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I don't see how humanity could handle something like mass distribution of a magic treatment that allowed people to live to 1,000. The world would quickly get o

I don't see how humanity could handle something like mass distribution of a magic treatment that allowed people to live to 1,000. The world would quickly get over crowded, resources would dry up, world wars would follow, and who knows what else.

sshumaker 16y ago
This is silly. Everyone was worried in the 1970's that the 1990's would have massive overcrowding and famines, but it didn't happen. Instead, the world population growth rate has begun to level off. Why? In affluent countries, people no longer have children out of necessity, but of desire. In fact, many first-world nations are actually now undergoing population contraction (Japan, much of Europe). If you eliminate aging across the world, the necessity of children will go away. People will only have children if they want them.
- gte910h 16y ago
  It's not just the first world. Women in even the poorest countries are simply just choosing to have less children.
- biggitybones 16y ago
  If people lived 10x longer than they do now, the birth rate would have to drop dramatically (my rudimentary math would assume that it would require 10% of the amount of births we have now) or you'd risk overcrowding. We'd end up with government controlling the number of children, possibly even a lottery system. The overcrowding worries of the 70s and 90s were not because of a 1200% increase, rather a 10-20% increase.
  - gnaritas 16y ago
    > If people lived 10x longer than they do now, the birth rate would have to drop dramatically And it would, if you knew you'd live that long most wouldn't tie themselves down with kids while they're still young, they'd wait much much longer and go out and live life. As it stands now, if you don't have kids by the time you're 30 you risk not being able to have them at all and having to suffer though months of fertility treatments and such just to try.
    - biggitybones 16y ago
      The fact is, society would change drastically if this were to happen, so we can speculate all we want :) People could want kids for a variety of reasons (to pass on their genes, the utility of having children, etc) and you'd have to maintain that you could only have two children max at one point in your life to effectively replace yourselves and not increase the population. Not to mention if you'd want to have kids 2 or 3 times over, now that they're growth is only a small percentage of your total life.
    - simonsquiff 16y ago
      You're assuming most children are planned :)
sgk284 16y ago
Eh... humanity will always find a way. We've done pretty good so far. If nothing else, spending a few years flying to mars seems a lot more reasonable when you've got 1,000 to spare. Space colonization is one solution to overpopulation.
- smallblacksun 16y ago
  The problem is that we have no evidence that any planet/moon/etc. that we have discovered can support the level of ecosystem required for humans on that planet to be self-sufficient.
  - jerf 16y ago
    You don't have to be a strong Singulatarian to recognize that projecting out, say, 100 years into the future with the hidden assumption that technology won't advance is a waste of time. You don't know what will be necessary for human life then, with a much stronger nanotech base and who knows what else.
gte910h 16y ago
He's not talking about a magic treatment, he's talking about raising the life expectancy gain per decade by more than 10. All that said: Then if that happens, war will happen. I predict population will stabilize still (remember, accidents and unsolved diseases and violence and suicide will still kill). If it doesn't happen then we condemn the whole world to die. I for one am for giving the chance for us or our children the chance to make it work, and find it overwhelmingly arrogant to think we know well enough to judge they won't handle it.
ugh 16y ago
But people die! Wouldn’t you want to stop that if you could? I don’t know how you could consider death some sort of necessary evil. That seems like a pretty cynical and cruel view to me. Think of all the intelligent, experienced and capable people who die every day (or are slowly losing their intelligence due to aging). Wouldn’t it be great if Shakespeare were still alive? Newton? Darwin? Einstein? Crick? Death is wasteful and it’s monstrous. Those problems you mentioned seem like small obstacles compared to the much bigger problem of death.
- colonelxc 16y ago
  His argument is that there would be overcrowding. Then, we potentially wouldn't be able to sustain the large population... then people would die from lack of food/water. This can probably be overcome with new technology, much like in Asimov's robot books (the "Cities"). Anyways, while death from old age is sad, I think premature death is worse. The 5 year old kid with leukemia, the car accidents, wars. There are tons of things that kill people before they can live a "whole life" which I think we should work on first (not that we can't do both). Hopefully with some of these aging technologies, quality of life for the 'elderly' would also improve. I would hate if I couldn't play sports for 90% of my life.
  - ugh 16y ago
    It seems pretty logical to me to put some serious resources into fighting the leading cause of death (which is aging [1]). I absolutely do agree with your last line. We shouldn’t just add years, we have to increase quality of life. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate
- philwelch 16y ago
  Newton wasted the bulk of his life on theology. I don't think giving him a few more hundred years would have given the world anything else that was useful. I suspect the others would have been disappointments to keep around as well--except for Shakespeare, all of them did a finite number of interesting things early in their lives and already seemed to have retired. You can't conflate indefinite lifespan with indefinite creative steam. But even if you could? Shakespeare as a Hollywood screenwriter makes for an intriguing idea, I admit. But I think we would get sick of even him.
joubert 16y ago
I bet that cure would be so expensive only a few people could access it.

sshumaker 16y ago

This is silly. Everyone was worried in the 1970's that the 1990's would have massive overcrowding and famines, but it didn't happen. Instead, the world population growth rate has begun to level off. Why? In affluent countries, people no longer have children out of necessity, but of desire. In fact, many first-world nations are actually now undergoing population contraction (Japan, much of Europe). If you eliminate aging across the world, the necessity of children will go away. People will only have children if they want them.

gte910h 16y ago
It's not just the first world. Women in even the poorest countries are simply just choosing to have less children.
biggitybones 16y ago
If people lived 10x longer than they do now, the birth rate would have to drop dramatically (my rudimentary math would assume that it would require 10% of the amount of births we have now) or you'd risk overcrowding. We'd end up with government controlling the number of children, possibly even a lottery system. The overcrowding worries of the 70s and 90s were not because of a 1200% increase, rather a 10-20% increase.
- gnaritas 16y ago
  > If people lived 10x longer than they do now, the birth rate would have to drop dramatically And it would, if you knew you'd live that long most wouldn't tie themselves down with kids while they're still young, they'd wait much much longer and go out and live life. As it stands now, if you don't have kids by the time you're 30 you risk not being able to have them at all and having to suffer though months of fertility treatments and such just to try.
  - biggitybones 16y ago
    The fact is, society would change drastically if this were to happen, so we can speculate all we want :) People could want kids for a variety of reasons (to pass on their genes, the utility of having children, etc) and you'd have to maintain that you could only have two children max at one point in your life to effectively replace yourselves and not increase the population. Not to mention if you'd want to have kids 2 or 3 times over, now that they're growth is only a small percentage of your total life.
  - simonsquiff 16y ago
    You're assuming most children are planned :)

sgk284 16y ago

Eh... humanity will always find a way. We've done pretty good so far. If nothing else, spending a few years flying to mars seems a lot more reasonable when you've got 1,000 to spare. Space colonization is one solution to overpopulation.

smallblacksun 16y ago
The problem is that we have no evidence that any planet/moon/etc. that we have discovered can support the level of ecosystem required for humans on that planet to be self-sufficient.
- jerf 16y ago
  You don't have to be a strong Singulatarian to recognize that projecting out, say, 100 years into the future with the hidden assumption that technology won't advance is a waste of time. You don't know what will be necessary for human life then, with a much stronger nanotech base and who knows what else.

gte910h 16y ago

He's not talking about a magic treatment, he's talking about raising the life expectancy gain per decade by more than 10. All that said: Then if that happens, war will happen. I predict population will stabilize still (remember, accidents and unsolved diseases and violence and suicide will still kill). If it doesn't happen then we condemn the whole world to die. I for one am for giving the chance for us or our children the chance to make it work, and find it overwhelmingly arrogant to think we know well enough to judge they won't handle it.

ugh 16y ago

But people die! Wouldn’t you want to stop that if you could? I don’t know how you could consider death some sort of necessary evil. That seems like a pretty cynical and cruel view to me. Think of all the intelligent, experienced and capable people who die every day (or are slowly losing their intelligence due to aging). Wouldn’t it be great if Shakespeare were still alive? Newton? Darwin? Einstein? Crick? Death is wasteful and it’s monstrous. Those problems you mentioned seem like small obstacles compared to the much bigger problem of death.

colonelxc 16y ago
His argument is that there would be overcrowding. Then, we potentially wouldn't be able to sustain the large population... then people would die from lack of food/water. This can probably be overcome with new technology, much like in Asimov's robot books (the "Cities"). Anyways, while death from old age is sad, I think premature death is worse. The 5 year old kid with leukemia, the car accidents, wars. There are tons of things that kill people before they can live a "whole life" which I think we should work on first (not that we can't do both). Hopefully with some of these aging technologies, quality of life for the 'elderly' would also improve. I would hate if I couldn't play sports for 90% of my life.
- ugh 16y ago
  It seems pretty logical to me to put some serious resources into fighting the leading cause of death (which is aging [1]). I absolutely do agree with your last line. We shouldn’t just add years, we have to increase quality of life. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate
philwelch 16y ago
Newton wasted the bulk of his life on theology. I don't think giving him a few more hundred years would have given the world anything else that was useful. I suspect the others would have been disappointments to keep around as well--except for Shakespeare, all of them did a finite number of interesting things early in their lives and already seemed to have retired. You can't conflate indefinite lifespan with indefinite creative steam. But even if you could? Shakespeare as a Hollywood screenwriter makes for an intriguing idea, I admit. But I think we would get sick of even him.

joubert 16y ago

I bet that cure would be so expensive only a few people could access it.