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Can we live 1000 years?

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Re: Can we live 1000 years?

#91

Post by zasz »

mixmax wrote: post #9

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 el…

When you start a startup, are you really thinking, "holy shit I only have 44.9 years of life left! Better make the most of it!" Your old age and death are pretty abstract concepts if you're young and healthy. I think for most of us, the thought process is more, "holy shit, I could spend the next twenty years working on shitty enterprise software in Cobol! Better work my way out now!" If you're making every decision now in the context of a death that's decades away, that's a bit sad.

Re: Can we live 1000 years?

#92

Post by DavidSJ »

randomwalker wrote: post #80
Eliezer wrote: post #67

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.

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 suppos…

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

Re: Can we live 1000 years?

#93

Post by rms »

newt0311 wrote: post #86
stcredzero wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And even if the docs make you get snipped in exchange for the immortality treatments, by then we'll be able to induce meiosis, combine and crossover genes with another and produce offspring anyhow, for the right price.

Hard to tell if you are arguing against my point through sarcasm or supporting my point by covering a contingency. Weird.

I call it hyper-cynicism, both of those points exist in a kind of quantum superposition.

Re: Can we live 1000 years?

#94

Post by Raphael »

whatusername wrote: post #85
ars wrote: post #59

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.

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 t…

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

Re: Can we live 1000 years?

#95

Post by 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?

Re: Can we live 1000 years?

#96

Post by Retric »

Raphael wrote: post #94
whatusername wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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

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.

Re: Can we live 1000 years?

#97

Post by stcredzero »

newt0311 wrote: post #86
stcredzero wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And even if the docs make you get snipped in exchange for the immortality treatments, by then we'll be able to induce meiosis, combine and crossover genes with another and produce offspring anyhow, for the right price.

Hard to tell if you are arguing against my point through sarcasm or supporting my point by covering a contingency. Weird.

I was supporting your point. What made it sarcastic, the use of "Right?"

Re: Can we live 1000 years?

#98

Post by LogicHoleFlaw »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #42
DaniFong wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you don't sound like you know too many of the very poorest Americans. They are in debt, or completely insolvent, living a life of vagrancy, homeless, family-less, mentally disturbed, and diseased, often terminally. Kings lived lives of prestige and luxury.

The very poorest in our society are, as you note, mentally ill, addicted and diseased. Beyond those people, however, most of the poor do live quite well even in comparison to nobility of the past.

I was marvelling a few days ago that I can get bananas and kiwis in the dead of winter.

It's good to keep life in perspective sometimes.

Re: Can we live 1000 years?

#99

Post by 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?

Re: Can we live 1000 years?

#100

Post by Hexstream »

newt0311 wrote: post #65
cabalamat wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There would probably be laws against that. If people were immortal, perhaps the law would say every two humans can have one child between them; that way population could only double once.

Doubt it. Population control laws are too unpopular and anybody over ~300 is probably very rich thanks if nothing else, due to the magic of compound interest. Since rich = powerful, it is unlikely that any population control measure would hold up well.

If lots of people get "rich and powerful" all of a sudden, then the criteria for being considered "rich and powerful" will go up.
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