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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.'"
I've always said I'd like to live at least 500 years. Of course, it would be interesting to be able to stay relatively "young" more or less indefinitely.
Might not be something everyone is interested in but I would love to never feel any pressure to hurry up and do all those things I want to do. I could spend 50 years just reading interesting books. Maybe spend ten years building a house. And thinking more long-term, how about a few hundred years in deep space? You'd have the time...
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Dying is what makes us real.
Interesting concept. Can you explain *why* you believe this is so?
Most of "life" is a tornado of colliding imaginations.
I don't even know what this means...is that an attempt to be "deep" by going all metaphysical, or what? It kind of sounds like you are suggesting that all of us are just figments of someone/something's imagination. If so, well, that was an intriguing concept back when I was elementary school, but now...not so much.
Everyone thinks they're the ONE exception.
But no in [sic] ever got out of it, ever.
<shrug> But so long as life is interesting and enjoyable, what's the problem? Personally, I'm with cayenne8 on this one. If I'm healthy and fit, then I wouldn't mind having a bit more time here on earth. I'm not saying I'd like to be immortal -- as others have noted, there would still be accidental deaths, and it would suck spending millenia without your loved ones -- but if we could find a way to keep the biological machinery functional for a century or two longer, I wouldn't mind having a little more time to be in my prime before succumbing to the inevitable.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
When my grandmother was 95 she told me "I don't know why everybody wants to live to be a hundred. It ain't no fun bein' old."
As to the "how long is best," I think it doesn't matter. A lifetime is a lifetime, whether it's ten years or two hundred. I'm 60, and I don't feel any older thanI did at 20. Thirty year olds seem like children to me, but a 30 year old to me is like a ten year old to a twenty year old.
I really don't feel like more time has passed now than it did when I was young. From birth to now, your life seems like "forever". Perhaps that's because time gets shorter when you get older. Remember how long it was between Christmases when you were five? Christmas to Christmas was 1/5th of a lifetime! Far longer than a year to me, only 1/60th of a lifetime.
The only difference is that I've seen and done a hell of a lot more.
Free Martian Whores!
From about age 21 to 26 I couldn't afford a root canal that was badly needed (two wisdom teeth, cracked open with exposed nerves). One thing you learn dealing with that kind of pain is that eventually -- it just tunes out. (no, the nerves didn't die off -- I wish). The first month or so was hell, but then I got used to it and for awhile I had a pretty impressive pain tolerance. (broken foot? No problem.) Point being, 5900 years in bed, reading great fiction, playing video games, getting visited by family, advancing my interests and continuing the work of my first 100 years -- even with constant pain -- sounds worth it to me.
I agree. I was raised as a "Christian". When I began to research the history of Christianity and the Bible, I became an Atheist. It took about a year of being an angst filled teenage fatalist before I realized that because there's no afterlife I must do as much good as possible in this life as possible to advance our race. Then I created my bucket list of humanitarian projects, and the race to complete them began -- as a Teen. Even if I don't get done before I die, I've already helped more people than my religious relatives ever have. I could die tomorrow a happy man, satisfied with my life's works.
Furthermore, I value life much more than they do. I said something about curbing our pollution problems to my Aunt last week. Her stance was that it didn't matter because it was part of "God's plan"; She'd be in heaven before the future went to hell; And, some BS about the events being signs of the end times and Rapture, and how I needed to go back to church. I told her that she was being selfish, and that she was worsening the planet for her grand children, and all other future people.
I told her that our advances in medicine and science, specifically understanding the brain and machine intelligence, may allow some of us to live thousands or millions or billions of years -- We may some day even be able to scan a dead brain and bring its consciousness back to life. Then I promised her that if she didn't start using the recycling bin and curbside pickup the city provides her, that I would dedicate the rest of my life to bringing her mind back to the future so she could witness the horrors her careless actions had helped bring about.
Despite her being a God fearing woman, I was able to place a new kind of fear in her: The fear of having to live with the long term consequences of her actions. She has seen my AI projects demonstrating uncanny human like capabilities (she called them an abomination), so she knew I was serious. Though she claims her beliefs have not been shaken at all, I now see her recycling bin full instead of empty every garbage day.
I think the survey's results would be illuminated by also asking the following two questions:
1. Do you believe in an afterlife?
2. Are you assuming you'd live your extended lifespan in excellent, good, decent, poor, or horrible health?
If it was an extra 100 years of old age, vs an extra 100 years of being 20, I bet the answers would differ significantly.