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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[Alpha_Nerd]

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

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.

What would we do?

[dirtydiaper]

So no more Mortal Kombat?

This guy knows!

[Cybrr]

Alex Chiu

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

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?

[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.

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

One big change...

[magicsquid]

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

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.

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..

[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.

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

[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

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.

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?

[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

I don't know about you

[prostoalex]

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

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.

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)

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.

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!

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.

biggist impact...

[Ian 0x57]

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

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.

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.

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?

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

[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

[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.

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...

[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.

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?

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.

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

Oh great...

[Anonymous Coward]

I get to be in the last generation to die.

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

[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.

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.

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...)

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.

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.

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.

Boredom

[Unknown Kadath]

Would deaths by suicide skyrocket?

-Carolyn

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!)

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: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.

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!

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: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.

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... ;-)

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! :)

Prison

[Anonymous Coward]

So when you are convicted and go to jail for life, how long would that be exactly?

Lots of bad

[JohnnyGTO]

ties for fathers day, for a lonnnnnnnnnggg time?

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.

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.

3rd world countries

[iamhassi]

Immortality sounds great: You live forever, while citizens of 3rd world die of starvation.

sounds sick, doesn't it?

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+

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.

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.

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...

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!!

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.