Would you like to live beyond 100?

Originally posted by Jigtie
I'll live to be 163 years old, and I'll have a ball 'til the last day. I've seen this in my vision quests. It's the truth.

When will you lose the other ball?

Originally posted by pawnhandler
Nope. Sounds dreadful. I don't fancy hanging around a nursing home. I worked in one in my younger days. I'd rather be shot.

Aubrey Grey is not talking about being old in a nursing home and disabled mentally or physically or both, he is talking about a dude 120 yo or so who has the body and mind of a 30 yo. There are many social implications of this, for instance, if it came about that a guy or girl can get to 120 with the body of a 30 yo it makes sense to drop the whole social security idea since a 30 yo is in the prime of his or her life job wise so there would be no reason for someone 120 yo to continue to collect a couple of thou a month and just lay back and do nothing. There would be laws generated forcing them to get off their assses and get back to work. This can really extend the money for real retirement but suppose Grey is right, the 120 yo lives through some extensive progress allowing that person to go from 120 to 300. Now things get a bit more serious population wise. Getting people to live to 120 or so in a healthy body is not that big a deal population wise but if they live to 300 then you have to make serious choices, namely either not allowing people to live that long on average or lowering the birth rate dramatically. 300 years is about 10 human generations or more so it stands to reason the birth rate would have to be cut by a factor of 10 or more to keep the population stable. That alone would have serious implications for development of science and education. I think it is the input of new young minds that elevates our sciences and arts. If we all live to 300 how much would either science or art expand? Imagine a 300 year old Mozart: Well Leopold, I just sent off my symphony # 249 to the orchestra.....
I mean how much better could one actually get in 300 years of artistic productivity?
How much better did Michelangelo or Chagall get when they were past 90?
They both made it to near 100 in an age when the lifespan was very short.
So did they come up with revolutions at that age? Of course they produced masterpieces but what about the changes that came later, impressionism and pointillists and so forth, would that have ever come about if Michelangelo had lived to 300? I doubt it. What more would Einstein have done if alive today, where he would in fact actually be 120 now. He pursued the unified field theory for 50 years after his breakthrough with relativity and got nowhere, which is not to say that work was worthless but in the meantime other theorists with younger minds have jumpstarted the whole field with string theory and multiverse's and such. Would Einstein have gotten that far in the next 40 years if he were still alive? I don't think so, even granting he is a genius, the more other genius minds you have the more angles a problem can be pursued from and that goes for Art, Education, Sciences, Economics, Forensics, Engineering and so forth. Making available such longevity would in my opinion doom the advancement of all those things I mentioned.
There might be less crime for the forensics to work on however. A guy 300 years old would not like the idea of a life sentence when 'life' now means 3 or 400 years in prison. That could be a good thing, besides people would get a lot more mature if they were a 200 yo in a 30 yo body or 20 yo body. They would have seen what they did when they were 20 or 30 the first time round and would avoid the worse mistakes of that era in their lives so that would be a definite plus. But would the end result be worth it? If everyone (not counting inevitable accidents which would put an upper limit to any attempt at immortality) lived to be 1000 yo, where would science, the arts, education and so forth be 2000 years down the road, assuming we avoid the global disasters Ala Al Gore and so forth. Why don't you think about what it would be like 3000 years after the advent of people living for 1 or 2 thou. Any takers on that?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Aubrey Grey is not talking about being old in a nursing home and disabled mentally or physically or both, he is talking about a dude 120 yo or so who has the body and mind of a 30 yo. There are many social implications of this, for instance, if it came about that a guy or girl can get to 120 with the body of a 30 yo it makes sense to drop the whole social s ...[text shortened]... d be like 3000 years after the advent of people living for 1 or 2 thou. Any takers on that?

Actually, that's one of the problems with Social Security. If I remember correctly, at the time they were assuming that people would only need it a few years, not retire at 65 and live another 30 years!

If I were perfectly healthy, or as perfectly healthy as I deserve to be based on my health habits ... still no. Unless I had a partner to share that time with.

Originally posted by pawnhandler
Actually, that's one of the problems with Social Security. If I remember correctly, at the time they were assuming that people would only need it a few years, not retire at 65 and live another 30 years!

If I were perfectly healthy, or as perfectly healthy as I deserve to be based on my health habits ... still no. Unless I had a partner to share that time with.

One big problem with people living longer lives is the built-in prejudice against old folks, 'they are so stuck in their ways, they can't learn, etc., etc., etc. When that prejudice is overcome more old ones will be in the workplace maybe with supervisors 50 years younger but both generations are going to have to get over that issue.

I think it's funny for the 30 yo crowd to be crowing about how they would never want to live to be 100.... till they get to about 70 or so🙂

Originally posted by sonhouse
One big problem with people living longer lives is the built-in prejudice against old folks, 'they are so stuck in their ways, they can't learn, etc., etc., etc. When that prejudice is overcome more old ones will be in the workplace maybe with supervisors 50 years younger but both generations are going to have to get over that issue.

I think it's funny ...[text shortened]... owing about how they would never want to live to be 100.... till they get to about 70 or so🙂

I'm in my 50s. I haven't seen the thirties in a very long time. I have no desire to spend another 50 years hanging around.

My father didn't retire until he was 75. My mother is still working at 73. Luckily there are still some places that let you work full-time as long as you want to (that aren't WalMart). They're lucky, though. Many places have a mandatory retirement age, which I think is bogus. Some people are old farts when they're young, and some people can go on forever. I'll be one of the latter. I don't see myself retiring if I'm still capable of working.