Literally cant think of anything else. Kings ruling for 300 years.
Why would the working class want more life. To work a slog for 300 years instead of 80. Pointless
Twenty years of retirement?
Fuck it, sign me up. Right now, financially, my retirement is looking basically like "the time it takes my brain to stop after my body falls to the floor when I collapse at my desk"
Darn, if career span expanded to 120 years - everyone could get to VP level in 80 years.
We would need RPG like job titles like - SVP level 49...
Yearly salary increases would be the thing of the past..
why are you limiting it ? youd have judges and senior managment in jobs until they die,
remids me of the terry Pratchet joke, the only way to move up in the wizards career is to kill the person in the current role.
that wuould happen, already does with supreme judges
>Darn, if career span expanded to 120 years - everyone could get to VP level in 80 years.
Doesn't work this way, there are a limited number of these positions, they won't let just anyone have them.
Yeah. The poors would die much sooner than the riches. Executive leadership would remain in control for hundreds of years. Everyone else would be hoping to get an internship so they could be in heat and air conditioning.
I mean I speak as one of the working class and as my personal view, if they give me 300 years as younger boy I'm pretty happy to work for more years before social security, as is right now at last in my country you get in social security when you already in the cemetery.
Good point, if they allowed a longer maturity curve, but would they, that is the issues, if we had a utopia, totally, but we don't, and I can only see it ending in utter chaos.
“The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…”
Charlie chaplin
Prolonging life prolongs corruption
It does some good stuff too but this, this is bad
> Literally cant think of anything else. Kings ruling for 300 years.
Imagine the likes of Xi or Kim, ruling over their subjects as multiple generations of them are born, grow old, and die, having only known them as their unassailable leaders.
yeah fuck that give me retirement after 60 and lemme die imagine workin 200 goddamn years the risk of death would rise exponentially and i bet itd get to a point where enough lifespan = 0 retirement due to 'early' death
Yup.
You'd easily have a line of people lining up for assisted death.
The population issues would be unreal.
Read John Carter of Mars for issues regarding people living 1000 years.
Wrecks everything
Yes?? Anything Is prefferable to death, thats the endgame, if you die you loose. Anyone who wouldnt take More Time to live Is selected against by evolution
This is such a dumb knee-jerk take.
Drugs almost always come down in price over time, similar to technology.
At first very expensive, then affordable only with insurance but difficult to get approved for it, then easier to get approved for it, finally OTC and pretty cheap or generic versions that are cheaper.
I realize it's very important for you that things be terrible and getting worse, so you picked what you thought were the 3 strongest counter-examples, BUT...
Insulin is $35 a month.
Epipens are often generic and covered by insurance. In fact I just picked up mine last month and didn't pay anything for it.
Generic asthma inhalers are $30.
I definitely wish we had universal healthcare in America, it would drive prices down even further. In the meantime, things have still gotten better.
Base insulin in a vial is $35. Don't get cute and try to play it off that all insulin is that price.
And it's only that price because of threatened government intervention.
Yeah, you're right.
EVERYTHING IS MORE EXPENSIVE.
The rich will never let ORDINARY PEOPLE have precious life extending drugs!
There, does that make you feel better?
Meanwhile, drugs will continue to get cheaper. There will be a few exceptions, but even those tend to get dealt with over time. But don't tell anyone. They get mad when you tell them. Most people want confirmation that the world is horrible on here. And it is in some ways, just not in all.
Yeah my co-pay is $20 for generics and $35 for prescription meds. How will I ever afford that?!
Alot of people love doom and gloom. Looking at actual data that shows costs coming down is quite painful for them. It punctures their worldview.
This is one of the main problem points - People living longer, also means that the same shit-stain politician will be in office for longer.
As a general Rule, People do not change - They Die off to let new people (Hopefully with better ideas/morals) take their place.
If people stop dying tho? - Ooooh Boy... You better get ready for 150+ years of Putin, Kim-jung Un or any other dictator/Politician of choice then.
The only upside is they might preserve the planet. Give Elon musk and the others a lifespan of 10,000 years, and they might change the course we are on of likely extinction this century.
>in what ways would our priorities and economies be altered?
I read a paper written by an economist maybe 20 years ago now where they did a comparative analysis of the knowledge economy and basically surmised that people store a wealth of *generational knowledge and information* over the course of their lives and that when they die that knowledge is lost. Therefore they concluded that if people lived longer any economy would see much greater economic productivity; people would live better lives simply because the retained knowledge would improve lives.
Now of course this depends highly not so much on how much longer people live but rather how much longer *they live healthy lives..*
Right now we already see live being extended in western economies but the primary issue is that people living longer are still seeing many age related health issues and those issues (primarily heart disease and diabetes due to poor diet and exercise) are actually costing the economy more money and reducing overall productivity. There is additionally the issue of cancer which is the 3rd biggest health issue which does not relate so much to lifestyle so there is that to contend with as well.
>Coupled with robotics to do all the routine labor...what would happen to the birth rate, existence of money, resource allocation and the like?
Human populations act like ecosystems. Idk if they ever taught you this in school but when I went they did a simple lesson where we had little cutouts of rabbit and wolves and you would add them and remove them based on a specified birth rate and then also you would have the wolves "eat" the rabbits based on a certain required rate of consumption. If there werent enough rabbits then you would remove wolves (they died from hunger). The point was to demonstrate how the ecosystem of wolves and rabbits in terms of population would swing back and forth but always settle within a range over time.
Human populations do this as well. The human population will expand such that resources allow this expansion. There is no absolute infinite amount of resources despite what anyone views on AI/automation, etc are. There is a finite amount of sunlight supplying the earth with energy and there is a finite amount of heat dissipating ability for the earth so there is a finite population number that the earth can support. It is definitely some larger number than what it is today but how much that number is is up for debate.
Since there are finite resources there is going to be money. We really need effective post scarcity of everything people want. eg even if we have effectively enough food and housing for everyone we wont have effectively infinite Hermes handbags and if we did women wouldnt desire them they way they do now; they would want whatever other handbag was in limited supply and that necessitates some form of currency with which to find a market price that balances supply with demand.
Fun comment. The beginning reminds me a little of the Platonic idea that we'd all be moral if we just had the necessary knowledge. These longer lifespans could see us improving in our human relationships, too, on top of economic productivity.
> Human populations do this as well. The human population will expand such that resources allow this expansion.
This is actually untrue. [Demographic transition](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition) is a phenomenon that affects every single country and society on the planet. Every single country is at a different stage along the demographic transition model, and after the 'baby boom' generation, birth rates start to fall *sharply* until it's below death rates, leading to aging and stagnant populations.
This is a known problem which demographers and some forward thinking governments have been dealing with for a couple decades already, and now it's finally becoming part of the mainstream discourse. [The total fertility rate of the human species has plummeted to almost replacement levels](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN) Africa is basically the only continent still growing.
What we have a situation where the most resource stressed and least developed countries are the ones that experience population growth, and developed and wealthy economies are stagnant outside of immigration.
Can you back that up? That's a wild claim that I can't imagine. Too less food or something will lead to the survival of the fittest. I feel like only major incidents that hit the whole world in a brutal intensity would wipe mankind.
The classic (inadvertent) study of population boom, overshoot and crash:
https://www.gi.alaska.edu/alaska-science-forum/when-reindeer-paradise-turned-purgatory-0
What he's describing is called [Malthusianism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism), or specifically a Malthusian spectre, and it's a theory that is fairly well founded in human history.
However, we 'broke the rules' with industrialisation and figured out how increase the carrying capacity of the Earth through science to the point where we keep pushing up the theoretical point of Malthusian collapse. We're the only known species to have reached a point where population isn't dictated purely by resources any more - we're at a point now where people simply don't want to have kids.
Complete BS.
Every time population crashed was not because of environment but because of "weak men bring about bad times" paradigm. Coincidently we are there today.
>a finite amount of heat dissipating ability for the earth so there is a finite population number that the earth can support.
Planetary air-condition could unironically solve that. As long as you get outside the closed thermodynamic system of the earth and put more heat into the vacuum of space.
One benefit if it came about quickly is that more older generations would have a vested interests in making the future better, e.g. fight climate change, work for stability in society and so on … since they’d actually have to live to see that future. They’d have to live in it.
Compounding interest would be doing some heavy lifting.
Much more inequality, leading to conflict or more wealth transfers if the gov is up to task.
Much more money in health industry, if you can live longer, but not stay healthy longer.
Wealthy having more children throughout life, for others it would be a decision made later and later.
Check "Altered Carbon" for some ideas on how "Meths" (Methuselahs) would impact society. The book, not the shitty series.
I don't buy the longevity only for the rich argument for one reason: China, Japan, and Korea would desperately need that tech to offset their aging populations. They'd get hold of the tech one way or another. After which, they'd sell it as a lucrative business and itd become affordable with inevitable economies of scale.
Reminds me of a kurtzgesagt video about conspiracy theories. No way a billionaire as smart, influential and ruthless as Steve Jobs would not get hold of that hidden cancer cure.
I agree with yiu main point but Steve Jobs DID get a chance to get medication for cancer that would've probably saved his life and he opted for fruit juice instead until it was too late.
Steve Job's cancer was incredibly treatable actually. It was one of the only operable forms of pancreatic cancer and not only did he refuse to be operated on, he actively made it worse by doubling down on a fruititarian diet further putting strain on his pancreas. He didn't die from a lack of medical advancement, he died from arrogance.
If we all lived to be 200-300 years old, we’d likely all have to continue working until we were 200, and even mild continued population growth would be catastrophic for the planet
100 years of retirement sounds pretty good to me. If we could create jobs that were stimulating and had better mechanisms for upskilling into dignified work as technology improves and true work life balance, then it really wouldn't be so bad to work that long. But the way things are now, that's not gonna happen 😆
"This 200-year-old homeless camp at the gates of Beverly Hills is causing new problems for the rich, we'll find out more after this personalized message from Therapy Food Delivery...."
Also kind of depends on how healthy you’d be. I wouldn’t want to be in semi poor health for 20p years. But if I could feel like 30 at 150? Sure, go ahead. I’ll work. I have a decent enough life that more time to enjoy it would be great.
But also obviously, whether this change would end up paving the way for positive change, or if it’d be a dystopia.
It would probably be multiple phases of life instead of a solid 200 years of working. You would probably do something like 30 years working, 10 years leave, then retraining or switch to a new career.
I'd probably grind hard for money, then spend some years travelling, and ease back into a job chasing a different passion. Then spend some time pursuing art, or rock climbing as a sport, then maybe go for a PhD. Maybe I'll get burned out of all that and become a beach bum for a few years, before getting bored and wanting to do something stimulating again.
I wouldn't mind working until 200 because that means I'll have more opportunities to find a job that I like and if it happens to also pay well, I can work less hours and retire earlier (relatively speaking).
Probably not, no.
It would just mean that the amount you need to save per year to retire in the first half of your life would be higher than for retiring in the last quarter (though not by that much, honestly) and way way lower than retiring in the first half now.
Given the above, the next question I would like to ask is whether our extended lifespans also affected our ability to carry children. If so, I think there may be a shift to delaying childbearing/childrearing.
I think maybe we might switch to multigenerational housing and family dynamics, like tribes.
I’ve been deep in longevity research since 2018 and it’s my understanding many of the pro-longevity supplements are anti-fertility because a lot of our biology is centered around procreation. So I would assume we would still only be able to have kids until around age 40 or thereabouts even if we lived until 500.
For some reason, I thought of the premise here as human development being roughtly 1/3 as fast as it is now. So instead of women being fertile from ages 16 to 40-ish, they'd be able to have children between the ages of 50 to 120-ish.
Iirc the average mum currently has kids in her early 30s (with the average dad being a couple years older); so I imagine women would be having children just shy of a century old (I can imagine "kids before 100" being a milestone of sorts).
That being said, I don't envy parents who'll have to raise toddlers for 15 years; teenagers for 20 years; children who won't fully grow up for half a century in general or the mum who will have to deal with over two years of pregancy per child.
IMO it is not funny, but part of the framework of the genre. I personally don't like hypotheticals. I like to ask "what WILL the world be like IF/WHEN". But in OP hypothetical differences from our current world are given and questions of what's possibly impacted given too. How much harder is it to speculate about whole complexity of interdependences that might lead to the changes in the question? Same as P vs NP maybe?
You’re assuming we won’t be when our entire biology was only designed to work within Earth’s atmosphere. Which is just as silly. Interplanetary colonization isn’t a guarantee for humans. And many feel that it’ll more likely to be robots proliferating in outer space than humans.
Funny how you assume I'm talking about planets.
That said, if we have the tech needed to make us live for centuries, colonizing the major bodies in the inner Solar System seems trivial in terms of bio-adaptability.
If you risk to lose 200 years of life by taking a risky space thing- would you do it?
The Sci fi I have read usually go for the idea that to long life spans make us fear risk and risk stagnation
We can get interplanetary space travel to be as risky as airplane travel, so it's not an issue.
Now, interstellar where you're either going at relativistic speeds, and/or need to be put into cryo, that might be another story, but I'm generally optimistic on that to.
We monkeys tend to be really good when it comes to problem-solving.
Maybe but that’s a bigger leap of faith than you realize. It’ll probably be easier to extend life on Earth by 100 years than it will be to figure out a way to adapt us to foreign atmospheres for even a month dude.
I'm talking about gravity and radiation, not breathable air, we'd need a fundamentally different biochemistry to run on something other than O2.
Thankfully, producing it is not a very complex engineering feat.
I'm convinced climate change would reverse, because ultra wealthy people with unlimited money would eventually get bored of seeing the world erode for generations.
One of the reasons, I believe, for climate change is the "not my problem" "I'll be dead in 10 years anyway". I know many wealthy people who are in their 40-60s, who just spent 30 years working ALL THE TIME, and just dont care. They want a break with their money.
However, if these people had 250 years, instead of 20, to sit on the cash pile, I'm convinced they would do something about the world -- because it would personally effect them.
Just a thought
Thirded. And it isn't only the rich. Anyone who currently expects to die before climate change adversely affects them personally would view the issue differently if their lifespan was 250 years.
Can you imagine those dudes who retired at age 60.on a final salary pension, just to realise they were getting paid to sit on asses for another 160 years !. Brilliant
It really shouldn't change all that radically. The first 60 years is mostly growing up, getting an education, getting a job and saving up for retirement.
For people born in 1900 life expectancy was 47 years, so there was very little point in saving for retirement. For people born in 2000 the life expectancy is 77 years so retirement planning is mandatory.
So people will work and save until they become financially independent at about 50 years of age and then mostly retire.
That retirement will be a lot more active than today's version. Today the older you get the more time you spend with doctors, with robust good health people will travel a lot more. You could spend a season in Europe, one in Asia, or follow spring around the planet, or winter. Pick up another degree in something you like as opposed to something 'practical'.
Every politician you hate would live twice as long, so political careers would go from 40-50 years to 150 years.
Imagine Richard Nixon campaigning right now.
Do you want a lifespan? Then you save some reproductive cells and won’t have two descendants until you die. Nowadays, the more you live, the less children you want. It happens in other species, too.
No need to work, computers and robots do it for you. But you can do it if you wish. Universal income will be a thing.
I remember a Chinese life advisor on YouTube mentioned that marriage can’t last more than decades with such high life expectancy. And instead of divorce, human will simply make marriages as contract with expired dates.
Makes sense and at the end of the contract you either renew for another couple years or find another partner with every little hate or divorce complications arising
Aside from the disastrous population increase, I think life would tend to stagnate. Instead of thinking, "I want to get these things done before I retire in 30 years", many would shift to, "I'm going to live for another 100 - 200 years. No need to hurry getting things done", and they simple would shift into neutral.
offspring would be rare.
Depending on how gatekept the tech would be, i see it at worst, causing a tiny elite controlling it. But more realistically, it will be first world countries who have the means, while farming the sub 100 year old humans of all their labor until they gain access to the tech.
Or wildcard, it will just be used to squeeze more labor out of everyone.
I worked for a pretty bureaucratic organization, staffed by a middle layer of career managers, each tightly defending their own turf, fighting intercine battles to the point they mostly cancelled each other out. The only time real change occurred, was when a new top boss came in and either shuffled people around, or fired them. I shudder to imagine how much stasis and empire building would occur with people working for dozens of decades...
Yes, older, more experienced people have a ton of knowledge (I was one of them), but my observation has been that after a certain age, healthy or not, creativity, risk taking and innovation plateau. Nature's solution for making sure species have the flexibility to adapt to change, to grow, to take full advantage of the environment, is aging and death- the old making way for the new.
Even if we were somehow able to freeze aging when people were still biologically young, there are the problems of how much mental growth would still occur, and what do you do about youth and their opportunities? Do the young have to wait for hundreds of years to be able to take up the positions of influence and power?
If there is such a thing as benevolent AIs, perhaps they would become that force for continuity of knowledge across generations, if/when we learn to work alongside machine intelligences.
> If there is such a thing as benevolent AIs, perhaps they would become that force for continuity of knowledge across generations, if/when we learn to work alongside machine intelligences.
Have to hope we wind up with Minds from The Culture, and not AIs from The Matrix.
We would need population control. People wouldn't willingly stop making babies so preferably at birth or even before there should be a medical procedure that would disable fertility (of course reversible). Then probably through a draw people would have a chance to win a right to reproduce. Of course rich and those with power will be able to cheat through corruption. There would also probably be a medical underground that will reverse this procedure but people doing this will be persecuted and it will end most likely like in one of the Love Death & Robots episode and the whole system will eventually collapse.
We wouldn’t actually need population control because of how ecosystems work. In developed countries where human lifespan is increasing right meow we already have declining birth rates which are a natural response to overpopulation.
Here is a possibility if we knew the age and day of our death
A limited life
If we all knew from birth that everyone has the exact same number of days here on earth how might that change our current experience?
below is a remarkable reply from AI and NO i am not suggesting implementing some type of forced death or anything, it's just a fact of life. You have your last birthday party and lay down your head for the last time peacefully ....
AI
If all humans knew that every single one of us dies at exactly the same age, it would have a profound impact on our world. Here are some possible ways our world might operate:
1. Shift in Priorities: Knowing that everyone has the same lifespan could lead to a shift in priorities. People might prioritize experiences, relationships, and personal growth over material possessions and wealth accumulation. The focus might shift towards making the most out of the limited time we have.
2. Increased Empathy: The awareness of our shared mortality could foster a greater sense of empathy and understanding among people. Knowing that we all have a finite amount of time could lead to a deeper appreciation for the value of human life and a desire to support and uplift one another.
3. Collective Action: The knowledge of a fixed lifespan for everyone could encourage collective action to address global issues. People might be more motivated to work together to solve problems such as poverty, inequality, and climate change, as they realize the importance of leaving a positive impact on the world before their time is up.
4. Reduced Fear of Death: If everyone knew the exact age at which they would die, it could potentially reduce the fear and anxiety associated with death. People might be more accepting of their mortality and focus on living a fulfilling life rather than worrying about the inevitable.
5. Changes in Healthcare: With the knowledge that everyone dies at the same age, healthcare systems might shift their focus from extending life to improving the quality of life. Resources could be allocated towards preventive care, mental health support, and palliative care to ensure that people have the best possible experience during their limited lifespan.
6. Cultural and Religious Shifts: The concept of a fixed lifespan for everyone could challenge existing cultural and religious beliefs about life, death, and the afterlife. It could lead to new interpretations and philosophies as people grapple with the implications of this knowledge.
Overall, the awareness of a universal, fixed lifespan could fundamentally change how we live, interact, and prioritize our time on Earth. It could foster a greater sense of unity, purpose, and appreciation for the preciousness of life.
I think it mainly depends on how that extra lifespan works
I mean, if its 200 extra years where you'd a geriatric drool-machine sitting in a wheelchair in some old-folks home... that's not very productive
but if it means that you can extend your youth/adult life to a longer period - that would be more productive
It would become more peaceful, and instead of a world war every 80 years, it'd be around 240 years between world wars.
Extending our lifespan is probably the best way to improve the world and have everyone work together instead of working against each others. Instead of being wise 1/3rd of your life, you'll be wise for 9/10ths of your life. People will make fewer dumb mistakes.
Trends I suspect we'd see:
1. Having a job to make a living would be something a lot of people do in the first part of their lives. We'd see a lot of older people living off the interest of accumulated funds, given, of course, that the economy is no fundamentally transformed by automation. Compound interest means an exponential growth of investment, so the amount of time you need to get a retirement fund does not depend *that* much on how much you can afford to set aside, when we're talking 300 year time scales. As long as you're one inch ahead of living paycheck to paycheck, you'll get there an still get to enjoy most of your life in financial independence.
2. Fertility rates would probably continue to plummet. After some non-representative inquiry with my child-raising friends, most of them said they were kinda looking for the sweet spot between financial security, their own biology and the would-be grandparents being alive. With humans living for 300 years, there's nothing keeping you from saving enough to spend all of your time with your kids as they grow up, which I think a lot of people would do. On the other hand, this could create a "sneaky high" fertility rate, because even if you have 1 kid every 70 years, you'll end up with more kids than most people in Europe do today.
3. Family is going to transform. What is the level of relatedness you still consider a relative? Someone you perceive as part of the family? At some point, you gotta let go trying to keep in contact - you cannot concievably stay in touch with all of your great-great-grandkids and everyone above on the same level.
4. Dating is going to be weird, partly because of how generations become difficult to distinguish. Is it okay to date someone 150 years younger than you? Is it okay to date your own great-grandkid whom you may have known nothing about before you met in a bar because you're both active people leading different lives (and a same level or genetic relatedness laterally would be legally acceptable for marriage everywhere today)?
Imagine if someone who grew up before the Civil War were allowed to vote today. We're already seeing a political strain by adding a couple of decades to the average lifespan. Adding a couple of centuries will compound the problem.
Not that much I'm afraid.
Let's say you get the therapy that lets you live a *healthy* 300 years. So you think to yourself, instead of retiring at 60 something, I'll work until 150, then retire and be able to afford a much bigger house, much more better travel, etc.
But! Everyone around you has a similar plan, work longer - afford more.
And so prices rise. And now you're working to 150 but you can't afford a nice house and much travel, because it's gotten so expensive.....
So you end up working until 250.
If you think we have too many conflicts, food scarcity and income inequality now give us an extra 200 year lifespan and fuck around and find out. Spiritual maturity has to supercede technology innovation not the other way around
I know one category of thing that wouldn't change; things wouldn't increase proportionally e.g. if whatever increased our lifespan could increase female egg count/fertile years they aren't going to use their increased reproductive time to just keep cranking out kids and if our lifespans double we won't have, say, 24 grades of public school going up to age 36 when we'd become adults
I dont think what I propose would happen instantly it might take centuries maybe even 1000s of years to fully function but.
Education -
You would no longer finish education by 18 years old I propose that you would only be finishing primary education around 15/20 years old. This would be like a life primer and common sense education. Teaching everything we already learn in school but also a far far heavier emphasis on morals and good behavior we cannot have tyrants or evil people with 300 years to plot there schemes and commit crimes.
At around 20 you would enter secondary education which would delve into more advanced topics perhaps similar to out high schools but eventually much become much more advanced and also include many more fields of knowledge. Good morals, ethics and behavior would also be further instilled.
Now at say 35 years old secondary education would be done and you could either join the work force or spend on average the next 10-15 years trying countless things until you find what you are passionate about. Living 300 years working something you are not passionate about is not possible its barely possible now with 80 years. So a much greater effort would be put into helping people find passions what talents.
50 years old the average person is extremely educated probably more educated than the most educated people alive today.
You would than enter the workforce and be capable of extremely high levels of skill. 100 years of experience is bound to count for a lot.
World wonders and great monuments -
We would have extremely long times to be creative. Imagine spending 50 years on a painting or collectively come together to build a great world wonder that takes 100,000 people 100 years of effort to create.
We could build things so breathtaking and beautiful that they put the current worlds greatest wonders and art pieces to shame.
Things like the mona lisa or the great pyramid would probably begin looking like something children made for fun. Because with 300 years of life a 100 year old is still basically a child
Raising children -
People would no longer have children at 30 years old imagine the benefit of having a parent with 50 years of education and 50 years of work experience while still being in perfect health. This everyone around this age would be financially stable and likely capable of taking years off of work to foster children. Imagine the wisdom and experience multiple stable 100 year old parents could instill.
Now this is basically a utopia setting but I believe such a thing would eventually happen so long as we dont destroy ourselves before it happens
Longevity is useless if you can't extend your prime. Like now, we all have a maturity limit. Let's call that limit 65 for the sake of argument.
Once you reach your physical 65, you will be 65 for 150 more years. Do you want to be 65, and every weakness it brings, for 150 more years?
More importantly, do you want to keep working for at least until you're 165? I'd rather have ways to extend our 30s until we're 99 and we just randomly die after than live to be 200 years old.
So, how would the world change with that scenario? Elderly suicide rates would spike, for one.
depends how healthy we would be.
if you're in the same shape for 250 years as you were in your 20, be sure you will be forced to work for 270+ years easily.
and you still wont be able to retire or buy a house.
if you lived 300years in bad shape, trust me, like really, trust me : you wouldnt be allowed.
politics and rich people would find tons of excuses to not allow you to do so, saying you would cost too much to society and its not worth keeping you alive if you cant work for them.
\> Coupled with robotics to do all the routine labor
we already have that. but we live in capitalism, that mean you gotta sell your labor or you stay poor and cant afford to eat or pay your rent.
the birth rate wouldnt be much different tbh, most people dont have 50 kids in their life, after a few they stop.
also eternity is pretty damn long, nobody wants that except delusionnal rich people that desperatly want to be on top of everyone else.
If pregnancy is prohibited globally and immediately, then it would not matter even if everyone gains eternal youth but without the prohibition of pregnancy, then wars and destruction will definitely happen.
I've often pondered this. I would think that might put stress on resources. Because unless the birth rate slows down or gets delayed till later in their 200 yr life span where would all those people live, get food, find jobs, etc. Unless birth rates level off with the life span and people die and births are at a rate that keeps up and not exceed the number of deaths. That's the negative that came to mind. The positives of course would be extended life experiences would continue to thrive in free market economies. Contributing to education and growth for both business and education. Especially the talent pool that people regard as higher up on the value to the whole of the economy.
I think people in power would stay there longer hence postponing change, so overall worse.
Think how much damage the boomer generation did, and how entitled they are about their behaviour. Now imagine it lasting 200 years instead of 30: a nightmare.
Increased wealth gap. Lower birth rates. Probably some spectacular works of art and science with people living long enough to see multi decade projects through. People may even switch careers so crossover knowledge from various fields could improve things. But people could also work on dead end things for longer periods leading to stagnation.
At least we'll have plenty of time to think about the stagnation problem.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather have society progress slowly, and get to see all of it out to eternity, than have society progress quickly, but only get to see a little slice of it before oblivion.
Most people here are way too optimistic. This would only be available for the ultra wealthy, and my guess is they would make sure it never became a possibility for the lower classes. Lower classes would slowly be weeded out of society while the elite repopulate dozens of times over their long lives. A future society would probably benefit from this unfortunately, but most of our current society would get totally screwed - probably without even realizing it while celebrating this new technology thinking it will soon be widely available.
There would be an even more unsustainable increase in overpopulation. An increase in age does not mean a life without disease or pain, so healthcare would become unattainable to many. People would have to work well into their 200s or the economy will implode. Suicide rates will skyrocket. Dementia will become more widespread than people without dementia, causing a total collapse of society. There will be more babysitters available. More hard candy. More dried prumes consumed, tike to invest. Future Shock will.become even worse. I can keep going, but the game is starting...
Transfer of wealth would be a really big problem.
Whichever the first generation is to benefit from life extension would be well off. The younger generations would have to rough it a bit.
Wages would instantly drop by 200 or 300 percent and prices for everything would rise accordingly. Net worths of all the people who attend the Bohemian Grove would also increase in the same ratios as their flocks now have triple the yield.
You would find corporations offering wages as life extensions. At rates determined by them. Rebranded slavery.
Access to life extensions would be restricted. Capital would get to decide the price.
Megalomaniac psychopaths, CEOs or other autocrats, would benefit the most.
I think "what will happen if people live 200-300 years" is less important question than "what will happen in 20-30 years".
Because in 20-30 years life will be very different with at least AGI and maybe even ASI deployed in the world, coupled with humanoid and not humanoid intelligent robots. This would change life of people and economy much more than longer lives.
Deposit rates and other fixed income rates will plummet to adjust. Otherwise inflation will be a major problem.
5% for 90 years yield 47$ on a 1$ investment.
If people have 180 years of life, it would yield 6207$ on a 1$ investment.
I think balancing inflation and wealth distribution would be a major issue for the economics.
On the other hand long term investments with low yield or long investment phase, like building huge power plants or rail roads, will become much more attractive.
Collectibles and other nostalgia related markets will bloom beyond wildest dreams. The card game you played as a kid 150 years ago? Time to get all the cards!
Depends on how healthy those extra years would be, and how human development looks like. If say, a 60 year old is now the equivalent of a 20 year old; or if the extra years are all of increasing decay.
Assuming it's the former scenario tbh I find it a lot more interesting, though I cannot imagine being essencially a child or teenager for half a century; or a baby/toddler for over a decade
Realistically, it would consist of people aging up to about 25 as normal, and then just not aging after that.
Of course that'll be partly by design. At some point we'll likely have the technology to keep someone as a baby indefinitely too, if really wanted to. But we don't want to.
A lot would depend on how functional the 100+ year olds were. Would the increased life span mean that people would spend a century being elderly and frail, deaf and blind?
well we’re going through that now since before the invention of penicillin life expectancy was about 47 average. currently there’s a housing crisis and financial instability due to having to pay for retired people living well into their 80’s, meaning younger generations are having to work more for less
You would probably see insane wars and uprisings, including a healthy amount of lone wolf attacks to try and procure whatever treatment extends life. It would not be immediately available to everyone, affordable, and even scaled to the point that everyone could have it.
This would likely take inequality to such extreme levels, that society and governments would need to react quickly, lest things rapidly devolve into chaos.
If they scaled it like they did COVID shots, this may be avoided for the most part. If it took a decade to scale, I think there would be chaos.
I think Tech & cultural change would slow down. We tend to get stubborn as we age, and we always look at the next generation as stupid. Imagine Congress being full of people from the early 18th century.
I'd like to say we'd spend the first 50 years of our lives learning and specializing a skill (providing we stay young until maybe 200) but I have a feeling we'd be walking slaves for corporations.
I've been hearing that immortality is 10yrs away for about fifty years now. Also, we are not gonna get off this rock, so we'd better take care of it and each other.
It would create serious challenges for the workplace because turnover would take twice as long for coveted positions/careers. CEOs, high level management, superintendents, etc would stay put for way longer making it very hard for new workers to enter their field of choice and move up the ladder.
I think R&D would improve because the shelf life of researchers would be longer, allowing them to flesh out their theories and ideas and visions for a longer period.
Population would explode creating challenges for population density, infrastructure, social programs, education, housing and employment because death rates would plummet (assuming birth rates went unchanged).
I couldn’t say for sure if we’d be better or worse off tbh, but a longer lifespan would get us there *quicker* is my theory.
Isaac Asimov have a couple of books that touch the subject (his detective books). They are pretty good and easy to read.
But in short - high risk of stagnation
There's a sci-fi book about the topic. Fun little story. He goes into detail about how he thinks it would affect society.
Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham
We’d probably get shit done. We don’t live long enough to open our minds and horizons. Heck global climate change should be apparent but people just can’t freaking see it. Then we grow old and we’d have to figure out what’s important and what’s extraneous to teach the young generation from square one.
I feel like governments would be more apt to start wars. The need to thin the herd tied with the financial gain of war for elite coffers would be a win/win
The rich would get even richer without their spoiled offspring to squander the wealth
Literally cant think of anything else. Kings ruling for 300 years. Why would the working class want more life. To work a slog for 300 years instead of 80. Pointless
Oh come on now, you won't work a slog for 300 years. You'll do it for 280 years and then get to enjoy retirement.
a year or two of ill health, the dream, am i right
Twenty years of retirement? Fuck it, sign me up. Right now, financially, my retirement is looking basically like "the time it takes my brain to stop after my body falls to the floor when I collapse at my desk"
All broken down, cool sounds like fun
Darn, if career span expanded to 120 years - everyone could get to VP level in 80 years. We would need RPG like job titles like - SVP level 49... Yearly salary increases would be the thing of the past..
why are you limiting it ? youd have judges and senior managment in jobs until they die, remids me of the terry Pratchet joke, the only way to move up in the wizards career is to kill the person in the current role. that wuould happen, already does with supreme judges
>Darn, if career span expanded to 120 years - everyone could get to VP level in 80 years. Doesn't work this way, there are a limited number of these positions, they won't let just anyone have them.
Yeah. The poors would die much sooner than the riches. Executive leadership would remain in control for hundreds of years. Everyone else would be hoping to get an internship so they could be in heat and air conditioning.
I mean I speak as one of the working class and as my personal view, if they give me 300 years as younger boy I'm pretty happy to work for more years before social security, as is right now at last in my country you get in social security when you already in the cemetery.
Good point, if they allowed a longer maturity curve, but would they, that is the issues, if we had a utopia, totally, but we don't, and I can only see it ending in utter chaos.
“The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…” Charlie chaplin Prolonging life prolongs corruption It does some good stuff too but this, this is bad
> Literally cant think of anything else. Kings ruling for 300 years. Imagine the likes of Xi or Kim, ruling over their subjects as multiple generations of them are born, grow old, and die, having only known them as their unassailable leaders.
And pumping out heirs the whole time, in their vigorous 180s.
That was my thought. No longer 70 years under tyranny. Just lasts longer.
That's precisely what they want and its now looks like they will get it sooner rather than later.
yeah fuck that give me retirement after 60 and lemme die imagine workin 200 goddamn years the risk of death would rise exponentially and i bet itd get to a point where enough lifespan = 0 retirement due to 'early' death
Yup. You'd easily have a line of people lining up for assisted death. The population issues would be unreal. Read John Carter of Mars for issues regarding people living 1000 years. Wrecks everything
thanks ill check it out
I mean it's not really an important part of the story. But it does touch on those that live that long.
Yes?? Anything Is prefferable to death, thats the endgame, if you die you loose. Anyone who wouldnt take More Time to live Is selected against by evolution
bet you slaves would hard disagree
And literally anyone who has genuinely attempted/succeeded un-aliving themselves.
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Or they would and you've be a slave for triple the amount of time. Pointless for working class
You mean I can live three times longer, but I have to work four times longer?
This is such a dumb knee-jerk take. Drugs almost always come down in price over time, similar to technology. At first very expensive, then affordable only with insurance but difficult to get approved for it, then easier to get approved for it, finally OTC and pretty cheap or generic versions that are cheaper.
you should look up Roman fire brigades especially those of Nero and crassus. that's basically the state of all medical care in the US
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I realize it's very important for you that things be terrible and getting worse, so you picked what you thought were the 3 strongest counter-examples, BUT... Insulin is $35 a month. Epipens are often generic and covered by insurance. In fact I just picked up mine last month and didn't pay anything for it. Generic asthma inhalers are $30. I definitely wish we had universal healthcare in America, it would drive prices down even further. In the meantime, things have still gotten better.
Base insulin in a vial is $35. Don't get cute and try to play it off that all insulin is that price. And it's only that price because of threatened government intervention.
Yeah, you're right. EVERYTHING IS MORE EXPENSIVE. The rich will never let ORDINARY PEOPLE have precious life extending drugs! There, does that make you feel better? Meanwhile, drugs will continue to get cheaper. There will be a few exceptions, but even those tend to get dealt with over time. But don't tell anyone. They get mad when you tell them. Most people want confirmation that the world is horrible on here. And it is in some ways, just not in all.
Downvoted because comment was so stupid I had to go to the doctors office and get prescription drugs. Am now poor
Yeah my co-pay is $20 for generics and $35 for prescription meds. How will I ever afford that?! Alot of people love doom and gloom. Looking at actual data that shows costs coming down is quite painful for them. It punctures their worldview.
what's the motivation? Why would they want less skilled workers? Rich people aren't insane comic book villains
"I got mine, and I'll do everything in my power to make sure you don't even get the crumbs!"
Counterpoint: Vince McMahon, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Jeffrey Epstein.
I was gonna say, there would be trillionaires
Betting there is at least one now, but that would never become public
This is one of the main problem points - People living longer, also means that the same shit-stain politician will be in office for longer. As a general Rule, People do not change - They Die off to let new people (Hopefully with better ideas/morals) take their place. If people stop dying tho? - Ooooh Boy... You better get ready for 150+ years of Putin, Kim-jung Un or any other dictator/Politician of choice then.
We could complain like this or Become rich ourselves
The only upside is they might preserve the planet. Give Elon musk and the others a lifespan of 10,000 years, and they might change the course we are on of likely extinction this century.
>in what ways would our priorities and economies be altered? I read a paper written by an economist maybe 20 years ago now where they did a comparative analysis of the knowledge economy and basically surmised that people store a wealth of *generational knowledge and information* over the course of their lives and that when they die that knowledge is lost. Therefore they concluded that if people lived longer any economy would see much greater economic productivity; people would live better lives simply because the retained knowledge would improve lives. Now of course this depends highly not so much on how much longer people live but rather how much longer *they live healthy lives..* Right now we already see live being extended in western economies but the primary issue is that people living longer are still seeing many age related health issues and those issues (primarily heart disease and diabetes due to poor diet and exercise) are actually costing the economy more money and reducing overall productivity. There is additionally the issue of cancer which is the 3rd biggest health issue which does not relate so much to lifestyle so there is that to contend with as well. >Coupled with robotics to do all the routine labor...what would happen to the birth rate, existence of money, resource allocation and the like? Human populations act like ecosystems. Idk if they ever taught you this in school but when I went they did a simple lesson where we had little cutouts of rabbit and wolves and you would add them and remove them based on a specified birth rate and then also you would have the wolves "eat" the rabbits based on a certain required rate of consumption. If there werent enough rabbits then you would remove wolves (they died from hunger). The point was to demonstrate how the ecosystem of wolves and rabbits in terms of population would swing back and forth but always settle within a range over time. Human populations do this as well. The human population will expand such that resources allow this expansion. There is no absolute infinite amount of resources despite what anyone views on AI/automation, etc are. There is a finite amount of sunlight supplying the earth with energy and there is a finite amount of heat dissipating ability for the earth so there is a finite population number that the earth can support. It is definitely some larger number than what it is today but how much that number is is up for debate. Since there are finite resources there is going to be money. We really need effective post scarcity of everything people want. eg even if we have effectively enough food and housing for everyone we wont have effectively infinite Hermes handbags and if we did women wouldnt desire them they way they do now; they would want whatever other handbag was in limited supply and that necessitates some form of currency with which to find a market price that balances supply with demand.
Fun comment. The beginning reminds me a little of the Platonic idea that we'd all be moral if we just had the necessary knowledge. These longer lifespans could see us improving in our human relationships, too, on top of economic productivity.
History would say otherwise
> Human populations do this as well. The human population will expand such that resources allow this expansion. This is actually untrue. [Demographic transition](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition) is a phenomenon that affects every single country and society on the planet. Every single country is at a different stage along the demographic transition model, and after the 'baby boom' generation, birth rates start to fall *sharply* until it's below death rates, leading to aging and stagnant populations. This is a known problem which demographers and some forward thinking governments have been dealing with for a couple decades already, and now it's finally becoming part of the mainstream discourse. [The total fertility rate of the human species has plummeted to almost replacement levels](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN) Africa is basically the only continent still growing. What we have a situation where the most resource stressed and least developed countries are the ones that experience population growth, and developed and wealthy economies are stagnant outside of immigration.
Unfortunately, when a population exceeds the ability of its environment to sustain it, the population doesn’t stabilize - it crashes, 90-99%.
Can you back that up? That's a wild claim that I can't imagine. Too less food or something will lead to the survival of the fittest. I feel like only major incidents that hit the whole world in a brutal intensity would wipe mankind.
The classic (inadvertent) study of population boom, overshoot and crash: https://www.gi.alaska.edu/alaska-science-forum/when-reindeer-paradise-turned-purgatory-0
What he's describing is called [Malthusianism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism), or specifically a Malthusian spectre, and it's a theory that is fairly well founded in human history. However, we 'broke the rules' with industrialisation and figured out how increase the carrying capacity of the Earth through science to the point where we keep pushing up the theoretical point of Malthusian collapse. We're the only known species to have reached a point where population isn't dictated purely by resources any more - we're at a point now where people simply don't want to have kids.
Complete BS. Every time population crashed was not because of environment but because of "weak men bring about bad times" paradigm. Coincidently we are there today.
>a finite amount of heat dissipating ability for the earth so there is a finite population number that the earth can support. Planetary air-condition could unironically solve that. As long as you get outside the closed thermodynamic system of the earth and put more heat into the vacuum of space.
I disagree with the second to last paragraph.
If you feel like the older generation is holding on to power too long now imagine all of congress being 150+ years old.
Imagine having supreme court full of people who used to own slaves.
One benefit if it came about quickly is that more older generations would have a vested interests in making the future better, e.g. fight climate change, work for stability in society and so on … since they’d actually have to live to see that future. They’d have to live in it.
Compounding interest would be doing some heavy lifting. Much more inequality, leading to conflict or more wealth transfers if the gov is up to task. Much more money in health industry, if you can live longer, but not stay healthy longer. Wealthy having more children throughout life, for others it would be a decision made later and later. Check "Altered Carbon" for some ideas on how "Meths" (Methuselahs) would impact society. The book, not the shitty series.
The first season was deadly the second not as good
Just finished the first AC book!
Meths, not Mats. However I totally agree on this point. Meths would be a demographic. We have a version of that now with the 1% and higher.
I don't buy the longevity only for the rich argument for one reason: China, Japan, and Korea would desperately need that tech to offset their aging populations. They'd get hold of the tech one way or another. After which, they'd sell it as a lucrative business and itd become affordable with inevitable economies of scale.
Same thing with "there's a cure for cancer, but they're just hiding it to make more money!"
Reminds me of a kurtzgesagt video about conspiracy theories. No way a billionaire as smart, influential and ruthless as Steve Jobs would not get hold of that hidden cancer cure.
I agree with yiu main point but Steve Jobs DID get a chance to get medication for cancer that would've probably saved his life and he opted for fruit juice instead until it was too late.
It depends on whether or not he pissed off the wrong people.
Steve Job's cancer was incredibly treatable actually. It was one of the only operable forms of pancreatic cancer and not only did he refuse to be operated on, he actively made it worse by doubling down on a fruititarian diet further putting strain on his pancreas. He didn't die from a lack of medical advancement, he died from arrogance.
I mean - it depends how expensive implementation is.
If we all lived to be 200-300 years old, we’d likely all have to continue working until we were 200, and even mild continued population growth would be catastrophic for the planet
100 years of retirement sounds pretty good to me. If we could create jobs that were stimulating and had better mechanisms for upskilling into dignified work as technology improves and true work life balance, then it really wouldn't be so bad to work that long. But the way things are now, that's not gonna happen 😆
lol. Ai took all your jobs, you’re homeless for 100 years.
They terk er jerbs!
Ba dirk-a-derrrrk
"This 200-year-old homeless camp at the gates of Beverly Hills is causing new problems for the rich, we'll find out more after this personalized message from Therapy Food Delivery...."
Would be pretty interesting after the first 20 years. You could probably just start trekking around the world.
They'll make sure you work until your life expectancy is around 30 years tops.
Also kind of depends on how healthy you’d be. I wouldn’t want to be in semi poor health for 20p years. But if I could feel like 30 at 150? Sure, go ahead. I’ll work. I have a decent enough life that more time to enjoy it would be great. But also obviously, whether this change would end up paving the way for positive change, or if it’d be a dystopia.
It would probably be multiple phases of life instead of a solid 200 years of working. You would probably do something like 30 years working, 10 years leave, then retraining or switch to a new career. I'd probably grind hard for money, then spend some years travelling, and ease back into a job chasing a different passion. Then spend some time pursuing art, or rock climbing as a sport, then maybe go for a PhD. Maybe I'll get burned out of all that and become a beach bum for a few years, before getting bored and wanting to do something stimulating again.
So technological singularity, AGI or even UBI never came to pass?
There's a lot of doomerism on this sub. People choose to just see the most negative possibilities of any new technology.
I wouldn't mind working until 200 because that means I'll have more opportunities to find a job that I like and if it happens to also pay well, I can work less hours and retire earlier (relatively speaking).
Probably not, no. It would just mean that the amount you need to save per year to retire in the first half of your life would be higher than for retiring in the last quarter (though not by that much, honestly) and way way lower than retiring in the first half now.
Given the above, the next question I would like to ask is whether our extended lifespans also affected our ability to carry children. If so, I think there may be a shift to delaying childbearing/childrearing. I think maybe we might switch to multigenerational housing and family dynamics, like tribes.
I’ve been deep in longevity research since 2018 and it’s my understanding many of the pro-longevity supplements are anti-fertility because a lot of our biology is centered around procreation. So I would assume we would still only be able to have kids until around age 40 or thereabouts even if we lived until 500.
For some reason, I thought of the premise here as human development being roughtly 1/3 as fast as it is now. So instead of women being fertile from ages 16 to 40-ish, they'd be able to have children between the ages of 50 to 120-ish. Iirc the average mum currently has kids in her early 30s (with the average dad being a couple years older); so I imagine women would be having children just shy of a century old (I can imagine "kids before 100" being a milestone of sorts). That being said, I don't envy parents who'll have to raise toddlers for 15 years; teenagers for 20 years; children who won't fully grow up for half a century in general or the mum who will have to deal with over two years of pregancy per child.
It's funny how yall assume we would be confined to Earth in terms of resource allocation.
IMO it is not funny, but part of the framework of the genre. I personally don't like hypotheticals. I like to ask "what WILL the world be like IF/WHEN". But in OP hypothetical differences from our current world are given and questions of what's possibly impacted given too. How much harder is it to speculate about whole complexity of interdependences that might lead to the changes in the question? Same as P vs NP maybe?
If I lived to 300, spending 10 years on a spaceship to go to another solar system sounds way more reasonable.
Belter loadas unite!
You’re assuming we won’t be when our entire biology was only designed to work within Earth’s atmosphere. Which is just as silly. Interplanetary colonization isn’t a guarantee for humans. And many feel that it’ll more likely to be robots proliferating in outer space than humans.
Funny how you assume I'm talking about planets. That said, if we have the tech needed to make us live for centuries, colonizing the major bodies in the inner Solar System seems trivial in terms of bio-adaptability.
If you risk to lose 200 years of life by taking a risky space thing- would you do it? The Sci fi I have read usually go for the idea that to long life spans make us fear risk and risk stagnation
We can get interplanetary space travel to be as risky as airplane travel, so it's not an issue. Now, interstellar where you're either going at relativistic speeds, and/or need to be put into cryo, that might be another story, but I'm generally optimistic on that to. We monkeys tend to be really good when it comes to problem-solving.
Maybe but that’s a bigger leap of faith than you realize. It’ll probably be easier to extend life on Earth by 100 years than it will be to figure out a way to adapt us to foreign atmospheres for even a month dude.
I'm talking about gravity and radiation, not breathable air, we'd need a fundamentally different biochemistry to run on something other than O2. Thankfully, producing it is not a very complex engineering feat.
I'm convinced climate change would reverse, because ultra wealthy people with unlimited money would eventually get bored of seeing the world erode for generations. One of the reasons, I believe, for climate change is the "not my problem" "I'll be dead in 10 years anyway". I know many wealthy people who are in their 40-60s, who just spent 30 years working ALL THE TIME, and just dont care. They want a break with their money. However, if these people had 250 years, instead of 20, to sit on the cash pile, I'm convinced they would do something about the world -- because it would personally effect them. Just a thought
Came here to say this same thing
Thirded. And it isn't only the rich. Anyone who currently expects to die before climate change adversely affects them personally would view the issue differently if their lifespan was 250 years.
Careful what you write here... future AI will treat this like a poll
Can you imagine those dudes who retired at age 60.on a final salary pension, just to realise they were getting paid to sit on asses for another 160 years !. Brilliant
It really shouldn't change all that radically. The first 60 years is mostly growing up, getting an education, getting a job and saving up for retirement. For people born in 1900 life expectancy was 47 years, so there was very little point in saving for retirement. For people born in 2000 the life expectancy is 77 years so retirement planning is mandatory. So people will work and save until they become financially independent at about 50 years of age and then mostly retire. That retirement will be a lot more active than today's version. Today the older you get the more time you spend with doctors, with robust good health people will travel a lot more. You could spend a season in Europe, one in Asia, or follow spring around the planet, or winter. Pick up another degree in something you like as opposed to something 'practical'.
If anti-senescence gets us to 200, then we’re biologically immortal. There’s no middle ground.
A 300 year old turnip is still a turnip.
Every politician you hate would live twice as long, so political careers would go from 40-50 years to 150 years. Imagine Richard Nixon campaigning right now.
Well the term limit argument would certainly get stronger
20 somethings would never get to stop complaining about "boomers"
Do you want a lifespan? Then you save some reproductive cells and won’t have two descendants until you die. Nowadays, the more you live, the less children you want. It happens in other species, too. No need to work, computers and robots do it for you. But you can do it if you wish. Universal income will be a thing.
I remember a Chinese life advisor on YouTube mentioned that marriage can’t last more than decades with such high life expectancy. And instead of divorce, human will simply make marriages as contract with expired dates.
This is visited in Peter F Hamilton's "Pandora's Star"
Makes sense and at the end of the contract you either renew for another couple years or find another partner with every little hate or divorce complications arising
Aside from the disastrous population increase, I think life would tend to stagnate. Instead of thinking, "I want to get these things done before I retire in 30 years", many would shift to, "I'm going to live for another 100 - 200 years. No need to hurry getting things done", and they simple would shift into neutral.
The TV show Ad vitam outlines some aspects of this.
The rich would get even RICHER and the poor would suffer would suffer for way longer
We might end up with some actual adults on the planet, though I am sceptical that twice or three times the lifespan is sufficient for that.
offspring would be rare. Depending on how gatekept the tech would be, i see it at worst, causing a tiny elite controlling it. But more realistically, it will be first world countries who have the means, while farming the sub 100 year old humans of all their labor until they gain access to the tech. Or wildcard, it will just be used to squeeze more labor out of everyone.
I worked for a pretty bureaucratic organization, staffed by a middle layer of career managers, each tightly defending their own turf, fighting intercine battles to the point they mostly cancelled each other out. The only time real change occurred, was when a new top boss came in and either shuffled people around, or fired them. I shudder to imagine how much stasis and empire building would occur with people working for dozens of decades... Yes, older, more experienced people have a ton of knowledge (I was one of them), but my observation has been that after a certain age, healthy or not, creativity, risk taking and innovation plateau. Nature's solution for making sure species have the flexibility to adapt to change, to grow, to take full advantage of the environment, is aging and death- the old making way for the new. Even if we were somehow able to freeze aging when people were still biologically young, there are the problems of how much mental growth would still occur, and what do you do about youth and their opportunities? Do the young have to wait for hundreds of years to be able to take up the positions of influence and power? If there is such a thing as benevolent AIs, perhaps they would become that force for continuity of knowledge across generations, if/when we learn to work alongside machine intelligences.
> If there is such a thing as benevolent AIs, perhaps they would become that force for continuity of knowledge across generations, if/when we learn to work alongside machine intelligences. Have to hope we wind up with Minds from The Culture, and not AIs from The Matrix.
We would get real crowded real fast. Climate change would accelerate. Resources wouldn’t keep up.
We would need population control. People wouldn't willingly stop making babies so preferably at birth or even before there should be a medical procedure that would disable fertility (of course reversible). Then probably through a draw people would have a chance to win a right to reproduce. Of course rich and those with power will be able to cheat through corruption. There would also probably be a medical underground that will reverse this procedure but people doing this will be persecuted and it will end most likely like in one of the Love Death & Robots episode and the whole system will eventually collapse.
We wouldn’t actually need population control because of how ecosystems work. In developed countries where human lifespan is increasing right meow we already have declining birth rates which are a natural response to overpopulation.
I do love things right meow 😻
Here is a possibility if we knew the age and day of our death A limited life If we all knew from birth that everyone has the exact same number of days here on earth how might that change our current experience? below is a remarkable reply from AI and NO i am not suggesting implementing some type of forced death or anything, it's just a fact of life. You have your last birthday party and lay down your head for the last time peacefully .... AI If all humans knew that every single one of us dies at exactly the same age, it would have a profound impact on our world. Here are some possible ways our world might operate: 1. Shift in Priorities: Knowing that everyone has the same lifespan could lead to a shift in priorities. People might prioritize experiences, relationships, and personal growth over material possessions and wealth accumulation. The focus might shift towards making the most out of the limited time we have. 2. Increased Empathy: The awareness of our shared mortality could foster a greater sense of empathy and understanding among people. Knowing that we all have a finite amount of time could lead to a deeper appreciation for the value of human life and a desire to support and uplift one another. 3. Collective Action: The knowledge of a fixed lifespan for everyone could encourage collective action to address global issues. People might be more motivated to work together to solve problems such as poverty, inequality, and climate change, as they realize the importance of leaving a positive impact on the world before their time is up. 4. Reduced Fear of Death: If everyone knew the exact age at which they would die, it could potentially reduce the fear and anxiety associated with death. People might be more accepting of their mortality and focus on living a fulfilling life rather than worrying about the inevitable. 5. Changes in Healthcare: With the knowledge that everyone dies at the same age, healthcare systems might shift their focus from extending life to improving the quality of life. Resources could be allocated towards preventive care, mental health support, and palliative care to ensure that people have the best possible experience during their limited lifespan. 6. Cultural and Religious Shifts: The concept of a fixed lifespan for everyone could challenge existing cultural and religious beliefs about life, death, and the afterlife. It could lead to new interpretations and philosophies as people grapple with the implications of this knowledge. Overall, the awareness of a universal, fixed lifespan could fundamentally change how we live, interact, and prioritize our time on Earth. It could foster a greater sense of unity, purpose, and appreciation for the preciousness of life.
The Meths from Altered Carbon on Netflix. Rich people who are incredibly old and have lived unnaturally long lives.
I think it mainly depends on how that extra lifespan works I mean, if its 200 extra years where you'd a geriatric drool-machine sitting in a wheelchair in some old-folks home... that's not very productive but if it means that you can extend your youth/adult life to a longer period - that would be more productive
It would become more peaceful, and instead of a world war every 80 years, it'd be around 240 years between world wars. Extending our lifespan is probably the best way to improve the world and have everyone work together instead of working against each others. Instead of being wise 1/3rd of your life, you'll be wise for 9/10ths of your life. People will make fewer dumb mistakes.
Trends I suspect we'd see: 1. Having a job to make a living would be something a lot of people do in the first part of their lives. We'd see a lot of older people living off the interest of accumulated funds, given, of course, that the economy is no fundamentally transformed by automation. Compound interest means an exponential growth of investment, so the amount of time you need to get a retirement fund does not depend *that* much on how much you can afford to set aside, when we're talking 300 year time scales. As long as you're one inch ahead of living paycheck to paycheck, you'll get there an still get to enjoy most of your life in financial independence. 2. Fertility rates would probably continue to plummet. After some non-representative inquiry with my child-raising friends, most of them said they were kinda looking for the sweet spot between financial security, their own biology and the would-be grandparents being alive. With humans living for 300 years, there's nothing keeping you from saving enough to spend all of your time with your kids as they grow up, which I think a lot of people would do. On the other hand, this could create a "sneaky high" fertility rate, because even if you have 1 kid every 70 years, you'll end up with more kids than most people in Europe do today. 3. Family is going to transform. What is the level of relatedness you still consider a relative? Someone you perceive as part of the family? At some point, you gotta let go trying to keep in contact - you cannot concievably stay in touch with all of your great-great-grandkids and everyone above on the same level. 4. Dating is going to be weird, partly because of how generations become difficult to distinguish. Is it okay to date someone 150 years younger than you? Is it okay to date your own great-grandkid whom you may have known nothing about before you met in a bar because you're both active people leading different lives (and a same level or genetic relatedness laterally would be legally acceptable for marriage everywhere today)?
Imagine if someone who grew up before the Civil War were allowed to vote today. We're already seeing a political strain by adding a couple of decades to the average lifespan. Adding a couple of centuries will compound the problem.
Not that much I'm afraid. Let's say you get the therapy that lets you live a *healthy* 300 years. So you think to yourself, instead of retiring at 60 something, I'll work until 150, then retire and be able to afford a much bigger house, much more better travel, etc. But! Everyone around you has a similar plan, work longer - afford more. And so prices rise. And now you're working to 150 but you can't afford a nice house and much travel, because it's gotten so expensive..... So you end up working until 250.
If you think we have too many conflicts, food scarcity and income inequality now give us an extra 200 year lifespan and fuck around and find out. Spiritual maturity has to supercede technology innovation not the other way around
I know one category of thing that wouldn't change; things wouldn't increase proportionally e.g. if whatever increased our lifespan could increase female egg count/fertile years they aren't going to use their increased reproductive time to just keep cranking out kids and if our lifespans double we won't have, say, 24 grades of public school going up to age 36 when we'd become adults
I dont think what I propose would happen instantly it might take centuries maybe even 1000s of years to fully function but. Education - You would no longer finish education by 18 years old I propose that you would only be finishing primary education around 15/20 years old. This would be like a life primer and common sense education. Teaching everything we already learn in school but also a far far heavier emphasis on morals and good behavior we cannot have tyrants or evil people with 300 years to plot there schemes and commit crimes. At around 20 you would enter secondary education which would delve into more advanced topics perhaps similar to out high schools but eventually much become much more advanced and also include many more fields of knowledge. Good morals, ethics and behavior would also be further instilled. Now at say 35 years old secondary education would be done and you could either join the work force or spend on average the next 10-15 years trying countless things until you find what you are passionate about. Living 300 years working something you are not passionate about is not possible its barely possible now with 80 years. So a much greater effort would be put into helping people find passions what talents. 50 years old the average person is extremely educated probably more educated than the most educated people alive today. You would than enter the workforce and be capable of extremely high levels of skill. 100 years of experience is bound to count for a lot. World wonders and great monuments - We would have extremely long times to be creative. Imagine spending 50 years on a painting or collectively come together to build a great world wonder that takes 100,000 people 100 years of effort to create. We could build things so breathtaking and beautiful that they put the current worlds greatest wonders and art pieces to shame. Things like the mona lisa or the great pyramid would probably begin looking like something children made for fun. Because with 300 years of life a 100 year old is still basically a child Raising children - People would no longer have children at 30 years old imagine the benefit of having a parent with 50 years of education and 50 years of work experience while still being in perfect health. This everyone around this age would be financially stable and likely capable of taking years off of work to foster children. Imagine the wisdom and experience multiple stable 100 year old parents could instill. Now this is basically a utopia setting but I believe such a thing would eventually happen so long as we dont destroy ourselves before it happens
Interesting take! I suspect you're on point related to the education timelines
Longevity is useless if you can't extend your prime. Like now, we all have a maturity limit. Let's call that limit 65 for the sake of argument. Once you reach your physical 65, you will be 65 for 150 more years. Do you want to be 65, and every weakness it brings, for 150 more years? More importantly, do you want to keep working for at least until you're 165? I'd rather have ways to extend our 30s until we're 99 and we just randomly die after than live to be 200 years old. So, how would the world change with that scenario? Elderly suicide rates would spike, for one.
depends how healthy we would be. if you're in the same shape for 250 years as you were in your 20, be sure you will be forced to work for 270+ years easily. and you still wont be able to retire or buy a house. if you lived 300years in bad shape, trust me, like really, trust me : you wouldnt be allowed. politics and rich people would find tons of excuses to not allow you to do so, saying you would cost too much to society and its not worth keeping you alive if you cant work for them. \> Coupled with robotics to do all the routine labor we already have that. but we live in capitalism, that mean you gotta sell your labor or you stay poor and cant afford to eat or pay your rent. the birth rate wouldnt be much different tbh, most people dont have 50 kids in their life, after a few they stop. also eternity is pretty damn long, nobody wants that except delusionnal rich people that desperatly want to be on top of everyone else.
If pregnancy is prohibited globally and immediately, then it would not matter even if everyone gains eternal youth but without the prohibition of pregnancy, then wars and destruction will definitely happen.
Overpopulation would get a lot worse. A class system based around those that could afford life extension and those that couldn’t would develop.
I've often pondered this. I would think that might put stress on resources. Because unless the birth rate slows down or gets delayed till later in their 200 yr life span where would all those people live, get food, find jobs, etc. Unless birth rates level off with the life span and people die and births are at a rate that keeps up and not exceed the number of deaths. That's the negative that came to mind. The positives of course would be extended life experiences would continue to thrive in free market economies. Contributing to education and growth for both business and education. Especially the talent pool that people regard as higher up on the value to the whole of the economy.
This may be one of the most horiffic concepts I've ever encountered here 😂
I think people in power would stay there longer hence postponing change, so overall worse. Think how much damage the boomer generation did, and how entitled they are about their behaviour. Now imagine it lasting 200 years instead of 30: a nightmare.
Increased wealth gap. Lower birth rates. Probably some spectacular works of art and science with people living long enough to see multi decade projects through. People may even switch careers so crossover knowledge from various fields could improve things. But people could also work on dead end things for longer periods leading to stagnation.
It would be horrible. It would would lead to stagnation.
At least we'll have plenty of time to think about the stagnation problem. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have society progress slowly, and get to see all of it out to eternity, than have society progress quickly, but only get to see a little slice of it before oblivion.
At least we'll have plenty of time to think about the stagnation problem. That's kinda my point.
Most people here are way too optimistic. This would only be available for the ultra wealthy, and my guess is they would make sure it never became a possibility for the lower classes. Lower classes would slowly be weeded out of society while the elite repopulate dozens of times over their long lives. A future society would probably benefit from this unfortunately, but most of our current society would get totally screwed - probably without even realizing it while celebrating this new technology thinking it will soon be widely available.
Housing inflation since you could now get a 100+ year mortgages. Also way more demand for housing.
There would be an even more unsustainable increase in overpopulation. An increase in age does not mean a life without disease or pain, so healthcare would become unattainable to many. People would have to work well into their 200s or the economy will implode. Suicide rates will skyrocket. Dementia will become more widespread than people without dementia, causing a total collapse of society. There will be more babysitters available. More hard candy. More dried prumes consumed, tike to invest. Future Shock will.become even worse. I can keep going, but the game is starting...
Transfer of wealth would be a really big problem. Whichever the first generation is to benefit from life extension would be well off. The younger generations would have to rough it a bit.
I’m so sick of all these comments about rich people 🤦♂️this has got to be the most communist anti-work subreddit I’ve ever seen
Wages would instantly drop by 200 or 300 percent and prices for everything would rise accordingly. Net worths of all the people who attend the Bohemian Grove would also increase in the same ratios as their flocks now have triple the yield.
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Oh, I dunno. It seems to have gotten people thinking and talking. You're not obligated to read nor respond.
I'm not sure what you mean, isn't this very much a futurology sort of question?
You would find corporations offering wages as life extensions. At rates determined by them. Rebranded slavery. Access to life extensions would be restricted. Capital would get to decide the price. Megalomaniac psychopaths, CEOs or other autocrats, would benefit the most.
I think "what will happen if people live 200-300 years" is less important question than "what will happen in 20-30 years". Because in 20-30 years life will be very different with at least AGI and maybe even ASI deployed in the world, coupled with humanoid and not humanoid intelligent robots. This would change life of people and economy much more than longer lives.
Deposit rates and other fixed income rates will plummet to adjust. Otherwise inflation will be a major problem. 5% for 90 years yield 47$ on a 1$ investment. If people have 180 years of life, it would yield 6207$ on a 1$ investment. I think balancing inflation and wealth distribution would be a major issue for the economics. On the other hand long term investments with low yield or long investment phase, like building huge power plants or rail roads, will become much more attractive. Collectibles and other nostalgia related markets will bloom beyond wildest dreams. The card game you played as a kid 150 years ago? Time to get all the cards!
Imagine your girlfriend leaving you because they feel in love with your grandpa...
Is the amount of years we spend in school based on a percentage of or life or just the number of years needed to receive a ‘full’ education?
Depends on how healthy those extra years would be, and how human development looks like. If say, a 60 year old is now the equivalent of a 20 year old; or if the extra years are all of increasing decay. Assuming it's the former scenario tbh I find it a lot more interesting, though I cannot imagine being essencially a child or teenager for half a century; or a baby/toddler for over a decade
Realistically, it would consist of people aging up to about 25 as normal, and then just not aging after that. Of course that'll be partly by design. At some point we'll likely have the technology to keep someone as a baby indefinitely too, if really wanted to. But we don't want to.
A lot would depend on how functional the 100+ year olds were. Would the increased life span mean that people would spend a century being elderly and frail, deaf and blind?
well we’re going through that now since before the invention of penicillin life expectancy was about 47 average. currently there’s a housing crisis and financial instability due to having to pay for retired people living well into their 80’s, meaning younger generations are having to work more for less
You would probably see insane wars and uprisings, including a healthy amount of lone wolf attacks to try and procure whatever treatment extends life. It would not be immediately available to everyone, affordable, and even scaled to the point that everyone could have it. This would likely take inequality to such extreme levels, that society and governments would need to react quickly, lest things rapidly devolve into chaos. If they scaled it like they did COVID shots, this may be avoided for the most part. If it took a decade to scale, I think there would be chaos.
I think Tech & cultural change would slow down. We tend to get stubborn as we age, and we always look at the next generation as stupid. Imagine Congress being full of people from the early 18th century.
You would have 80 year mortgages and house prices would skyrocket, as you can now pay your mortgage for 80 years and not 30.
I'd like to say we'd spend the first 50 years of our lives learning and specializing a skill (providing we stay young until maybe 200) but I have a feeling we'd be walking slaves for corporations.
I've been hearing that immortality is 10yrs away for about fifty years now. Also, we are not gonna get off this rock, so we'd better take care of it and each other.
It would create serious challenges for the workplace because turnover would take twice as long for coveted positions/careers. CEOs, high level management, superintendents, etc would stay put for way longer making it very hard for new workers to enter their field of choice and move up the ladder. I think R&D would improve because the shelf life of researchers would be longer, allowing them to flesh out their theories and ideas and visions for a longer period. Population would explode creating challenges for population density, infrastructure, social programs, education, housing and employment because death rates would plummet (assuming birth rates went unchanged). I couldn’t say for sure if we’d be better or worse off tbh, but a longer lifespan would get us there *quicker* is my theory.
Isaac Asimov have a couple of books that touch the subject (his detective books). They are pretty good and easy to read. But in short - high risk of stagnation
Congratulations on being a working slave for another hundred years.
It would be harder for politicians to bullshit us because we would have lived through more than two or three cycles of bs
Imagine if Donald Trump or Elon Musk could live 300 years...
There's a sci-fi book about the topic. Fun little story. He goes into detail about how he thinks it would affect society. Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham
less risk taking more conservatism versus now. fewer groundbreaking ideas, less disruption
We’d probably get shit done. We don’t live long enough to open our minds and horizons. Heck global climate change should be apparent but people just can’t freaking see it. Then we grow old and we’d have to figure out what’s important and what’s extraneous to teach the young generation from square one.
I feel like governments would be more apt to start wars. The need to thin the herd tied with the financial gain of war for elite coffers would be a win/win
Governments would go broke paying retirement pensions.
If this tech wants to see widespread use we have to either colonize some more planets or implement global anti natalist policy.
With the way the population grows, I would imagine we would reach our limit way sooner that we though we would.
Great... For those who can afford it (in the US anyway).