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I believe so many problems in our society would be solved by lifespan increasing technology. It would make people have to seriously consider the long-term ramif

I believe so many problems in our society would be solved by lifespan increasing technology. It would make people have to seriously consider the long-term ramifications of their actions, and I imagine adopt a kinder, gentler, more sustainable attitude. Climate change is a personal threat to you if you're immortal, not your children or your children's children. Crime goes down, as the risks of having jail time on your record grow and grow - it's one thing to be a felon for 60 years, but to be a felon for 500 years? 1000 years? No one would risk that just for the contents of a 7/11 cash register. Being nice and kind to everyone you see makes more and more sense, because the longer your lifespan the higher the probability you'll meet some of those people again and get your kindness repaid. The only downside is potential overpopulation issues, but (perhaps this is naive of me) I imagine most people would accept sterilization in exchange for eternity.

osobo 7y ago
If watching the Boomer generation has taught me one thing, it's that people do not necessarily grow milder and wiser with age. I think it would be catastrophic if society gets locked down in its current model because people simply will not vacate their place (in work, in housing, in use of resources) by dying.
- magduf 7y ago
  People will still die, due to accidents etc., just not as quickly. History has shown that younger generations aren't always better than older ones. The rise of Naziism in the 30s wasn't because of a bunch of elderly people.
  - nwah1 7y ago
    Accidents are a small percent of overall mortality, and the likelihood of accidents has been decreasing over time, and can be decreased further with lifestyle choices that reduce such risks. Warfare can and will kill many, but the rich are generally the least likely to die, because they are the most mobile and can afford the best defense.
    - magduf 7y ago
      >Accidents are a small percent of overall mortality No, they aren't. Where'd you get this crazy idea? Car accidents alone are the largest killer of younger people in the US. 30,000 people every year die in the US alone in cars. Here's a list of leading causes of death from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm Accidents is #3, at 170,000 people per year. >and can be decreased further with lifestyle choices that reduce such risks. So what? What makes you think people are going to do that? They aren't doing it now; they're happily taking up stuff like vaping, which is now killing people and is all over the news.
gbrown 7y ago
I'm all for it, but I think you're overoptimistic. Climate deniers aren't generally making a selfish but rational calculation that they're unlikely to be affected - many have children they care deeply about, after all. Instead, they're flinching away from uncomfortable ideas and refusing to acknowledge the unfolding catastrophe. Maybe the benefits to brain plasticity would undo some of this retrenchment, but that's a big maybe.
- ColanR 7y ago
  > Instead, they're flinching away from uncomfortable ideas In my experience of talking with 'climate deniers', that has never been the case.
  - tempguy9999 7y ago
    IYE what is the case - what is their motivation for their position?
    - magduf 7y ago
      Generally, complete stupidity plus being told falsehoods by people who stand to benefit. It's the exact same with anti-vaxxers.
  - gbrown 7y ago
    Fair enough, but it's been mine. There are loud voices telling people they don't have to worry about the impact of their choices. That's seductive, and the truth is painful - many people instinctively prefer comforting lies.
    - ColanR 7y ago
      Fair enough. In my case it's been more motivated by conspiracy theory, that maybe there's some suppression of incongruous data going on. Which could be reasonable, given Monsanto & Snowden.
      - 7y ago
the_gastropod 7y ago
I like your thinking here, but I don't know if it'd really happen. I think humans just generally aren't very good at long-term thinking. Heart disease—something almost entirely preventable—is our #1 killer. We tend prioritize immediate enjoyment over long-term benefits. I don't think immortality will solve this, unfortunately.
- magduf 7y ago
  It won't solve it, but it certainly won't make it worse. I fail to see how immortality would cause any problems at all, instead of actually making things better, though it won't be the cure-all that some people seem to think it's being pushed as.
  - the_gastropod 7y ago
    Even if ignoring the huge overpopulation concern, I'm still not so optimistic. How much social progress has happened simply because older people die off and can no longer vote? If we still had a significant population of people born in the 1700s, what might U.S. politics look like?
    - magduf 7y ago
      Why would there be a concern for overpopulation? Population is falling in every developed nation now, if you ignore immigration. People don't want to have a lot of kids when they have money and education, and this is happening to every nation as it develops. >If we still had a significant population of people born in the 1700s, what might U.S. politics look like? Not that different, because 1) there just weren't that many people alive back then in the first place, and 2) most of them would be dead anyway, because immortality doesn't make you impervious to accidents, murder, tornadoes, etc. Even with immortality, people are eventually going to get killed somehow.
    - jakeogh 7y ago
      Do you know more now than you did a decade ago?
ColanR 7y ago
The show Altered Carbon described an alternative consequence of extended lifespans - the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and because the rich don't die, there's no 'reset button' at the transition between generations and the situation never changes. The rich guy's money can accumulate interest indefinitely, while the poor guy may never get past the paycheck to paycheck life (or he lives long enough to eventually figure out how to save enough to improve his situation).
- magduf 7y ago
  This can be easily and trivially fixed with some simple taxation to transfer wealth from the ultra-rich to everyone else. If that isn't happening, it's most likely a failure of the voters to demand such laws.
  - ColanR 7y ago
    > easily and trivially Really? I think the current ecosystem of lobbyists and tax evasion (remember the Paradise Papers?) puts the lie to that idea. I don't think you have any basis on which to make that claim.
    - magduf 7y ago
      Sure I do: there are other countries out there, you know, and they do tax very wealthy people more. There's more to the world than America.
      - sumedh 7y ago
        How do these countries tax the money which is hidden in offshore tax havens?
        magduf 7y ago
        I don't see why that's any of their business. The only thing that's the business of a government is the income generated inside its own borders by that person or company, and the government should be able to have access to that data to make sure that person/company is not cheating on their taxes. Once they've paid their taxes on that income, if they want to move it offshore, that's their business. If the person or company is generating income offshore, that's not the business of that government, it's the business of the government where the income is being generated.
castratikron 7y ago
I wrote some scifi story where immortality tech exists, but is only used as punishment for serious crimes. One of the characters was serving an eternal sentence for doing something really bad a long time ago...
jcadam 7y ago
> 500 years? 1000 years? I'm genuinely curious what the average life expectancy would be if we were able to prevent deaths due to "old age" and its concomitant ailments. There are plenty of other ways to get yourself killed so you're still guaranteed to die some day.
- jakeogh 7y ago
  ~100k years? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19937047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19937047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20742898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20742898
1e-9 7y ago
Actually, I think increased lifespan is likely to reduce overpopulation. Worldwide, over many years, we have consistently seen fertility rates decreasing where life expectancy is increasing. There is debate as to cause and effect[1,2], but I believe it is largely due to a lessening of perceived risk to successful reproduction. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK233807 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK233807 [2] https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate
decoyworker 7y ago
Don't forget that long starship travels and long timeline scientific endeavors are now a reality.
newnewpdro 7y ago
Or maybe on a long enough timeline everyone's a criminal with a record, and the social ramifications of having a record become less significant because it's so ubiquitous among adults. I could see it having an opposite effect, people make strange decisions when they view outcomes as inevitable.
throwing838383 7y ago
We already have way too many people on the planet. if no one died, it would cause all our environmental problems, lack of wealth problems to multiply. Actually, I think we need to get our population down to a much lower level where we're not stressing our the planet and not stressing the limited resources we have. politically speaking, we just can't handle this many people on the planet.
- solveit 7y ago
  Yes, I also think that killing literally everybody is the most reasonable solution to environmental and social problems.
nwah1 7y ago
That is far from the only downside. Economic stratification would be a major one.

osobo 7y ago

If watching the Boomer generation has taught me one thing, it's that people do not necessarily grow milder and wiser with age. I think it would be catastrophic if society gets locked down in its current model because people simply will not vacate their place (in work, in housing, in use of resources) by dying.

magduf 7y ago
People will still die, due to accidents etc., just not as quickly. History has shown that younger generations aren't always better than older ones. The rise of Naziism in the 30s wasn't because of a bunch of elderly people.
- nwah1 7y ago
  Accidents are a small percent of overall mortality, and the likelihood of accidents has been decreasing over time, and can be decreased further with lifestyle choices that reduce such risks. Warfare can and will kill many, but the rich are generally the least likely to die, because they are the most mobile and can afford the best defense.
  - magduf 7y ago
    >Accidents are a small percent of overall mortality No, they aren't. Where'd you get this crazy idea? Car accidents alone are the largest killer of younger people in the US. 30,000 people every year die in the US alone in cars. Here's a list of leading causes of death from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm Accidents is #3, at 170,000 people per year. >and can be decreased further with lifestyle choices that reduce such risks. So what? What makes you think people are going to do that? They aren't doing it now; they're happily taking up stuff like vaping, which is now killing people and is all over the news.

gbrown 7y ago

I'm all for it, but I think you're overoptimistic. Climate deniers aren't generally making a selfish but rational calculation that they're unlikely to be affected - many have children they care deeply about, after all. Instead, they're flinching away from uncomfortable ideas and refusing to acknowledge the unfolding catastrophe. Maybe the benefits to brain plasticity would undo some of this retrenchment, but that's a big maybe.

ColanR 7y ago
> Instead, they're flinching away from uncomfortable ideas In my experience of talking with 'climate deniers', that has never been the case.
- tempguy9999 7y ago
  IYE what is the case - what is their motivation for their position?
  - magduf 7y ago
    Generally, complete stupidity plus being told falsehoods by people who stand to benefit. It's the exact same with anti-vaxxers.
- gbrown 7y ago
  Fair enough, but it's been mine. There are loud voices telling people they don't have to worry about the impact of their choices. That's seductive, and the truth is painful - many people instinctively prefer comforting lies.
  - ColanR 7y ago
    Fair enough. In my case it's been more motivated by conspiracy theory, that maybe there's some suppression of incongruous data going on. Which could be reasonable, given Monsanto & Snowden.
    - 7y ago

the_gastropod 7y ago

I like your thinking here, but I don't know if it'd really happen. I think humans just generally aren't very good at long-term thinking. Heart disease—something almost entirely preventable—is our #1 killer. We tend prioritize immediate enjoyment over long-term benefits. I don't think immortality will solve this, unfortunately.

magduf 7y ago
It won't solve it, but it certainly won't make it worse. I fail to see how immortality would cause any problems at all, instead of actually making things better, though it won't be the cure-all that some people seem to think it's being pushed as.
- the_gastropod 7y ago
  Even if ignoring the huge overpopulation concern, I'm still not so optimistic. How much social progress has happened simply because older people die off and can no longer vote? If we still had a significant population of people born in the 1700s, what might U.S. politics look like?
  - magduf 7y ago
    Why would there be a concern for overpopulation? Population is falling in every developed nation now, if you ignore immigration. People don't want to have a lot of kids when they have money and education, and this is happening to every nation as it develops. >If we still had a significant population of people born in the 1700s, what might U.S. politics look like? Not that different, because 1) there just weren't that many people alive back then in the first place, and 2) most of them would be dead anyway, because immortality doesn't make you impervious to accidents, murder, tornadoes, etc. Even with immortality, people are eventually going to get killed somehow.
  - jakeogh 7y ago
    Do you know more now than you did a decade ago?

ColanR 7y ago

The show Altered Carbon described an alternative consequence of extended lifespans - the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and because the rich don't die, there's no 'reset button' at the transition between generations and the situation never changes. The rich guy's money can accumulate interest indefinitely, while the poor guy may never get past the paycheck to paycheck life (or he lives long enough to eventually figure out how to save enough to improve his situation).

magduf 7y ago
This can be easily and trivially fixed with some simple taxation to transfer wealth from the ultra-rich to everyone else. If that isn't happening, it's most likely a failure of the voters to demand such laws.
- ColanR 7y ago
  > easily and trivially Really? I think the current ecosystem of lobbyists and tax evasion (remember the Paradise Papers?) puts the lie to that idea. I don't think you have any basis on which to make that claim.
  - magduf 7y ago
    Sure I do: there are other countries out there, you know, and they do tax very wealthy people more. There's more to the world than America.
    - sumedh 7y ago
      How do these countries tax the money which is hidden in offshore tax havens?
      - magduf 7y ago
        I don't see why that's any of their business. The only thing that's the business of a government is the income generated inside its own borders by that person or company, and the government should be able to have access to that data to make sure that person/company is not cheating on their taxes. Once they've paid their taxes on that income, if they want to move it offshore, that's their business. If the person or company is generating income offshore, that's not the business of that government, it's the business of the government where the income is being generated.

castratikron 7y ago

I wrote some scifi story where immortality tech exists, but is only used as punishment for serious crimes. One of the characters was serving an eternal sentence for doing something really bad a long time ago...

jcadam 7y ago

> 500 years? 1000 years? I'm genuinely curious what the average life expectancy would be if we were able to prevent deaths due to "old age" and its concomitant ailments. There are plenty of other ways to get yourself killed so you're still guaranteed to die some day.

jakeogh 7y ago
~100k years? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19937047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19937047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20742898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20742898

1e-9 7y ago

Actually, I think increased lifespan is likely to reduce overpopulation. Worldwide, over many years, we have consistently seen fertility rates decreasing where life expectancy is increasing. There is debate as to cause and effect[1,2], but I believe it is largely due to a lessening of perceived risk to successful reproduction. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK233807 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK233807 [2] https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate

decoyworker 7y ago

Don't forget that long starship travels and long timeline scientific endeavors are now a reality.

newnewpdro 7y ago

Or maybe on a long enough timeline everyone's a criminal with a record, and the social ramifications of having a record become less significant because it's so ubiquitous among adults. I could see it having an opposite effect, people make strange decisions when they view outcomes as inevitable.

throwing838383 7y ago

We already have way too many people on the planet. if no one died, it would cause all our environmental problems, lack of wealth problems to multiply. Actually, I think we need to get our population down to a much lower level where we're not stressing our the planet and not stressing the limited resources we have. politically speaking, we just can't handle this many people on the planet.

solveit 7y ago
Yes, I also think that killing literally everybody is the most reasonable solution to environmental and social problems.

nwah1 7y ago

That is far from the only downside. Economic stratification would be a major one.