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How Long Do You Want To Live?
Hugh Pickens writes "Since 1900, the life expectancy of Americans, driven by improved hygiene, nutrition, and new medical discoveries and interventions, has jumped from 47 years to almost 80. Now, scientists studying the intricacies of DNA and other molecular bio-dynamics may be poised to offer even more dramatic boosts to longevity. But there is one very basic question that is seldom asked, according to David Ewing Duncan: How long do you want to live? 'Over the past three years I have posed this query to nearly 30,000 people at the start of talks and lectures on future trends in bioscience, taking an informal poll as a show of hands,' writes Duncan. 'To make it easier to tabulate responses I provided four possible answers: 80 years, currently the average life span in the West; 120 years, close to the maximum anyone has lived; 150 years, which would require a biotech breakthrough; and forever, which rejects the idea that life span has to have any limit at all.' The results: some 60 percent opted for a life span of 80 years. Another 30 percent chose 120 years, and almost 10 percent chose 150 years. Less than 1 percent embraced the idea that people might avoid death altogether (PDF). Overwhelmingly, the reason given was that people didn't want to be old and infirm any longer than they had to be, even if a pill allowed them to delay the inevitable. Others were concerned about issues like boredom, the cost of paying for a longer life, and the impact of so many extra people on planetary resources and on the environment. But wouldn't long life allow people like Albert Einstein to accomplish more and try new things? That's assuming that Einstein would want to live that long. As he lay dying of an abdominal aortic aneurysm in 1955, Einstein refused surgery, saying: 'It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.'"
Overwhelmingly the reason given was that people didn't want to be old and infirm any longer than they had to be, even if a pill allowed them to delay the inevitable.
Well, it's a good thing that that's not what we're talking about, isn't it? The whole idea is to delay--or if possible, prevent entirely--the things that make us "old" and infirm to begin with. Nobody wants to spend eternity in a nursing home, duh. Spending an indefinite amount of time young and healthy, or even middle-aged and mostly healthy? Sign me up.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
She's supposedly pretty sharp, still there in the mind and still happy. The last part is the most important. I'd rather die happy at 85 than live to 120 in misery.
If I live to 200, do I spend most of that time with the body of a 30-year-old, or a 90-year-old? If the latter, thanks but no thanks.
There's a cool thing that happens when you know this life isn't the end: You suddenly stop caring about yourself and just live your life to help everyone else.
There was a cool thing that happened to me when I figured out that the Law of Parsimony indicates that life is the end. I realized that all I would leave behind is other people's memories of me and I stopped being a dick and judging everyone else based on my doctrine. How odd that the biggest inhibitor of being like Christ was being a Christian.
I suppose I can understand some arguments for cutting your life short based on overcrowding, etc., but I think we can get over that with science.
But limited lifespan because of boredom? I mean, have you *seen* this world we live in? If you can't come up with enough different things to do, and see, and explore, and discover, and wonder about to last you thousands of years, you are doing it wrong. That's not even thinking about all the incredible people you get to meet.
Just a scientist? That makes him better than some sort of Jesus/Buddha//Mohammed/Hubbard. Anyone with a keen logical mind will make greater accomplishements in metaphysics and morality than any peddler of fairy tales.
The key to true morality isn't "what would Jesus do", but "what makes sense and actually works to produce favorable outcomes". By that standard, you cannot do better than a scientist.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Seriously. I am in the 30% that is considerate of the consequences of people living a long time.
For a poignant example, look at the current USA. We have an aging "boomer" generation. If you aren't familiar with the problems an aging boomer generation is causing, google is your friend. Now, imagine them living another 60 years. 100 years... FOREVER.
In addition to the problems with resource allocations, the political and ideological bottlenecks immortality, or even jut artificialy ling lives would introduce would be catastrophic. Instead of a progressive civilization, which becomes more tolerant and technologically advanced, we would have an ideologically stilted, recalcitrant population of aged and possibly immortal persons halting all forms of social progress.
I would actually campaign for a shorter, but less labor intensive life than a longer one.
This kind of thinking is basically Stockholm Syndrome writ very large.
Let's say you asked people a thousand years ago, "Would you want to live with a king?". I'm sure the vast majority would have said "no", and come up with a bunch of reasons why that would be personally undesirable and socially perilous. The reasoning is so transparently irrational it's ludicrous.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
the life expectancy of Americans, driven by improved hygiene, nutrition, and new medical discoveries and interventions, has jumped from 47 years to almost 80
Talk to a genealogist, its a bogus number. Life expectancy at birth, given that at least half used to die as babies or little kids.
Most birth-death years in my family tree are like 1854-1855 (whoops) or 1853-1930 (a good long while). Not much in between, other than maybe 5% of the women died around childbirth age around a year or so after the last baby. Stereotypical electronics "bathtub curve" plus the danger of giving birth. The main change in the last 200 years or so is if you are born, you'll probably live to age 10, whereas in the olden days if you were born you'd probably die before age 10, but some made it till 80s, just like now.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Despite the invitations, neither Jesus or God ever showed up to an event I was invited to. Dawkins did.
This recent news story in the UK Makes me sad. It doesn't matter how long you want to live if you have no legal choices when you want to stop living.
It seems like we give our pets more compassion at the end of their lives than we do our fellow humans.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
And yet, when those pills hit the market, they will all line up to buy it. This poll reveals how people think in "far mode". People enter "far mode" when contemplating events they assume are unlikely or distant in the future... far more is selfless, idealistic. Put the pill under their nose and you'll get a very different reaction.
How do I know? Old people don't massively take their own life, people overwhemingly chose treatment when facing cancer, etc.
It's soothing to imagine one's to be comfortable with death, it makes the whole prospect less absurd and cruel. This is just a protective form of denial, unfortunately, death-ism seriously hampers anti-aging research.
\u262D = \u5350
Most of "life" is a tornado of colliding imaginations.
Im not sure if that is as profound as it sounds, but I have to say, it sounds pretty freaking profound, and will seem even more so after a few martini's.
YOU, sir, need a hobby or three. Badly.
Having reached my mid-40s, I've only begun to explore the things I'd like to do in my life. I find that I'm having to pare back all the interests I have because I just can't find the time for them all. I look at the time I have left and think, "shit, it's going to take me 2 years to complete this project, which means I'm going to be X old before I can even begin this next one."
I've started worrying less about the cost of my endeavors and more about the time commitment. I can always make more money, but damnit I've only got another 20 great years left, another 10 or 15 mediocre ones, and - if I'm lucky - maybe 10 more to do some low intensity stuff while I look for "young" people willing to hang with the "old dudes in the home."
It's a shame I can't buy 10 of the good years you have left, 'cause you sure aren't using them in any meaningful way, it seems.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
99% of people are idiots.
80 years among them is about enough.
So you can live forever but you are going to be a vegetable? We can prevent death but not old age? In the 100's of years we won't be able to figure out how to rejuvenate a human body, fix Alzheimer, put a colony another planet, find alternate sources of food, and power, clean our water supply?
We've been able to stop cancer, AID's, Hepatitis, Heart Disease, Lung Disease and countless illnesses from killing us, but we can't do these things. If I lived for a vegetable for 30 years and woke up one day cured. I would be happy. I WILL NOT GO GENTLY INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT!
By your logic, Hercules also existed. Maybe he did. But was he really the son of Zeus?
There are lots of contemporary written records of kings existing, implying that they likely did exist. The records of most gods and demi-god's time on Earth comes after at least a few decades have past, with more information coming out for hundreds of years until the story is formalized. As it stands, the story of Jesus' life is way too similar to numerous other stories about other gods/demigods to be particularly trustworthy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgksXcesXrA
I've never understood this line of thinking. Why do you fear death so much? I welcome it, for when I die, nothing will matter anymore and I won't exist.
Because I love life, and so far as I can tell I will always want more of it.
But you're right, I deeply fear death too. I do not want to end. I do not want to go. I fear dying but that's utterly secondary to the existential dread of there no longer being a me.
I can't understand how anyone can accept it. I'd like to, because it's not like we get a choice in the matter, but can't.
Dying is natural. So is gangrene. Dying is inevitable. So is the heat death of the universe. I will take every goddamn second I can. The universe is cold and uncaring but who gives a shit? The play is pointless but I'll take every moment on stage I can.
Not that I'm any great expert on the matter, what with having only one lifetime of personal experience and not even a single death to my name, but I suspect that there is a large part of you that refuses to accept that death is truly inevitable. Once you truly accept that there's nothing you can do to avoid it then accepting the transition itself becomes far less onerous. When the time comes it's a question of do I fight tooth and claw a battle which can't be won, or accept it with good graces and spend my last moments rejoicing that I lived at all. With proper perspective you can even come to see death as a necessary and beautiful counterpoint to life - I've never had to face my own imminent death, but such perspective has offered great comfort in the face of the death of loved ones. If you're interested in acquiring such a perspective I'd suggest studying Buddhism, Taoism, or the like - ignore the quasi-religious cruft that's accumulated on it as you like, I mostly did, the core teachings basically offer an alternative interpretation of reality, identical in detail, but fundamentally different in implication.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.