Human Life Span - 210 years

[Ishmael]

Having spent a good deal of my career in medical resaearch I still keep in touch with former colleagues and the advances in the field.

What with the research going on in nanotech, genetic engineering, and such serious researchers are now positing the possibility of human life spans in excess of 200 years. Productive life spans with middle age occuring in the mid 100's.

OK, sounds good so far. What's the catch?

Well that's what this thread is about. What are the catches? We are talking about a revolutionary change, two, maybe three generations, not an evolutionary change.

Sooooooo, what effects might this have on the social order? Families? Property? Careers/jobs? Should this be available to all? If not does the market decide or government? Euthanasia?

Got some ideas? Solutions?

Have fun.

Ishmael

 

[Bluereign]

a better question is what wouldn't change?

imagine the world suddenly living those ages. imagine applying for jobs against people with 50 years or more of experience. food. congestion. etc etc etc..

basically we need to explore space just so we can dump err...emmigrate people on a colony or something..

 

[P. B. Walker]

Well, it's definitely interesting. I wonder... would a person's potential to create babies expand with life expectancy? If so, I see a major potential for over population.

I also see a big move toward people not being in a rush to get a career. I mean, why bother? Why not travel Europe on a bike or whatever until you are 40 or 50?


The downside: What the fuck do you get for a couple on their 150th wedding anniversary???!!

 

[Pseudomoniker]

Well, it's definitely interesting. I wonder... would a person's potential to create babies expand with life expectancy? If so, I see a major potential for over population.

I also see a big move toward people not being in a rush to get a career. I mean, why bother? Why not travel Europe on a bike or whatever until you are 40 or 50?


The downside: What the fuck do you get for a couple on their 150th wedding anniversary???!!

Viagara.

 

[Marxist]

I'm thinking only the rich would have the access to the magic pill of youth.

You'd be creating a superclass of haves and have nots.

Can you imagine how much of world the Walmart kids and Gates would own if they had an additional 100 years?

 

[P. B. Walker]

Bonus: Can you imagine your retirement account after you've been putting money into it for 100 years? Fuck.

 

[Zen_Life]

But if we all lived that long, where would we park?

 

[Ishmael]

170 would be more like the mid-forties today. Imagine your great-great-great-grandparents still having children.

Ishmael

 

[Ham Murabi]

I'm thinking only the rich would have the access to the magic pill of youth.

You'd be creating a superclass of haves and have nots.

Can you imagine how much of world the Walmart kids and Gates would own if they had an additional 100 years?

Well, some one had to make it a "class" issue, even though most people who start out "poor" statistically end up, at worst, in the middle class.
This could be the magic pill that our weak-kneed politicians are looking for, however. With social security headed for insolvency, adding to the human lifespan would allow the eligiblity age for social security to climb to 190 years.
Just think, paying for 170 years into a retirement system, and not being able to touch it until 20 years before you are expected to die. Is that a bureaucrat's dream or what?
Better yet, if you "only" live until you're 160, you don't get a dime.

 

[Pseudomoniker]

170 would be more like the mid-forties today. Imagine your great-great-great-grandparents still having children.

Ishmael

We'll have to revise all our Kentucky jokes.

"Where you can be married to both your sister and your great-great grandmother at the same time?"

 

[Ishmael]

I'm thinking only the rich would have the access to the magic pill of youth.

You'd be creating a superclass of haves and have nots.

Certainly an issue, isn't it? You have two alternatives. Everyone gets the treatments, or the government decides who gets the treatments. (A "Long Life Lotto" system?) All three bring thier own sets of problems.

Ishmael

 

[Ham Murabi]

Great news for photographers. Think of all the 10-generation family photos they can take.

 

[Bidin~Time]

That idea brings some questins to mind

A person wouldn't be considered an 'adult' until age 50-60?

ok maybe you could stay in school til you were 30, but what to do with those other 20-30 yrs. Work on multiple doctorates?
That would pretty much relegate those with a B.A. or B.S. degree to McD's wouldn't it?

Lord knows you couldn't retire at 65-70, no retirement benefits known today would last 140 yrs.

And what would the child-bearing/rearing yrs be? 20-170?

Would extended families living together to the 4th and 5th generations(or longer) then be the norm? if not where and how are they going to live?

The idea of marriages lasting 40-50 yrs are all but a thing of the past in this day and age, will ppl really want to live with the same person 150+ yrs? and is it possible? or will marriage contracts of a definite length of time be considered?

 

[Pseudomoniker]

If the life expectancy did increase to around 200, what does that imply about the quality of life though?

Would we still show signs of aging at 40 and look like shit for the next 160 years? Would our bodies break down due to the normal wear and tear of life's activities and would we end up spending 100 years confined to a bed with osteoporosis?

If you can't combine the longer lifespan with delayed physical aging effects, people will be less eager to embrace it.

 

[dreamer]

It sounds great...for me and those I love.

Everyone else can drop off like mayflies.

 

[Ishmael]

If the life expectancy did increase to around 200, what does that imply about the quality of life though?

Would we still show signs of aging at 40 and look like shit for the next 160 years? Would our bodies break down due to the normal wear and tear of life's activities and would we end up spending 100 years confined to a bed with osteoporosis?

If you can't combine the longer lifespan with delayed physical aging effects, people will be less eager to embrace it.

In a word, NO. Aging would be proportional to the years. Aging is a gentic artifact. That is what this technology would overcome to a great extent.

Ishmael

 

[PinkOrchid]

 

[I am Mark]

Having spent a good deal of my career in medical resaearch I still keep in touch with former colleagues and the advances in the field.

What with the research going on in nanotech, genetic engineering, and such serious researchers are now positing the possibility of human life spans in excess of 200 years. Productive life spans with middle age occuring in the mid 100's.

OK, sounds good so far. What's the catch?

Well that's what this thread is about. What are the catches? We are talking about a revolutionary change, two, maybe three generations, not an evolutionary change.

Sooooooo, what effects might this have on the social order? Families? Property? Careers/jobs? Should this be available to all? If not does the market decide or government? Euthanasia?

Got some ideas? Solutions?

Have fun.

Ishmael

I plan on living forever, for I am immortal. Therefore to me it would change nothing.

 

[phrodeau]

It would mean a higher proportion of older people, obviously. The world would never be rid of chauvinism, racial bigotry, religious intolerance and warmongering.

 

[70/30]

The developed world is growing at such a minimal rate, it might be necessary prevent the world from becoming 90% Asian in the next 100years. I did read that China has but half the farmland of America, so GAIA has some tools to "keep our kind" from being completely enveloped. As for the extraordinary theory, I've come to believe just about anything is possible--not the least that humans have more than 5 senses/amazing instincts that are embedded.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Oooh, this would be fun.. keep the technology for extending one's life in the market arena so only the rich can get a hold of it. Meanwhile people will attempt to get cheaper access to it in other nations, and there'll be laws created against it by the FDA after pressure from pharmaceuticals and other companies who rely on fattened profits from American customers.

When population growth explodes because of these extended lifetimes, the poor will be blamed, and attempts will be made to cut down their populations. Necessity, of course, being the mother of all evil.

Damn, where's Michael Anderson and Saul David when we need 'em?

 

[Ishmael]

It would mean a higher proportion of older people, obviously. The world would never be rid of chauvinism, racial bigotry, religious intolerance and warmongering.

Of course. That's why there was SOOOOOOO much less chauvinism, racial bigotry, religious intolerance, and war when the life expectancy was only 40. <rolleyes>

Ishmael

 

[Ishmael]

Please explain what you mean when you say aging is a genetic artifact.

Are you talking about the shortening of telomeres with each cell division?

Or do you mean we may finally overcome the changes in genetic expression that happen as we age?

And what about oxidation, doesn't this play a large role in aging?

All of it. Genetic manipulation via nanotech would replace and repair. But remember, all we're doing here is extending the life span. All of the cumlative effects you mentioned are still in play. Just drawn out over a much longer period in time.

The ability of overcome and eliminate all of the issues you've brought up would yeild immortality. That is not being discussed as a possibility, yet.

Ishmael

 

[Mad_Jack_Rabbit]

Brian Stableford's series 'Inherit the Earth', 'Architects of Emortality', and 'Fountains of Youth' has looked at this in some depth.

He adopts the term 'Emortality' to describe the situation (coined from Alvin Silverstien, author of Conquest of Death). Emortality - people live a very long time but can die rather than being unable to die (Immortal).

 

[Ishmael]

Oooh, this would be fun.. keep the technology for extending one's life in the market arena so only the rich can get a hold of it. Meanwhile people will attempt to get cheaper access to it in other nations, and there'll be laws created against it by the FDA after pressure from pharmaceuticals and other companies who rely on fattened profits from American customers.

When population growth explodes because of these extended lifetimes, the poor will be blamed, and attempts will be made to cut down their populations. Necessity, of course, being the mother of all evil.

Damn, where's Michael Anderson and Saul David when we need 'em?

Well you might as well accept the fact that it's going to happen. Perhaps within your own lifetime.

It's going to happen no matter what laws are passed by who, where.

It's going to be used by some countries for political advantage. I can see some countries where the political leadership would recieve the treatments and the workers wouldn't. The "Bee Hive" model (A model where the queen has an extraordinarily long life compared to the rest of the hive.) I can see capitalist and socialist models.

Given the international travel capabilities of todays world the FDA would be of little or no use. People will travel to recieve these treatments. Probably to small tropical island nations that would base their economy on the providing of these treatments.

I can see certain countries trying to make the treatments against the law, while the privileged of those countries travel to recieve the treatments. Talk about 'revolution' material.

And there will be costs involved. As with most technology relatively high costs at first diminishing as advanced techniques, yeild, etc. come into play. So the issue of who will pay and how is certainly in play as well.

But those are all short term effects.

Ishmael