Friday, August 10, 2012

Will Humans Ever Live 500+ Years?


Not long ago, I was speaking with a gentleman who was 70-plus years old, worried that he had but a mere 10-15 years left. His brother had passed on already and most of the men in his family hadn't outlived his present age, although the women in his family had done exceptionally well. Although my acquaintance did not wish to live forever, he did wish to live long enough to watch his grandchildren grow up and have kids of their own, who could blame him?
When I suggested that modern science might one day figure out a way to live forever, he wasn't interested, and thought that would be too long. But why I asked? You see, shouldn't someone be able to live for as long as they wished? He said we couldn't do that because it was economically unfeasible, because everyone would be retired and no one would be working. I disagree because in the future the robots will be producing everything and doing most of the service jobs.
Further, if you lived forever and you were in good health with the body of a young person you'd be able to have multiple careers, and pursue all of your interest one after another, perhaps changing every couple of decades or so. Further, you probably wouldn't reproduce till much later in life after you had the money saved, and the experience to be a proper parent. That would mean the kids would grow up with more knowledge, better parenting, and we'd have a more civil society. What if people could live for 500 years?
Perhaps, 500-years might be a real stretch, but it doesn't have to be, it's a solvable problem now with current science, we can do this, well if we don't piss away this medical research opportunity. Rather than solving all the disease issues, let's solve old age, after all "everyone dies" and only some people get some diseases. If everyone were perpetually young you wouldn't need social security, you would be hyper productive all the time, maybe take of five years for vacation every 20 or so. It's doable.
For those that think it is against God's will, or would debate me on a religious reasoning, I would say to them that surely their God gave them the intellect to figure out how to extend the life experience, plus in the early days of the Bible it appears that people lived for as long as 600 years if you take it literally, as folks who might make that argument would - then what's wrong with 500 years in that case?
Lastly, I think it's unfortunate that we don't spend the research and money for life extension, and we spend so much money for combating diseases, which don't affect everyone. You see, everyone who has ever lived has died. I believe people don't have to die. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.

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