No, thank you. I want change. I want adventure. I want learning. I want discovering. Hanging out for all eternity in a poll of empty happiness isn't good for me.
Do you want to live forever?
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No. You seem to be assuming that as lifespans increase, society will just sit there like a bump on a log. The retirement age will be raised, pensions will be altered (or will go away entirely.) That may be scary for people who assume that pensions will "always be there", but this sort of change is inevitable as the population grows anyway. Pension problems are an argument for rethinking retirement, not making sure people die "on schedule."
The previous U.S. administration's Council on Bioethics was stacked with folks like Leon Kass and Francis Fukuyama (of "The End of History" fame) who argued that life-extension technologies would de-value human life, threaten democracy, and should not be pursued. It's also no great leap to imagine the christian conservative movement will oppose it, as "tinkering with God's plan."
Granted, that side of the political spectrum is down right now, but don't count them out. Silly, reactionary public fear is as American as apple pie.
I can't speak for the rest of the world.
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The reason there's a problem is that people are already refusing to die on schedule. Pensions won't 'go away' by magic. People don't want to work till they drop, especially if it's for 200 years.
It just amuses me when people use concerns about entitlements and overpopulation to argue against extending our lifespans.
Imagine the reverse, for a moment: that we could solve our current problems with funding health care and suburban sprawl... by killing people. Nobody but fascists and sadists would entertain such a notion.
As far as I'm concerned, as we develop the technology, life extension should ethically be extended to as many people (who are interested in it) as is feasible. We've done remarkably well with increasing our life expectancy and maintaining ever increasing living standards, thus far.
Imagine the reverse, for a moment: that we could solve our current problems with funding health care and suburban sprawl... by killing people. Nobody but fascists and sadists would entertain such a notion.
As far as I'm concerned, as we develop the technology, life extension should ethically be extended to as many people (who are interested in it) as is feasible. We've done remarkably well with increasing our life expectancy and maintaining ever increasing living standards, thus far.
No, they won't go away by magic, they will go away by economics. Actually, they're already going away, as the industrial base shifts to newly developing nations and old companies give way to new corporations with alternative labor arrangements.
By the time real anti-aging comes along, most of the people who were entitled to pensions will already be dead. Those who aren't will probably find their former employers going to court with the claim that if a person is effectively immortal, it violates the underlying legal assumption of the pension. Especially if that person is no longer "elderly", but now fit as a fiddle and able to work. Should be some interesting court cases, actually. Bottom line, the laws around retirement age and retirement savings plans will have to change.
as for the work thing, well that's tough. Unless a Trekkian economy develops (and who the hell knows how that would work), adults will still have to earn a living for a good portion of their lives. Immortality doesn't mean a life of endless leisure, although it could allow you to pursue a number of different careers in your lifetime, maybe taking breaks in between and living on the savings.
Some would consider that rewarding. If they don't, they don't have to take the treatment. That's probably how it wil ultimately work out; you will have natural lifespan people, and really long lived people. Society will look very different.
(And then the slow aging people will all decide to get pointy ears, and move to a desert planet.)
Well if you aren't arguing against it, then I don't understand where you're coming from. Essentially this is what I'm hearing:
"Life extension will cause overpopulation, people don't want to work forever, it will bankrupt retirement plans, etc. - but I'm not arguing against it."
I don't 'pray'.
I reserve the possibility this might happen in the future.
It's certainly possible to achieve.
In short, yes, I do want to live forever.
Long form, for all the possible downsides of living 'forever', or any sort of dramatically extended lifespan, there are countless untapped possibilities that can be bought with the one currency that truly matters in the universe: time.
I have enough of a spirit of adventure to say "I'll figure it out."
What's the alternative? Non-existence? No point in that!
Long form, for all the possible downsides of living 'forever', or any sort of dramatically extended lifespan, there are countless untapped possibilities that can be bought with the one currency that truly matters in the universe: time.
I have enough of a spirit of adventure to say "I'll figure it out."
What's the alternative? Non-existence? No point in that!
I didn't suggest that you pray. What you're talking about is pure communism, I think.
I think the question asked is a little too conventional and linear. Sure I'd like to live forever by not only having the rest of time to spend my life in, but also by having the several billion years that have already passed to live in it too.
Dying in pain and fear certainly; dying peacefully knowing that you've achieved many of the things that you wished to achieve and now want to make way for a younger generation, not so much.
Doesn't the answer depend on whether you will be physically able, living with little or limited pain, effective in your life? Would you want to live forever if you were going to be disabled and living in your uncontrollable body, exhausted all the time, and sick? A few years ago, a Frenchwoman died at the age of 127. She warned people that she felt unbelievably tired all the time, and that death had just forgotten her.
I can imagine the world without me and I figure it will do just fine. I can't imagine medical science advancing enough to permit me to live A GOOD LIFE forever.
So, silly question.
Oh, did I mention I'm a Trusts and Estates attorney? Death and taxes are my business...
I can imagine the world without me and I figure it will do just fine. I can't imagine medical science advancing enough to permit me to live A GOOD LIFE forever.
So, silly question.
Oh, did I mention I'm a Trusts and Estates attorney? Death and taxes are my business...
For some reason people have the impression that if you live to say 120 years, that means you'll have 50 years of infirmity on your hands. In fact, the few centenarians out there are typically active much later than the average person.
So, if you live longer, by and large that also means you'll be active and healthy longer - for the simple reason that you are actually aging more slowly.
So, if you live longer, by and large that also means you'll be active and healthy longer - for the simple reason that you are actually aging more slowly.
If people lived to be 200 years or more on average (or in this case, virtually forever), they certainly wouldn't be retiring at 65 anymore, and the rules for pension incomes would have to be re-written.
A person who lived for hundreds of years would have multiple careers, multiple wives and/or husbands, multiple families. It might be commonplace for people to have 2,3, or even more academic degrees. The entire social fabric of society would change out of necessity, just add "pension concerns" to the list.
I sincerely doubt that increase in age will equate to increase in fertility. A woman is born with a certain amount of eggs in her ovaries and these will run out no matter how long she lives. Fertility in men goes down with time as well. Similarly, there is nothing to suggest that people who live together for 50 years will not live together for 150 years. Those who don't have such long partnerships already have multiple wives and/or husbands and already have multiple families BUT only within the times of their fertility. As to multiple careers? Already happened a couple of decades ago.
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