If a way was found to extend average healthly lifespan to 1000 years, how would that change society?

Answer 1

It would be terrible. Think of the massive over-population that would occur.

Answer 2

Yikes. Given the irresponsibility around procreation, 6 billion people procreating across that many generations and their offspring, this planet "ain't big enough for the both of us."

Our demands on the planet would exceed the what the environment could produce. Poverty and disease would be the result.

Without enough breathable air, drinkable water -- not to the mention the waste each of us would generate, this is far worse than a nuclear scenario.

The congestion would result in unnatural systems for our survival. Underground, underwater, space habitats would need to be constructed just to house the population, let alone producing enough food to feed the numbers of people that would be alive.

Society cannot currently cope with extended the lives of people into the 70s and 80s -- compared to times when the average life span was in the 30s and 40s. All of the economic systems that were devised are failing.

Men can and do father children into their 70s. Men doing this in their 700s and 800s would be catastrophic to the planet. We would implode on ourselves.

The competition for food and resources would lead to conflict and war -- more than what already exists. Wealth that is traditionally passed from one generation to the next would not happen and each new generation within that lifespan will then pose greater financial challenges on those who are already here.

Answer 3

In the movie Logan's Run, 1970 something, people were required to volunteer ( oxymoron) to leave this planet and go to the next, in order to maintain a sustainable population. I believe this is not that far off from our own future. The difference is we will know where we are going next and why. It was not that long ago mankind believed the world was flat, so its not that far-fetched to believe we will know where we are going; when we either die from natural causes or by accident or by choice; its time to go. I also believe that it is a disadvantage to try and leave too soon. We must live life to the fullest on each station during our eternal journey through time and space. No cutting in line..... whats the end of the line? The beginning of the end. Paradise.

Fun question; thanks.

Peace............

Answer 4

Several good minds, sci-fi writers and scientists, have considered this very idea. Some have foreseen vast changes, others foresaw humans taking the good news in stride. Here's my professional take on it as a philosopher.

Leaving the mechanism of such change aside for the moment--whether it is cryogenics, genetics, injections, transporter-like recreations and retrainings, cancer-inhibiting breakthroughs or whatever--the fact is that most people do not really want to live for 1000 years. I claim
this is true for the same reason they do not really want great speed, strength, skill, responsibility, potential, work, reward or anything else; their wish is to be like everyone else, whom they regard as ordinary, flawed failures whose main job is also to be enough like everyone else so they are no perceived threat. This is a flaw beyond bigotry; it is a fear of responsibility that characterizes all mediocre minds.

Let's reason with that. If I'm correct, then the 1000 years would have to be awarded like a Nobel Prize, only sanely, by scientists, as an order of merit only and withheld from all others on lying technical grounds--too expensive, too difficult etc.

If not, let's suppose the 1000 years becomes standard for all men, a different possibility. This sets up the possibility of assisted suicide, and the desperate need for the regulations concerning what education is--training in scientific-category-level definition by 5--6 prioritized internal workings, not according to childish appearances; perfected regulations on non-fictional utterance, clear category-level labelings, the activities of assessment personnel,. teachers, writers of job descriptions and much more.

Such a society would see minds operating as far above the activities of a Neanderthal tribe--or a Washington Bureau circa 1994---as the modern world in the hands of a supergenius is above the primitive concrete bound epistemological savagery and subtechnological effort of even the men of the present .

The key to the system I say would then be introducing robots and ending wage-slavery and pseudo-religious dictatorship by politicians over individuals. To live so long would require an "orderly" regulated system of claiming rights, not the present totalitarian lies, fraud, bigotry, deprivation of rights, official malfeasance, imperial presidential insanity and constitutional absurdity.

For a model, minds would then perhaps return to the hands-on, minds-on, system of ancient Greece, minus the misogyny and religion. The biggest six questions I suggest would then be:
1. To stay on Earth or found new colonies on other worlds in space---with a thousand years to spend, one could invest some of it in cryogenic risk aboard a star vessel and still have time to become the founder of a society; and I suspect many would choose this option.
2. Death at least of a premature sort would become a much worse catastrophe than death is now--each man having so much more to lose by it. What would this do to crimes, punishments, security, definitions of rights, separation from others in daily life, rules of social engagement, marriage, etc. is not hard to imagine--it would foster individualism and powerful mores for contact of any description.
3. Religions would cease to exist and be replaced by cults of beauty, health, and meditation--and the main impetus behind monastic legitimate otherworldism would be utterly destroyed, except for the most committed otherworldists.
4. Having children would become a moral, ethical and legal exercise for the first time since ancient Greece. But the decision would be a huge one--how many to have, how long would the proto-selfhood period be, what would constitute benchmarks of readiness/experience? etc?
5. If and only if all men had enough wherewithal for a worthwhile "life", not mere dragged out existence, then,
what would they do under these rules to avoid deadly boredom (actually and literally)?
6. The change would allow some minds to transform their beginnings, live several lives, learn languages, devote years to mastering several different disciplines, allow the truly great and merely attractive actors and brilliant creators to obviate lesser artists of many descriptions; a president might well serve forty years instead of four, and the mechanism of challenging for a job would become more important than the original potentially reversible decision; a true marketplace of lives would be not only possible but necessary, since fewer men would risk a thousand-year life to free themselves than take that risk now--and they would hardly accept a thousand-year servitude and frustration.

That's how I see it: Renaissance Four; the First Galactic Era. I call it The Age of Stellar Man--Chapter One--with cities in space for the rulers and worlds as mining and work colonies for others, the space cities being run on Grecian models by the few and their computers to coordinate all the others' interests.

Answer 5

Suicide would become acceptable and even encouraged, as would abortion. Births would have to be regulated.

How many could afford this treatment? I envision a few wealthy elite living much longer, owning too much, while others starve and die in ignorance and poverty.

More time for people, especially wealthy people, means more need for distractions like movies, books, fine cuisine, tv, etc. Less of a need to make commitment.

Answer 6

Most of the world will starve to death. There probably be widespread pandemic like Spanish flu. There already to many people on world now and sounds cruel but need something kill half population off like Spanish flu, war or global weather change.

Answer 7

It would require a great deal more structures for "Care" since most of us would get bored at about 40 years, so 400 would just suck!

I don't think I would like to live that long. I enjoy "Change too much" to be Strapped to "one body" so long!

Answer 8

Social Security would really be screwed up then. Wonder what "legal age" would be?

Answer 9

teenagers that go for 200 years or so spare me

Answer 10

Marriage would NOT be 'til death do us part'.