Very few people wish to die, it just isn’t appealing. Countless stories have our protagonist
chasing after the fountain of youth, or some other paradise or device which
grants forever life. Medical science* is
now catching up to a point where increasingly long life and near immortality,
barring heinous injury and accidents, is possible. This is exciting to say the least.
The one thing that intrigues me however is once we have a
technology that allows us to live much longer and healthier how does this
impact the world as we know because once this happens nothing will ever be the
same?
Overpopulation
There are a few billion people in the world – it’s around 6.79
Billion – and that number is rising.
Back in the 1990’s it was under 5.5 billion.** Now think about what happens when we
drastically cut death but not cut birth rates (our population growth is around 1.14%
annually). Imagine New York city
doubling in population. Imagine once
small towns exploding in population.
Think driving around L.A. is bad now?
It’ll only get worse. We’ll have
to revamp transportation, which America is already years behind as we tend to
enjoy cars for every individual and shun public transport. Highways will have to be built destroying homes
and lives, tearing up pristine wilderness.
Urban sprawl will get worse, much worse.
With more people and less lands we’ll have another problems.
Resources Running Out
We may very well run out of food if we keep consuming in the
manner we currently do, There could be dustbowl again in the main swath of
America and countless other nations.
This is without a few more billion mouths to feed. We chew through resources like we are indestructible
because of the mentality of someone else with deal it and also if it’s really
so bad why isn’t someone doing anything or what better idea do you have.
There are already countless poor and impoverished going
hungry. If we truly start tightening our
belts on food demand being a fat American might not seem like such a bad
idea. Sorry, Tony Horton I think you
might be screwed at that point.
But that’s just food what about things like energy and
housing materials or just plain old metal.
We don’t have an infinite supply.
Fortunately things like reclaimed wood are coming into vogue (and are heinously
expensive, which is upsetting as its taking preexisting materials like
floorboards or telephone poles and making tables out of it for people with a
bit too much money) but that isn’t going to help nearly enough. We’d actually have to start heavily investing
in renewable free energy like wind, solar and other methods. With stable hydrogen cells perhaps? One could hope. But if we grow and we still have gas fumes
expect global warming to get worse a lot faster. With oceans rising the usable landmass is going to shrink. Goodbye shoreline. However at the point it may be very shrewd to
invest in housing a few thousand feet in or wherever the shore may be in a few
years.
You could say invest in harvesting materials in space, a
real things that is extremely promising and very possible but that only helps
bring some materials in like metals, precious and otherwise, and ore. This if course would flood the market and
devalue the rest (asteroids have a lot of stuff on them like enough to tank small
nations economies that need blood diamonds and other such trade).
But let’s assume we can cover the exploding need for resources.
The Job Market and Economy
Think getting a job is hard now? I am grateful that in a few years the first
wave of baby boomers will start retiring in droves (unless they stay on a wee
bit longer due to say the tanking of retirement funds linked to the stock
market or sheer outright greed) and that will free up a bit more mobility in
the market allowing people my age and older to move up and people younger to
grab those bas level out of college starting out jobs. But if people live longer and healthier they’ll
need money. This is already happening
anyway with senior citizens staying alive longer. Just think about job competition for a manger
job with an active hundred year old.
Being fifty will look young. And
resumes will look a whole hell of a lot different. Intern – 15 years, Jr. Analyst - 25 years, Analyst
– 10 years, Sr. Analyst – 30 years. The
skills and credentials would go on for pages.
Think a college degree is useless now?
Although it might be nice to have a few more educated people walking
around.
More Generations Together at Once
This is one of the things that intrigues me the most. I remember eating dinner with my grandmother
and her manner struck me at how utterly different her generation was from
mine. I understand my parents generation
as I had live with them my whole life and felt their governance and rules. But my grandmother’s generation,
understanding to my mother, seemed so alien and antiquated to me. While my mother was obviously connected to my
generation there were obvious moments where there things she simple could not
intuitively grasp. That’s only three
generations. If we expand life expectancy
to two hundred and we assume a generation every twenty five years that’s eight
or so at once. Imagine a twenty year old
having a conversation with their great, great, great grandfather. This might be extremely exciting as so many
points of view and cultures will mix and overlap at once. If that was happening today we’d be talking
to people who were around before any of the world wars, before there were cars
and airplanes, before there was cinema.
Think how fantastic and exciting it would be to be alive to see the
advances of humanity if we keep moving forward.
Imagine what I might be like to be alive in a hundred years. But there are issues with this of course.
Loss of Connection
It constantly surprises me when I think back on things from
my childhood and realize that was over twenty years ago. To me that feels like a long time. And it isn’t a particularly short time. To a ten year old that’s incomprehensible. To an eighty year old is certainly doesn’t
feel as long. But I remember when the
movies of my childhood came out and it shocks me, but it shouldn’t, that
younglings today have no idea of these things.
You ever have a conversation and talk about actors who have died that
you liked. That’s going to be all sorts
of fucked up in fifty years or a hundred years or two hundred years.
But more importantly think about how many people from older
generations that have issues with using a computer or the internet. It is so pervasive and ubiquitous it seems
like children now are born with a mouse in their hand. It would be like not know how to use a phone
many years ago. That kind of adoption is
going to be really hard in a hundred years.
When we have ocular implants or simply creat things with our minds or
any number of fantastic new fangled stuff that science will majestically plop
into our undeserving laps. Or what about
language. Think kids today are fucking
up the language well just wait to those kids have kids and so on and so forth
and you’ll have to communicate to the little bastards a tenth of your age.
Wealth
One thing that does scare me is this; one things the rich
have to deal with just like everyone else is death. They can’t keep the money forever it has to
keep flowing. If they live two hundred
years or more we may well all be very fucked.
Wealth is just a pretend resource we agree holds value. It ceases to hold value once we discount
it. A dollar is worth what we agree to
assign to it and no more. If the 1% live
forever just think of the harm they could do.
Of course this might mean that we all have enough time to catch up and
save up.
Dreams Come True?
With the possibility of endless time it does feel
invigorating. With the clock not ticking
we’ll have time to chase dreams with abandon.
If we fail that’s okay we can try again in fifty years. Or we can spend a hundred years slowly
building up money to buy our dream business.
But conversely without that ticking clock we may very well lose
inspiration. Death has always
inspired. Knowing we only have a limited
time has forced so many great people to perform.
War
But if we no longer have to die will people be willing to
throw their life away for the pursuit of life liberty and happiness? Will we still have soldiers willing to kill
and be killed? Will murder and death
seem all the more ugly as it should be useless?
I can only hope that long life will bring peace but somehow I think it
may only bring discordance.
But my favorite though is this; if I had hundreds of years
to live I see no reason not to learn ten languages, basket weaving, how to play
ten instruments or so, learn to ride a horse, get a few Phd’s, and explore the
world and the many, many things I just won’t be able to do with my time as it
is. Plus if we have other people who actually
go out and educate themselves we’ll truly have another renaissance and bring
some more enlightenment to this age which we are always in need of.
Ben
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Thanks for posting. You are awesome!