5 ms·

Beyond the reduced risk of death from injury, you also have to account for a change in behavior. I posit that we would all act very differently if we knew our l

Beyond the reduced risk of death from injury, you also have to account for a change in behavior. I posit that we would all act very differently if we knew our life expectancy to be a few thousand years. I'd venture a guess that we would be a lot more risk-averse. Society would look drastically different.

neuromancer2701 11y ago
Why wouldn't we be more risky if we knew we would live for 3000 years. Instead of 5-10 years of drinking and partying we would have 100-200 years of extended "college" years. There no pressure to get your stuff together if you know you can mess around for a couple of centuries and still have time to get your life in order.
- chacha102 11y ago
  I'd rather just have my life together for a couple centuries and not have the pressure of having to get it together later. Plus, can you imagine the compound interest? :)
- rpgmaker 11y ago
  > Instead of 5-10 years of drinking and partying we would have 100-200 years of extended "college" years. You're putting too much faith in the judgment of centuries-old "teenagers". My guess is that they would squeeze 100-200 years of drinking and partying into 5-10 years :)
- ant6n 11y ago
  Even if you can stay at 150 for 850 years, if you want kids, you might want to start somewhere in the first century.
  - mfoy_ 11y ago
    And then after a millenium your great grandchildren will be relatively as old as you are (Say 900 to 1000, at that point how does aging affect someone?) Also, how would your memory hold up? Would you even be able to really remember anything that happened over a century or two ago?
    - zardo 11y ago
      Probably not without some sort of memory enhancement. I'm not sure if that would even be preferable, maybe it would be better to let the past fade out.
- ChicagoBoy11 11y ago
  That's not the right way to think about this. Let's take binge-drinking, for example. Let's suppose that each binge-drinking episode has a .0001% chance of causing a fatality. That is trivially low. However, in order to consider the trade-offs involved, you have to think about the expected value of your life in either scenario. So you must compare E(life | no drink) with E(life | drink). These are practically the same, but where they differ is that in the drink scenario, your expected value is broken down into two scenarios -- one if you die as a result of the binge drink, and one if you don't. So you can break E(life | drink) into 99.999(E(life + d)) + .001d, where d is the added enjoyment you get from that one night of binge drinking. The comparison, then, is ultimately whether E(life) >=< 99.999(E(life + d) + .001d You can tell from this that what really matters is the ratio of d to E(life), the enjoyment you get from drinking that one night, compared to your overall enjoyment of your ENTIRE subsequent life. As we extend your life expectancy, as long as we assume that life is a good thing, we make the value of your subsequent life higher and higher. This, in turn, should make any rational actor be less willing to take on risks that would cut it short.
  - soared 11y ago
    I couldn't follow your math, but the english conclusion seems illogical. Even if it is, assuming humans to be rational actors isn't a terribly good assumption.
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      Especially the humans who like to engage in binge drinking.
btbuildem 11y ago
Not really. Only the wealthy would have access to this technology, the poor would still have normal life expectancy. Society would look the way it does now (stratified), just more so.
- Retric 11y ago
  Over 100 years most 'rich' only tech ended up getting cheap. (computers, cars, air travel). So, you might have ultra rich at 850, rich at 800, and the masses at 750. But, having access to 100 years of refinement the 750 year old's ongoing treatment is likely far cheaper. Though IMO, this is all wishful thinking. 1,000 years ago people thought they where close to unlocking immortality, and we are likely just as wrong.
- Benjammer 11y ago
  Check out the book Altered Carbon if you want a sci fi series about pretty much this exact scenario.
  - wang_li 11y ago
    Even better is the Beggar's in Spain Trilogy.
- crusso 11y ago
  I remember when I was a kid how people said the same thing about the ability to own computers.
- zardo 11y ago
  I don't see why that would be the case, extreme longevity has arrisen in some organisms by natural selection, so it would appear to be a software problem. You need the tools to change a genome to be affordable (they already are to some extent) and you need the software to be written (it isn't).
RangerScience 11y ago
http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=4021 http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=4021
- bsenftner 11y ago
  Exactly.

neuromancer2701 11y ago

Why wouldn't we be more risky if we knew we would live for 3000 years. Instead of 5-10 years of drinking and partying we would have 100-200 years of extended "college" years. There no pressure to get your stuff together if you know you can mess around for a couple of centuries and still have time to get your life in order.

chacha102 11y ago
I'd rather just have my life together for a couple centuries and not have the pressure of having to get it together later. Plus, can you imagine the compound interest? :)
rpgmaker 11y ago
> Instead of 5-10 years of drinking and partying we would have 100-200 years of extended "college" years. You're putting too much faith in the judgment of centuries-old "teenagers". My guess is that they would squeeze 100-200 years of drinking and partying into 5-10 years :)
ant6n 11y ago
Even if you can stay at 150 for 850 years, if you want kids, you might want to start somewhere in the first century.
- mfoy_ 11y ago
  And then after a millenium your great grandchildren will be relatively as old as you are (Say 900 to 1000, at that point how does aging affect someone?) Also, how would your memory hold up? Would you even be able to really remember anything that happened over a century or two ago?
  - zardo 11y ago
    Probably not without some sort of memory enhancement. I'm not sure if that would even be preferable, maybe it would be better to let the past fade out.
ChicagoBoy11 11y ago
That's not the right way to think about this. Let's take binge-drinking, for example. Let's suppose that each binge-drinking episode has a .0001% chance of causing a fatality. That is trivially low. However, in order to consider the trade-offs involved, you have to think about the expected value of your life in either scenario. So you must compare E(life | no drink) with E(life | drink). These are practically the same, but where they differ is that in the drink scenario, your expected value is broken down into two scenarios -- one if you die as a result of the binge drink, and one if you don't. So you can break E(life | drink) into 99.999(E(life + d)) + .001d, where d is the added enjoyment you get from that one night of binge drinking. The comparison, then, is ultimately whether E(life) >=< 99.999(E(life + d) + .001d You can tell from this that what really matters is the ratio of d to E(life), the enjoyment you get from drinking that one night, compared to your overall enjoyment of your ENTIRE subsequent life. As we extend your life expectancy, as long as we assume that life is a good thing, we make the value of your subsequent life higher and higher. This, in turn, should make any rational actor be less willing to take on risks that would cut it short.
- soared 11y ago
  I couldn't follow your math, but the english conclusion seems illogical. Even if it is, assuming humans to be rational actors isn't a terribly good assumption.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    Especially the humans who like to engage in binge drinking.

btbuildem 11y ago

Not really. Only the wealthy would have access to this technology, the poor would still have normal life expectancy. Society would look the way it does now (stratified), just more so.

Retric 11y ago
Over 100 years most 'rich' only tech ended up getting cheap. (computers, cars, air travel). So, you might have ultra rich at 850, rich at 800, and the masses at 750. But, having access to 100 years of refinement the 750 year old's ongoing treatment is likely far cheaper. Though IMO, this is all wishful thinking. 1,000 years ago people thought they where close to unlocking immortality, and we are likely just as wrong.
Benjammer 11y ago
Check out the book Altered Carbon if you want a sci fi series about pretty much this exact scenario.
- wang_li 11y ago
  Even better is the Beggar's in Spain Trilogy.
crusso 11y ago
I remember when I was a kid how people said the same thing about the ability to own computers.
zardo 11y ago
I don't see why that would be the case, extreme longevity has arrisen in some organisms by natural selection, so it would appear to be a software problem. You need the tools to change a genome to be affordable (they already are to some extent) and you need the software to be written (it isn't).

RangerScience 11y ago

http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=4021 http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=4021

bsenftner 11y ago
Exactly.