Living For 1000 Years

[poliphilo]

Chap on TV was saying he knows how to reverse the ageing process. He reckons we'll have it cracked by the middle of the century. After that we'll have the option (not everyone will take it) of living for a thousand years.

Are we ready for this?

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Not if we still have to retire at 65. I'd probably be willing to go for a couple hundred, provided I stayed healthy, but I think 1,000 might be a bit much.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

1000 is almost unimaginable (though I've been trying to imagine it with the Purchas stories.) How on earth would we manage? How would society as a whole manage?

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

"have to"? Very few places require you to retire at 65 any more.

[ex-kharin447.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read 'The Trouble with Lichen' by John Wyndham? It postulates pretty much this scenario.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I haven't.

I guess Wyndham foresees a disaster. I don't think immortality need be that, but it would certainly throw our current social arrangements into confusion.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Well that would certainly become even more of a population problem!

I don't think I believe him though. Is his last name Frankenstein? ;-)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I forget his name, but he was a weird looking bloke- with a very long beard and moustache.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

I'm betting that he might be a descendant...

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

A thousand years. My goodness, we will all look like the Picture of Dorian Gray.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ah, not- we'd all be regularly rejuvenated. The population would consist of nothing but 30somethings

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

God no. Not only do I NOT want to live that long, civilization will collapse as previous generations refuse to give way to the ones coming up. One more example of the misuse of technology.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't know if civilisation would collapse; it would certainly change.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Not without improved health care in the U.S.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And all sorts of other social adjustments.

[chochiyo-sama.livejournal.com]

I'll take the thousand years. Who really ever thinks they are going to die anyhow?

Oh, sure, we KNOW we will--but it doesn't really seem real until something threatens our mortality.

I could be just as happy for a thousand years as I am now--and I could learn and do a lot of cool things. It's just doing the dishes and vaccuuming the rugs and having coffee with a friend....one day at a time--forever.


I would want to be regressed physically to about 10, though, because I want to PLAY.

heh heh heh.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd take it too- I think.

I want to be a pioneer.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

yeah, i wonder how hard it can be?

all the organic stuff except maybe the brain could be cloned and replaced. and the brain, hmm. maybe they can replace it a bit at a time. or just transfer all the information to a new one as if they were burning CD`s...

and as for all the people- well, probably we`ll need to go off and colonize space. meaning earth will be full of 1000 year olds and the space fringes will be full of young uns off sewing their wild oats. sounds ok to me...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Apparently there's no gene for ageing. The problem is that our cells simply accumulate damage faster than they can repair themselves. If that ratio can be reversed, we've got it sorted.

Yeah, I think serious space exploration would be the logical next step. With astronauts who can live 1000 years the prime objection to going to the stars (that it would take so long) is removed.

[chochiyo-sama.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah!

I'll go to the stars!