
Can we live 1000 years? - nreece
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/08/can-science-con.html
======
mixmax
Living a thousand years has some pretty interesting implications.

\- Things that seem safe will become dangerous. Small daily risks, such as
crossing a red light, will have a much bigger chance of killing you. If you
live 15 times as long the risk is 15 times as big. Expect to see people being
insulated from the daily dangers of the world.

\- Our personal drive will diminish. If you want to do a startup (or whatever
else that is nontrivial) you have to act now or it might be too late. If you
live a thousand years you can do it next month or next millenium, and you
won't feel the same pressure to get started.

\- The relation between people that have just reached adulthood and "old"
people will be tremendous in terms of experience. Can you imagine the
experience of someone that lived through the middle ages, the Roman Empire,
the colonization of America, the French revolution and both world wars?

And these are just off the top of my head...

~~~
patio11
Imagine the implications for wealth, too.

If the means of life extension is not hideously expensive, then anyone past a
certain age with even the smallest bit of sense will be rich beyond the dreams
of mortal men. Compound interest works.

This would have interesting social ramifications. As it is, most states are
organized such that the old are relatively rich, the young are relatively
poor, and the young's income subsidizes the old's healthcare costs. In a state
with some people who are 420 and some people are 20, the Methuselah will be
worth $300 million. For _every dollar_ invested back when he was twenty.

~~~
russell
Regardless of lifespan we are going to move into a post scarcity economy,
where wealth won't mean what it does today. We must do it because we can
already see the decline of extracted resources like oil and minerals. We will
do it because we can. The internet has enabled telecommuting. Telecommuting
enables the move to smaller communities where housing is cheaper. As robots
get more capable they will take over the manufacturing base.

I think we are closer to a post scarcity economy than we realize. The biggest
big ticket item is housing. The biggest item in the cost of housing in
sub/urban areas is land. If we disperse to small towns, the cost of land goes
down. If housing were really low cost and we telecommuted, maybe 10 or 20
hours of work per week would meet our needs. Suppose we adopted a Peace
Corps/Habitat for Humanity model. After school/college a person spent 3 years
building housing, including their own? Maybe all he has to mortgage is the
land and materials. Maybe not even that.

Add other ideas like a robot taxi service, 3D copying machines, reasonable
health care; and the need for much of the need for the credit economy would
disappear. I don't view this as a socialist utopia, more a natural evolution
of our current market economy. It still has lots of room for entrepreneurs
(less for VCs), volunteers, and open source whatever.

~~~
sadfsa
The only problem with your 10-hour workweek is that, as living expenses go
down and people try to stop working, wages drop also (because workers won't
complain as much if the cuts won't put them out on the street), so you'll
still have to work two full-time jobs to keep your cheap house surrounded by
endless farmland.

------
Eliezer
Give me a break. You think you're still going to be running around with fleshy
arms and legs and a meat brain after one thousand further years of
technological progress? Do you realize that the whole scientific revolution
only started five hundred years ago?

No, you will not die "crossing a red light" after living a thousand years.
Sheesh, talk about your failures of imagination.

~~~
randomwalker
It's called a metaphor. I suppose he could have said, "you might die
accidentally hitting the wrong button on a hyperdimensional panfibrillator,"
but people don't generally talk like that, preferring more familiar and
concrete imagery. Come to think of it, "1000 years" just means "really big
number that's way longer than our current lifespan."

When someone uses an exemplar to describe a class of things, you're supposed
to _imagine_ the other objects in that space.

~~~
DavidSJ
Even if I did hit the wrong button on a hyperdimensional panfibrillator, I'd
just be restored from my S3 backup.

------
rokhayakebe
Saying 1000 years is too much is a just a matter of perspective. A few
thousands years back, I am sure most people died at around 40. To them living
100 years would be way too much. 1000 is nothing. We will adapt to it and
still find ways to be miserable and need more time to do the things we want to
do.

------
Hexstream
If extending lifespan from 30 years to 70 years was beneficial, and I believe
it did, I don't see why extending it from 70 to 160 wouldn't be similarly
beneficial.

------
swombat
_Were it to do so, it would undermine what it means to be human._

 _They oppose the idea of life extension and anti-ageing research on ethical,
moral and ecological grounds._

 _the finitude of human life is a blessing for every human individual_

Seriously, if you think that dying will give meaning to your life, go ahead
and do it. No one's stopping you.

~~~
sadfsa
These statements (especially the one about "meaning") show how religion
affects a person's view of science. For it to <i>mean</i> something to be
human, there has to be someone who intends for it to mean something. Once you
accept that God is imaginary, the problem of "meaningless humanity"
disappears.

------
biohacker42
What's the ultimate end game of living for ever?

Who's read Asimov's "The Last Question"
<http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html>

Imagine you can live to 1000 or more, at what point does your brain run out of
space for memories?

When you're finally out of room in your memory buffer do you just turn it into
a FIFO queue? So you could collect a whole bunch of information you like (like
favorite books, music, movies, etc) start consuming at one end, forget that by
the time you get to the end and start again. Repeat forever.

Alternatively you could expand your mind, you turn into a cyborg or something.
See Asimov's The Last Question again.

Or you could stimulate your (possibly digital) brain's please center -
forever.

And this leads me to a theory of what happened to all the other advanced
civilizations in the universe.

Assume human like intelligence evolves somewhere out there, then:

Scenario #1: Self destruction.

Scenario #2: External destruction, asteroid or something.

Scenario #3 Super-intellect is achieved:

#3.1 Rational super intellect realized existence for the sake of existence is
pointless and quits.

#3.2 Irrational super intellect wants to exist rational enlightenment be
damned. Irrational intellect expands and expands.

In other words, if some alien species out there advanced enough to reach
trans-humanism (or trans-alienism hardi har har har) then it probably also
transcended any irrational genetic fear of death and then promptly took a bow
and exited stage left.

I guess what I'm saying is you're doomed either way.

Either you are primitive and doomed to die a natural death.

Or you're super advanced and too smart to fear death, then you have something
to do for a while but eventually...

~~~
electromagnetic
So your assumption is life is pointless so kill yourself? Are you going to be
the first person to test this laughably pessimistic hypothesis?

I'm a thousand times smarter than my pet rabbit, I've yet to even try suicide
because its patently moronic. If human beings were a thousand times smarter
than they are today then there's a high probability that less people will
commit suicide as they'll finally be smart enough to realize it's not a
solution to a problem.

Human culture is so diverse that even in 1000 years you'd barely manage 5
years in each country on the planet. I mean just look at how different human
culture is today than it was 1000 years ago. We're talking the difference
between Monarchy and Democracy in the entire western world.

There's no law of conservation of information, there's no finite limit to the
amount of data in the universe. It's not like once a thousand books have been
written you're stuck with them, there's going to be more and more unique
information as the universe ages. A being with an infinite lifespan is going
to have a lot of time experiencing all there is for humanity to offer before
it even has to create something itself, even then it could likely explore the
universe to find another culture to experience. I'm sure if you're going to
live forever and spent 10,000 years experiencing humanity, it might not seem
too long to take a quick 100 year jaunt to another star system to spend 10,000
years experiencing alienity.

~~~
biohacker42
I wouldn't just kill myself for several reasons, but the two top ones are:

First, I am afraid of death.

Second, I am mortal and my death is a certainty, there is quite literally no
point in rushing it.

So there you have one emotional instinctive reason and one logical one. And I
have to agree with you suicide is moronic.

And perhaps 1000 years is not nearly enough time to become bored. But how
about 1000 000 years? More?

My question was about the veeeeeeeeeeeeery long run, do you think you'll find
life interesting for ever?

~~~
alex_c
The problem with death is that it's irreversible.

If I'm bored today, I might still find something interesting tomorrow.

If I'm dead today, I'll still be dead tomorrow.

~~~
biohacker42
How likely are you to find something new and interesting if you are a universe
sized super intellect?

~~~
steveplace
I'll think of something.

------
sireat
I'd be happy with any radical advance in anti-aging (even extra 50 years would
be significant). Alas, I fear the breakthrough may not come within our
lifetimes. The article does nothing to dispel my pessimistic notions.

------
mhartl
I can state confidently that there are no fundamental physical laws preventing
1000-year lifespans. There aren't even fundamental biological limitations---
lots of organisms live that long. At this point it's "merely" a (very
difficult) engineering problem.

------
ars
For the religious point of view:

I hold that if god did not want people to live to 1000 he would make it
impossible to do so.

If it's possible, then god must be OK with it.

He was pretty specific about all the "possible but don't do them anyway"
things after all, so no need to add some new ones.

~~~
whatusername
From another religious angle - As I understand - prior Noah/Flood - the Bible
records humans living long lives. (Say 1000 years)

Post flood / Noah - Humans were limited to 120? Or something like that?

Found the quote: Genesis 6: 3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend
with [a] man forever, for he is mortal [b] ; his days will be a hundred and
twenty years."

So the religious interpretation could be: a) See this proves Chapters 1-8 of
Genesis b) God will curse you / etc / etc

~~~
Raphael
Isn't that interesting that the biblical limit is so close to the current
outlier lifespans?

~~~
Retric
I assume 2000 years ago some people would live about that long. It's going to
be a smaller percentage of a smaller population but the are reasonably healthy
105 year old people in the world today so I assume there were a few back then.

------
jobeyonekenobi
The third world country's / developing country's. How would they get a piece
of this? I'm quite sure they wouldn't - or if so, it would be an order of
magnitude below what the western world would have. Already more than enough to
go to war for, by the havenots.

And resources? Would we just ultimately end up allowing 1 child per 1k couples
to try and stem the rampant population explosion and resultant resource drain?

Would we tackle extreme age with a longevity based tax on a log scale?

It's the little things that add up and kick us in the arse, because even
though we could live 12 times longer, the human condition would not advance
anywhere as much.

------
jonknee
I wouldn't want to. I can barely tolerate family reunions now, no need to make
them fill a stadium.

------
jsmcgd
I'm indifferent on whether we should want/attempt to live longer than natural
life spans. Either way sounds good and bad.

------
pavelludiq
A 1000 years of memories could drive any one insane, i mean, what is our
mental capacity? I'm sure we could keep the body alive and healthy for a long
period of time, but a 1000 years is probably too much. The brain would have to
adapt somehow, we would probably forget most of our experience and only keep
the most important memories, our brains were designed for 30-40 year life-
spans, nature really didn't intend us to live as long as we live today. We've
managed so far by forgetting stuff thats not that important, but how would our
memory management work in a longer period?

------
andr
It would slow down technical innovation.

People grow accustomed to their surroundings and find newer technology
suspicious and unneeded. That's why leaps in innovation are most easily
embraced by the generations born with them (ie., current teenagers using
computers for communication where their parents use phones).

If people can live 1000 years, that would cause overcrowding of the Earth. So
if we don't expand to other planets, there would need to be some kind of very
serious birth control.

This would increase the average age of Earth's population and, as discussed
before, make them less interested in innovative products.

~~~
tom_rath
If we can get to the point where we're reversing aging, I think we can safely
assume reversible sterilization.

Use an economic solution (really simplified here): When you receive anti-aging
treatment, you're temporarily sterilized. Each person then gets 1 credit for a
child. 3 credits are required to bear a child. One can purchase or sell their
credit for children as one would like.

For the first time in human history, if one wants children, they'll have to
put conscious effort into it. Only those who _really_ want children will have
them.

...unless you don't want anti-aging treatment, then you can have as many kids
as you'd like and become 'immortal' the old fashioned way.

~~~
gcheong
I'm not sure it would be necessary. Kids in developed nations are already
considered optional (vs. undeveloped countries where you put your kids to work
so you can eat) so as people get accustomed to having more time to raise kids
then they may seem them as much less of a priority and birthrates would
continue to decline to offset the increased lifespans. I do wonder what people
would consider to be the age of maturity at which you are expected to be on
your own. Would people expect to be cared for by their parents until they are
300?

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ruby_roo
Hate to sound cynical, but I have to ask: why would technology like this be
made accessible to the average person? What would be the economic payoff?
Seems to me that this will be a technology for elitists, first and foremost.
Or you would have to 'earn' it in some way. Would the 'unproductive' among us
be allowed to have access to technology that increases their lifespans?

I'm pretty sure Larry Ellison is reading this story from his volcano lair
about now, just barely holding back his maniacal laughter. :)

------
utnick
I think an interesting side effect of extremely long lives would be people
would be a lot more careful.

Driving fast, not wearing a seatbelt, skydiving, going to war, heck even
leaving the house would be considered crazy. who would want to risk ending
their lives in an accident if they could live for another healthy 900 years?

~~~
gcheong
I'm not so sure. Did people become twice as cautious when life expectancy
doubled in our fairly recent history? The retirement age of 65 was originally
set because it was deemed so unlikely that anyone would reach it, now it is
almost considered a given that people will live past it and I don't think
people have become more cautious as a result. The other thing is that if
people feel that medical technology has advanced enough that they can be
pulled through ever increasing traumatic circumstances they are more likely to
attempt higher risk behavior.

~~~
ars
"Did people become twice as cautious when life expectancy doubled in our
fairly recent history?"

Yes! Very much so they did.

So many sports have been gutted due to "safety", chemistry sets have most of
the good stuff gone for the same reason. Kids can no longer just go and do
what they want because it's "not safe".

People took far far more risks in the past.

~~~
gcheong
This is probably more due to companies trying to protect themselves from
lawsuits and a greater understanding of how to safely to things than any
conservative attitude developed due to an increased life span. People
routinely jump off cliffs with every expectation that they will live, given
the appropriate safety measures these days, and the Darwin awards do not seem
to be lacking any candidates.

------
JulianMorrison
If you live 50 years from today you'll probably live 1000, but if you live
1000 years you'll probably live until the fundamental laws of physics leave no
possible means for your survival. Why would you stop at the limits of biology?

------
lallysingh
Imagine that everyone had time to get education, have several generations of
kids (& debug the process), maybe figure a few things out.

OTOH, we'll have to explore space, as we'll quickly run out of room.

------
ryan-allen
Someone please quote The Eyes of Heisenberg by Frank Herbert! In fact that
book is a take on living for, well, ages. :) I enjoyed it.

------
geebee
methuselah lived 900 years, methuselah lived 900 years, but who calls that
livin when no gal will give in to no man who's 900 years

~~~
shard
Maybe the downvoters just don't recognize "Porgy and Bess"? Regardless, it was
relevant commentary and not deserving of a downvote.

------
kingkongrevenge
No. We have shockingly little control over basic diseases and health issues.
This de Gray character is just an attention whore.

~~~
FlorinAndrei
I'm surprised there are so few mentions about that.

I smashed an ankle a few years ago racing a motorcycle. The ankle is mostly
fine, I can walk, hike, climb a mountain, lift weights, or just stand for as
long as I want. It doesn't hurt. Jumping though is not OK, and neither is
dancing (not that I dance anyway, but still) or running. It looks like it
can't be fixed 100%. So, if such a comparatively trivial thing can't be fixed,
how can they talk about immortality?

I don't see immortality becoming less than a dream until we are able to fix
the vast majority of diseases and health issues. The simple fact that we can't
do that is a sign that we're pretty far from understanding our biology.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I think most of the issues with your ankle are simply problems of mechanical
engineering. Total ankle replacements exist now, they just aren't very
good.However, I find it highly unlikely that in the next 10 years, incremental
improvements to artificial ankles will not lead to ankles capable of jumping,
dancing and jogging.

------
time_management
I think it's optimistic to state that the first 1000-year-old is alive today.
We don't know anything about the challenges that a 200+ year lifespan will
pose. What scares me is that imperfect, expensive forms of "immortality" will
exist before the desirable, cheap ones. I wouldn't want to "make the cut" but
be demented for 900 years.

I think I'll die at a relatively normal age, between 70 and 100, and that the
first 200-year-old will be alive when I die. I make no projections about 1000,
much less over 9000.

------
tphyahoo
I don't know, but I hope we get space colonization first, or it's going to get
awfully crowded and competitive around here.

~~~
Harkins
It would be some pretty big spaceships that could outpace the birth rate.

~~~
randallsquared
...or very numerous. If wealth keeps trending upwards, then anyone who wants
will be able to afford their own ship out, as the wealthy can all afford
yachts today.

------
ram1024
so the question is. what happens at 1000 that kills us, and why aren't we
solving that problem?

WTF didn't anyone see this coming? might as well just die now if it's all
going to be the same...

~~~
rsheridan6
ISTR that, on average, people would live to be 1000 on average if they died
only from accidents/violence rather than disease and old age.

The age distribution would be different. With the simplifying assumption that
everybody's chance of dying in a given year is the same, the mortality rate
would be proportional to number of people alive, which means that 1000 years
would be a half-life. So you'd see 1/8 of the people living to be 3000 or more
years, 1/16 living to be 4000, etc.

------
lst
?

First of all we would have _not_ to kill the not yet born ones. This would be
the very first step necessary.

The next step necessary would be _not_ to help to kill the old ones.

Currently we have no real respect neither for the not born ones, nor for old
ones.

In other words: currently we still (kind of) _hate_ life.

------
mccon104
No.

------
transburgh
Imagine the number of people competing for jobs.

------
felideon
Imagine having been born in the year 1100 and still be alive with about 90
years to go.

PS: For what it's worth, humans actually did live for about 900 years on
average until the Great Flood---if you believe in the Bible.

