerals" on whom the congenital treatments did not work. These poor souls were destined to die at a "normal" age (80 years).
It was an interesting book.

Same answer and different question

[Codeak]

"What if we know all that was worth knowing?" Ultimately 1) Birthrate would decline 2) Boredom would ensue 3) Suicide rate would increase

Re:Same answer and different question

[TwistedGreen]

But seriously... what would be the point of living if there was nothing left to learn?

Re:Same answer and different question

[Saige]

what would be the point of living if there was nothing left to learn?

Well, we'll deal with that one when we get there. As it is, I don't think there's any end in sight of what is possible to learn.

Though if it ever did occur, where you knew everything, then yes, it seems like there wouldn't be any value left in life, though if you could immerse yourself in constant blissful pleasure, might you care?? :)

Re:Same answer and different question

[TwistedGreen]

Yeah, I guess we'd know enough to do anything we'd want to... and that reminds me of the whole idea of pseudo-fractures. To quote Douglas Adams:

The major problem which the medical profession in the most advanced sectors of the galaxy had to tackle after cures had been found for all the major diseases, and instant repair systems had been invented for all physical injuries and disablements except some of the more advanced forms of death, was that of employment.

Planets full of bronzed healthy clean limbed individuals merrily prancing through their lives meant that the only doctors still in business were the psychiatrists, simple because no one had discovered a cure for the Universe as a whole - or rather the only one that did exist had been abolished by the medical doctors.

Then it was noticed, like most forms of medical treatment, total cures had a lot of unpleasant side effects. Boredom, listlessness, lack of...well anything very much, and with these conditions came the realisation that nothing turned say, a lsightly talented musicain into a towering genius faster than the problem of encroaching deafness, and nothing turned a perfectly normal healthy individual into a great political or military leader better than irreversible brain damage. Suddenly, everything changed. Previously best selling books such as How I survived an hour with a sprained finger were swept away in a flood of titles such as How I scaled the North face of the MegaPurna with a perfectly healthy finger but everything else sprained, broken or bitten off by a pack of mad yaks.

And so doctors were back in business recreating all the diseases and injuries they had abolished in popular easy to use forms. Thus, given the right and instantly available types of disability even something as simple as turning on the three-d TV could become a major challenge, and, when all the programmes on all the channels actually were made by actors with cleft pallettes speaking lines by dyslexic writers filmed by blind cameramen instead of merely seeming like that, it somehow made the whole thing more worthwhile.

THHGTTG is just so rife with little things like that, which can pop up in any conversation and actually be relevant.

Management of immortality

[shawkin]

If rich people can afford immortality and poor people cannot, expect the worst imaginable society.

RIsky behaviors

[HisMother]

I realize that many of you will recoil at the mention of a piece of mainstream pop culture like this, but the "risky behavior" comment reminds me of the 80's movie "Death Becomes Her" with Meryl Streep. These women become magically immortal, and the first thing they do is get themselves killed. Then they need to deal with the indignity of parts falling off and other icky things that happen to dead folk who inconveniently can't just lay down and rot. They go through a LOT of flesh-colored spray paint. I thought it was pretty funny at the time, anyway.

obligatory highlander quote

[travdaddy]

We may be able to live forever, but...

"If your head comes away from your neck, it's over."

Well.. I see and upside and a down side.

[CFBMoo1]

..We might remember the wisdom of Odysseus, who was offered immortality by a luscious goddess, Calypso, but turned her down to grow old and die with his wife, Penelope.

Being single and a bit of a geek I'm all for immortality from a hot babe. Thats a nice upside.

"Our life expectancy will be in the region of 5,000 years" in rich countries in the year 2100, predicts Aubrey de Grey, a scholar at Cambridge University...

The down side is retirement age will probebly be extended to about 4,000 to 4,500. OY!!!!

Oh great...

[Anonymous Coward]

I get to be in the last generation to die.

Oh shit..

[poity]

40 years of middle school...

Arrrrrgh!

500 more years of...

[FatherOfONe]

Bob Barker on the Price is Right.

Not to mention...

[useosx]

If Bush is re-elected, then the human race only as about another 3 1/2 years left. If he's not, I give us 10-20.

Yeah, I have my sources (Originally from the Independent(.co.uk).

<humor></humor>

Medical advances

[chunkwhite86]

Hopefully one day they can come up with a medical preventative measure for obesity. "Self restraint" certainly doesn't seem to be working as there are TONS of fat people everywhere (At least in the US). Put the damn potato chips down!

It really pisses me off when I see some 350 lb woman ordering three big mac's and two XL fries. The ever-increasing cost of private health care is very likely due in part to treating all the diseases and conditions that result from being grossly over-weight.

Imagine...

[Gefiltefish11]

With all this talk of using biotech to enhance our lives, replacing organs, creating clones and redundant memories, I have only one question:

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of... me!

Smartass comments may now commence.

as the guy said

[guest12]

he didnt ask for permanent youth
and that crashed the system

couple of things...

[YllabianBitPipe]

well for starters, I'd wait to see whether the child rearing abilities of women is increased proportionatly ... right now it's best for women to have a kid before 40. If this age is extened even until 100 years old, well, I would expect huge society changes. Already people wait longer to get married and have kids. If there's no rush, then people might stay in college until 30, slack off for thirty years, then get married for the first time around 60, have a kid or two, get divorced at 150, remarry at 200...

I unfortunately think, that a big reason why people get anything done in this society is because of the impending doom of death. So many people work their asses off NOW because they're thinking of retiring at 69, or plan to have a kid when they're 29 so they won't be old and decrepid by the time they become a grandparent etc. I see life expectancy throwing all of this planning for the future out the window.

Second I would expect the divorce rate to skyrocket. I simply can't imagine any person being willing to put up with any one person for hundreds of years. :)

live 300 years, remember nothing

[poptones]

My 80+ year old father is already living 50 years in the past. His mother (in her mid 80's when she died) couldn't even recognize her own son ten years before the end came for her. I just turned 41 and I already can see a fairly big difference in my ability to concentrate for long periods, even from what it was ten years ago.

These speculations are ridiculous. We're a LONG way from understanding how the brain works and once that starts "decaying" all the pig hearts and vitamins in the world aren't going to make your life any better. Who the fuck wants to live to be 300 when you have to pay someone to wipe the drool from your chin and powder your wrinkled old ass?

Dude, shut the fuck UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid fucking cultists! "Socialism! Bad! Wah! Wah! Only moral justice is market justice! Wah! Look at me, I'm radical!" Go stick your dick in the Fountainhead and for God's sake shut the fuck UP.

why bother?

[joedoe]

Not too long ago, there was a slashdot thread that inspired an awful lot of bitching about just how depressing many /.ers find life in general. Having seen how often biologists are just as hopelessly depressed as average /. geeks, this whole search for immortality among many very intelligent people seems rather baffling.

At some point, are we going to exert much energy to figuring out how to make these years livable--worth living, at least--rather than merely more of what we already enjoy? Even as we get closer to unlocking secrets that may--and I'm very dubious in the medium-term--allow us to live longer, depression is way up. Why bother?

Keeping hope alive is good but...

[notetoi]

If protons have a life time (10^33 years) then good bye "immortality", and all other religious mombo-jombo/manifestation of it - re-incarnation, life-after-death, etc. Besides, if there is a sucker born every minute (or so), imagine a universe full of suckers, imagine the suicide rate, and imagine living in such universe. Thank god for death.

Is science the new opium of the people?

Re:Keeping hope alive is good but...

[Dr. Manhattan]

If protons have a life time (10^33 years) then good bye "immortality"... Is science the new opium of the people?

Ask me in 10^33 years.

Re:Keeping hope alive is good but...

[vidarh]

You're of course assuming that a race that can live 10^33 years would be unable to find a workaround in that timeframe? Consider how much science has advanced so far, I'd say chances are pretty good they'd find something. I particularly liked the solution Fredrick Pohl used in the Heechee saga: What if one has the ability to shelter oneself from the know universe, make the universe start contracting, and causing a new big bang, then reentering the universe afterwards? The scientific advances of 10^33 years uninterrupted by such annoying things as people dying in their prime or getting senile when they finally start reaching the depths of their area of research would be far beyond what we can fathom. Surely some interesting potential solutions would come out of it.

Re:Keeping hope alive is good but...

[notetoi]

I'm also assuming that regardless of the solutions anybody finds, the solution will require matter, matter composed of protons, and unless there is a way to make protons "immortal", that which is made of protons will die after 10^33 years. The question is then, is my "all solutions require matter" assumption wrong? Is there a solution that does not require matter?
Haven't read Fredrick Pohl's, but unless the "shelter" and "oneself" is not made out of matter, it will also have the same faith of that which is made of.
The local loto slogan is "You got to be in it, to win it". In this case, you have no choice, but to be in it, and the consequence will follow.

This kind of social impact

[Kethinov]

What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?

Well for one, we're going to start purging ourselves of all emotions at an early age. We're also going to evolve pointy ears. Then, we're going to develop super strength and mild repressed telepathy. There will probably be some kind of telepathy ban at first, but later mind melds will become common.

Oh yeah, we're also going to restrict sex so that we only get to do it once every few years. We'll call that time the Ponn Far. It will be deeply spiritual to us.

Yup. That's what's gonna happen to us if we start measuring our age in the three digits.

Re:This kind of social impact

[Joe Tie.]

Oh yeah, we're also going to restrict sex so that we only get to do it once every few years. We'll call that time the Ponn Far. It will be deeply spiritual to us.

Comic Book Guy - Simpsons: Inspired by the most logical race in the galaxy, the Vulcans, breeding will be permitted once every seven years. For many of you, this will be much less breeding. For me, much, much more.

Me being a Nerd...

[tomzyk]

and some unlucky folks getting their 60, or worse, 6!

Isn't 6! better than 60?

6! = 6*5*4*3*2*1 = 720

Longevity and Responsibility

[under_score]

Living to a very old age has serious economic consequences. Just as an example... People could live long enough to amass extraordinarily large fortunes even with extremely conservative investment strategies. The rich who will be able to afford this sort of longevity will become much richer.

There are also serious social or moral consequences. How many generations distant does an offspring need to be before it is "okay" to procreate? Normally, grand parents are too old (decrepit) for this to even be an issue. When great-grandparents are still physically vigorous, is a descendant who only shares 1/8 genetic material "removed" enough for this to be okay?

If lots of people start living to a very much extended age, then population growth will become a very serious problem!

Of course, there are substantial potential benefits: the ability to pursue projects of extremely long duration becomes easier (for example space exploration, long-term experiments, businesses with very long-term returns, mastering vast bodies of knowledge, etc). Less obvious is the possibility of improved social integration of humanity since people will travel much more in a given lifetime, and since life will become more "valuable".

Personally, I think it would be cool to live much longer than my currently expected life-span of 70 or 80 years. However, once everyone is living to 600 years, it won't be "cool" anymore. What will we wish for then?

Re:Longevity and Responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is inbreeding the first thing that you thought of?

Re:Longevity and Responsibility

[Mryll]

Wouldn't interest rates drop? The urgency of getting debts repaid in 5, 10, 20, or 70 years need not really be there. I would think that typical annual interest rates are loosely correlated to human lifespan.

Re:Longevity and Responsibility

[Mal-2]

> When great-grandparents are still physically vigorous, is a descendant who only shares 1/8 genetic material "removed" enough for this to be okay?

Humanity should have the human genome figured out to the point where this question could be answered on a case-by-case basis, before this gets to be an issue. The very research that produces the immortality will probably also solve this line-breeding problem. In fact it might be preferred in those whose positive genetic traits are so strong that they justify the risk of lethal or crippling gene pairs. (Either that or take the failures out back and shoot 'em.)

Mal-2

Re:Longevity and Responsibility

[jfern]

You have 1/8th genetic similiarity with your 1st cousin. That's usually frowned upon in western countries. However, in some third world countries, screwing your cousin can be socially acceptable.

Re:Obligatory /. dups

[bathmatt]

You forgot This is a dup of a /. story I read 100 years ago

A thought and a question:

[Transcendent]

What will happen to the political arena? Such large numbers of century-old idealism against the "younger" (

Would our society adapt where people would be open-minded and could reasonably change their views based on current economic and social situation, or would the whole world be thrown into:

- Century old stalemates in congress?
- Violent protests to the point of revolution every 100 years?
- Wars?

I think this could cause a problem greater than just food supply and living space... but, if humans became rational and could live like this in harmony, then what a world it would be.

Hmm

[iomud]

I think it would be interesting to be able to have 40 year chunks of your life doing different things. So really I could be a dock worker, a rockstar, an artichoke bronzer and a shrimp boat captain in a lifetime.

immortality

[h4x0r-3l337]

Many years ago I read an interesting observation in a popular science magazine: not only is the average life-expectancy increasing, it is increasing ever faster. Extrapolating from some numbers, they estimated that within a few decades life-expectancy would be increasing faster than real time, making everybody effectively immortal.

pupeteers R us

[Tungbo]

So you're saying that the entire universe is populated by Pupeteers?

Well, they can still travel by propelling their planet .....

not to worry

[spazoid12]

we'll all burn up because of global warming.

or, we'll have nothing to eat because of mass extinctions of edible species.

or, we won't be able to care for our young because of carpel tunnel

or, some other assortment of fantasy crap.

Space

[th3axe]

Travel to other star systems might actually be a possibility and the kids might actually remember why they're on a starship.

I don't think I would want to live "forever"

[MKalus]

No seriously. Why?

I once read an interresting series of books (the author escapes me right now) where immortality is achieved. The end result? Mankind looses any drive to better itself, people don't have the need anymore to finish something because there will always be a tomorrow.

The arts die, science dies etc.

The solution in the books was to give people a chance to forgoe their immortality and in turn for being for example an artist being supported by society.

Now that is fiction of course but if I would be given the choice I don't think I would want to take it. Sure it would be cool to see what we could accomplish 100 or a 1000 years from now but I don't think I would really care that much about things anymore.

I am very much aware that the majority of people is afraid of death, the big unknown for one reason or the other but for me death (even mine) is as much part of (my) life as my dinner tonight.

Re:I don't think I would want to live "forever"

[Anonymous Coward]

Our mortality is what defines us.

What value is there in watching a sunset or a sunrise when we know that there will be countless others just like it to see in the future.

How can anyone that we love be significant and special to us when we will have eternity to find others that we can love the same?

It's been said that you never know the true value of something until you've lost it. If everything in life was replaceable given enough time, how could anything be of value?

I'm with you. Give me death...eventually.

Gadhafi

[Anonymous Coward]

Gadhafi the president of libya and a brutal dictator said when asked if he had cancer....

"I'll be lucky to have or suffer such illnesses so that I leave this bad world," he said. "But unfortunately, I'm OK."

Montana

[bluethundr]

I think the more interesting point, and one the article failed to mention, is where are all these people going to live,

Where are they going to live? Montana! Have you seen how much space they have in that state? When you're there you're just thinking overpopulation??????? ;)

Re:Montana

[Eccles]

Where are they going to live? Montana! Have you seen how much space they have in that state?

Well, yes, but we're talking about habitable areas.

Re:Montana

[Joe Tie.]

Even better, it solves the job problem as well. I think the economy here could easily support five or six thousand more casinos. We've already got one or two per block in Great Falls, more keep coming, and they all seem to do fairly well.

So you say you want a revolution...

[yorkrj]

If trends continue as they are, I expect there to be a revolt against the privilaged few that can afford the medical treatments to acheive prolonged life while the growing class of poor experience shortened lifespans. There will be a huge class schism. The result will be a mass revolt against the "imortals".

two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

bell curve

Reality Check: Most of us die in our 60s

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

Reality check everyone! Most of us don't even make it to our late 60s. Sure medicine has advanced in the past 25 years. But the reality most of us are loosing our mind to Parkinsons or Alzhiemers. If we escape that we may die from Cancer. We've been poisoning our environment for hundreds of years now and we expect to live longer. Nope. I expect the average lifespan to drop. Even farm raised samon from the United States is full of PCBs. The truth isn't out about cell phone radiation because a multibillion dollar industry will go bust. I tell you what I do not use my company supplied cellphone often, and I treat it like fire. I've got to do something to make up for the contaminated well water I drank as a teenager for over 1 year. My parents well was contaminated with Tricholethylene, Benzene, Tetrachloryethelyne..and we drank it without knowing. Until we did a water test.

Also my granmother is 85 years old. She still has her mind. She's never sick, but now her body is attacking her.. rhumatoid arthritis is awful.
And there isn't a cure, just a treatment. And sometimes the treatment just does not work.
Also... eyes. man.. she took a baby aspirin as
recomended to reduce the possibility of a heart attack, well the aspirin a day put her at risk for macular Degeneration. She's can't see well.
My brother bought some natural herbal medicine that may reverse some of the illness, she's been on the treatment for 4 months and can now look at me in the eye. She couldn't see my eyes before.

Would I want this body to last over 100 years? Nope.

Re:Reality Check: Most of us die in our 60s

[xtal]

I'd rather live in a developed polluted world than the undeveloped alternatives.

Re:Reality Check: Most of us die in our 60s

[Alioth]

> I've got to do something to make up for the contaminated well water I drank as a teenager for over 1 year

Maybe not. My grandfather is now 80, and his house still doesn't have mains water. He's been drinking water contaminated by fertilizer, bacteria and god knows what else for five decades.

He doesn't seem to get ill often. Just maybe by not being obsessed by everything being sterile, he has an immune system actually worth something?

prison system modifications

[Mr. Asdf]

How expensive would life in prison become? (Or the ridiculous 300+ years that we sometimes have now?) In fact, imagine that we were immortal; that should lead you to realize that there may be something logically flawed with the punishment of life in prison to begin with. (Of course, I cannot propose a better alternative...)

Sci-Fi

[happyDave]

There are a couple of Science Fiction novels that this reminds me of: Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire, and Stephen Donaldson's Gap Series. In Holy Fire, the people who don't take risks are rewarded by the controlling medical/insurance companies of the world with the procedures that allow a longer life. In the Gap Series, one of the characters has figured out a way to live for 150 years, and keep his mother alive as well. She's not happy in the book...

It's an interesting concept. He mentions briefly the idea that living longer has been related to starvation and castration. I think I've read somewhere that a sub-1,000 calorie/day diet is correlated with an increase in longevity.

The questions of bio-ethics are interesting as well. The quote from a genetics researcher who actually admits that we have the tools, but not the wisdom to use them, that was great! I agree wholeheartedly, but I also think that not having the wisdom is not reason enough to stop supporting the research.

Only after we fail will we have the wisdom. I'm sure we will fail and people will be harmed and there will be great outcries against genetic research. Many bad things will happen until we get the wisdom to use this properly...

Nahh. I'm being too optimistic. We haven't got the wisdom to use electricity properly yet. Hell, we haven't got the wisdom to use levers, wheels, screws, pulleys, wedges, inclined planes, etc. properly.

I'm too cynical these days, but I still believe we should do this research.

I want to be the world's first 200 year old man. Sign me up!

Marriage

[SpamJunkie]

If I'm gonna live until I'm 600 then marriage is just that much more scary. It's also a lot more risky - the chances of losing your mate get much higher. Sounds lose-lose to me.

When you think about what living a long time would actually be like it seems like our current lifespans have reached a pretty decent balance between the advantages and disadvantages of living longer.

Optimistic drivel

[Montreal Geek]

(Near) immortality of the masses will never be a problem.

The technology to extend (perhaps indefinitely) life expectancy is going to be avaliable at first only to the rich and powerful (if only because it would be expensive because new). The rich and powerful will become richer and more powerful, and will quickly put mechanisms in place to prevent the rest of the population from partaking.

There would quickly be two classes of humans; the immensely rich and powerful few, and the increasingly expendable and poor masses.

To date, the only limiting factor that exists to limit individual amassing wealth and power is that, eventually, they will die. Sucession wars then manage to (usually) spread/dilute the power and money.

That might go away.

I'm thankfully neither rich nor powerful enough to live to see those days.

-- MG

Re:Optimistic drivel

[Saige]

The technology to extend (perhaps indefinitely) life expectancy is going to be avaliable at first only to the rich and powerful (if only because it would be expensive because new). The rich and powerful will become richer and more powerful, and will quickly put mechanisms in place to prevent the rest of the population from partaking.

There would quickly be two classes of humans; the immensely rich and powerful few, and the increasingly expendable and poor masses.

I wouldn't agree with that assessment.

If something as huge as being able to live indefinitely were possible, and the rich were keeping control over the technology, they'd have to do it secretly, and disappear from the public eye after a normal lifespan.

As soon as people are aware of it, there would be a HUGE backlash. In a Democracy, like the US, any poltician being against people getting access to the procedures would be voted out of office. In a non-Democratic society, I would imagine civil war over something like that.

There may be plenty of people against life-extension should it become available, but they'll eventually die off and it'll no longer be an issue for the rest. :)

hmmmm...

[smcavoy]

somehow I don't think everything would die off...
The ability to travel space for 500 years doesn't sound interesting enough?

Immortality - No Inovation

[SoftwareJedi]

James P. Hogan wrote in his Giants series of novels of a race that once they had achieved immortality they became a race of mental geriatrics. This caused inovation to cease because the race KNEW what was possible and impossible. Lack of mortality gave no one a reason to try and do that which the elders said was impossible, they ceased to dream and inovate. I would not be surprised if that were what would happen to us. The ancient humans would stiffle the young humans desire for research and discovery due to apathy.

I think that mortallity gives us a reason to struggle and achieve, because we know time is limited.

Obsolete!

[Boyceterous]

Fast Food, Just-In-Time Compilers, Overnight Delivery, Get-Rich Quick schemes, Day-Trading, Carnation Instant Breakfast, Ready in 5 minutes or it's free. -just get it here sometime in the next 50 years, I'l be happy!

It'll never happen!!!

[scorp1us]

Your DNA will become increasingly damaged. Cancer will run rampant. We'll have drugs by then to keep the cancer down, but eventually your DNA will look like swiss cheese. You can't fix that, unless you can some how store a copy of your DNA somewhere with 0 radiation and copy from that on a regular basis. Failing that, you'll live to turn into a giant sack of tumors. We already know that everything (even celery) gives you cancer.

I'd rather live short and dignified, than to die a blob of genetic mutations.

Re:It'll never happen!!!

[lawpoop]

Keep a printout of your DNA on a CD backup and have viruses injected every so often to remove any errors that may have collected.

Modern medicine not that impressive

[Junks Jerzey]

I wouldn't hold my breath for this. Modern science and medicine have done some amazing things, including organ transplants and effectively wiping out certain diseases. But so much, oh so much, is still at the alchemy stage. You ever know someone with cancer? The treatment is essentially to pump radioactive materials into the body and hope for the best. If it doesn't work, do it again--and again--until it either works or the patient dies of the cancer or the treatment (and the latter happens more often than anyone wants to admit). The progress in this area has been tremendously slow. Ditto for many other fatal diseases which are still, even after billions of dollars and 50+ years of research, uncureable. Now we're supposed to believe that "immortality" is just around the corner? Only in certain weird senses of the word.

Re:Modern medicine not that impressive

[Junks Jerzey]

All that research money IS starting to pay off, and we are getting closer and closer to completely understanding life. Its a completely new ball game now.

No, sorry, we are not. We're getting a grasp on DNA and how to tinker with it, but that does not translate, by any stretch of the imagination, into anything more than baby steps toward "completely understanding life." All you have to do is read medical research journals--especially brain research--to realize how little we know.

Re:Modern medicine not that impressive

[jandrese]

Also remember that the public doesn't see advances in medicine until about a decade later when the FDA is done with it and the drug company is ready to market it. The research also builds on earlier research, so even meager beginnings can lead to spectacular cures in the future.

Re:Modern medicine not that impressive

[biotechnician]

hey. The human brain is probably going to be one of the last things we figure out. We don't need to know how the brain works in order to cure aging. And am I correct in guessing that your already old or at least 40+?

Re:Modern medicine not that impressive

[|/|/|||]

I agree that keeping our fancy biological bodies alive for extended periods of time is far beyond current medical science. We're just too damn complicated.

Perhaps in a few generations people will be able to live out extremely long lives within the body that they're born with, but certainly not us. It seems far more likely that, within the next 100 years, we'll be able to transfer our "brain state" into a machine, and then live on indefinitely either a) as a robot or b) within a simulation. Either way, your original body is probably going to deteriorate. Stick a sample in the freezer - maybe you can clone it someday.

Re:Modern medicine not that impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. We haven't really gotten anywhere in extending life span. Okay, maybe a higher percentage of people live to 80, but look at the incidence of heart disease, obesity, cancer, autism, etc. In many ways we are in worse medical shape than ever. IMO this is mainly due to our diet and lifestyle choices, but this isn't something you can package in a pill and sell, so who cares??

Re:Modern medicine not that impressive

[cpeterso]

Our average life span is increasing thanks to reduced infant deaths. Save a few more babies (whose age of death would HEAVILY skew the average) and your average life span jumps up.

Re:Modern medicine not that impressive

[Junks Jerzey]

And am I correct in guessing that your already old or at least 40+?

Nope.

To me, you sound like one of those people who think that true AI is just around the corner...and have been thinking that since 1960 (long before I was born, BTW!). Heck, all we need is more computer power! But that turned out to be a red herring, it truly came down to us not having a clue about AI. And now, just because we know about DNA and a few other things, that doesn't mean we really have a clue about how things work. Start reading a biology or medical textbook and you hit unanswered questions--big, flamingly large unanswered questions--right away.

I'm not saying I disagree with you, just that that you're making a big leap that's without basis (like "We have gasoline engines! This means we're going to have flying cars and robots that do housework!").

Re:Modern medicine not that impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know what you are talking about. If you knew anything about medical physics, you would know that extremely complex caclulations are used in any kind of radiation therapy to deliver controlled doses to specific tissue while limiting exposure to healthy cells. Furthermore (largely due to much better efforts at early detection), the statistics of cancer treatment have shown marked improvements in the last 30 years. Finally, new types of chemotherapy which are highly targeted toward cancer cells and do not affect healthy cells are showing promising results in research trials.

More wisdom or halt to progress?

[Theovon]

As I have matured, I have found that I have developed greater wisdom than I had before. I know I'll be in my 50's before I have developed the finesse that is necessary for some situations.

Imagine if you had people with many decades of practical experience who were also energetic and very healthy. Society would continue to benefit from their experience for a much longer time. People sometimes think of the elderly as being a burden or drain on society, because their health fades, limiting their "usefulness". Imagine if the elderly had the health of 30 year olds, could continue to contribute massively to society, and even had the time in their lives to have more than one 40-year career.

And wouldn't you like to be 60 years old and retired and still have "your whole life ahead of you"? You could go back to college and do something entirely new. And although you won't be QUITE as mentally agile as you were when you were thirty, the medical technology necessary to keep you alive for 300 years would likely make you mentally fit for most of that lifespan.

On the other hand:

It is often the case that certain social, cultural, or scientific advancements are made only when the those who held to the old ideas had died off. That is to say, it took a generation for the transition to be made.

Relativity, Quantum Electrodynamics, Evolutionary Theory, voting for women and minorities, acceptance of homosexuals, many things that we now consider to be basic civil rights, etc. All of these things required that one (or more) generation pass on so that the next generation, unencumbered by preconceived notions, could continue to advance.

Since we are young, we are ingrained with certain ideas that we find difficult to let go of later in life. I'm only 29, and yet I am finding it difficult to unlearn many habits I learned from my family which I now disagree with. Certain things are hard to change, even when we want them to.

Furthermore, the wisdom one learns earlier in one's life may apply to things about the world which have since changed. For instance, a person who did well in business in the 1950's may fail miserably trying to apply the same ideas to business in the 21st century. Sometimes, it's hard to change your entire way of thinking.

Worst case, we could have people who are 200+ years old holding back scientific and cultural improvements, because they don't like the new ideas of the younger people. If 50% of your population is over 150, then you'll have a lot of political pressure to maintain ideas and norms which are 150 years out of date.

All this being said, I personally would like to live as long as possible. Why? Because I hate the idea of not knowing what happens after I'm gone. I wouldn't care as much how long I live if I could learn what society and technology will be like 1 million years from now. I'm incredibly curious.

Re:More wisdom or halt to progress?

[Woodrow Wilson Smith]

I enjoy your comment on this issue very much and I invite you Theovon and anyone other serious thinkers about this "vital option" to join in our endeavor to make this possibility a reality at the Immortality Institute. Our organization is involved in constantly examining the philosophical, social, psychological, economic, and technological aspects of this quest and are always in search of others to raise concerns and/or participate in activity to promote this goal.

Kenneth X. Sills

Co-Director of the Immortality Institute a.k.a. Lazarus Long

• http://www.imminst.org

Immortality

[derekb]

Atleast I'll have the time to wait for my W2K machine to boot... sheeeesh!

This professor must have smoked too much pot!

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

Have any of you read the article posted on the NY Times website? Do these people have any clue at all?
If a cell divides more than 7 times and does not die
the result is CANCER!

These people are idiots.

The test subject is ringworm... gee maybe the ringworm slowed down because it is not a cancerous mass!

Re:This professor must have smoked too much pot!

[Tranzboy]

I would point out that you and I were originally just one wee cell each. Now, unless you are a particularly plucky blastocyte, your cells have divided a helluva lot more than seven times apiece.

Re:This professor must have smoked too much pot!

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

Yes but.. one cell spits, now you have three, three cells split... now you have six.. and so on, but as
each cell splits.. on the seventh time... it is supposed to die!

Re:This professor must have smoked too much pot!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow - you've just barely grasped the concept of the Hayflick Limit. Well done. You are now officially up to the 1960s in your knowledge of molecular gerontology.

There's an awfully wide spectrum of stuff that "them thar professars" know about biochem and cell biology that they didn't when Dr. Hayflick was working. Might I suggest reading up on it? It really is quite interesting.

Re:This professor must have smoked too much pot!

[Saige]

One cell splits to three? Well, I guess if it splits into two regular cells and one TROLL cell. :)

Let's see, you start off as one cell, the egg. Splits once into 2, a second time into 4, a third into 8, fourth into 16, fifth into 32, sixth into 64, and seventh into 128.

So you mean that I'm only made of 64 cells or less? Wow, impressive.

Kurt Vonnegut...

[SuperHighImpact]

also wrote a short story called "Welcome to the Monkey House" which is contained in a similarly named anthology. It deals with exactly these issues of immortality with typical Vonnegut sarcasm. Definately worth reading.

Examined in Sci-Fi Often Enough

[ssclift]

I'm reminded of Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson (an OK read...) and Iain Banks' novels (e.g. Excession) about the Culture. Both address societies where immortality has become the norm and have (IMHO) some interesting things to say about them. In Anderson's world immortal societies tend to sink into idleness as machine intelligence takes over the interesting stuff and science speeds well beyond human comprehension. Banks' Culture sees a gradual, more productive blending of machine and human mind.

If Sci-Fi really is speculative sociology/anthropology as it is sometimes taught in universities (although that link is to Carleton University, where the "K" stands for "quality") the the SlashDot crowd should be well versed in the possibilities.

morons reduce estimated LIEf eXPectancIE..

[Anonymous Coward]

for Godless corepirate nazi walking dead.

then what in the fud are the misled puppets going to do?

the lights are coming up now.

you can anticipate all you want. our advise is to be as far away from the walking dead contingent as possible, when the big flash occurs. you wouldn't want to get any of that evile on you.

as to the free unlimited energy plan, as the lights come up, more&more folks will stop being misled into sucking up more&more of the infant killing barrolls of crudeness, & learn that it's more than ok to use newclear power generated by natural (hydro, solar, etc...)methods. of course more information about not wasting anything/behaving less frivolously is bound to show up, here&there.

cyphering how many babies it costs for a barroll of crudeness, we've decided to cut back, a lot, on wasteful things like giving monIE to felons, to help them destroy the planet/population.

no matter. the #1 task is planet/population rescue. the lights are coming up. we're in crisis mode. you can help.

the unlimited power (such as has never been seen before) is freely available to all, with the possible exception of the aforementioned walking dead.

consult with/trust in yOUR creator. more breathing. vote with yOUR wallet. seek others of non-aggressive intentions/behaviours. that's the spirit, moving you.

pay no heed/monIE to the greed/fear based walking dead.

each harmed innocent carries with it a bad toll. it will be repaid by you/us. the Godless felons will not be available to make reparations.

pay attention. that's definitely affordable, plus you might develop skills which could prevent you from being misled any further by phonIE ?pr? ?firm? generated misinformation.

good work so far. there's still much to be done. see you there. tell 'em robbIE.

the rest of the wwworld is laughing/crying at/for US in sympathy/disgust, as we fall/jump into the daze of the georgewellian corepirate nazi life0cide, whilst criticizing their ip gangsters, which are also members of the walking dead.

as for va lairIE's patentdead PostBlock(tm) devise, a 'product' of the SourceForgerIE(tm) hedgemonIE no DOWt, it (greed/fear/ego based power&.controll freakism) just doesn't work.

Attention: Christian Scum

[Anonymous Coward]

Report to the Office of STFU Immediately.


Love,
TrollKore

Obligatory Python Quote

[SmirkingRevenge]

Black Knight: I'm invincible! Arther: You're a Loony...

Stop making stuff up

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

Consider dogs. DNA tests show that all modern dogs evolved from wolves and were initially bred by cavemen who knew nothing about the genome.

That must be a really really good DNA test to prove all that.

A nod to Steve Jackson Games....

[Zathrus]

The problem with immortality is that it takes forever to prove.

Top Ten Listings

[Yanray]

Shouldn't /. have a seperate area for all the Letterman esk Top Ten lists.

Only If Old Age and Senility Are Eliminated

[reallocate]

If we don't find a way to eliminate the affects of age, then lifetimes measured in centuries could mean a globe populated by billions of stumbling old fools who can't take care of themselves.

I'm all for living forever if that means I stop aging after, say, 35. But, if it means I age until I'm 85 and then live for 3 more centuries, I might take a pass.

Very shaky science

[nanojath]

This is one of those things like artificial intelligence and the "singularity." Anyone willing to make a pronouncement - like we'll be living to 6000 in 2100 - is just a publicist, not a scientist. They're blowing smoke.

It seems reasonable to suggest that the programmed senescence in our cells is not just a dirty trick God played on us all. And there's a fairly obvious justification for why it exists: replication error. Cell senescence is an anti-cancer adaptation. There's little doubt in my mind that shutting off the death switch in our cells will mean cancer-o-rama. There are other issues. The regeneration (or lack thereof) of nervous tissue. Non-genetic chronic health issues like arterial plaque. An observation of roundworms and a brief stumble into organ-pigs does not a scientific assessment make. It reminds me of some people who have run cute little graphs on increasing life expectancy and decided we'll all be functionally immortal in X years. What they neglect is that while the average life expectancy may be increasing, the absolute life potential (maximum age) doesn't necessarily seem to be going anywhere in particular. More people may beat a hundred, but only a handful of freaks make it past 120.

This is a rotten fluff article with a flawed premise and a pointless exposition. There is not a single substantive ethical implication of hugely extending the human lifespan that is not already covered under expanding human population.

Re:Very shaky science

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

Right on.

And they also forgot one of the most important things, the mind. All this talk about replacing body parts and organs means very little, because the mind will eventually fail. And if you transplant the mind...

Anyway, delaying death is very different than slowing aging. If you are 80 years old and feel 30, great for you! But I doubt any 2057 year olds will feel 30. They will probably WANT to die at that point. I would.

Re:Very shaky science

[Dr. Manhattan]

Cell senescence is an anti-cancer adaptation.

True, but what if you had better ways to detect and treat cancer than we do now?

Besides, many genes activate based on the whole body environment. Maintain a hormonal balance similar to a youthful state, and tissues will, to an extent, behave that way. The limits on cell division put an upper limit to this presently, of course.

The regeneration (or lack thereof) of nervous tissue.

Nerve tissue does regenerate, just slowly. Controlled application of growth factors may improve this.

Non-genetic chronic health issues like arterial plaque.

That can be dealt with mechanically (angioplasty), and by drugs, and last but not least diet. Other such things (accumulation of heavy metals, accumulation of debris in ocular fluid) can at least theoretically be dealt with in a simlar fashion. Long-lived humans might need regular maintenance, but that's not necessarily suprising.

More people may beat a hundred, but only a handful of freaks make it past 120.

Now, that's true. Hard to say it's impossible for that to change, though. If even a portion of what is theoretically possible for nanotechnology comes to pass, a lot of bets will be off.

No, I don't think it's terribly likely that a single magic pill will take care of everything. But 'regular maintenance' might keep things going until more long-lasting treatments (e.g. nanobots that detect cancer cells on first division, repair damaged neurons, etc.) are developed.

Re:Very shaky science

[nanojath]

I don't disagree with any of these points. I don't think it's impossible to prolong life, well, indefinitely - just that I don't think anyone can predict realistically, at this point, what or how long it will take even to push us towards a modest goal like 200. It's no more scientific than anything but my instinct is I will die long before anyone hits the two century mark.

I'll note one thing about all the very sensible counterpoints you offer to my arguments - they sound expensive. However long it takes to introduce superlongevity, the very very rich will have it long before anyone else.

The article is bunk

[retro128]

The first red flag went up when you have this guy saying that inside of a century you'll have people able to live 5,000 years. This article already has the faint odor of that cult that supposedly cloned a human.

Second red flag: Assuming that if you can extend the life of roundworms by six times you can do the same for humans. Bzzzzt.

Third red flag: Sure, our organs may give out. But scientists are now breeding special kinds of pigs that may be able to grow replacement hearts and lungs What, are we cars now? When an organ starts acting flaky we go down to the corner store, buy a new one, open the hood and drop it in? So in order to live however ungodly amount of years they say, we have to piece ourselves together when something goes out? And that's just organs, what about stuff like bones? Something tells me that if you lived 600 years by these guys' terms, it'd be such a hellish existance you would WANT to die.

Here's another Quote of the Day: Consider dogs. DNA tests show that all modern dogs evolved from wolves and were initially bred by cavemen who knew nothing about the genome. Yet the dogs were rapidly transformed into everything from toy poodles to Great Danes. If we begin to reshape our own genetic code, we could presumably achieve even greater variation among our human descendants.

I'm sorry. Homo Sapiens didn't appear until around 130,000 years ago. The first dog species appeared 40 million years ago. Modern dogs as we know them are evolved from a species that appeared 7 million years ago. I'm afraid diversification of dogs happened long before man appeared. Certain traits of dogs were exaggerated by selective breeding, but mankind certainly wasn't responsible for creating everything from rat dogs to St. Bernards in the short space they have walked the earth. Evolution takes time. Lots of time. Try again.

Re:The article is bunk

[blahtree]

That's not what this article says about dogs. Unfortunately, the complete text isn't available online.

The reason why humans were able to create the huge variety in dogs so quickly was because the process at work wasn't evolution, it was direct human intervention. Evolution is a slow long process caused by random changes in genetic code and subsequent breeding (I'm not a geneticist, so this description is weak at best). Dogs, however, were intentionally crossed to enhance certain attributes. People do this with plants all the time, and dogs were no different in this respect.

Re:The article is bunk

[Anonymous Coward]

He's on a debunking kick, so little things like accuracy aren't going to stop him from raining down snide remarks, but all the same I have to love the mental image of a time when wild chihauhuas and St. Bernards stalked the Earth. Okay, that's derivative of Larson but it is still a great image.

Re:The article is bunk

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... guess again.

There is zero evidence to conclusively support and element of evolution. Evolution is simply conjecture from observations made by biased "scientist."

There is a reason no "missing link" has been found.

If Homo Sapiens have been around for ~130,000 years then there should be a pleatora of bodies, artifacts, and remains around. If dinosaur bones have lasted "millions of years" then why are there not billions of human remains scattered around the earth?

Re:The article is bunk

[Cyno]

it'd be such a hellish existance you would WANT to die.

What and 9/11, Iraq, WMDs, terrorists, with us/against us, SCO, Microsoft, DMCA, DRM, PATRIOTism, etc. is not hellish enough for you?

I want to die and I'm not even 30 yet. I want to live free or die. Whatever you can deal with.

Re:The article is bunk

[arth1]

Dogs (and any other "cultivated" species) have been transformed by careful breeding, in particular *inbreeding*. Is the author proposing that long-lived people now should turn incestuous, and unsuccessful offspring be newtered or killed? I'm sure that'll be a hard sell in most societies...

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:The article is bunk

[Anonymous Coward]

not to mention that humans actually have the telomerase gene, it is just turned off in most cells. This is probably an evolutionary trick our bodies are using against cancer. When a cell decides to stop being a team player and go reproducing like crazy(cancer), the shortening of the telomere(see http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere) may put an upper limit on the number of generations. If all of our cells had this gene turned on, and our telomeres didn't shrink as cells divide, we would have one less defense against cancer. This would most likely cause a dramatic increase in malignant tumors, and probably counter any increases in longevity that may be achieved(assuming this is the only major mechanism involved in ageing, which it probably isn't)

Re:The article is bunk

[retro128]

Don't be so depressed, buddy...Let's break it down:

9/11, Iraq, WMD's, terrorist, with us/against us/PATRIOT - Get Bush's ass out of office next term. At worst he will be in office for another 5 years. Hopefully he won't be able to turn our country into a ball of glowing nuclear slag in that time.

Microsoft - Currently being punked left and right by Linux. They won't die, but their market will be chipped away bit by bit as more people get tired of their shenanigans. I believe the current worldwide sentiment against the US is causing other countries to move away from US tech. Notice all the "Country X to move to Linux" articles lately?

SCO - They are as good as dead. The execs are unloading their stocks like mad. It was pump and dump from the beginning. I just wish those fuckers would go to prison.

DMCA, DRM - Unresolved. But the way I see it is this...The US is encumbering itself with all of these ridiculous laws so entrenched industry can be guaranteed their business model and continue to live out their worthless existance. IP laws are shackling innovation, and that's going to let other countries move ahead of us in many fields.
At that point hopefully the US will go WTF and mobilize to be #1 again. That will include copyright and patent reform. Hopefully. If not, my advice is to learn Chinese.

Re:The article is bunk

[Cyno]

Thanks for cheering me up. :)

It sure does feel like armageddon lately, though, doesn't it? Don't know what I'd do without things like Linux, the internet, and those Bill of Rights. Probably be blissfully ignorant like everyone else. :P

Re:The article is bunk

[danila]

Are you stupid or what? The author says that our ability to breed all kinds of dogs in several tens of thousand of years is a good indicator of our future ability to genetically engineer much more diverse human race in much shorter time.

Re:The article is bunk

[retro128]

Well I wouldn't go so far as Armageddon. Right now we are just going though McCarthyism 2000. Except instead of "communists" we talk of "terrorists". You can bet your ass that civil liberties were stepped on left and right during the commie hunt.

How about the constant threat of nuclear war? Russia and the US had their fingers on the button, man. It's a miracle the world didn't end during the Cold War. While we still have to worry about bio warfare and "dirty bombs", it beats the hell out of nothing left of the planet but a radioactive wasteland.

Then you had the feds monitoring peace activists during the Vietnam war. You had imprisonment of Japanese citizens during World War II.

Every generation has had its share of stupid government. Most of that stupidity has since gone away, only to be replaced by new stupidity. So now we have things like the the CDBPA (or whatever the hell it's called), the DMCA, the PATRIOT Act (a misnomer if I have ever heard one, but I'm preaching to the choir), etc. So here we are. All you have to do is try to stay out of jail and wait for the next wave of government stupidity :)

Re:The article is bunk

[retro128]

You had imprisonment of Japanese citizens during World War II.

My bad. That should read "You had the imprisonment of Japanese US citizens during World War II".

Re:The article is bunk

[Nakoruru]

Probably because there were not even 1 billion human beings born until only a few thousand years ago.

Even if it was 10 billion, or 100 billion (highly unlikely) up until that last few millenia, I highly doubt that 1 percent of humans would be preserved like mummies.

Dinosaurs were around for millions of years, its not hard to imagine that one or two was lucky enough to turn into stone.

Re:The article is bunk

[caerus]

The first red flag went up when you have this guy saying that inside of a century you'll have people able to live 5,000 years. This article already has the faint odor of that cult that supposedly cloned a human.

A lot can happen in 50 years.. microwaves ovens, computers, space travel, eradication of world wide diseases like polio and small pox, solar power and let's not forget.. communication with the internet. I would say that given the increasing rate of discovery we are seeing it is rather short sighted to say something "won't" happen. It is more reasonable to discuss the possibilties with facts and it doesnt' take much looking around.. try..

Eurekalert.Org

for an excellent overview on discoveries in nanotech, biotech and pretty much all the sciences. Amazing stuff really...

Second red flag: Assuming that if you can extend the life of roundworms by six times you can do the same for humans. Bzzzzt

My background is in biochemistry and I have recently been studying the metabolism of C. elegans roundworms. It is a fact that the mechanisms which generate energy in ALL multi-cellular organisms use glucose as a fuel. The machinery that directs energy production in all studied organisms from yeast to WORMS to apes have VERY CLOSE parallels with humans. The parallels with mouse machinery is even closer. Perhaps drugs that interact with the energy producing proteins or these organisms may not work with humans... but do you really think it would be that long before they found one that did if they could use their discoveries with these organisms to work from. I guarantee that as soon a people are given a whiff of a healthy option to death, there won't be much that will prevent things moving forward in human applications.

Third red flag: Sure, our organs may give out. But scientists are now breeding special kinds of pigs that may be able to grow replacement hearts and lungs What, are we cars now? When an organ starts acting flaky we go down to the corner store, buy a new one, open the hood and drop it in?

Do I assume by the above comment that you disagree with heart, kidney, bone marrow and other transplants? Or is it just the idea that an animal that most people eat for breakfast that makes you squeamish? If people can eat them for food, why do they have a problem in using their 'parts' for survival. Be that as it may, current research in adult stem cells is showing that all of our body tissues likely are able to regenerate and that tweaking the appropriate swtiches will allow the repair of aging tissues.

A good recent example of this ability to use your own cells to repair the heart is:

Stem Cells and Heart Repair

In regards to your last comment... to paraphrase something I read a while ago:

"Man didn't stay within the limits of the cave...
He didn't stay within the limits on the ground..
He didn't stay within the limits of his planet...
And I doubt very much whether he will stay within the limits of his biology"

We ARE designed to evolve... we are fulfilling our 'natural' purpose in the pursuit of self-evolution as we have done since we gained the capacity of abstract thought and choice of direction. Qualities that make us uniquely 'human'. To deny the path we are on is to negate everything that we have accomplished to get us thus far.

caerus

Boredom

[Unknown Kadath]

Would deaths by suicide skyrocket?

-Carolyn

Brain Decay and Retirement

[Baron_Yam]

If immortality were to come to pass, who's to say we wouldn't also have the medical techniques to allow braincell replacement?

Also, why do you imagine a human with an extended lifespan would have to work for 90% of that span, then retire? Why wouldn't they work for 40 years, then temporarily retire for 20-30 years until they needed money again?

For anyone who's interested... Here's a link to a popular transhumanist site. Lots of stuff about longevity tech and ethics.

Re:Brain Decay and Retirement

[Anonymous Coward]

There are other issues to consider. This is not a simple problem. People don't stop eating. More time won't necessarily inspire people to solve these problems. Innovations are quickly exploited for both good and bad purposes. This is not human nature but it is the inevitable statistical nature of social populations. Imagine the horrific schemes that might be cooked up by some of the worst tyrants in the world with aims for world domination, with the certainty that time is on their side. Again these are not simple equations.

Slashdot Futures Update: +1, Intriguing

[Anonymous Coward]

While you loserz puke over the future, why
don't you consider putting your money where mouth is and BET:

Last Change

Canada declared as part of the
axis of evil Sept. 2004 101.34 +3.45

Bush seeks asylum in France
Sept. 2005: 110.23 -1.24

bin Laden found in Cheney's
bunker Dec. 2006 99.45 +2.38

Cheney found in bin Laden's 105.60 +1.10
bunker August 2004

It Stinks

[nycsubway]

I think it would suck to live for 300 years. The way my brain works, I get bored by reading Slashdot for more than 30 minutes. Imagine trying to pay attention for a few hundred years!

Also, I think people would tend to get depressed and more psychotic as they got older and older. Nothing would be familiar to them, and if their brain was wired in such a way that change was a negative thing, they certainly wouldn't do well with 300 years of change.

Inbreeding

[under_score]

Probably because I recently read a review of the movie "American Beauty" and made a mental leap from "cradle robbing" to inbreeding across a large age gap.

i'd rather die in love

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'd rather die in love than live forever"

socially impacted

[Anonymous Coward]

bunch of bots waiting to be tolled what to buy next.

fauxking phonIE billyonerrors mortgaged up to their .asps in unrepayable debt.

Godless corepirate nazi georgewellian fuddites destroying the planet/population.

lookout bullow. pay attention. there's no charge, plus you may gain the ability to discern between hypenosys, & means to survive.

An eternal rut?

[Hoi Polloi]

"Because I hate the idea of not knowing what happens after I'm gone. I wouldn't care as much how long I live if I could learn what society and technology will be like 1 million years from now. I'm incredibly curious."

You might also become incredibly bored and jaded as you see people still thinking the same way and acting the same way, just the window dressings changing.

I'm sure someone from the Roman Empire would marvel at our technology but the thrill would quickly fade and become disgust at the endless parade of wars, selfishness, and the power hungry. They'd probably also be amused by those who continually pine for a past "golden age".

I strongly agree with you on old ideas becoming fixed. Often, the only way a society progresses is the old generations dying off. If society today still consisted of generations of ex-slave holders I doubt civil rights would be were they are today.

There is also the issue of population growth. Something that is a virtual taboo subject because humanity can't swallow the idea of self-imposed limitations for the sake of the future. People would continue to reproduce. What hope does someone being born into a world already jam packed with generations who have already grabbed all the plum spots in terms of real estate and class have for their future?

Re:An eternal rut?

[cK-Gunslinger]

I'm sure someone from the Roman Empire would marvel at our technology but the thrill would quickly fade and become disgust at the endless parade of wars, selfishness, and the power hungry.

Yes, if there's anything the Roman Empire found disgusting, it was wars, selfishness, and the power hungry! :)

Re:An eternal rut?

[meta-monkey]

If you get incredibly bored and jaded, kill yourself.

As for real estate, yes, I think if people did become extremely long-lived en-masse, then we'd have to have space travel and colonize other planets or society would collapse.

Re:An eternal rut?

[Hoi Polloi]

Thus the popularity of Christianity when it appeared.

Re:An eternal rut?

[Hoi Polloi]

"If you get incredibly bored and jaded, kill yourself."

People won't do that, they'll just plod along (or self-medicate).

"As for real estate, yes, I think if people did become extremely long-lived en-masse, then we'd have to have space travel and colonize other planets or society would collapse."

If that was even possible. Even if it was it would just delay the inevitable.

Re:An eternal rut?

[Theovon]

Well, if technology advances enough so that we can extend lifespan, perhaps it will also advance so that we can have greater control over reproduction.

My wife is on birth control pills. We are concerned about the long-term effects it may have on her health, as well as the fact that as she ages, there is a decline in fertility, along with an increase in the risk of birth defects.

If those risks were eliminated, and we could wait until she was 60 to have children, we would be able to put off. As it stands, if we're to have children at all, we should do it while she is in her early thirties, if not sooner.

If people were able to have children later, then their children would have children later, and so forth. The population growth problem would be reduced.

Furthermore, many pregnancies are "accidents". If children were made infertile (in a reversible manner), teen pregnancy would be eliminated. While that might result in a corresponding increase in the spread of STD's (which medicine might be able to deal with), there are all sorts of benefits that can be had.

What to do?

[rf0]

So I've been alive for 200 years wouldn't I start getting bored? There are only so many episodes of the Simpons you can see before you know all the words. Then again I suppose in 200 years something new would come along

Of course it would mean that a ship could go into deep space and finish with the same crew it started with

Rus

Re:What to do?

[Saige]

My thoughts?

If you can't imagine things to do to keep yourself interested for 200 years, then well, you don't have much of an imagination. Learn languages. Become good at painting, sculpting, writing, and various musical instruments. Heck, learn a lot about music and start creating new instruments. Go back to college and go into an entirely new career. Move to a new country regularly, and learn about their culture. Spend time teaching others, spreading your knowledge. Come up with a idea that qualifies as "science fiction", develop a plan of what it would take to get there, and work toward it. Spend a while living off the land. Domesticate a species of animal.

That's off the top of my head. If I had years to think about it, who knows what I could come up with.

If watching The Simpsons for 200 years is the best you can consider... well, enjoy those endless reruns for the decades you certainly have left.

Hard to treat this entirely seriously.

[Doctor Hu]

What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?

For one thing, "When I was a boy" stories are going to get really irritating to youngsters less than 65 years old....

Trying to be serious, I'm not sure I'd want to live significantly longer than the current western lifespan, anyway[1], even if health and welfare are guaranteed. Look around and make an estimate of the proportion of elderly people you know who are still lively and interested in keeping up to date with the world as it changes. I'd guess that one consequence would be that ending your life voluntarily would become socially and legally acceptable, and that 'terminal boredom' would appear on an increasing proportion of death certificates.

[1] I'm past halfway myself, fwiw, and am no longer a stranger to funerals. It does alter your perspective on things.

why would you want to?

[morgajel]

have you ever been in a nursing home? seriously, I don't know if it's just the US, but old people are often treated an refuse.

Personally I don't think it's right, but I know a lot of people who just don't care/ don't have the patience, can't afford to take care of them, etc. What I'm curious about is will the aging process continue till we're 290 years old and falling apart? will the aging process as a whole just slow down? when my great grandkids are 50, will they look and feel like I did when I was 20?

There's a difference between slowing the aging process and extending it. There are concequences for both.

I think there'd be plenty of social issues to deal with first before we take a stab at being immortal.

Re:why would you want to?

[Joe Tie.]

Oh yeah, we're also going to restrict sex so that we only get to do it once every few years. We'll call that time the Ponn Far. It will be deeply spiritual to us.

As I understand it anything that's actually increasing the maximum lifespan, as opposed to just keeping you alive longer so you can croak at 120, should actually slow the agining process. It might also keep the subject more vital and energetic when they reach the new maximum lifespan than they would have been at their old maximum lifespan without the treatment. Or at least I think that's how it plays out with mammals who respond well to increased lifespan through near starvation with optimal nutrient intake. Even if that method turns out to not work well with primates, I'd expect any method we can use to produce similar effects in us as the mammels who could go through the low caloric intake process. Though IANAB, so take my speculation with even more a gain of salt than anything else on slashdot.

Re:why would you want to?

[Joe Tie.]

Crud, that's why previewing is a good idea. The clipboard kept the last comment I replied to instead of this one.

The economic benefits would be enormous!

[TheNarrator]

Before you start thinking of people as more mouths to feed you also have to realize that we would have lots of older people with excellently functioning minds who would have many years of experience in their fields and tremendous amounts of accumulated knowledge. They would no doubt be much more productive than the average person in the field. I think our scientific achievment would increase exponentially.

What quality of life constitutes immortal?

[oneiros27]

I for one would rather die than be slaved to a machine for the rest of my life. Or living as a head in a brain like on Futurama. [although, I guess I could use it to annoy people, but I don't have the taste for fish flakes particularly].

Would you be willing to extend your life if it meant a 100% chance of having to go through some form of cancer treatment? [which well, almost all males will end up with prostate cancer unless they find a cure for it...which, although it can be treated to some degree of success, it may mean that you have severe hormone therapy, and get emotional all the time, or radiation, which can ruin your bladder and colon [nothing like a bathroom break every 20-30 minutes].]

The rest would be hit with Alzheimers. Which, although they've found that watching fish helps patients regain their appetite, I'm not looking forward to sitting around in a nursing home unable to care for myself. [Especially when I forget about the prostate treatment, and forget about the need to go to the bathroom every 20 minutes].

Then we start getting into the issues with overcrowding, lack of food to supply the population, issues with people having four kids before they're 20....[which would mean that 600 years down the road, that family would have had 30 generations, and each new generation would be double the size of each earlier generation]. Add a few septuplets in there, and other freaks of fertility clinics, and who knows what we'll end up with.

Elves.

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, the Elves will just reappear in Valinor. Remember, the life force of the Elves and Dwarves is bound to Arda (the world), and remains there. That of Men, however, is not, and goes who-knows-where. So Elves can't really die, no matter what.

Someone have a copy of the Silmarillion they'd like to quote here?

--grendel drago

Re:Elves.

[tuffy]

Meh, the Elves will just reappear in Valinor. Remember, the life force of the Elves and Dwarves is bound to Arda (the world), and remains there. That of Men, however, is not, and goes who-knows-where. So Elves can't really die, no matter what.

The elves are tied to Arda and endure only so long as it endures. The End of the World will mean the end of elves and their souls. The Gift of Men is that they die, their souls leave the Circles of the World and they are promised something beyond it.

But in the short run, although men envy elves because they do not die from age or sickness, elves envy men because men *do* die and are not burdened by age after age of nostalgia and regret.

From a MolecularBiology Major

[linuxislandsucks]

for those who do not have aclue..

the basic engine fueling humans is a chemical one that in its buringing of food produces free radicals..free radicals as you know result in producing bad cells due to dna damage..

Cancer (the mdeical kind not he press misnomer) takes and kills these bad cells to protect your body..

In 80+ year your human gneome/dna take ssomuch free radical damge that the body dies to prevent horrible death by run away cancer cell growth..

IE human body is not deisgned to live forever..GET OVER IT!

Sorry.. Idid 3 years majoring in 7 majors at Purudue at Indianapolis..and hate when the press gets freakign wrong!

Re:From a MolecularBiology Major

[biotechnician]

evidently you didn't study enough. Certain parts of the body is more succeptable to free radical damage then other parts. Female ovaries have some of the lowest mutation rates anywhere. Also your mixing up cancer with sensence, its senesence that causes mutated cells to stop dividing. Apoptosis is often triggered as another method of killing cells to prevent them from being mutated. It would be quite feasable to keep stem cell lines of every person, careful monitoring of the cell lines should allow us to have absolute minimal amounts of mutations to occure in the stock lines. I'm just glad I didn't go to purdue, obviously their all wack at that university.

immortality

[Anonymous Coward]

imagine Bill Gates, Darl McBride, Ken Lay
and Steve Balmer living forever - is this REALLY
a future anyone would want?

Why the hell...?

[dacarr]

Here's what's up. If you really did that, and you had friends who wouldn't want to do that and keep themselves alive for a long time, your friends would die out. You'd get kinda lonely after a couplea hundred years as all your short-lived friends just kept dying.

So I ask, why would you want to live forever - or at any rate, significantly longer than J Random?

Working for 20 years sucks; 200?!?!

[swb]

I'm already kind of bored/sick of my field (no budgets and bad management doesn't help). I'm having a hard time imagining working the same field for 40 years, let alone 200 years.

I suppose one advantage would be that it would be totally viable to start over from scratch -- go to college, get a degree and enter a completely new profession at age 70 without feeling like you wouldn't have enough time to "make it" in your field.

That assumes, of course, that "20 years" is still considered relatively seasoned in a profession, and that number doesn't get bumped to 40 or 60 years, in which case the whole mess becomes like inflation -- just multiple the usual timelines in a profession by 2 or 3.

One of the hidden assumptions (beyond "your health will be like being 35 for 150 years") is that human psychology will stand up to the beating it will take and people will have the *yearning* to keep living. Is it possible that people of normal financial means will just run out of interesting stuff to do?

I thought of this issue somewhat similarly after reading an article about a new anti-narcolepsy drug that apparently allows for days of waking with none of the psychosis common with staying awake on amphetamines. If you could take this drug and stay awake for an extra 4 nights a week, you could nearly double your available free time. But would you *want* to?

Re:Working for 20 years sucks; 200?!?!

[Tackhead]

> One of the hidden assumptions (beyond "your health will be like being 35 for 150 years") is that human psychology will stand up to the beating it will take and people will have the *yearning* to keep living. Is it possible that people of normal financial means will just run out of interesting stuff to do?

Fool! What do you think MMORPGs are for?

I've thought about this for a long time

[praedor]

because it is an area of research I would like to ultimately get into. In any case, absolutely could not simply make life extension treatment available to the general populace without at least one very strong stipulation: if you accept this treatment, then you agree to forgoe having children for as long as the treatment lasts. If you elect to have children, then you give up access to treatment.

Right now we in the developed world have, on average, 4 generations living simultaneously. If you are suddenly able to extend life to be 100+, you suddenly get the possibility of having perhaps 6 or more simultaneous living generations alive at the same time without reproductive restristions. This is nearly an immediate doubling of the population in any developed nation within 40 years. Boom. If life extension technology is such that you can keep getting booster treatments to maintain some form of stasis, then it gets worse. As long as people freely reproduce you get a geometric increase in the population with each generation. This is patently unsustainable for any useful period of time. You MUST have reproductive restriction tied to life extension treatments.

On another level you have to eliminate the idea of mandatory retirement, perhaps eliminate the idea of retirement at all, since you could easily end up with an increasing number of over 65s who, under the current systems, would be expecting to retire and be supported in some way or other (social security, medicaid, medicare, etc). They would not even be the same type of 65 living today as you could easily be 65 and still be physically equivalent to someone in their 30s or even late 20s with true longevity treatments and all that would entail. Without population control, where are the jobs going to come from for the fresh young and the perpetual middle-aged individuals receiving treatment? Basically, the entire social fabric of every country on the planet gets screwed up by longevity treatments of any significant capability.

You can't say "no" to the treatment either. I assure you that once it is possible it WILL be used by more and more people. The rich will have access (unfairly) and others would have access via a pricey black market. I myself, as someone in the field (molecular biology, etc) would have access as a matter of course - and I assure you I would not permit anyone to prevent me from using such a treatment regimen, nor make it available to my family. Thus, once it is available (and it will be in one form or other) it is inevitable that its use will be widespread and unstoppable. Thus you would have to simply change society in some drastic ways to accomodate reality. At the basis of all the problems that this sort of thing would bring is population explosion unlike any envisioned before - requiring a drastic response to prevent it.

1900 to 2000

[mec]

Before considering the future, let's have a look at the past.

TIME 100: 1900 vs. Now

In the USA, life expectancy increased 60% from 1900 to 2000. In Italy, 80%. In Japan, 80%. In Mexico, 120%.

We are already living in an age of radical life extension compared to previous generations. A much higher percentage of the population lives to 60, 80, or 100 than used to. And I don't see a lot of people clamoring to roll back life extancy from 75+ years to 45.

75 is a lot better than 45. 120 will be better than 75. And 200 will be better than 120.

Re:1900 to 2000

[zenyu]

In the USA, life expectancy increased 60% from 1900 to 2000. In Italy, 80%. In Japan, 80%. In Mexico, 120%.

Most of the increase in life expectency between 1900 and 2000 in the western world came before penicillin. Yep washing our hands after going to the bathroom and not drinking foul water or eating spoilt food accounts for most of it. There were people who lived a century long before modern medicine, they were just real lucky not to get diarrhea and die. But how many 5000 y.o. are there still around?

Re:1900 to 2000

[leob]

In the USA, life expectancy increased 60% from 1900 to 2000. In Italy, 80%. In Japan, 80%. In Mexico, 120%.

We are already living in an age of radical life extension compared to previous generations. A much higher percentage of the population lives to 60, 80, or 100 than used to. And I don't see a lot of people clamoring to roll back life extancy from 75+ years to 45.

What most people forget is that all these numbers are for life expectancy at birth. When the infant mortality is high, it is very easy to bring that life expectancy up 100% by fixing the infant mortality problem.

Reducing deaths during childbirth brings the average life expectancy up another notch while doing zilch for men. Avoiding world wars does the same for men, and is of little use (numerically only, of course) to women.

That is to say, the real life expectancy (average age of adults at natural death) did not increase much during the last century; 30% I'll take, but hardly more.

Re:1900 to 2000

[Joe Tie.]

75 is a lot better than 45. 120 will be better than 75. And 200 will be better than 120.

The problem though is that everything so far has just been increases in the average lifespan. Through recorded history there have been people hitting the 75 or even 110 year mark even when the average age of death would be in the 40s. Better health care and less violent societies simply made it more likley for a person to be able to reach the species maximum lifespan of around 110-120, it never actually increased the maximum amount of time that a human can live in optimal conditions.

Re:1900 to 2000

[dtake]

In the USA, life expectancy increased 60% from 1900 to 2000. In Italy, 80%. In Japan, 80%. In Mexico, 120%.

A fair bit of that is due to decreases in infant mortality and childhood diseases. 140 infant deaths per 1000 live births (the infant mortality rate in the USA in 1900) will drive down the average life span significantly. The median life span in the USA in 1900 was 58, compared to 80 for 2000, an increase of only 38%.

And the maximum life span as measured by the probability at birth of reaching a given age of 0.00001 moved only from 105 to 112 in the last 100 years. So while we are seeing improvements in life span, we won't be seeing 600 year old folk anytime soon.

Here is some actuarial data from the Social Security Administration

Re:1900 to 2000

[mec]

I agree, maximum human life span has not increased as much as average (or median) life span.

But there's been a lot of individual and social adaptation, from a world where most people wouldn't see their grandchildren hit puberty, to a world where 60 year olds run 10K's.

I don't claim that the next 100 years are going to be similar to the past 100 years. I really claim that the human race has absorbed massive change already, and that it has been super beneficial.

I hate the "oooh, things as they are in 2000 are normal, any change will be scary" attitude of the New York Times. Demographics in 2000 are way abnormal (or supernormal) compared to the yardstick of 1900. That was a big change and I love it.

Re:1900 to 2000

[danila]

Don't badmouth the NYT. :) If you read the discussion here at /. you can see that many people are scared of change just as much. I think that fear of the change is a direct consequence of idiocy. Since about 25% of people are complete morons, you can expect such attitudes everywhere, until we cure stupidity, as James Watson suggests.

Humans don't deserve immortality...

[alchemist68]

Humans don't deserve immortality. Look at the way we treat one another. We use others for personal gain even when it is detrimental to the other party, we hold others down/back from personal and career development, again, for our personal gain/amusement. We destroy millions of acres of treasured forests and wild life (only if you live in the USA with George "Dubya" as President). Our economies are too consumer-oriented with emphasis being placed on expendable products (it's broke, don't fix it, discard it, and buy NEW!).

More importantly though, the human body was never meant to live longer than about 100 years. The brain begins to fail, the immune system begins to fail, toxins are not removed from the body as quickly and do more harm to the tissues and organs. Organs in general cannot sustain their functionality because those telomeres get chopped off with every divide. Key protein and hormaone production cells fail as well.

Relying on pigs and other animals is not the answer either. Any one see the movie "Parts"? Now that's the way to go! Grow humans for the sole purpose of replacement parts for the original.

Humans just are not ready yet for immortality, just as we (a pre-Warp society) are not yet ready to join the Federation of Planets. We have to hurry up and evolve a little more before we can tackle immortality. Should be another 10,000 to 20,000 years by my estimates. It will take this long because we will destroy so much of our natural environment that necessitates a change in our society and gene pool (many people will die) whereby the select few will survive to take the human race to the next level with an enhanced consciouness and sense of responsibility for life.

Re:Humans don't deserve immortality...

[biotechnician]

how bout this. I'll send you a gun. Weeding stupidity out of the gene pool is essential if we're going to evolve into an enlighened species!

We won't be around in 2100...or will we?

[jstultz]

"Our life expectancy will be in the region of 5,000 years" in rich countries in the year 2100, predicts Aubrey de Grey, a scholar at Cambridge University. (This is, of course, a great prediction to make because none of us will be around in 2100 to mock him if he's wrong.)

Not necessarily...if one assumes that life expectancy will continually increase, for those of us living *now*, our *actual* life span will be longer than our current projected life span. Say you were born in 1970, and the current life expectancy is 80 years old...theoretically you'll live until 2050. But then in 2040, say the life expectancy has changed to, say, 120 years...it might not mean that you would then necessarily live until 2090, but since it changed, you would at least live longer.

So maybe, just maybe, we WILL be around in 2100 to see if he's right. And then, all of this begs the question, what happens when life expenctancy starts to increase at a faster rate than time passes? That is, life expectancy increases consistently each year by more than 1 year. Wouldn't it be then, in fact, that immortality is achieved? When the rate of change of life expectancy is >1, not when the actual life expectancy is infinite?

Then there's the problem of overpopulation....where do we put all of these people that refuse to die? Hopefully we will have established colonies off-earth by then.

Hopefully at least some of this has been partially understandable.

Re:We won't be around in 2100...or will we?

[tool462]

This is not quite how life expectancy works. It is called life expectancy at birth, and it is the average age of death for a person born on a particular day. For example, if your life expectancy at birth was 78, that means that out of everybody born on the same day as you, the average age of death would be 78. Consequently, every year you live, the longer you are likely to live because some of your fellow birth-dayers have already died--you have beaten the odds for however many years you have been alive.

This is as per my Sociology of Population prof back in college.

Re:We won't be around in 2100...or will we?

[jstultz]

I admit that I don't fully understand the intricacies of predicting life expectancy, but what I do know is that realistically, it changes. For someone who was born in 1980, at that time in 1980 it is impossible for those predicting life expectancy then to be able to take into account future world factors influencing life expectancy; medical research developments, sociological changes, war, etc.

My main point is that obviously the life expectancy will not suddenly jump to 5000 years on the year 2100...it will gradually progress to that, and in the meantime, life expectancy, and the positive environmental factors reflected by it, will be increasing. Potentially, it will increase quickly enough that some or many of us alive today will indeed live long enough to see if this prediction is correct or not.

My specific figures might not be correct, but at some point, its possible that developments to extend life will be progressing at a faster rate than people are dying, thus making for practical immortality; at least as long as developments progess at such a fast clip.

Excellent Fictional View

[DoNotTauntHappyFunBa]

Richard Dooling wrote a great story for Esquire magazine about this. It's a fictional first-person account with possible social and economic implications.

Umm... from immortality - more murder

[MickLinux]

Quite simply, if we gain the ability to pop a pill every 100 years and extend our lifespan by 100 years, those pills will become extremely valuable, and all the more valuable if one person can keep his, while keeping them away from others.

Meanwhile, body parts are still going to be wearing out -- you don't think that someone who can afford an immortality pill will stop drinking alcohol, when he can just go to China, do you?

So what's going to happen if this becomes a reality is that the powerful will find another way to eat the weak.

Meanwhile, the poor who aren't happy about the situation will be fighting on the other side, taking pot shots at the wealthy... ... so I rather figure that if immortality becomes available, the average (and maybe maximum) lifespan will decrease significantly.

Personally, I'm quite happy to have everybody limited to 100 years. It's more pro-life.

Easy!...

[__aagmrb7289]

There would be a hell of a lot more violent murders, there would.

STOP BREEDING!!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are far too many of you, please stop breeding! You will likely feel some dismay over your insignificance in the world and feel compelled to spawn a creature similar to yourself in order to justify your existance, but ignore these emotions. These feelings can be conquered through drugs and babysitting.

Ladies: keep your legs crossed
Gentlemen: keep your demon seed on the kleenex

I repeat: your child is not wanted here! We don't find you of enough value to be worth duplicating! Being a parent doesn't make you special, in fact it's the only ability you share with nearly every other person on the planet. This includes despots, presidents, hobos, retards, and EVEN LOWER lifeforms such as Hollywood pro-douchers.

Childbirth is not a miracle! It happens ALL THE FRIGGIN TIME!

Men: Don't give up your freedom
Ladies: Think about pushing a cantelope though THAT hole. WTF are you thinking?!?!

Just say no to childbirth!

Murder, Suicide, Accidents only causes of death

[Anonymous Coward]

How lovely...

In a world without age and disease, the only causes of death will be murder, suicide and accidents. If you calculate the probability, a 1000-year old has a 30% chance of being murdered, a 10% chance of commiting suicide and a 10% chance of dying in an accident.

Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Aubrey de Grey interview

[jweeld]

Here's an interesting and much less fluffy interview with the guy quoted at the top of the piece.

QED

Hungry eunuchs?

[jcsehak]

Near-starvation and castration both bring unusual longevity, but few of us choose either option.

Wha?!? So I'll live longer if I chop off my balls and quit eating? No way that's true.

As for the rest of the article, no one dies from old age. People die from stuff like cancer, or heart failure because their arteries are too clogged. They may be able to stop (or slow) the aging process and keep someone's heart from deteriorating, but they can't keep them from munching on Lays.

You know the end is near...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when people seriously discuss living forever.

biogerontology as a career

[biotechnician]

I got interested in genetics at 13 when I read the cartoon guide to genetics, I was about 16 when I started hearing about telomeres and p53. Now I'm 21, doing my own research(viva la grant money) relating mutation rate to growth hormone, and am thoroughly fascinated by biogerontology. I've hung out at a special big wig aging research seminar last summer, it was really the best 5 days of my life. Molecular Biology is accelerating at such a rate, that a supposed "cure" for aging may very well be developed in the next 20 to 30 years. In fact I bet my life on it(literally). A non-biologist just doesn't get how fast our field is improving, the curing of aging is inevitable. Aging itself is a very effective mechanism against aging, while you associate cancer with olld age old age itself helps prevent cancer. Mice that have overactive p53 will have dramatically reduced cancer, but they exhibit many aspects of aging at a very early age! Aging and cancer is like ying and yang, to cure aging we must also cure cancer. Right now it takes X number of genes to be mutated before your cell becomes tumorous, and then another X number of genes before it becomes cancerous. We must increase the number of redundant cancer genes so that cancer is EXTREMELY rare, the only reason we still have cancer is because of evolution. There simply isn't enough evolutionary pressure to decrease our cancer rates, however with genetics we can most definetly overcome this problem. Yes this post is over-enthusiastic, and paints a picture far too positive for any respectible scientist. Damnit I got 60 years ahead of me, if you thing what we did in the last 50 you'd understand why theres no doubt in my mind we'll be curing aging in the next 20-30 years.

A world packed with previous generations?

[Hoi Polloi]

Since people would continue to reproduce, what hope would someone being born into a world where the best land and positions have already been grabbed by people who will never let go of them? Either you'd be setting the world up for endless bloody revolts by the have-nots or you'll have a world with an eternal servile underclass. Even compost heaps need to be turned over every now and then.

I wish science would put as much effort into studying why people think and behave the way they do and how to change it for the better instead of endless technological gimmicks such as this. Maybe we could eliminate the need for violence, control and materialism in humanity and we wouldn't need endless defense, economic, and agricultural band-aids in the first place. I'd rather live 100 years in a healthy society than 600 years in a defective one.

Re:A world packed with previous generations?

[WebMasterJoe]

I'd rather live 100 years in a healthy society than 600 years in a defective one.

I don't think we're going to get either one :) I'm just going to enjoy drinking beer and doing other bad things until I get old and die.

Mutation.

[Christopher Thomas]

Your DNA will become increasingly damaged. Cancer will run rampant. We'll have drugs by then to keep the cancer down, but eventually your DNA will look like swiss cheese. You can't fix that, unless you can some how store a copy of your DNA somewhere with 0 radiation and copy from that on a regular basis. Failing that, you'll live to turn into a giant sack of tumors. We already know that everything (even celery) gives you cancer.

Bacteria seem to manage maintaining genetic integrity just fine. Sure, out of any population of cells, you'll get mutants, but if you can prune them, cells with intact genetic material will reproduce to fill the void.

You have the same thing happening in humans - the genetic material you pass on to your offspring was passed to you from your parents, and to them from their parents, and so forth. If nothing can compensate for mutation, then humans should have died out long ago.

The key is to actively maintain the collective quality of your genetic material by recognizing and discarding mutated DNA. There are several mechanisms in place which do this already.

Re:Mutation.

[scorp1us]

Bacteria recreate themselves several times a day. This keeps a very fresh, intact copy of in circualtion. (This is the reason stomach lining cells are used in cloning, they are replaced a lot fore frequently and therefore are better to get your DNA from.) There is a whole lot less risk of radiation punching a hole in their DNA when it's copied that often, not to mention a hole in their DNA is a lot more fatal when you are only one cell reproducing asexually.

Re:Mutation.

[Tablizer]

[Your DNA will become increasingly damaged. Cancer will run rampant. We'll have drugs by then to keep the cancer down, but eventually your DNA will look like swiss cheese. You can't fix that...] Bacteria seem to manage maintaining genetic integrity just fine.

Bacterium often get by via darwinian fittism: copies too mutant to survive simply die off. However, this does not work well in complex multi-celled organisms because "bad children" can steal and manipulate resources without the body really knowing, and making yet more "thief" copies.

It is believed by many scientists that aging is a protection mechanism from mutation by slowing down metabilism, and thus reduce the need to create new cells. The drawback of course is age-related problems.

Unless a way can be found to repair damaged cell DNA, such as nanoprobes or something, aging cannot be stopped. Mutations simply build up over time causing cancer. Chemicals will not work; it requires something to inspect each and every cell for DNA damage.

Re:Mutation.

[scorp1us]

It is believed by many scientists that aging is a protection mechanism from mutation by slowing down metabilism, and thus reduce the need to create new cells. The drawback of course is age-related problems.

This in my opinion would only make things worse. As you live you are exposed to radiation. You're saying the longer a cell leaves its DNA uncopied, the less chance for mutation there is? That is wholey wrong. The longer between copies the more chance for mutation there is. Imagine halving the mitosis rate, and assume that damage from radiation is statistically once per copy. You're now talking 2 damages before mitosis. When those two finally divide, you're looking at 4 new cells with 4 mutations each. had you left it alone, you'd be looking at 4 new cells with 2 mutations each. If you double the mitosis rate, you then have a 50/50 change of mutation, and as a result, you'll be working with DNA much longer.

You have to imagine your DNA as an archery target. The longer it is exposed, the more damage will be done to it by archers. If you zerox the target more frequently, you'll see less holes in subsequent copies of the archery target.

Re:Mutation.

[Tablizer]

Your reasoning is flawed it seems. Increasing division does not lower the probability of an error happening. Damage caused by radiation and poisoning is going to happen regardless of the generation in place at the time. However, more frequent divisions increases the chance of errors. Metabolism also involves other activity besides cell division.

Heinlein talked about this long ago...

[got911here]

Anyone who thinks this type of postulation is new ought to check out the 'Lazarus Long' storyline in Robert Heinlein's adult series of novels. Heinlein discussed how practical (>200 yrs) immortality would impact the family, morality, technology, careers, etc. For example, what's the real difference between you, at age 230, and your son, who's 210?

I think that even now we're seeing some of the leading effects of longevity as people lead longer, healthier lives. The most obvious is retirement. In the states, we used to retire at 65 and sit around for seven or eight years until we died. Now, people 'retire' sightly earlier, but are really moving on to second careers - doing what they 'really want to do'.

Re:Heinlein talked about this long ago...

[Erik_Kahl]

Heinlein is the man.

One of the key points that Heinlein brought up with greater lifespans is the idea that it will lead to the true spread of humanity. We WILL run out of the resources needed to maintain the lifestyle and freedoms we enjoy. Longer life will give a brave few the hope that they might survive to see the end of a long trip away from earth.

The Earth is too fragile a basket for humanity to keep all its eggs in...

He also somwhat touches on the idea that interesting things might be done when there are so many experienced people around. What would it be like to work with an engineer who had been solving problems for a century? How would all that experience benefit the work he produced?

Marriage and treatment of children as they age are also interesting areas to consider. Marriage often doesn't last forever today. What if people still felt young and sure that they would live 100 more years even at 140? Would they still be with the person they chose at 20?

I look forward to seeing it...but doubt I will.

Re:Heinlein talked about this long ago...

[got911here]

I think that, as Heinlein postulated, marriage would become more of a finite term contract with options for 'renewal'. Things like monogamy, etc. would be clauses in the contract.

Of course, then there's the whole have's vs. have not's thing - people with the longevity vs people who may not be able to get it.

Re:Heinlein talked about this long ago...

[Erik_Kahl]

Heinlein had some good thoughts about where marriage would wind up. In most of his books it becomes a renegotiable contract between the two people rather than a total commitment. Often in his books people will marry for the reason of rasing a few children together. Once the kids all hit 18..out they go and off go the parents in seperate directions.

I suspect that common use of such a flexible marriage agreement is not as far off as the immortality speculated upon in the article.

Immortal life for all of us

[Michael Crutcher]

Whether you think immortal life is desirable or not, the reality is that it is within the grasp of each and everyone of us within this century.

It appears to me that cryogenics is in its infacy; not much research, not much intereest. But over the next 50 years the ability to suspend a body's degeneration is sure to increase. Assuming that we can develop some way to perfectly preserve a body before you die, the chance for immortality is realized.

Worried that your great-great-great-grand kids won't want to wake you up? Deposit $10,000 in a mutual fund and gurantee the value of the mutual fund to whoever wakes you up. Great-great-grandkid gets a load of money and the chance to meet face to face one of their forebearers. You wake up from death with a perfectly repaired body and the promise of eternal life. I'm not sure whether this is desirable, but if you're so inclined I see little reason that you won't be able to obtain immortality (assuming you've got the dough!)

Re:Immortal life for all of us

[Anonymous Coward]

Mutual fund? HAHAHAHA. Buy SCO stock instead!

Or this quote by Woody Allen

[SuperKendall]

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying."
-Woody Allen

Re:Or this quote by Woody Allen

[hammy]

"I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens."
- Woody Allen

Modern medicine not that impressive

[biotechnician]

Bah. 50 year ago we didn't even know how dna copied itself, now we actually understand how much of the molecular machinery of life works. Its alot easier to fix a car once you understand how a car works. One of the largest biotech companies, genentech, has been working on the new field of using the immune system itself to combat cancer. All that research money IS starting to pay off, and we are getting closer and closer to completely understanding life. Its a completely new ball game now.

No Good For Society

[Anonymous Coward]

What a ghastly, conservative society that would result if people were to live a lot, lot longer.

And you'd never get promoted!

Limitations of the brain

[nhavar]

I saw an article I think on joeuser about a trip to the future and how medicine worked. The visitor stated how even with all the medical advances that people still didn't live past the age of 125-130. The problem was that while organs could be transplanted and through proper diet and pharmacology be kept healthy enough to survive, the brain was the key failing point. They cured alzheimers and another disease cropped up in it's place, after that another, and another. No matter the treatment or the chemical stabilizers used to keep the brain from oxydizing or losing neurons there was always something that ended up failing.

I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't too far from the truth.

Re:Limitations of the brain

[Cheeze]

That's because you will eventually start killing off useful brain cells. Since you don't replenish them, once they are dead, they are dead. Now, back to the beer drinking.

Re:Limitations of the brain

[Mahtar]

Actually, you do regenerate brain cells, in a process called neurogenesis.

Neurogenesis occurs throughout the life of an individual--so, while your 3 day bender may kill off a bunch of cells, your constantly growing new ones.

In fact, there's a growing amount of support for the theory that inhibition of the neurogenesis process (for whatever reason) is what causes depression.

Social Impact

[argv]

"What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?"

Here's my guess. It all goes pretty peachy for the first couple of hundred years, until we run out room for agricultural production and food. Then we will have to begin eating each other.

This is where controlling our own evolution becomes key. The high priest microbiologists become 10 feet tall with hardened steel exoskeletons. And of course, huge penises so they will get all the good-lookin' chicks.

The rest of us will be evolved to fatten up nicely on the minimum amount of soylent green and will be especially succulent with the right marinade.

After that, it just starts getting freaky.

Not too far from the truth

[yintercept]

I don't think you are too far from the truth. What we are likely to see is a small number of people gradually propping themselves up as Gods as their interests compound. You will see copyrights extended from a hundred years to centuries and completely stifling the abilities of new borns to publish. I suspect most of society will organize around supportung the political base of the gerontocracy.

Once we have a few people living thousands of years, we will probably see them turn into Saddams and reducing the life expectancy of everyone else. Imagine how power Bill Gates will be if he were to live ten thousand years.

Tree-Of-Life

[grangerg]

I'm game on becoming a Protector; this breeder stage is getting old. ...and I've always wanted a beak.

Uh Huh

[joelsanda]

"With the current advances in biology, we as a society are facing the real possibility that "immortality" could some day be the norm." "We as a society" (whatever that means) can't get anything close to an even distribution of medical products and services, and haven't, for pobably the better part of all of recorded history. I significantly doubt that's going to happen when people are dying of preventable diseases because their health insurance company won't cover the treatment or the co-pay it too high for an average person to afford. At least coffins and burial plots and headstones keep pace with inflation. The only immortality you and I will see is when we swoop down on (hopefully) angel wings and read our tombstones.

Combat this disturbing trend!

[Jonboy X]

We've got to keep the population down, or else we'll start running out of IP ranges again. Take up smoking, compete in Russian roulette tourneys, start taunting mobsters, whatever it takes!

Greater variation among human descendants

[QuackQuack]

Consider dogs. DNA tests show that all modern dogs evolved from wolves and were initially bred by cavemen who knew nothing about the genome. Yet the dogs were rapidly transformed into everything from toy poodles to Great Danes. If we begin to reshape our own genetic code, we could presumably achieve even greater variation among our human descendants.

What is he saying? That we'll engineer an entire generation of small humans named "fifi", who will serve no purpose except to walk around with stupid puffy haircuts?

Why bother?

[rognvaldr]

I'm a born-again christian. I allready have eternal life.

The singularity

[xDCDx]

Check Kurzweil's web. It talks about the singularity.

Roughly, the singularity is the matter of creating an artificial intelligence superior to ours. Obviosly this superior intelligence would be able to do all the things we are able to do, so it could create even superior intelligences. The result of this would be an ever increasing developement, and the complete change of the world as we know us.

Bill Joy, Sun Microsystems cofounder, argumented in this article that he is scared about the possibility of the singularity making the human race extinct. And well, it could happen. But I would like to tell him and everybody who thinks like him that, if the singularity doesn't take place, we will be extinguish ourselves when terrestial resources are exhausted (very likely) or when a cosmical disaster takes place (sun will expand and shallow earth, 100% guaranteed).

The singularity and his exponential scientific developement would gives us and/or our "singular artificial sons" a significatively better chance of survival.

James Blish has already talked about this ...

[Vilim]

In his Scionce Fiction novel "Cities in Flight" James Blish allowed humans to explore the galaxy through aan interesting contraption called a spindizzy, which allowed entire cities to travel about 40 times faster than the speed of light. This coupled with the discovery of an anti gathic drug made a very interesting read. In particular, the book focussed on New York s journeys through the solar system.The same guy was the mayor of New York for like a millenium!

Re:James Blish has already talked about this ...

[Brew Bird]

That was a GREAT book...

I really like how cities could end up preying on each other for the life extending drugs... The guy at the NASA-like government agency, who only took on the 'anti gravity' project as a way to increase his funding, and keep his beuracracy alive... And best off all, the Algebreic manipulation for the Gravity Formula that made the spindizzy possible...

woo hooo!

only 5000 years

[CastrTroy]

"Our life expectancy will be in the region of 5,000 years" in rich countries in the year 2100, predicts Aubrey de Grey, a scholar at Cambridge University.

Why 5000 years? If they are going to be able to extend our life expectancy by more than 50x, what's to stop them from extending it indefinitely. This guys is just throwing numbers around, and doesn't have any reason to say 5000 over 500 over 50000.

Immortality is a Necessity !

[arcite]

We NEED to extend our life spans if we expect to advance. Longer life spans will allow us to colonize space, to increase our knowledge, and to cultivate wisdom. IMO our ultimate goal should be transcendence.... put our brains into durable cybernetic bodies and create backup systems to preserve individual consciousness. Even if we extend our life spans to thousands of years, that is but an instant when compared to the vast distances and billions of years of space and time that we will have to deal with in the vastness of the universe.

Mars Trilogy deals with this..

[molo]

In Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (Red Mars / Green Mars / Blue Mars), there is a longevity treatment that extends people's natural lives into the hundreds of years (some spoilers, be careful).

Here's some of the (fictional, but hypothetical) consequnces:

- Hyper-Mathusian population growth. With near-zero natural deaths for ~150 years, there's severe social turmoil as resources become scarce.

- Memory problems in the aged. The mind has trouble remembering after 150+ years.

- Continuing to be able to work and be healthy throughout your natural life (until a "quick decline" which was yet unsolved).

- Population controls, some legal, some social. It became unacceptable to have more than one child (average 0.5 children per person). After your first child, one would get a contraceptive implant (male and female). This means that after the first generation dies out, the next generation would be about half the size of the previous one. After a number of iterations, this brings the population down to a sane size, and slow growth can begin (with average ~1 child per person).

- Social and financial terms must change, as the estate tax becomes ineffective, and nothing prevents someone from accumulating wealth through interest over the course of 200 years. In the trilogy, this came about as a movement from a corporate capitolist system to a co-operative system of owner-operators and a gift economy.

Its an interesting problem.. But I think it was mainly an excuse to examine the evolution of Mars over several hundred years through the eyes of the same characters. Still, It was done convincingly.

-molo

Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling.

[Population]

It covers these exact questions.

Remember, those who take good care of their bodies will have an easier time replacing the bits that wear out.

What happens to the 20 year olds and the 30 year olds when the government is controlled by the 100 year olds?

What work can a 30 year old do that a 100 year old can't do better and faster?

All that is left is art and fashion and music.

Re:Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling.

[Anonymous Coward]

What work can a 30 year old do that a 100 year old can't do better and faster?

Anything that requires idealism?

Re:Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling.

[IM6100]

Actually, Art, Fashion, and Music would be out of reach of the youngsters, too. In the kind of world being proposed it's highly unlikely that a Commercial Culture of Youth as now exists would continue to exist. Pop Musick could cease to be the overriding concern. The aesthetic could again become a primary emphasis in art and culture.

Whoops. Sorry, rock-n-rollers.

On the other hand, the oldsters might encourage that kind of infantile culture and strutting around, to keep the young turkeys off to the side and controlled.

Re:Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling.

[Cro Magnon]

What work can a 30 year old do that a 100 year old can't do better and faster?

"Do you want fries with that?"

Human beings are WAY too primitive to deserve it.

[tantlerur]

I'm one of the people who feels that human beings are nothing more than "smart apes" and as such, do not have the intellectual and social skills to survive as species if lifetimes are extended to "immortal" time frames.

What we really need are shorter lifespans so the species will evolve faster!

The Money is in the Treatment

[Stiletto]

Modern medi$ine doesn't look for cures. There's no recurring income in cures. The real money is in treatments that patients have to take every day for the rest of their lives.

Look at any pharm company. They all will say their R&D budget goes toward producing _treatments_ not curing diseases. If they let their researchers try to develop cures, they would be cutting their own revenue stream.

Re:The Money is in the Treatment

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... now that is cynical.

Do you really believe that companies could cure diseases but choose instead to product treatments?

Re:The Money is in the Treatment

[Mryll]

Also requires competitor collusion in the long run and tight-fisted control of research information. I don't think so, myself.

Re:The Money is in the Treatment

[Stiletto]

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

Treatment of diseases is a HUGE CASH COW. Do you honestly think a drug company or medical researcher is going to give up this massive revenue stream by developing a cure for cancer or AIDS?

Re:The Money is in the Treatment

[WillWare]

Truth. Modern medicine has only two tricks: drugs and surgery. If you have any illness whose optimal solution isn't surgery or drugs, you'll very likely end up with a sub-optimal solution.

There's a beautiful treatment for depression called cognitive therapy. Works better than drugs, generally cures depression in about three months with minimal recurrence, and no side-effects or surprises.

Big problem: nobody gets rich doing cognitive therapy. It's too cheap, too quick, and too effective. So instead we have Prozac.

Exposes the need to index the retirement age...

[GPS Pilot]

Back when FDR first instituted Social Security, average life expectancy was approximately 58. The retirement age, of course, was 65 -- or 112% of average life expectancy. Think about it... the average worker didn't live long enough to collect a dime of SS retirement benefits. No wonder the SS payroll tax was low then, and SS appeared to be a sustainable system, not a pyramid scheme.

If a retirement age 112% of life expectancy was fair then, why wouldn't it be fair today? If that were true today, we'd have no fears of the system becoming insolvent when the baby boomers retire. And I think society would be a lot better off if there was an expectation that people would continue to be productive past the average life expectancy.

Yeah, the retirement age was recently raised to 68... big whoop. That's much too little too late to address the root cause of the problem. Hope to God the government doesn't get its mitts on my IRA ad 401k, or I'll really be screwed!

Re:Exposes the need to index the retirement age...

[Mryll]

An excellent point. I wish I could mod you up...

Re:Exposes the need to index the retirement age...

[ragnar]

I seem to remember some time ago when the retirement age was changed from 62 to 65 for social security. Are you sure it wasn't a lower number when FDR established the program? I don't know off hand, but I would be interested to know.

That's not important. The transition phase is.

[jonhuang]

The important part is the transition phase-- where the technology to live centuries is available, but only to the rich.

Suddenly, you have substantially turnover in wealth and power--the rich get richer and the rich live longer. A corporation can become a cult of personality (dave thomas, bill gates writ large) and a dictorial president will never succumb to health.

The social questions are similar to those guiding organ transplants, but much greater in intensity. Who gets life? The rich? the lucky? the powerful? the brilliant? Those whose lives are considered more imporant than others--welcome to a two-tier society. If (as seems likely) we have universal health care at that point, this would probably break it.

A change in paradigms: When old age is considered a disease, how much are we willing to pay for the cure? Imagine as an analogy, a disease causes a 50% reduction in global lifespans. A treatment is available, but immensely expensive. How could that change the way we live or the goals we have in life?

Here's the troll! More or less, I've described the situation in some parts of africa. A drastic reduction in life expectancy due to the AIDS virus that infects 30-50% of the population; a few rich individuals and a few rich countries that can afford a daily drug cocktail that turns a fatal illness into a lifetime disease. And since this is slashdot, let's not forget the patent laws that prevent the selling of cheap equivlents overseas.

-jon

If people live are living for centuries...

[hipster_doofus]

I'm buying stock in Depends, Metamucil, Cadillac, Lincoln, and every drug company on the face of the earth.

Finally! The step before Profit!.

Results of extended life?

[Catbeller]

- First of all, the birthrate would have to be chopped. Deathrate would have to be equal to the birthrate. The population growth formula cannot stand to have the death factor nulled out. A population that has large growth with little death is a cancer, a danger to the ecosystem.

- As a practical matter, turnover in people is essential to clean out the social arteries. I've grown accustomed to the idea that I should die so that someone younger and less conservative can take over and shake things up.

- A large population of old, conservative property owners will smother the young, who can never catch up with the accumulated wisdom and wealth of people decades or even centuries older than they.

- Space colonization would be essential. Not the piddly planets, but O'Neill structures that can really give the race some room to flex while the whole property/wealth problems rage on Earth.

- Wealth inequities will inevitably create a class of wealthy near-immortals in the short term. Wealth will buy better anti-aging treatments; poverty, nearly none. If you think the not-wealthy can be cranky now, wait until they see the wealthy stay alive indefinitely, while they die. As Heinlein said so long ago in Metheuselah's Children, Death is the Great Democrat, treating all alike. If class or wealth grant exemptions from the Equalizer, there will be hell to pay.

- How's memory going to work, when accumulated experience overwhelms the brains ability to cross-reference it all?

- How will an immortal make a living? They can't be retired. It's financially impossible.

- Will an immortal ever get any respect from the young? I mean, a 35 year old scientist or techie is washed up, according to conventional wisdom. Will the very young be the only people looked to for cultural stimulation, or technical breakthroughs? What will the oldsters do, watch TV for 200 years?

- You'd eventually wind up with a world full of very old people, with a small number of young being born to balance out a very low deathrate. "Conservative" isn't the word for the social atmosphere of such a world. Change would be very, very slow in coming.

- OTOH, If the oldsters can stay biologically young, how will the "really" young (in years) compete with the infinitely smarter pseudoyoung competition?

Just some ideas to throw around.

Re:Results of extended life?

[UrGeek]

- First of all, the birthrate would have to be chopped.

Agreed! The best way to accomplished that is the only proven and positive way (to me!) and that is to librate women, educate them, and give them equal access to jobs and capital. The birthrate always goes down when you free the baby-factories from slavery.

- As a practical matter, turnover in people is essential to clean out the social arteries.

This is a hard one. I would prefer that we learn to educate the stupid instead of throwing them away but I can see that some are uneducate-able and damn, they get to vote. This is bad.

- A large population of old, conservative property owners will smother the young, who can never catch up

I don't see it that way. Keep on lowering the birthrate until it is just a hair above the replacement point and the average age has GOT to get higher. That is the whole purpose of immorality. But as seen in China, the affect is not that the young are smothered but what the Chinese call, "The Little Emperor syndrome". A whole population of only children, spoiled by many relatives. So be it. Make everyone rich and spoiled!

- Space colonization would be essential. Not the piddly planets, but O'Neill structures

Once I agreed - but this will NOT substitute for a BIG drop in the birth rate. If all of the industry of the entire planet was channel to this mission it will still not keep up with the present rate of growth. I fear massive megadeath in the next 50 years.

- Wealth inequities will inevitably create a class of wealthy near-immortals in the short term.

Yeap. Big Problem. Maybe the biggest. Probably will not be solved without bloodshed. Wealth must be limited at some point and shared for a society to be stable.

That's enough for now. Gotta go.

Re:Results of extended life?

[cyranose]

Excellent comments. I mostly agree (and I just wrote a novel on the subject, so I've done a bit of research). A couple of points:

1. Given a sufficient nest egg (currently, in the range of $2M), you can generate a perpetually comfortable income -- the trick is to live off the interest and have enough for inflation or economic shifts which are fairly predictable over the long haul.

2. Regardless of whether the world can agree on voluntary population controls (i.e., birth control, not carousel), the have-nots will not be able to outlive their nest egg and society will be in no position to grant a perpetual safety net, whether it wants to or not.

3. Growing old in the future may not come with the current implication of growing stale. If technology can keep a person at age 25 mentally, then I don't think your assumption holds. I think that the "staleness" factor has much more to do with becoming rigid and settled in one's life than it does with age -- people will be having mid-life crises every decade or so to keep things fresh. And I don't think this stiffles innovation. However, if people can retire and live off interest, that does tend to take talented people out of the work pool.

4. I don't think competition from the pseudo-young vs. the real young is the core issue. The job of the real young will be to learn, accumulate their own nest egg (forget inheritance), and graduate into "retired" society. As long as society doesn't try to shun the young, I think it would be a change for the better.

And, not a nit on your post, but the original article seems to miss one important bit of math. With the acceleration in life-expectancy, there won't be some magic pill to herald the start of immortality. By adding one year of life expectancy every decade now, five years per decade in the next 50 years, when we finally reach the point where we add one decade of life expectancy per decade (and the trend continues), then we're reached statistical immortality without ever inventing such a pill. Just stay ahead of the curve and you'll never die.

Re:Results of extended life?

[Cyno]

The alternative is for us to allow the population to explode while we give up capitalism, money and control for freedom and the expectation that everyone help do their part to take care of everyone else. And be as efficient as possible to avoid any serious problems, like lack of food. Its very important that we have a clear understanding of what people need to survive and when they must have it, etc. Computers can be used to manage the info because people can't be expected to remember all of it.

But we gotta get on the same page and decide once and for all that we care about each and every one of these people. Or we might as well let them fend for themselves.

Re:Results of extended life?

[Mryll]

L'Hopital's rule in action, eh? ;)

Re:Results of extended life?

[|/|/|||]

These are definitely interesting ideas. Just to further discuss a couple of your points:

How's memory going to work, when accumulated experience overwhelms the brains ability to cross-reference it all?

and

OTOH, If the oldsters can stay biologically young, how will the "really" young (in years) compete with the infinitely smarter pseudoyoung competition?

These seem to be at odds with one another - can one acquire infinite knowledge if one lives for an infinitely long time? Obviously not, as the amount of information that can be stored in your head is limited by the structure of your brain, or - since the operation of the brain is still not very well understood - at least by the laws of physics.

So, the question becomes "how much knowledge can a person store in their brain, and how well can that person reference all of that information?" It's really a hard question to answer, but I think it's a moot point. Why? Because the younger humans will be genetically superior, possibly to the point of becoming post-human. Either that or they'll be non-biological machines.

Assuming that the old farts allow machines more adept than themselves to be created!

Re:Results of extended life?

[thasmudyan]

First of all, the birthrate would have to be chopped. Deathrate would have to be equal to the birthrate. The population growth formula cannot stand to have the death factor nulled out.

Nah, as you said, we'll just have to colonize some extraterrestrial planets a bit. There is much room to grow, given good technology (which people with much time on their hands could develop better).
Also, slowdown of propagation comes automatically with better living standards (which technology will also facilitate for everyone given enough time). Interestingly, that's opposite to animals who actually grow in numbers if resources are good.

How will an immortal make a living? They can't be retired. It's financially impossible.

If you're immortal, there is no need to retire, right? Who wants to retire permanently anyway? I think nearly everyone want to have some purpose.

What will the oldsters do, watch TV for 200 years?
The notion of being useless with age comes from the ongoing degradation that constantly disables our bodily functions bit by bit. If you remove this downward spiral, an older person will have much more to offer mentally than a younger person!

"Conservative" isn't the word for the social atmosphere of such a world.
Fear of changes comes from either early educational influences or from the fear of being overtaken by an advancing society. Both factors become more irrelevant with "immortalized" people, because early education fades away with time, and without a failing body and mind, advances won't leave you helplessly confused anymore.

How's memory going to work, when accumulated experience overwhelms the brains ability to cross-reference it all?

We already have much room to grow with our brains (once they stop rotting away), the brain will just filter out irrelevant info in favor of stronger concepts without any help. With medical help (e.g. implants or artificially induced neuron production), capacity and power can be increased nearly infinitly.

Re:Results of extended life?

[danila]

I hate it when people make predictions assuming that only one variable will change in the future. That inevitably leads to such idiotic ideas like the "cities drowned in horse shit" or the parent comment.

First of all, the birthrate would have to be chopped.

That's correct.

As a practical matter, turnover in people is essential to clean out the social arteries.

That's stupid. Just off the top of my head - look at the natural tendency of the labour turnover to increase. People work just for a few years at one place and when they move to another occupation, they bring the fresh blood you are talking about.

A large population of old, conservative property owners will smother the young

That's stupid. Let's just say that today youngsters can catch up in just a decade and start challenging the elders.

Space colonization would be essential.

That's stupid. Obviously, virtual reality and uploading are the way to go.

Wealth inequities will inevitably create a class of wealthy near-immortals in the short term.

That's stupid. With AI, robotisation and nanotech the treatments will drop in price very quickly.

How's memory going to work, when accumulated experience overwhelms the brains ability to cross- reference it all?

That's stupid. Just to think that we can redesign our bodies to last forever and we won't be able to change our brains. Now that's stupid.

How will an immortal make a living?

That's just nonsense. Nanotech, AI and VR will help provide everything we need and more.

Will an immortal ever get any respect from the young?

That's stupid. The aging processes will be stopped and reversed. Old people will look and behave like young (without negative parts).

Change would be very, very slow in coming.

That's ultra stupid. There is a negative correlation between life expectancy and the rate of change. Consider that we developed the fastest in teh 20th century when we also lived the longest. Do you think people today are more conservative than their 13th century counterparts? But this is actually a very common mistake. Old people are conservative not because they are of old age, but because they were raised in the conservative past. Once we make it past certain point, conservatism itself will become a thing of the past.

OTOH, If the oldsters can stay biologically young, how will the "really" young (in years) compete with the infinitely smarter pseudoyoung competition?

That's stupid. Competitiveness will not depend on the age. Everyone will be made as smart and as capable as needed in just a few days of intensive therapy.

Hope this helps.

Re:Results of extended life?

[caerus]

First of all, the birthrate would have to be chopped. Deathrate would have to be equal to the birthrate. The population growth formula cannot stand to have the death factor nulled out. A population that has large growth with little death is a cancer, a danger to the ecosystem

I disagree in that birthrates are declining in all but 8 countries of the world and by the year 2050 the US, given the current trends, the US will have a steady population. As well, fertility rates have dropped and are continuing to drop drastically, 50% in Europe and in certain populations of western Canada. I dont' think overpopulation will be a something we have to worry about.

As a practical matter, turnover in people is essential to clean out the social arteries. I've grown accustomed to the idea that I should die so that someone younger and less conservative can take over and shake things up.

Actually if you look at how 'turnover in people' has operated, it doesn't do a very good job of cleaning out the social arteries. Social dyansties are passed down through familial lines and you merely move generations up a peg. Case in point is the Bush family.

In terms of moving over and letting the young take over and shake things up, don't you feel that future generations might benefit from your perspective? Do you have to die to let the young 'take over' and if you were healthy with many years left in front of you, would you not want to explore other 'new' ideas that an older person might have? I think it is a little defeatist and a waste of talent for you to so glibly remove yourself from the picture.

A large population of old, conservative property owners will smother the young, who can never catch up with the accumulated wisdom and wealth of people decades or even centuries older than they.

I think you are in error in assuming that the accumulated wisdom of the aged (and their wealth for that matter) will be withheld from the young. They are still the children of the aged, and if fertility rates drop, there will be likely the reverse happening with the young being coddled and spoiled rotten... much like todays children. Regardless there will be plenty of frontiers for them to conquer in space and undersea exploration. New ideas for a new age.

Wealth inequities will inevitably create a class of wealthy near-immortals in the short term. Wealth will buy better anti-aging treatments; poverty, nearly none. If you think the not-wealthy can be cranky now, wait until they see the wealthy stay alive indefinitely, while they die. As Heinlein said so long ago in Metheuselah's Children, Death is the Great Democrat, treating all alike. If class or wealth grant exemptions from the Equalizer, there will be hell to pay.

I agree with you here. Life extending technologies should be made as widely available as quickly as possible. There are more than a few approaches which promise cheap life extending possiblities. Check out Ceremedix and there clinical trials of the neurotrophic factor, ependymin for example.

How's memory going to work, when accumulated experience overwhelms the brains ability to cross-reference it all?

You are assuming here that the brain is incapable of storing a certain amount of information. So far this limit has not been detected. Memories are stored in the connections of the neurons with the more vivid 'permanent' memories showing up as permanent alterations in neuronal structure. If the brain has a natural limit that is exceeded over the centuries I'm sure that it will be at the expense of 'old files' that rarely get used. For the more transitory memories, the old maxim, use or lose it, will apply then as it does now.

How will an immortal make a living? They can't be retired. It's financially impossible.

Retirement is proving to be one of the most unhealthy things for people. A life lived unproductively is mentally and physically showing itself to be quite harmful. Luckily in living many more

Re:Results of extended life?

[aziraphale]

> First of all, the birthrate would have to be chopped. Deathrate would have to be equal to the birthrate.

Hmm... birthrate's more complex than you think.

In general, you get population stability (in a monogamous society with stable marriage) when each couple - on average - gives birth to two children during their lifetime who reproduce. If you toss out monogamy (allowing serial monogamy, i.e. divorce and remarriage, or even other more exotic relationship structures) then you still have population stability if each person is, on average, a parent to two kids - whether they're by different partners is irrelevant.

So, regardless of how long people live for, if people choose to only have a couple of kids in their lifetime, the population will be stable. Question is, at what level will it stabilise?

The problem is that when you have a period of expanding lifespans, you get change in generational overlap. It's complicated by the age when people choose to have children, which is also increasing in line with expanding lifespans. At the moment (in western societies), typically three generations are alive at the same time (grandparents generally die a few years before or after their grandkids start reproducing - although since the baby boomers' kids started having their own kids, it's actually becoming more common for kids to be born after their grandparents have died, because people are having kids later, and often they can't afford to until they inherit the money from their parents' house).

For the population to increase, you need there to be an increasing overlap between generations - that is, you need people to have kids while their grandparents are still alive. But as I hinted above, the need for wealth to trickle down the generations and enable that might mitigate against people choosing to have kids so early. If you're going to live to 300, what's the rush with having kids when you're thirty? in fact, there's every chance that the generational overlap will decrease, driving down the number of generations who coexist within one family.

It may be that society just continually adapts so that in general, people give birth to an average of two children, and do so around the time when their grandparents are reaching the end of their natural life. In that case, you don't get any overall increase in population.

Of course, this is all predicated on the assumption that these lifespan benefits will only occur in wealthy societies that already have stable populations, thanks to female equality and family planning.

Re:Results of extended life?

[Silburn_Luke]

As a practical matter, turnover in people is essential to clean out the social arteries.

That's stupid. Just off the top of my head - look at the natural tendency of the labour turnover to increase. People work just for a few years at one place and when they move to another occupation, they bring the fresh blood you are talking about.

Why is it stupid? There are a whole raft of societal, political, scientific and artistic changes we can point to in our history which achieved acceptance through a demographic shift as the older generation died off. It is possible that stabilising people's biological age in their late 20s or so will mean that they retain a youthful flexibility, energy and inventiveness but I don't think that's something that can just be blithely assumed - even if they retain much of their youthful vigour I suspect that many of their attitudes, preferences and opinions will tend to get fixed fairly early in life and remain unchanged unless shaken up. Something like the pattern of working several careers through life that you describe might be one way to prod people out of comfortable ruts. Its unlikely to be sufficient however and, even with a bunch of legal, fiscal and professional changes in place my gut feel is that post-senescent societies would be far slower moving than we are used to. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it would be a different thing.

A large population of old, conservative property owners will smother the young

That's stupid. Let's just say that today youngsters can catch up in just a decade and start challenging the elders.

Yeah but that's in today's world which, as you said at the top of your post, isn't likely to be how things work. In a world where professional certifications take 25 years, 200 year mortgages are the norm and newcomers to a field have competitors with several decades or centuries of tacit knowledge and industry contacts how will youngsters catch up in a decade?

Space colonization would be essential.

That's stupid. Obviously, virtual reality and uploading are the way to go.

While a move into space may not be essential, I don't think its a stupid prediction. You accept that birth rates will need to radically decline to align with the mortality rates of a post-senescent society and this is not going to happen straight away. This means that there will be a population explosion akin to that which accompanied the collapse in infant mortality at the turn of the C19th/20th. My wild-ass stab in the dark is that the global human population doubles within 100 years of anti-senescent technologies becoming available before a second demographic shift kicks in which leads to a gradual reduction in population over several centuries as accidents and violence abrade the bulge away. Virtual reality isn't going to help us meet the resource needs of ~15 billion humans over several centuries and the technology required to move into cyberspace (assuming people would want to go) is a hell of a lot more hypothetical than those required for a move into space.

Wealth inequities will inevitably create a class of wealthy near-immortals in the short term.

That's stupid. With AI, robotisation and nanotech the treatments will drop in price very quickly.

This is not stupid. The prices will certainly drop (I don't need to share your faith in magitech to agree with this) but the treatments will go to the rich preferentially for the same reasons that medical treatments go to the rich today - their control of societal resources drives research and distribution priorities. This is a fact of human nature and social organisation that won't go away any time soon.

Actually I am more pessimistic than the original poster, as I suspect that the availability of anti-senescent treatments will confer an 'immortality advantage' upon t

Re:Results of extended life?

[danila]

First, thanks for the reply. I think we (as in "We, People") don't have enough discussion about the long-term future (more than 5 years ahead) and that really sucks, because our ability to make informed decisions suffers.

While it might look (I hope it doesn't, though) like I don't agree with any of your comments, this is not really so. I believe that we often have to first explore the "opposing" positions to see the issue at hand better and from all directions, and only after we see it well enough are we able to reach the consensus.

As a practical matter, turnover in people is essential to clean out the social arteries.

That's stupid. Just off the top of my head - look at the natural tendency of the labour turnover to increase. People work just for a few years at one place and when they move to another occupation, they bring the fresh blood you are talking about.

...I suspect that many of their attitudes, preferences and opinions will tend to get fixed fairly early in life and remain unchanged unless shaken up...

It's likely that once we achieve certain level of tolerance, there will be much less opposition to change. We have to change our society/morals fast because the means of production change fast. Once we hit posthuman stage, we would quickly adapt to that economic level and then develop in a different direction.

A large population of old, conservative property owners will smother the young

That's stupid. Let's just say that today youngsters can catch up in just a decade and start challenging the elders.

...In a world where professional certifications take 25 years, 200 year mortgages are the norm and newcomers to a field have competitors with several decades or centuries of tacit knowledge and industry contacts how will youngsters catch up in a decade?

We are unlikely to have a competition-driven economy/society for very long. First, it's to a large extent genetic and might be gradually removed in the course of genetic engineering. Second, with nanotech and AI there would simply be much less reason to compete (and much less things to compete for). Third, with brain implants, brain-computer interfaces, uploading and AI it will be much easier to absorb the existing knowledge and experience than to develop new one. Think "Tank, I need a pilot program for a V-212 helicopter. Hurry." :)

Space colonization would be essential.

That's stupid. Obviously, virtual reality and uploading are the way to go.

While a move into space may not be essential, I don't think its a stupid prediction... My wild-ass stab in the dark is that the global human population doubles within 100 years of anti-senescent technologies becoming available before a second demographic shift kicks in which leads to a gradual reduction in population over several centuries as accidents and violence abrade the bulge away...

I am not an expert on space technologies, but I think it is reasonable to say that to have space colonisation (in Solar system, let's be realisic) we would need either space elevators or asteroid mining. Or both. Better (much better) propulsion is a bonus, but it depends on an unforeseen breakthrough and is not on the horison. Both elevator and mining, in my opinion, require advanced nanotech. Advanced nanotech would basically mean a Singularity pretty soon.
I also don't agree at all with the idea of accidents and violence taking many lives. The accident rates have only been decreasing in the past and I see no reason for them to increase again (other than WW3 or barbarity a la Mad Max). Immortality means better resuscitation techniques, which means that most accidents cease to be fatal. I also expect that the world around us will continue to become safer - it would be strange to expect the car

Disney can breathe a sigh of relief...

[oren]

Because the copyright on Mickey will never expire! Remember, copyright duration is for the life of the author, plus seventy years.

Re:Disney can breathe a sigh of relief...

[xDCDx]

Lol, but Walter Disney is dead, and he is not cryogenized despite the rumours.

I don't know about you guys...

[soulsteal]

..but I, for one, welcome our new^H^H^Hold geriatric overlords!

Hitchhiker's Series had an answer for this

[ewanrg]

In the Hitchhiker's Series, Douglas Adams had a character who had accidentally been made an immortal. Having quickly grown bored with everything (quickly as compared to infinity of course), he decided to set a life goal of individually visiting every being of the Universe to insult them.

Nice to see that once again Mr. Adams was ahead of the pack...

You Won't Die a Natural Death

[Uggy]

Given that your life expectancy increases to infinity, you chances of dying unnaturally go to one.

You _will_ die an unnatural death, murder, car crash, or other type of accident.

How's that?

Re:You Won't Die a Natural Death

[thasmudyan]

You _will_ die an unnatural death, murder, car crash, or other type of accident.

Well ask terminally ill people about the beauty of dying naturally.

I think dying fast and spectacularly might be slightly better... ;-)

out of memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, does anyone know what the capacity of the human mind is? I mean, could it be that we have not really seen anyone hit it yet becuase no one has lived long enough yet?

Cordwainer Smith

[wwi]

A science fiction author who
illuminated these issues about
50 years ago. Always worth a read.

http://cordwainersmith.com/

Actually...

[Stalemate]

I think BSD and Apple would be also be immortal.

Great retire rich @ 65 and croak, very poor @ 165

[crovira]

I only want to retire about an hour before I die. With my luck, I will.

It's being worked on now

[da55id]

The Methuselah Foundation (www.methuselahmouse.org) has already started a prize fund to incent competition to reverse mouse aging. It's already awarded its first prize to a mouse that lived ~180 human equivalent years. Four preeminent life extension researchers have already signed up to compete. By the way, for those who say sooner or later, you'll get hit by a train, by the time you live 200 years from now, I wonder if anyone will remember what trains were etc. etc. (think diamandoid skin) Cheers!

If you lived to be 6000

[Mr. Asdf]

and you were born in the year 2100 then you would be half the age of the Universe!

The article says that

[$exyNerdie]

The article says that
Near-starvation and castration both bring unusual longevity, but few of us choose either option.

Does anyone know of any human examples for this ??

-- Sig
'Bring us home': GIs flood US with war-weary emails

Re:The article says that

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but not putting your sig in the spot provided so people who don't want to see your political BS don't have to, it's been found, severely decreases your life expectancy. As for a human example of this... Remember MBop? (Slashdot user number 32919). Hasn't posted in a while, has he?

Re:The article says that

[Anonymous Coward]

not putting your sig in the spot provided so people who don't want to see your political BS don't have to, it's been found, severely decreases your life expectancy

Then you should start putting your sig too!!

Immortality == misery

[pmz]

When the surveillence society is complete, there will be 400 year old people condemned for what they did when they were 19. This is especially a problem as culture evolves and ideas about morality change. I think the suicide rate will be very high.

This also reminds me of the cyborg-agents in that Deus Ex game, where older models were considered inferior to newer ones. We could have social classes based on augmentation. I'm not sure this is a good thing.

Re:Immortality == misery

[praedor]

First, hyperbole. The term "immortality" shouldn't be taken at face value in this context. No one is going to be immortal, ever. The thinking should simply be in centuries. Perhaps 1, 2, or 3 centuries, give or take, MAX.

So you can count on a century or three in the near(ish) future, perhaps...I wont address the surveillance society stuff. That is already well on the way - it will be something similar to Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" without the Focused but with the all pervasive spying.

I'll still take a few hundred years, thank you.

Eternal Life

[Anonymous Coward]

Eternal life with a wicked heart is eternal suffering.

Jelly Bellys

[Anonymous Coward]

2. Try every possible combination of Jelly Belly Jelly Beans. (Hm - Mint Pineapple Peanut Butter - yup, that sucks. Check off the list. Now lets try Vanilla Chocolate Pepper! No...)
-----

Try that hot cinnamon (or the pepper one) + buttered popcorn.

Try juicy pear + buttered popcorn.

Yes, I've tried these. As you can imagine, they taste pretty awful :)

Now, cocconut + bubblegum + blueberry is actually quite GOOD, as are many of the combinations of random fruits :)

Opposite

[notany]

Suppose we actually were immortal...
what is the opposite of living your life as if every day were your last?

Suicide

[Anonymous Coward]

With the current state of the world, probably an increased suicide rate.

Prison

[Anonymous Coward]

So when you are convicted and go to jail for life, how long would that be exactly?

Re:Prison

[Katravax]

This was modded funny, but it can be taken as a serious question. Sentences are already unfairly long, and the whole system seems to beleive that "once a crook, always a crook," and that people do not learn from their mistakes and move forward in their lives (Example: Death Row killer's redemption song.)

So would putting people in prison for 70, 80, 150 years become the norm? That's probably a bigger crime that whatever they did to get there.

alex chiu

[slash_quark]

Didn't Alex Chiu already solve alot of these problems? http://www.alexchiu.com/spacestation/teleport.htm

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Youth will not be wasted on the young.

He never said it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please die, you unfunny bastard.

SMILE

[Waab]

Reminds me of old Professor Leary's magic formula for the future of the human race: SMILE (Space Migration, Increased Intelligence & Life Extension). We seem to have stalled out on space migration. Everywhere I turn I seem to see evidence that intelligence in general is declining. Maybe if I can get on that life extension train, I'll be around when space migration and increased intelligence finally become popular.

Of course, who wants to live indefinitely in a world of idiots without even rocket rides to keep one entertained?

Natalie Portman

[corebreech]

I think you have the math wrong here.

Who's to say that while we live for hundreds and hundreds of years, that we get to look young all during this time?

Isn't a likely scenario that as we grow old, we shows signs of our age, and that when even hotties like NP get older they tend to get, um, less hot?

So envision a world in which all the fine looking babes are still young, like in their teens or twenties or thirties, but most of the guys are in their hundreds or two-hundreds or three-hundreds.

The point being: the chance you have with the Natalie Portmans of the world may actually decrease. Actually, it approaches zero as people get to live longer.

Re:Natalie Portman

[ShooterNeo]

Hardly. Current medical tech can already do quite a bit to reduce the external signs of aging (stretching the skin back out, for one). A 'cure' for aging would probably involve genetic patches that would mostly stop the wrinkling anyway, and you'd get some skin grown. There's no theoretical reason why someone 200 years old could not have the physical body (at this point he basically would have gone through many bodies, even the neurons would have long been replaced with fresh ones) of someone at the very peak of their youth.

Work some, retire a few years, rinse, repeat

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that most "immortals" will work for most of their lives to earn enough money to afford retirement until death (the current norm in the Western world).

Instead, I expect most would work long enough to bankroll an extended-vacation/mini-retiement of a few years, then get another job. My dad (far from immortal) got bored after several years of retirement, and would have rejoined the work force if his health hadn't starting detoriating.

Two thoughts:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd get reeeealy good at 'Go'.

Also, how would the statutory rape laws work? I realize this is a disturbing question, but look at it this way. Is it legal for a 2482 year old man to sleep with a 18 year old girl?

"He said he was 24!"
"She said she was 180!"

I can see this happening all the time. Age would be less important in social situations, unless you said something like, "I remember when Kennedy was shot..." The youngsters (200 and below) would 'oooh' and 'ahh' at that.

Problems

[spamchang]

1. Cancer. Have you any idea what tinkering with telomerase does?? DNA is inherently windows-like in that many bugs exist. We humans have the advantage of natural selection, that is, enough safeguards have been raised to where the genes that promote growth (hallmark of tumors) are checked by other genes. Telomerase is a while function for DNA replication...that is, while telomere length is not zero, replication is permitted. At the point where telomerase chops off that last bit of telomere, it's likely that the cell no longer has enough integrity in its DNA to safely replicate. So in reality, you're removing a safety mechanism against cancer.

2. Aging. Immortalizing your body's cells does nothing to remind the cells to stop aging. Remember the Greek myth of the man who wished for and received immortality, only to find out too late he aged horribly and ended up as a cricket. Moral: ask for eternal youth, not immortality.

3. Resources. You think the Earth is overpopulated now? Wait a bit and see. Social Security will drop out (or raise age limits). People will live longer lives but those additional years of life will be, on the whole, less productive as the earlier ones. Healthcare will be a mess. You'll have a ton of unproductive, non-contributing old people sitting around in various states of mental capacity. Each one of them will take up food, water, IP addresses, land, air, and maybe some assisted care. And don't even think for a minute you can use genetic technology to slow aging--nature isn't that easy to circumvent.

Why does one want to live forever? I'm a blaze of glory guy, personally.

Re:Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

1) I don't think you know what it does, either. You threw around a few words I learned in highschool biology. I'm not impressed. If we are making people immortal, we surely have a cure to cancer.

2) Optimally, disabling programmed cell death (remember that from highschool?) is what would stop aging. Thus, you would have "eternal youth".

3) Birth rates would, logically, be controlled. People would still die in car accidents (although, less likely to do so as advances in medicine are going to happen) and similar events. It is even highly likely that some people will choose not to be immortal. Some people are suicidal, some are passive-aggresive and will simply choose not to take medications or transplants. People will be more productive when they are older. They have wisdom and energy, they will probably speed up other advances. Disabling programmed cell death will prevent the 'various states of mental capacity' scenario. Funny that IP address shows up in the 'Resources' catagory. I'll assume that is a joke and not touch on IPv6 or the possibility of successors to it. California produces enough food to feed much more than the US, our population presently isn't horrific. In 50 years we will be out of fossil fuels and nuclear fuel, but by then we should have a clean alternative. We have been experiencing a drought here lately, so it's hard to deny that. If nothing else, we can use desalinization. It's just not cost effective, yet. Land and air go together somewhat. We deforest for homes and paper, thus affecting the oxygen production. However, our world could be virtually paperless a short time from now. I'd actually be more worried about waste (toxic waste from creating computer equipment). We'd probably need to start sending our trash to the sun. Your last sentence was off topic.

Presently, I don't want to live forever. I'm waiting to die. However, if I knew I had a few extra hundred years I'd be in better spirits. You can still go out in a blaze of glory (lime-light whore). Me? I'm going skydiving naked sans parachute. That seems blazing enough. Of course, by the time I'm 5000, that will be tired and done.

Lots of bad

[JohnnyGTO]

ties for fathers day, for a lonnnnnnnnnggg time?

Re:Lots of bad

[caerus]

and you'll have to listen your 1000 year old grandpa's "back when I was a youngster" stories for a lot longer... but then you'd have a few of your own I guess..

Telescoping life expectencies

[jlowery]

My life expectency now is about 80 years, which means I have about 35 to go. But in 2038, medical advances may allow me to live another 20 years past that date. When 2058 rolls around, I may get another 20 year advance, and so on.

So I might make it to 2100. My children should, easily.

short sighted

[confused one]

the article makes too many unscientific assumptions; but, if it were to happen, maybe people would stop making so many short sighted decisions.

statistics...

[MoP030]

the process at hand can be described by the
Poisson distribution or Gamma distribution(hint:
these are not linux distros). Poisson is discrete
and can be used to describe processes where you
have some event e with some small
probability p(e) for a finite number of trials
n, so it would work for a maximum life time
of a million years but not immortality. e would be
"survive a year". then, if you have some good
estimate for p(e) (ask your local life insurance)
you can look up the formula, fill in the values
and compute your p(becoming 600 years) or
p(becoming at least 600). You can model the same
with gamma distr., but as a continuous process.
finding p and n such that E(life
length) = 600 is trivial and left as an exercise
to the reader...
statistics is fun, go learn some :P

Dogs

[El]

Humanoids have been around for about 6 million years. Even before direct domestication, dogs used to hang out around humans. Why? We tend to leave out lots of tasty leftovers, and dogs are basically scanvengers. So, for millions of years, dogs and humans have been living alongside each other, and the dogs that managed to not piss off the humans survived. So dogs have had _some_ effect on canine evolution for about 6 million years. (The inverse is also true; dogs have been effecting human evolution for the same time period. Even non-domesticated dogs hanging out around your camp can warn you of approaching danger. Effectively, dogs and humans have co-evolved to be compatible with each other.)

Depends on the field.

[David Hume]

Most people that make any significant contributions to their field do so before they're 30.

I think that depends on the field. I've read that has been true in math and science (particularly in physics). I don't think it is true in every field.

My impression is that some disciplines (such as math and physics) are more purely theoretical and thus more quickly mastered (assuming one is smart enough) whereas others (perhaps biology, the social scienes, and liberal arts) are more "messy" and require more time. I may be wrong, but I predict that if there is a "cure" for cancer, the breakthrough will be made by a scientist who was over 30.

I don't think the "under 30" rule (or presumption) applies to my area, law. People under 30 may write brilliant articles. They may write their first book or treatise. They simply have not had time to master the area. They haven't written their multi-volumne treatise on the subject. I suspect the same is true in history, philosophy, etc.

I'm sure it is going to continue to be true in physics. Damn, I can't recall the article or the area, but I recently read that one of the most promising attempts at some sort of unified field theory was being develped by older scientists (well, older as in their 30s, 40s and young 50s). Supposedly, the new theory required mastery of several different discliplines in physics that required years of study. Sorry I can't remember the article. Hopefully, somebody else will.

Re:Depends on the field.

[I(rispee_I(reme]

That's because no lawyers of any age make worthwhile contributions to society...

Re:Depends on the field.

[jfern]

It's definitely more true in math then Physics. It was a big deal that Wiles was the ripe old age of.... 30 when he proved Fermat's last theorem. In order to get a Fields Medal (more prestigious than a Nobel prize), you have to be less than some age, 34, I think.

Re:Depends on the field.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Wiles was in his 40's. He had been interested in Fermat's Last Theorem for 30 years. In 1963 when he was 10 he first came across the theorem. He made the announcement atthe Newton Institute in 1993 that he had a proof. How ever there was a gap in the proof and it was not until 1994 that it was completed. (Sorry just finished reading "Fermet's Enigma" about a hour ago)

Space Travel, Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

600 years is more than enough to get somewhere, colonize something, etc. Once my kids are grown and on their own I'd love to be one of the "expendables" that careen out to terra form mars or something. Hell, I'd pay good money...

Of course, its all a pipe dream. We are a hundred years from practical immortality. Preventable medical error kills about 100,000 a year (actually the number is higher because that doesn't count infections spread in hospitals) etc.

Even when those medical types have you entirely in their care, they kill you alot of the time.

So even if it is possible to live 600 years, you, personally, won't be doing it. Maybe some rich folks will, but who cares?

Heinlein

[Fished]

Robert Heinlein (the greatest SF writer of all time, so PFFFT!) made this a major theme of many of his later works -- most likely, he was worried about his own impending death. The first in this series was of course the Novella Methuselah's Children. The theme was dealt with most explicitly in "Time Enough for Love", and to a lesser extent in "I Will Fear No Evil." Heinlein (as a result of impending dementia I think) spent many of his later books tying everything together, so the subject is touched on in The Cat Who Could Walk Through Walls, Number of the Beast, etc.

I heard that Chemical Engineers die young...

[emil]

...because of the exposure to dangerous/carcinogenic solvents and substances.

3rd world countries

[iamhassi]

Immortality sounds great: You live forever, while citizens of 3rd world die of starvation.

sounds sick, doesn't it?

Re:3rd world countries

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of AIDS? I think you'll find a remarkable parallel there. Moron.

Re:3rd world countries

[caerus]

How does our dying help feed the people in the third world?

Do you not think that the perspective of an older and more than likely wiser individual might not be a little different concerning the fate of the world and the environment. If you had a lifespan of 500 or so years to look forward to and you were financially independent, do you think, like most older financially independent people today, they might be even more qualified to help solve the problems of an immature society.

Perhaps what we really need is a maturing of society so that we aren't like so many fireflies, winking out before we can shed any real light!

A more realistic range?

[gerardrj]

I watch a lot of educational TV, and in that veign watch a lot of UCTV (University of Califonia TV). Recently I was watching a lecture on geriatrics, aging and genetics. The doctor giving the lecture stated that 150 to 160 years is likely the physical limit to which we can extend the lifespan of the human body. There's more to it than just growing new/ replacing worn organs. We actually need to attack the pre-programmed limits of cellular division/growth.

There are already people in the world who have lived for 120 to 130 years, but these are in societies where elders are respected both for their age, and their wisom/experience. This is most decidedly not the case in most Western societies where we toss our elderly in nursing homes and ignore them to the extent possible.

I don't have RealPlayer installed, but I think this might be the show I was watching. In any case, if you have the time, there are several very good lectures on aging, genetics and exercise on the web site in the "video on demand" section.
Of for those of you with DishNetwork (are they on DirectTV also?), add channel #9412 (and the Univ. of Washington one #9400) to your regular group, there's some fascinating stuff on these channels.

hopefully smarter not harder....

[greymond]

i'd hope we would all become more intelligent - with an average lifespan of 200yrs - I would assume it would be the "norm" to have a doctorates degree (much like having a highschool degree is)

of course it would become VERY easy to overpopulate the world so I would hope that people would stop making so many god damn babies - or at least only make babies they could afford.

another plus tho is that we would eventually have more money/wealth since your retirement age would double - instead of 65 it would become around 130+

The Death of Science

[shimmin]

Maybe not its death, but I have a feeling that immortality will be the last scientific revolution. Most of the time, the acceptance of revolutionary scientific ideas has occurred through the death and retirement of those who were invested in previous ideas.

And this doesn't just apply to science. Immortality can be counted on bringing about the stagnation of most aspects of society. I mean now, things change as those who are invested in the way things are die off, but when they can't be counted on dying off, progress must happen rather more slowly.

Re:The Death of Science

[thasmudyan]

Immortality can be counted on bringing about the stagnation of most aspects of society. I mean now, things change as those who are invested in the way things are die off, but when they can't be counted on dying off, progress must happen rather more slowly.

I think thats just plain wrong. What you are talking about is applicable to evolutionary processes, which are beyond the scope of human history anyway.

No. Imagine everyone gets really much more time to study, to learn, to invent new things. Would that be the age of stagnation?

Today, you have a down time of ~20 years before a human being can contribute to society. That's because that time has to be spent to learn even the *basics* required for most of the things we would call contribution to society.

After that follows a period of 30-40 years in which "contribution" is constantly declining due to health degradation, after that time you typically just idly wait to die.

Doesn't sound very efficient anyway, even discounting the emotional bias I have because I don't want to end my existence just yet.

We're at a point in our development were our world is so sophisticated, it is mostly not driven forth by sheer random creativity (the only domain where the young dominate, because they don't have learned proper error correction yet) instead its hard work, study, knowledge and self-improvement that drives us to achieve.

Remember that saying, about that just when you finally figured out life, it's too late to actually live? That's because the development of our mind is now seperated from the purely evolutionary processes, instead of advancing numbers or genes we now strive to advance ourselves individually. And the saying is true because 30-40 active years are not enough to fulfill our desire to live.

I think with "immortality", even casting aside the assumption of improved progress that I described, you have a concept that dominates the dreams of most people in some or the other way. Religion, if you think about it, is the ultimate denial of mortality! Most of us just want to have more time to figure it all out!

There is no progress gained by dying. Dying is essential for genetic evolution, not for human progress. If you actually would die now, nothing would be gained - but unspeakably valuable things would be lost forever.

You better

[roman_mir]

hand me that piano.
Now.

Emotional impact?

[delcielo]

I wonder about the emotional effects of this "truth". If you remove deaths from things biological, that means every death will be the result of some tragedy. All would know that their death will be violent, or at least sudden (relatively anyhow, rather than expecting it for the ten years leading up to it.)

Also, it's hard enough to lose a loved one after 30/40/50/60 years, what will be the emotional impact of losing your wife of 200 years, or of losing your brother at age 500.

Will we even want to live that long? I'm not sure I would. I'm already dreaming of retirement, and I'm only 34. I'd imagine that I'd get tired of the daily grind at some point and just shoot myself, wrecking my wife of 300 years.

If these changes happened slowly (and I mean at an evolutionary pace) we might be able to deal with it; but I'm not sure we'd find longevity to be all it's cracked up to be if it was just handed to us.

Re:Emotional impact?

[SiliconJesus101]

Well, we would probably end up seeing more divorces. Hell, you would both probably get sick of each other at some point in time and casually agree to walk away from the marriage.

As for emotions...bah.....who needs those anyways.

Re:Emotional impact?

[bob_jenkins]

There's a French saying. If you're young and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you're old and not a conservative, you have no brain. If the trend continues, a voting public of average age 200 would be scary.

For example, if the average voting age today was 200, that's born on average in 1803, there'd be this huge pro-slavery faction.

They're Not

[Greyfox]

You can look forward to an eternal existance as a wage slave to some big corporation. Sounds like Hell to me (And yes, I would rather die than do that.)

It'd also mean you'd have to put up with the same annoying people for all eternity. Can you imagine having to put up with... well... me, for the next few millenia?

more expensive real estate, no social security

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Estate will have to go up in price, and social security will be cancelled or drastically altered because you can't expect to work for 30 years, then draw for 100. Further, unless these old people can actually work hard, only the rich will be able to afford to live so long. But would it be worth it? Or would they be better off checking out early and passing their wealth to the young 'uns, without a death tax?

The MOST important question ever

[zapp]

If people lived 200+ years, and were in good shape, would we all not just have sex like bunnies? Women hit menopause at ~50... that leaves 150 years of pregnancy-free, disease free (by medicine) sex.

Woo!

Economic Impact

[rrouse]

I was thinking that the economic impact of long life would be very substantial.

The power of compounding interest enables savers to retire comfortably after a few decades of saving. If people continued to work (and save), within a couple of hundred years, these folks would be billionaires.

A couple things might happen:

(1) Inflationary pressures. You have a few extra centuries to pay off that house, why not add on that million dollar addition? Also, population growth would drive up the prices of resources.

(2) Social upheaval. The haves (savers of considerable age) would have tremendous wealth and power, while the have-nots (young folks, or those who haven't saved) would be about where they are now. At worst, it could lead to class warfare. More probable would be a tax system to transfer some of the income on that wealth back to the have-nots.

With today's lifespans, people tend to be most wealthy later in life. But when they die, their heirs (and the IRS) tend to consume most of that wealth. This cycle would obviously slow down considerably with longer life spans.

Then

[roman_mir]

we will wish to live for another 6000 'cool' years...

Realistically

[E_elven]

It's unlikely that the human age will rise dramatically over 150 years without much replacement of parts -and the brain is hard to replace without those pesky 'side effects.'

The age of 120 is well within common reach. However, the thing I feel is more important is that the *active* phase of life will dramatically rise. Currently the active age can be said to be up to the age of 60 at which point the wear and tear will start showing -it's fully conceivable that we may get the active age stretch almost all the way to death and in any case (assuming the terminal age of 120) up to maybe 100-115. Think if you could extend the vigor you have at 30-40 nowadays for another 40 or more years!

E

Really long copyright terms

[PotatoHead]

Life of author + x years could end up being a very long time indeed...

Who knows with the way IP law is heading, the right portfolio just might be worth the investment in longevity...

Don't forget Heinlien

[default luser]

He wrote "Time Enough For Love" in the early seventies, and it has quite a detailed look at the genetic methods for long life, and the consequences long life brings.

A bit optimistic, but a must-read for Heinlien fans.

mmmmm Soilent Green mmmmm

[nurb432]

Oh wait.. wrong movie..

The Danger with Immortality

[Anenga]

The danger with immortality is that it goes against Nature/(or what conservatives would call) God's rules.

For example, what if Hitler had some immortality pill? Or Usama bin Laden? Sadam? You can run, but you can't hide. If you were able to evade someone killing you, you can't evade nature. You'll eventually get old and die.

Another example, racist generations. It's hard to remove their racist feelings, but nature takes care of that by killing their entire generation off. This allows society to evolve. If they were still around today, it would be hard for society to improve.

Or what if we still had some corrupt politicans still in Washington today because of immortality? I don't think that would be good either.

Soooo... -1

Re:The Danger with Immortality

[caerus]

For example, what if Hitler had some immortality pill? Or Usama bin Laden? Sadam? You can run, but you can't hide. If you were able to evade someone killing you, you can't evade nature. I'm sure there would be an immortal George Bush on the track of the immortal Hitler. Another example, racist generations. It's hard to remove their racist feelings, but nature takes care of that by killing their entire generation off. This allows society to evolve. If they were still around today, it would be hard for society to improve Killing societies off also allows the devolve. What would happen if you could maintain the intellect and humanitarian aspects of societies as well? The same goes for your politician comment. What about the good politicians? And what the heck is a corrupt politician doing in power anyways. Don't you think a bunch of old people who've been around the block a time or two would be a little more involved in the electoral process and call a spade a spade. I know my dad is a LOT less tolerant of the baloney that goes on...

Immortality is no blessing...

[KC7GR]

Quite the contrary. I see it as a curse. How can one grow and learn, in the spiritual sense, if one is stuck in one life, one world, one environment, for all eternity?

Think about it: No chance whatsoever to purge your regrets and start fresh with a clean slate; watching friends or family who did not choose the treatment waste away while you remain healthy; getting so bored with what this world has to offer that you start finding new ways to abuse others just for entertainment... well, you get the idea.

The whole search-for-immortality thing has always struck me as nothing more than pure human arrogance. After all, it's NOT how long you live. It's what you do in the time you're here.

Cher - The 14th farwell tour 2034

[Anonymous Coward]

the horror

Re:Cher - The 14th farwell tour 2034

[siskbc]

As if that nasty ass isn't sagging through her fishnets already. It's going to be hitting the ground in a few years.

Important threshold passed...

[exratio]

As I mention on the Longevity Meme:

<p>I can't help but feel that some important threshold in public awareness has been passed when a New York Times article on the science behind greatly extending healthy lifespan is a topic for discussion on Slashdot. The article quotes Aubrey de Grey of <a href=http://www.methuselahmouse.org>Methuselah Mouse Project</a> fame; he's been getting a fair few column inches of late, which is also a good thing. Slowly but surely, healthy life extension and aging research is moving closer to the spotlight.

<p>There's a bunch of resources, pointers and a gentle guide to the sensible way to extending your healthy life at the <a href=http://www.longevitymeme.org>Longevity Meme</a>, if you care to give it a look. Lots more interesting stuff for the /. crowd.

<p>Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme

Re:Important threshold passed...

[caerus]

Hello exratio.

I'm encouraged that these articles hopefully mark the awakening of a public that want to live. I talk to so many people who seem to be bent on heading for that hole in the ground JUST because they are SURE .. ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, 100 PERCENT, WITHOUT A DOUBT SURE... they are going to die...

Death and taxes..

maybe we'll only have to worry about the taxes and how much compound interest we're going to be making while we do something productive with all that extra life..

Re:brain damage will be the limiting factor

[Chriscypher]

How will you know what you don't remember?

I can easily imagine leagues of semi-brain dead immortals who dominate the world simply through ruthlessness, luck, and wealth. They will have strong opinions about what's wrong with the world... "the younger peons are lacking nowadays, the damn slackers!". Tighten that iron fist. ... kind of like *now*

Marriage and reproduction

[skarps]

I looked through a few threads and didn't notice any comments on Marriage. It's hard enough these days to stay with the same partner for an extended period of time(10 years), how hard would it be to stay with them for 200 years!! I think marriage in gerneral would have less meaning than it does today. What would be the point to getting married? Heck, you could probably be married and devorced 50 times over your lifetime. It becomes more and more meaningless. What about reproduction. I have read threads about controling the population, like in China. That would take one heck of a global Governmental plan to control every human being on earth from reproducing. Heck, if your alive for 200-300 years, you wouldn't even need a doctor to deliver the baby, cause you could probably learn to do it yourself. It's part of human nature to want to reproduce to continue the flow of life. It would take some advanced evolution on our part to wipe this out of our system before the planet is consumed by people. Maybe we should consult some Elves on what to do!!

immortality == $fantasy

[InferiorFloater]

It's funny how, to the slashdot crowd, immortality is equivalent to any fantasy they'd care to have.

Though when i think about it, x/1 * t, t going from 0->infinity, and x 1 doesn't equal 1, does it? I've totally forgotten what special exception there is for this in statistics.

Death will no longer be a natural process

[Glass of Water]

What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?

Even nowadays, death is more and more something decided upon by doctors, family, and the aged (if they are still able to make a decision). People choose to be a do-not-resuscitate [sp?] rather than have science prolong their life indefinately.

This phenomenon could become even more important. As aging past 100 becomes more common, the range of health of older people will be more and more varied. People will probably make a choice to die at some time, rather than waiting for it to happen.

Ambassador Kosh says...

[cowbutt]

*twinkle* *scream* "You are not ready for immortality." *bells* *water splashing*

--

A 300 year old Leon Kass will pine for olden days

[geekotourist]

As others have pointed out, science fiction writers have riffed on this topic for years.

For two downloadable examples, check out this moving short story about a week in the life of an immortal. Note how we can still empathize with the losses immortals must have. (And note that unlike this story, immortality is usually just background in Egan's stories (just like contemporary writing doesn't focus on how our average age is 70).) Or for a great read, download or buy Cory Doctorow's novel 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.' Day to day struggles of people who just happen to be in the starting centuries of immortality.

But what really interests me are the motivations of people who hate the idea of immortality or longevity. Now, if these people were like the Amish ("go on ahead with your tech, but we're going to hang out here for a while") that'd be one thing. But George Bush's chief bioethicist is one of them. Geoge Bush's decisions will be made^hhhInfluenced by someone who has been said to think:

'According to Kass, it is a deeply fundamental aspect of life to suffer and die. When we try to fix this natural order, we lose our soul, our essential humanity.'

Or, as he has been quoted as saying "The finitude of human life is a blessing for every individual, whether he knows it or not."

I think that given the opportunity for longevity treatments (antibiotics, heart transplants) he'd take them, saying that the particular treatment isn't terrible (like Bennett on gambling). But meanwhile he causes lots of damage, because as treatments are introduced, you cannot easily separate longevity treatments from quality of life treatments. If Kass thinks one of these (longevity /immortality) is ultimately evil, then he might well be willing to sacrifice the other (q of l) in order to prevent the former. To stop reproductive cloning (because delayed twinning is evil, you know?) we also have to stop theraputic cloning, for example.

Me, I want both longevity and quality of life. Of course I'd like to try for 160, just like a person who could only expect to make 40 would love to try for 80. But if not, I'd love to have a much better time in my last decades. I don't see the necessity or beauty of strokes, dementia, arthritis... I don't see this virtue of suffering that Kass sees, and I doubt that he voluntarily skips anti-suffering treatments as they become available. However, I think he will work hard to delay when they become available. That's scary.

As a thought experiment, imagine a world where all arts- books, symphonies, photos, movies, plays, scuptures- had an average lifespan of 70 years, then they start to crumble away, 99% gone by 100, all gone by 120 years. So all we knew about Murasaki Shikibu, Michelangelo, W. Shakespeare, and Beethoven were that they existed; and jazz fans were already losing Louis Armstrong's works. Imagine people in that world saying "Its great we lose these works: unless they disappear no new works will be created. It is unethical to try to extend these creations to survive to 140 or 500 years..." Humanity survived our average lifespan going from 25 to 40 and 40 to 75: I think we're perfectly capable of working out the logistics of 120 or 160 or 300.

We'll Be Obsolete

[4of12]

What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?

Easy.

Given that genetic engineering will start to impact the human race in unprecedented ways, future intelligent beings will look upon us old fogeys as obsolete models.

Incidentally, anyone interested in this subject ought to read Francis Fukayama's Our Post-Human Future , which discusses these matters, as well as touching on other significant modifications to the human race like neuro-pharmacology.

Re:We'll Be Obsolete

[caerus]

So do you think that the technologies will have nothing to offer an old fogey? I hope not.. I'm counting on it..

Re:We'll Be Obsolete

[4of12]

So do you think that the technologies will have nothing to offer an old fogey?

Absolutely - great drugs!

I still have to wonder, though, because if all of us senior citizens are happy in our drug-induced purple hazes, we won't be able to interact in a genuine way with other human beings and we'll have lost something significant.

Re:We'll Be Obsolete

[caerus]

Absolutely - great drugs!

There will no doubt be some interesting developments in mind-altering chemicals for altering perception. But you might want to consider the increased development of Nootropics, commonly known as 'smart drugs'. These substances are usually naturally occuring although some are chemically based. They all have extremely low to unmeasurable toxicity and they all are known to increase the cognitive function of the mind. Many are being used to prevent the further deterioration that comes with Alzheimers. Their method of action varies and some have unknown modes but their effects have been proven.

I think these will be the drugs that will be most popular with seniors... they are fast becoming that already.

Check out the forum Nootropics and Mental Enhancers for a LOT of interesting information concerning this class of substances.

caerus

don't be so sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Ependymin: 40 extra years at about $1.30 per day (peer-reviewed)

One word for you:

[MQBS]

Water. We're running out as is, especially out in the midwest where it's all going to feed cows. The only way we could survive this long would be to be a planet of vegetarians. I'm all for it, but try convincing Texas that it can't eat meat anymore, even with impending doom down the road. Good luck.

Re:One word for you:

[QuantumFTL]

Water. We're running out as is, especially out in the midwest where it's all going to feed cows. The only way we could survive this long would be to be a planet of vegetarians. I'm all for it, but try convincing Texas that it can't eat meat anymore, even with impending doom down the road. Good luck.

Firstly... I don't know what planet you've been living on, but 3/4th of the earth's surface is covered in water. Desalination is not that difficult, and right now is mostly expensive due to the energies involved (clean cheap energy will change this). Combine this with the recycling technologies I mentioned (fully closed-system living/working units) and the ability to grow meat without the rest of the animal, and I think you have most of this covered.

A tremendous amount of the water we use is for things like toilet/shower/laundry and all of that will be easily recycled (locally even) in the future (technology exists now, just not practical). You need to factor this into your thinking.

I work at NASA as I said in my post and a lot of our technologies have plenty of uses on this spaceship we call earth.

Cheers,
Justin

"The future looks bright to those who know the way." - myself

Re:One word for you:

[MQBS]

Covered with water that things right now are living in... how much water can you purify before you destroy coastal ecosystems? It's not economical to get the water from out in the middle of the ocean... nor is it that less populated. Even with boundless energies, the water needs to come from somewhere and I for one don't think that we have the right to kill off the remaining creatures of the ocean just to keep up our exponential growth curve.

The technology may exist to reuse water sometime in the future but for now we need to conserve what we have just in case... and blind belief in the healing power of future technology won't do a damn thing if science stagnates or only helps out the richest %10 of the planet.

Just my $.02

Re:One word for you:

[QuantumFTL]

I found the following numbers online:

EARTH'S WATER SUPPLY
Oceans97.3%
Ice 2.19%
Groundwater 0.5%
Soil Moisture0.005%
Atmosphere0.001%
Inland Lakes0.018%
Rivers 0.000096%

So if you wanted to have 10 times as much fresh water as we do now, that'd barely make a dent in the oceans, and I'm saying that in the future we wont' even NEED that much.

Run the numbers before you post something rediculous like desalination killing off species!

Justin

Why not?

[RatBastard]

I'd love to work 100 years or more before retirement. Not.

Why not? What if you had 100 years of healthy retirement? How about 200 years? And what's so great about sitting around the house with nothing to do?

I don't know about you, but working gives my life structure. I don't mind it.

You are your brain; digitize it for immortality

[kobotronic]

Your body is a structure of pumps and motors and filters and sensors and other fairly explicable things for each of which artificial substitutes can be conceived and may already exist to varying degrees of perfection, albeit none remotely as good or practical as the original part.

In the near future we can expect to see credible artificial hearts, lungs, livers and kidneys, which may allow some tremendously wealthy individuals a cybernetic life extension beyond the finite lifespan of the flesh.

Perhaps artificial muscle tissue powered by blood sugar and oxygen will one day allow us to build organs and substitute limbs comparable in elegance, efficiency and longevity to the real thing, and our future artificial bodies will be much more than a crude forgery. But can we build a substitute for our brains? They too fail at alarming regularity!

Already our lifespan into the 70s are apparently pushing the age limit for brains. Only very few octogenarians have their wits with them when they get that far. We've made only very little progress in preserving working brains in people who get that old. We know that as the brain ages, it slows down and we progressively lose our capacity for adaptation and learning new things.

What of a brain, then?

Is it not composed of knowable parts?
We understand how neurons and synapses work individually, and how they interact with one another. We've succesfully simulated them digitally. Their state changes happens at fairly low frequencies, and there is nothing magical or unknowable about the electrochemical processes taking place in each network 'node'. The digitally similated networks work quite well with discrete quantized timesteps, and I am not convinced a digitally simulated neural network could not function as well as the original wetware, on any scale.

Sci-fi scenario. Author claims no scientific knowledge of structural wetware nodes.

Imagine for a second if a swarm of billions of individually numbered, hypothetical nanorobots could be injected into someone's brain. The very capable and semi-intelligent nanorobots should attach themselves to the individual neurons and begin analyzing and mapping the whole of the synaptical interconnects. A huge task! But each nanorobot would be responsible only for mapping the limited number of neurons whose attached nanobots it could 'see' and talk to through high-frequency modulated electrical signals traveling along the synapses (assuming such could be done without disturbing the low-frequency electrochemical signals normally traveling through them).

Then, as the nanobot was satisfied that its host neuron functions and interconnects were fully mapped to other nanobots, it would begin to detach the synapses one by one and substitute them with digital, electronic links, emulated at either end to talk to the original neurons as if the synapses were still attached. At some point the nanorobot would assume the role of the now fully-detached neuron, talking only to other emulated neurons through digital synaptical links. The brain should still function at this point. When the digitizing process is complete, a radio link signal freezes all the emulated neurons and their states. Connection data is then slowly downloaded wirelessly by polling each digital neuron using its serial number. The downloaded data is then combined to form the initial state of a complete emulated solid-state brain which may then optionally be fitted into its former host body through a suitable central nervous system interface, or connected to a wholly artificial new body built to last forever. Post-organic immortality would then be achieved. /alex chiu impersonator

Robert H.

[bigattichouse]

see Heinlein: Any major story involving Lazarus Long. Methusalah's children goes into issues of longevity in great detail.

What if stagnation is caused by death?

[geekotourist]

When you only have 40-45 working years you don't have time to be wrong because you don't have time to start over. (Assuming that starting over = 4-8 years of college or its equivalent.) You don't want to look back and say you were wrong, or chose the wrong career, because that means you wasted your years on that.

If instead you expect that you'll be starting over a few times- you'll have no choice but to start over- then you might not be as attached to any one particular idea or style. Getting into the wrong career for a decade will be no worse than taking one or two wrong classes in college. Not that a mistaken career will be easy to deal with, but it won't be a threat to our fundamental sense of self like bad choices are now.

Re:What if stagnation is caused by death?

[shimmin]

I'd like to think that "immortals" would be ever-willing to start over, but I'm afraid I'm not that optimistic. In a society of competitive immortals, once you've achieved position, I don't think you can afford to start over.

Consider the first generation of immortals, who find themselves at the top of the spectrum of achievement in business, government, academia, etc., and for the first time in human history, do not feel their impending removal from that position. For them, starting over means leaving those ranks and attempting to re-enter them from among the second generation of immortals.

For the second generation, achieving position is for the first time not merely a matter of being preeminent among your peers, and therefore in position to take the place of the current crop of leaders as they die. To achieve position, one must either out-perform the experienced leaders of a field or create a field from whole cloth. Achievement among the second generation requires not merely ability, but true genius.

The second generation then, may be even more conservative than the first. Starting over for them means "throwing away" not just the few years of one's education, but indeed decades of experience trying to break into the ranks of position and prestige, with no surety that one will be able to do it a second time.

Besides, the 4-8 years mentioned as today's retooling time I think is intimately linked to a human lifetime. If an education today cost instead 8-12 years, I think dramatically fewer people would pursue it. In the immortal society, what's to prevent the act of retooling to swell to decades until the number of people willing to go through the effort to enter a field once again falls to the "room" in that field?

What about accidents.

[bryan314]

I wish I could remember where I read it but I thought even if you had a long lifespan you'd only live to be about 200. Something about your chances of having a serious accident reach 100% about the age of 200.

Bryan :)

Re:What about accidents.

[ciphertext]

I heard something similar. I was trying to find the tables on the net, to no avail. I heard it was around 325 years and then the odds that you perish in an accident would get you.

Even if you were able to have a life expectency of 5100 years, a disease or accident could sharpely reduce that figure. I wonder what the "practical" average life span would be. What sort of changes to society would you need to create so that a life wouldn't be cut short by disease or accident? Would we need to give up cars, airplanes, etc.? We don't worry much about dying in car crashes, airplanes, or by disease right now because the odds are that we will die of "natural causes" before such an event occurs. However, if we all possessed the ability to live to 5100 yrs of age, what sort of modifications to our daily life would we see? What would we do at age 4000? Would we stay home all day?

Re:What about accidents.

[caerus]

try this website for the you want..

"If human beings were free of disease & senescence the only causes of death would be accident, suicide & homicide. Under such conditions it is estimated that from a population of one billion, a 12-year-old would have a median lifespan of 1,200 years and a maximum lifespan of 25,000 years (ie, one-in-a-billion would live the maximum 25,000 years)."

from
http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/immortal.html

Population may not increase...

[nsxdavid]

I've always held the belief that if science gave us immortality of some sort, that the world's population would be largely unaffected.

If, say, everyone was stuck at 20-something years old in apparent age, I would imagine that death would still be quite likely. 20 somethingers do lots of crazy things... extreme sports, skydiving, rock climbing, whatever. Mix in the very real sense of immortality and most people would just kill themselves off.

The whole thing would probably self-balance.

Re:Population may not increase...

[caerus]

The whole thing is self balancing now.. the birth rate of almost every country in the world is declining according to the latest UN statistics and is not even at replacement rates in much of the developed world. Far from being overpopulated we may well have to enlist the help of invitro fertilization if the problems of increasing sterility aren't solved soon.

Re:Human beings are WAY too primitive to deserve i

[thasmudyan]

What we really need are shorter lifespans so the species will evolve faster!

We're already sophisticated enough to outpace our evolutionary development by a factor of... uhm... a gazillion?
If you "forked" the human race now, to create a species that lives only for a few days to really speed up evloution, even this sped up process of nature would be slower than the real humans' mental/technological progress by almost the same factor!
And, in contrast to evolution, we're speeding up exponentially. We have left the realm of what evolution could ever do for us when the first human built the first mechanical tool.
Evolution is a basic process that gets you so far, but once you're intelligent enough to use tools and sentient enough to reflect on your life, then you're entering a new improvement process loosely called "culture"!

Our Society

[zarthrag]

Our Society revolves around death, from the first words about murder on the 6 o'clock news, to the war in Liberia. There are always people dying. As a natural response to longer and longer lifespans people tend to have fewer and fewer children.

People had 6+ kids back when we were an agrarian society. Now the average is 2.5, maybe even less. In the future, it'll probably stay at 1-2.

Goverment as we know it will change completely, it will be more technolgy based, and more democratic. It'll be harder to be a career politician for 200yrs and not have something bad happen. World Government will become much more unified and representative.

Currency may very well be one of the first things to go with increased technology. Why? Education, we may all very well spend 30, 40, or more years in school! On top of that, many won't opt to go to school longer than they have to.

Free thinking will prevail, and entertainment will be the huge "industry", if you wanna call it that. Most people will pursue a profession because they are dedicated to it, not because they wanna be paid for it. Teachers teach because they want to, students learn for the same reasons.

Drinking ages, and other pinnacle ages of increased responsibility will go up dramatically (people won't be driving anymore).

We'll be cradled by alot of technology. And space will become our concern once again, ala the 70's. Mars and the Moon will be the first to be conquered. After that we'll stagnate until we figure out the fastest way to Alpha Centauri ;)

What was the short story where...

[RobertB-DC]

I read a short story long ago -- ok, it was in the '80s, I'll redefine "long ago" when I reach 200.

In this tongue-in-cheek story, humanity had conquered both death and aging -- but not accidents. It wasn't long before nobody was willing to do anything dangerous at all, especially something as high-risk as bearing children!

In one scene, the Queen of England is shown a baby, and recoils in horror -- nobody has *had* a baby in decades, and the wiggly, smelly, whiney bundle is just too much for her.

Finally, there are only two people left on the entire decaying planet. One is female, and the other is the very first "immortal" ever to undergo the treatment. The good news is that he's male, but the bad news is that he went through the therapy before puberty, making him unable to reproduce. She rides off on her bicycle to explore the wilds of China, and he never hears from her again.

Alright, someone... name that story!

BILL GATES could finance his own life extention!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

With the billions that gates has, he could easily develop his own life extention technology and then lease the technology to everybody else and become the richest person for the next million years..in fact the science and technology required (biotech and nanotech) could be developed with some exacting and carefull scientific research today, why wait for traditional slow scientific progress (and naysayers) when the motivation is to get the job done now...the thing is, we could have prpbabbly sequenced the human genome using mainframe and mini computers 20 years before it was actually done if there was proper motivation, after all, the manhattan project accelerated nuclear research 36 or so years ahead of what most scientists and the time thought development of nuclear science and technology would progress before WWII.

Why?

[Population]

"The aesthetic could again become a primary emphasis in art and culture."

If it isn't now, why would it change?

Today is tomorrow, on a smaller scale -- remember

[shadowlight1]

I've had pneumonia three times, and I was a premature child. I'd be dead four times over if it weren't for modern technology. So would most of you. It's funny that a lot of people who are living in the most enlightened age ever still look at these concepts as if they aren't happening already.

What fascinates me more is what is happening in America -- how jobs are not being replaced with new ones thanks to technology -- and people are just being thrown aside. There are only two things that will destroy the "dream" of immortality. Those are greed and scarcity.

I'm glad to have been lucky to be born in the US, so I'm winning the scarcity game, and I have a decent job. so I'm doing okay on the greed side too.

Human nature is truly ugly.

CJF

Okay...

[Peterus7]

What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?

Okay, either three things, imoho.

People that live forever, and therefore overcrowding, and the younger generation deciding to kill themselves. Rampant violence for a few generations, then if everyone survives, peace as the only people alive are wisened ancients... Or ancient warlords. Who knows. Anyways, that's the negative aspect.

An overcrowded world where people literally can't die of natural causes, and have to in essence commit suicide, which becomes a fad. High levels or either religion or organized athiesm. Think of the original star trek episode with the overcrowded planet.

Pointy ears and beautiful blond hair.

Pointy ears, and beautiful black hair. And fangs.

People using medicines and genetic therapy to live forever, but going mad.

People using machines to retain their mind, and therefore becoming either a bunch of drones if they run windows(borg) or Mentats (if they run macintosh), or if they go and run linux, expect the matrix in fewer than three years.

Still, the fact remains that if immortality technology comes out, it will be kept a luxury only known to the rich and the leaders so they can maintain their power. I'd wager the best bet of your average person reaching immortality is uploading his mind onto something like the future internet. (Hums theme song to Serial Experiment Lain)

Damn, how many sci fi series did I just cover?

The sad thing though is with all this immortality genetic therapy blah blah, there could be some bizarre side effects, so the immortal ones could be immortal, yes, but wreched invalids that are hooked up to machines all day to keep their organs alive, and taking all sorts of drugs so they won't lose their minds.

Immortality = Cancer

[dargaud]

Just like immortality of the cells is called cancer and leads to the death of the individual, immortality of the individuals will lead to the death of societies.

You can never get you boss' job, never get your parents' money or house... How long do you think society would last ?

There's a classic S&F book where some kind of virus is released and brings immortality to all humans and animals. Tragedy ensues.

Not that I am too worried, in scientific magazines of the early 1900, they had those exact same "with the advancement of medecine, eternity is within reach soon." Yeah, right, life expectancy has been raising steadily but slowly and it wouldn't take much to bring it all down (remember SARS ? AIDS ?). And many biologists believe there is some kind of stumbling block around 120 years anyway.

Re:Immortality = Cancer

[caerus]

I don't think you can equate the behavior of a single cell to that of a thinking individual.

1:2000 chance of accidental death per year

[peter303]

Your half-life would be about 2000 years if disease, war, and crime were eliminated, but not accidents. You could make things safer and live longer.

Denial

[Anonymous Coward]

Denial is such fun. Let's face facts shall we, we all die and we all -will- die, no matter what whizbang technology says otherwise. It's called life and it's for us to make the most of while we're here. Enjoy the time you have.

End of story.

Complete garbage science

[RhettLivingston]

It is sad that scientists continue to make such ridiculous conclusions on the basis of a few variables that probably aren't even the dominant ones in the equation. It seems that the world is full of scientists who would rather shock to get money and fame than make any real attempt at even identifying the variables. It has reached the point that science is more of a religion in terms of its requirement for "belief" than most religions.

The most blatant assumption here is that the predominant factor in the expansion of life expectancy is medicine. Perhaps it is, but I find it unproven and even if so, few of the advances have dealt with aging. A few years ago I noted that many famous figures of past centuries lived to ripe old ages. The average age seemed much greater than one would expect considering that the average life expectancy of the population was 35ish. Further investigation showed that there were some great distortions in the average life expectancy numbers that should be factored out in order for them to have meaning in comparison of general medicine's impact on all but a few special cases. For example, yes, we've virtually eliminated many deadly childhood illnesses. Childhood deaths account for a huge portion of the life expectancy difference but are meaningless to a 20something comparing their chances to the past. The second biggest example is death of females during childbirth. While meaningful to women, its not so meaningful to a man. And most advances in this area occurred long enough ago to hardly be called the advances of modern medicine. Death of men due to occupational hazards has almost disappeared in relation to the past, but has little to do with medicine. Death due to malnutrition has also reduced greatly, though if "malnutrition" includes being overweight, it could be argued that it hasn't. These, and many other non-medical advances have reduced our death rate. If you look at males of the past that did not die of childhood diseases, did not have to perform dangerous work, were wealthy enough to eat well, and were somewhat isolated from children (who were prime distributors of disease) and compare them to older males today, the life expectancy has only marginally increased.

But what of all of our wonderful advances? Many do not increase life expectancy. Once again, this is largely due to junk science. For example, we see that people dying of heart disease have high blood pressure. So, we jump to the simplistic first order conclusion that high blood pressure causes deadly heart disease. We create medicines that lower blood pressure and we perform tests to prove that they lowered blood pressure and didn't overtly kill people in the process. Only years after prescribing them to millions of people do we discover in many cases that they REDUCED life expectancy and only in a precious few caused an average increase. We've yet to do the studies to determine quality of life differences and may never. The simpletons will kill us for sure.

Another, transplants, can help such a precious few as to have virtually no statistically significant impact. Transplanting a heart into someone with heart disease most often won't allow them to live much longer. It just addresses a small part of a body wide problem. So we don't usually bother.

Bypasses have been somewhat more successful, but have a clear end to how long they can delay the problems. Eventually, the capillaries become the problem and you just can't bypass every little tube in the body.

Anyway, the biggest problem is that if medicine wants to make a real advance, they've got to change their methods. Instead of following the money, they need to systematically follow the statistical problems. First, attack heart disease. Look for the medical root causes and find out how to truly zero in on them and fix them. And stop using people's diets as an excuse for everything. If you want to change a person's diet, you need to help them by finding what genetically caused imbalance in their messaging system

Re:Complete garbage science

[caerus]

You wrote an awful lot, but seem to have very little grasp of the actual processes which underlie ageing.
The predominant theory of ageing is that the bodies tissues become progressively more and more damaged by the byproducts of the combustion of sugar in the cell. We eventually wear out.
You may have heard of 'free radicals'. You can think of them as the sparks that are produced by the fire burning inside the small 'organelles' called mitochondria that every cell requires to produce the energy it needs to do its' job.
These 'free radicals' land on surrounding structures and molecules in the cell and turn them into dysfunctional and sometimes dangerous molecules.
The body produces natural 'antioxidants' to help prevent damage and we do get a lot of antioxidants in our diet, but eventually our defences are worn down and our repair mechanisms get damaged.
The damage to the cell is being shown to give rise to almost all age-related illnesses from Alzheimers to Parkinsons to Diabetes and Heart Failure.
New strategies for helping the body combat aging will be to help in produce more antioxidants. You can check on a company called Ceremedix who is inventing a pill, a cheap pill, to do just that.
You say we need to find the root of heart disease, well at least as far as hardening of the arteries and many other cardio vascular problems, we've found it... now all we need to do is get people pushing for some results out of their politicians!

risk vs. longevity

[NFW]

Are people in third world countries more likely to endager their lives because their life expectancy is only half that of the first world?

It's difficult to establish a causal relationship, but my experience on the roads of third-world nations (admittedly limited to only two such nations) suggests that, yes, people in such places are far more likely to endanger their lives.

I used to live with a guy who grew up in India and moved the US after college. He once remarked that one of the most interesting differences between home and here was how much people here value life. So, yes, I do think there's something to this idea.

That said, I ain't never giving up snowboarding. Adding life to my years as just as important as adding years to my life.

Futurists and the law of unintended consequences.

[1iar_parad0x]

Imagine trying to convey the world of 2003 to the a young man alive in 1903 (like Strum Thurmond). Imagine explaining relativity, quantum mechanics, cloning, nuculear power, space flight and so on. How about trying to explain just a simple microwave?

In a world that may one day provide us with quantum teleportation (and all of it's crazy implications to cloning, travel, "replication", etc), nanotechnology, and true AI. How can we even predict what the world will be like? [Some people have even given this psuedoscience a formal name - economics.]

Frankly, all the problems listed above deal with the same fundamental mathematical problem that biology is facing. It's the problem of complexity caused by massive parallelism. Solve a small selection of mathematical problems and the world will see unprecedented progress. Imagine the power of calculus squared. No, I'm not worried about overpopulation or becoming the slave of some robot. The law of unintended consequences seems to work everything out. Frankly, if we ever have that kind of power over science, goods will become so cheap we won't even notice the economic impacts. Sure, some people will sit around all day and watch television (or live in the matrix, etc). However, there will still be a few geeks. People who like to tinker and see how far they can make things go.

Think about life in the 1900's. Most of us don't have to sweat as much at our jobs. You think a cubicle is rough. Try a sweat shop. Try working at a cotton mill. Life has improved because of science. Human civilization has a habit of adapting to change.

maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

...because dead bodies almost always decompose and/or become plant food?

"Supply jobs"?

[GCP]

If we can't even supply jobs to those alive now, how can we supply jobs to a world where there are BILLIONS more people?


What, are jobs dug up out of the ground and burned up? How many years of jobs do we have left before we've used them all up? (Let's ask Jeremy Rifkin. He's probably writing a book warning us about it as we speak.)

If you have billions more people, you'll have billions of additional customers, people with needs to fill and problems to solve. Of course, there are business cycles of expansion and contraction, and there are secular shifts of jobs from old industries to new industries and from one region to another.

However, this notion of "we [inevitably meaning The Government] have to supply jobs" needs a secular shift of its own toward a reduction in the friction one encounters when trying to create jobs, especially for oneself and maybe a few friends.

I'm not suggesting a totally unregulated black market free-for-all. It's hard to create a good job for yourself in such an environment, too. Just an environment in which the government (and a lot of people) think less about creating or retaining jobs and more about how to make it easy and uncomplicated for average joes to (repeatedly) create their own jobs and jobs for their friends and colleagues.

FOXNEWS FUTURE

[Mal-2]

Michael Jordan has announced that he is unretiring yet again, in a bid to be the only man to play in the NBA in 20 different decades. However, the record is shrouded in controversy, as some argue it is not Jordan himself, but his clone, who has played in the last twelve unretirements.

Weee Futurama's got a chance!

[Bl4d3]

Hey if We/I live for an infinite time, we might get some new futurama episodes.... I cant wait... ' Fry: "Space, it seems to go on and on forever. But then you get to the end and a gorilla starts throwing barrels at you. And that's how you play the game." '

But can the brain take it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more interested in living for 80-100 years like I feel 21, than living 5000 years feeling like I'm 60-80.

I can already tell I don't heal as fast or remember as much as I did when I was in high school.

Living that long has implications on the brain. Can it really survive and comprehend for that long? We still don't understand the cause of diseases such as alzheimers and regular memory loss. It reminds me of an X-Files about this guy who was immortal and he was so sad he couldn't remember his first wife.

Random Ramblings complete.

SpaceCowboy

telomerase

[SemperUbi]

"Scientists generally think there is a natural constraint, the Hayflick limit, on how many times such cells can divide in tissue culture before they decay and die. But some work indicates that human cells given a copy of the telomerase gene can divide indefinitely, a step toward immortality on a cellular scale."

There's a big difference between adding telomerase to some cells in a culture flask, and getting human tissues to express it. Telomerase expression is seen in a very few normal stem cells, and virtually all cancers. (The exceptions are interesting: a type of neuroblastoma in infants that looks widely metastatic, but basically just stops growing after a while, because its cells' telomeres just get too short.)

You want to be adding telomerase back to normal cells? Got a way to make sure that limitless growth potential doesn't hugely increase the risk of cancer?

If that's the best science sound bite they can come up with, there's nothing new here.

It was the Blue Danube

[donscarletti]

I believe Johann Strauss' Blue Danube was what was playing during the docking sequence.

The use of Richard Strauss' "Thus Spoke Zarathrusta" would only be relivent for when you whip out your obilisk. Or possibly when you wanna get out your monkey and start hitting your wife with the bone. (ok, that was really quite bad wasn't it)

All I can say is that if you can keep it for as long as that boring movie seemed to go on for you are more of a man than I am. I liked Clockwork Orange more... but I must concede that there is nothing in that movie that would be advisable to emulate with one's wife. For that one needs Eyes Wide Shut

Zardoz!

[Niscenus]

B-List Movie lovers, and major Sean Connery buffs know of this very special movie (the only time I've ever seen Connery in drag!).

In the future, as society and civilization collapses, a small group of scientists create special remainders of civilization, called Vortexes (note: Not vorticies; linguistic abuses fill this movie nicely, especially for the scientifically minded).

Now, here's the relevant part of all of this. When a person in a vortex dies, they are "regenerated" in what appears a strange means of cloning combined with neural pathway restoration (engrammatic mapping). All this is taken care of via the "Tabernacle" (an appropriately named device, but for the time of the film, religious terms usually were).

Since I don't want to ruin the movie for you (and niether did its creator(s) based on the beginning), I won't say much more. However, I'll only say this, "Immortality sucks the unholy big one!"

-Plug

Population problems

[Ompaloskeptic]

While living for 300 years is an interesting concept one of the strongest ramifications is going to be the world population. If we have people living that long, population is going to skyrocket. We're already running into problems in this area due to falling infant mortality, increasing fertility technology, and longer life expectantcy, this would generate nothing short of a worldwide crisis. The key is being able to make the transition from a high birth, high death society to a low birth, low death society without getting bogged down in what we have now, a high birth, low death society. The death rate comes from technology, but the birth rate is controlled by societal influences, a much more tricky thing.

sorry folks

[Anonymous Coward]

I think random hits from radiation will disrupt your dna/rna over time to the point where we would need to be constantly rebuilt either by nano bots or virii just so we could retain our basic cellular functionality. If we are then being kept up by nano bots we really aren't human anymore. So even if we can engineer ourselves to keep cells reproducing without going cancerous for 100 times the current span, we would mutate severly over time and the longer living cell-strains would be corrupted and die off anyway.... or be fixed by nano bots.

too much star trek + biology books don't expect to be immortal... ever our chemical makeup+ environment will never make it without extreme augmentation.

the population anti-growth

[Xaria]

In fact, quite the opposite is true in some parts of the world. Here in Australia, for example, the only reason our population isn't *decreasing* is that we have a lot of immigrants. Few families have more than 2 or 3 children, and it is becoming quite normal and accepted for couples to not have a family at all. In my case, as someone who intends to have 3 or 4 children, I get jaws dropping all over the place. "Oh my God, 4 children! That's so many!" Err .. if you say so. Society is changing, and reproducing is not necessarily the purpose of a woman's (or man's, for that matter) existance anymore. So you'll find it's slowing down. Research has shown that the Earth can support a population of about 12 billion if we stop wasting so much. It is quite common for farmers in certain first world countries to throw out produce rather than lower prices. Crazy, but there's capitalism for you. So assuming that lobsterGun's data is correct, we can all live happily together on this planet. If we don't blow ourselves up first of course.

Risky behavior?

[clovis]

"Would one dare do anything so risky as carouse, drive a car, hit the ski slopes, if three hundred years of life would be thereby imperiled?"

Dying isn't the problem as any older person can tell you. It's getting crippled.

When Christian missionaries first went to Japan they preached about eternal life. This horrified the peasants. Their's was a life of grueling back-breaking labor mixed with the capricious cruelty of their masters. Why would anyone want that forever? Honorable death was a blessing.

Would you want to spend 300 years in a hospital bed waiting for someone to bring you a bedpan?
Worse yet, 300 years of watching daytime television.

Fixing the genetic causes of aging won't necessarily fix broken necks or collapsed spines.
How about being blind for 250 years?
I doubt they will ever be able to grow functioning replacement eyeballs to replace those you burst in a high-speed accident.

And furthermore, I can't imagine spending only another 10-30 years with you assholes, but I'll get through it somehow. But 500 more? sheesh.

The real issue is...

[GrodinTierce]

what do we do when IPv6 runs out?

Tierce

You'd forget...

[CRB2500]

Alot of your past would slip away from you. Since the mind only stores an abstract outline of past events and maintains them only with repeated access, old memories will fade. Live long enough and if you don't refreash your memory via journal or videos and you might forget who your mother was or where you were born (ref to "Shadow of the Vampire").

Then again you might have more insA lot of your past would slip away from you. Since the mind only stores an abstract outline of past events and maintains them only with repeated access, old memories will fade. Live long enough and if you don't refresh your memory via journal or videos and you might forget who your mother was or where you were born (ref to "Shadow of the Vampire").

Then again you might have more insight into the more significant things in your life. As you get to see the patterns in life emerge. Then again you might find life getting boring. No surprises, no challenges that make you want to get up in the morning. Been there done that would take on a very real meaning.

The human brain is an awesome thing but can it find reason to exist if the awe of living fades... I think that is why SOME people abuse drugs/sex/whatever is in search for awe in life.

Humm stuff...ight into the more significant things in your life. As you get to see the patterns in life emerge. Then again you might find life getting boring. No suprises, no challenges that make you want to get up in the morning. Been there done that would take on a very real meaning.

The human brain is an awsome thing but can it find reason to exist if the awe of living fades... I think that is why SOME people abuse drugs/sex/whatever is in search for awe in life.

Humm stuff...

Re:You'd forget...

[caerus]

Since the mind only stores an abstract outline of past events and maintains them only with repeated access, old memories will fade. This is just plain wrong... They've shown that many memories are very enduring to the point that they resurface in our old age 'as if they were yesterday'. While it is true that many memories are transitory, the ones that are the most critical are the ones which stay with us. We would likely suffer from some sort of accident and die long before we would lose our memories. caerus

Underlying Reasons for Interest in Immortality

[bjklein]

There reasons are varied as to why more people seem to be talking about physical immortality, but the underlying cause is a general discontent for most explanations of an after life. No one remembers anything before their birth. No one will likely experience anything after death. Mystical netherworlds offered by religions have managed to dazzled the masses for centuries, but only because there was no other alternative in face of certain death. Dissonance leads to disillusionment.

Happily, we're starting to wake from this slumber. It's not long now before we see some important life extending technologies come to fruition.

Bruce Klein
Founder, Immortality Institute For Infinite Lifespans
http://www.imminst.org

Something tells me that

[jfern]

In 300 years there will jobs listing qualifications as 310+ years of Java programming. The HR people will always be stupid and unreasonable.

True story: 5 years ago I saw a position that wanted 5+ years of Java programming. Not sure whether they were just stupid, or whether it was some sort of plot where "We couldn't find any qualified Americans, we need some H-1B workers."

Immortality is Ripe for the Picking

[caerus]

When an article from CNN and the New York Times feature FRONT AND CENTRE stories on potentially extreme life extension,

you know there's gotta be something to it.

When the US Government's, Presidents Council on Bioethics, decides to target life-extension as 'undesirable',

you just gotta know there's something to it.

Regardless about how you feel about living forever.. and that really is a long time... there is no doubt that we are heading for longer HEALTHSPAN's. Of course, how much life is too much? Could that possibly even be a question? Should people tell you how long you should live? You can bet there'll be a lot of people putting out their opinions in what is certain to be a very interesting dialogue!

If you're interested in serious life extension...

check out these links

ImmInst.Org

LongevityMeme.Org

extreme anomie

[randomned]

that's all I have to say.

Re:extreme anomie

[randomned]

for those that didn't minor in sociology: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie

Moo

[Chacham]

Immortality for everybody? That ought to get some heads rolling.

There can only be one.

Article shows the dangers...

[freeBill]

...of people talking about things they don't understand.

The first clue was when he said the average life expectancy by 2100 will be 500 years. We currently calculate life expectancy based on how old people are when they die. So can we assume most of the people dying in 2100 were born in 1600? Obviously not. This guy hasn't thought things through. He doesn't even know what he means by "life expectancy."

Can such a person contribute meaningfully to the debate on the problems of extended life expectancy? Probably not. His next sentence assumes that none of us will be around to tell the guy who made this prediction he was wrong. So people who are 20 now won't live to be 120? That's a long way from 500, a short way from 76, and much more likely to happen. But we already know that Kristof is capable of throwing around numbers without having the slightest idea what they mean.

The truth is that people who really have the intellectual capacity to address about these issues have been thinking about them for a long time. The probability is that the advances will come more slowly than the predictions this piece advances. And the certainty is that, even if they happen faster, we will have plenty of time to address the consequences. By definition the full impact of 500-year life expectancies won't arrive for at least 425 years. The effects will dribble in and we'll take 'em as they come.

One thing is sure: Scientific illiterates like Kristof will play little role in bringing it about and small role in solving any problems.

... and TAXES

[purum]

The saying "There are only two sure things in life: Death and Taxes." will soon be changed to the inevitable if death can be avoided. Wouldn't it be a horrible hassle to live forever? Would you have to pay taxes? if taxes are enforced so that a government can continue serving its populace indefinitely, how would the individual that can outlive a trend in the status quo favor paying taxes to a stable administration that can be killed with an election and not by sickness vs. keeping his money to serve HIM until he is killed? Also, Governments would surely have to enforce its law with capital punishment since a life in prison would be less cost effective. Think about threats! People would REALLY terrorize with a threat because children would be expendable (they haven't lived enough) but people in their 1,000s would fear a freakin' splinter. Also, why would people opt to have children if the human race is ensure by a few individuals to last forever?

Billions of dollars to be SAVED with immortality..

[caerus]

I haven't seen anyone comment yet on the the saving that come with life-extension. Currently the societal burden of looking after debilitated and sick seniors could break the back of the health care system if the trend goes unchecked. Especially as the baby boomers begin reaching their retirement age.

It is estimated that at the current rate that the health care system could be bankrupt within 25 years. Which doesn't leave much hope for those coming after. It is also estimated that the savings that would be realized by pushing back the onset of Alzheimers by just ONE YEAR would be approximately 3-4 BILLION dollars... Hmm... I wonder if we could use a little of that for something more constructive than napkins to dab the drool out of grandma's mouth.. and I'm sure grandma would appreciate the effort..

I wave my little paw and say, "Bah!"

[Valdrax]

Most people that make any significant contributions to their field do so before they're 30.

In 300 years, current modes of human cognition will be outdated and irrelevant to the people actually getting work done. If we manage to catch the wave of increasing longevity and ride it that far, we will either no longer be anything like we are now, or we will be fossils and relics kept around by our successors as we do children and the elderly today. The future of progress will be in enhanced intelligence. Whether this intelligence is machine or augmented biology is irrelevant. Once it becomes possible to be smarter than human, it will be a societal inevitability.

People who grow useless past age 30 will be a thing of the past unless the next generation's model of thinking is as vastly superior to theirs as a modern computer is to it's decade old ancestor.

Voltaire

[Lost Race]

Blockquote from Micromegas:

"How long do you people live?" asked the Sirian.

"Ah! a very short time," replied the little man of Saturn.

"So too with us," said the Sirian. "We are always complaining of the shortness of life. This must be a universal law of nature."

"Alas!" quoth the Saturnian, "none of us live more than 500 annual revolutions of the Sun." (That amounts to about 15,000 years, according to our manner of counting.) "You see how it is our fate to die almost as soon as we are born; our existence is a point, our duration an instant, our globe an atom. Scarcely have we begun to acquire a little information when death arrives before we can put it to use. I myself do not venture to lay any schemes; I feel like a drop of water in a boundless ocean. I am ashamed, especially before you, of the absurd figure I make in this universe."

Micromegas answered: "Were you not a philosopher, I should fear to distress you by telling you our lives are 700 times as long as yours; but you know too well that when the time comes to give back one's body to the elements, and reanimate nature under another form--the process called death--when that moment of metamorphosis comes, it is precisely the same whether we have lived an eternity or only a day. I have been in countries where life is a thousand times longer than with us, and yet have heard murmurs of its brevity even there...."

&nbsp

[Anonymous Coward]

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Impossible According to Star Trek

[Giggle Stick]

In one TNG episode, McCoy made a guest appearance, and he was only around 200 I think. He was pretty close to death at that point. Therefore, we can't possibly live even that long until the 23rd century or so. For now, we'll have to settle for 120 or so, probably. Star Trek is real you know.

1460 leap year?

[phazei]

So, after you're 1460 years old, do you get to add a free year to your age from those extra 365 days that have added up?

Dealing with overpopulation / killing time...

[N0796]

Wherever there is a problem, there is a solution, and it seems that the primary problem is overpopulation, right? Well...

While people will not die of aging, they will be at the mercy of falling pianos, diseases, and other such mishaps, thus, even if nobody ages, people will keep on dying. Now, if people are dying, then the problem is reducing the birthrate, which can effectively be done by the state, which would issue permission to procreate only when there is space in the society - and so, in order to live forever, one would have to be temporarily rendered sterile. If you live for an indefinitely long time, eventually a time will come for your turn to produce a child, so, in essence, what we'll do is simply slow down the turnover. Why should we do it? Because death (and consequent turnover ) is necessary for evolution, death is part of our life due to the anthropic principle (i.e. if it wasn't, evolution would not take place, and we would be here to observe it). Since slowing down evolution is not a big deal, I see no reason why a state-controlled program for indefinite prolonging of life would not be a good idea.

Now on to the next point, suppose that we do live indefinitely, then what? Simple, after the world stabilizes and assuming GDP is high enough to do so, we'll end up with people turning to arts and self-expression. If I had the time, after I became a sky-diving instructor, I'd master the trombone, and spend my time jazz-bar-hopping jamming with random musicians... ah... what a life...