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> When I was a kid I used to wonder about this. Is life actually short, or are we really complaining about its finiteness? Would we be just as likely to feel li

> When I was a kid I used to wonder about this. Is life actually short, or are we really complaining about its finiteness? Would we be just as likely to feel life was short if we lived 10 times as long. This reminds me of Parkinson‘s Law: „work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion“. So if we know we will be travelling in three days, we need tree days to pack our stuff. And if we get a message from our boss telling us we need to travel this noon, we‘ll quickly pack a few things and get a toothbrush at the airport. If we had 10 times more time to live, we wouldn‘t necessarily be getting ten times more out of it. We would just - my hypothesis - need that much more time to accomplish our milestones. I read somewhere about putting Parkinson‘s Law in reverse: Committing to return the assignment in a week. That way we have a limited time budget, a boundary. That pushes us to move quickly.

activatedgeek 6y ago
On the note of Parkinson's Law, here's some fun extensions: https://www.economist.com/business/2020/07/11/slackers-and-stakhanovites https://www.economist.com/business/2020/07/11/slackers-and-s... An accessible version - https://outline.com/CbyPxD https://outline.com/CbyPxD.
Viliam1234 6y ago
> If we had 10 times more time to live, we wouldn‘t necessarily be getting ten times more out of it. We would probably need to work 10 times longer, because everything would be more expensive. We compete for scarce resources with other people, and if we have more time and they have too, the extra time will be burned in the zero-sum competitions.
- adventured 6y ago
  That and the human population would rapidly saturate the planet within this century. That of course may happen anyway, however as is we at least have a fighting shot at managing it. Life expectancy expansion has to be gradual so we can adjust to it (in numerous ways), otherwise it'd likely prompt a cataclysmic humanity crash (bubble then crash). Beyond things getting more expensive, we'd probably just have a plain resource-driven civilization crash in much of the world. Annual births more or less peaked in 1988 at around 139/140 million, which is close to the level we're still at today [1]. Annual deaths however keep climbing, from roughly 48m in 1988 to 60m or so today. Births are set to decline while deaths keep climbing throughout the century. Clear most of the natural deaths for just the next 80 years, and it's the difference between then having 18-20 billion (or more) people in the year 2100 versus the present common projections of around 11'ish billion. Would have to resolve in the fantasy age extension scenario whether people can keep having children for hundreds of years, as that would change projections radically. Governments would likely aggressively regulate population expansion if so, rather than hoping for self-restriction (eg if it took a natural form of tapering via per capita births dropping to match the changes). Does raising a child become a 100 year responsibility? Does our pre-adult immaturity / adolescence time expand to fill the allotted life expectancy? Lots of questions in the fantasy premise. [1] https://i.imgur.com/8buRWJS.png https://i.imgur.com/8buRWJS.png
majkinetor 6y ago
The problem with this attitude is as always, where is the limit. Certainly some limits can't be crossed - why a week, why not an hour, or even better, a minute ? Because you know stuff takes time and its never sure (at least in IT) how much time is it. So this is unhelpful in general, as there is no action you can deduce from it without risking maybe huge downsides (i.g. quality or quantity of work).
- submeta 6y ago
  The point I am trying to make is: Budgets are a good tool. Limits and boundaries are necassary to define a system, an organism, a project. And so in life it might be valuable as well to have a limited time to be on earth.
  - majkinetor 6y ago
    Or it might be just a scarce resource planing which becomes obsolete once we colonize planets or get involved into nano tech.

activatedgeek 6y ago

On the note of Parkinson's Law, here's some fun extensions: https://www.economist.com/business/2020/07/11/slackers-and-stakhanovites https://www.economist.com/business/2020/07/11/slackers-and-s... An accessible version - https://outline.com/CbyPxD https://outline.com/CbyPxD.

Viliam1234 6y ago

> If we had 10 times more time to live, we wouldn‘t necessarily be getting ten times more out of it. We would probably need to work 10 times longer, because everything would be more expensive. We compete for scarce resources with other people, and if we have more time and they have too, the extra time will be burned in the zero-sum competitions.

adventured 6y ago
That and the human population would rapidly saturate the planet within this century. That of course may happen anyway, however as is we at least have a fighting shot at managing it. Life expectancy expansion has to be gradual so we can adjust to it (in numerous ways), otherwise it'd likely prompt a cataclysmic humanity crash (bubble then crash). Beyond things getting more expensive, we'd probably just have a plain resource-driven civilization crash in much of the world. Annual births more or less peaked in 1988 at around 139/140 million, which is close to the level we're still at today [1]. Annual deaths however keep climbing, from roughly 48m in 1988 to 60m or so today. Births are set to decline while deaths keep climbing throughout the century. Clear most of the natural deaths for just the next 80 years, and it's the difference between then having 18-20 billion (or more) people in the year 2100 versus the present common projections of around 11'ish billion. Would have to resolve in the fantasy age extension scenario whether people can keep having children for hundreds of years, as that would change projections radically. Governments would likely aggressively regulate population expansion if so, rather than hoping for self-restriction (eg if it took a natural form of tapering via per capita births dropping to match the changes). Does raising a child become a 100 year responsibility? Does our pre-adult immaturity / adolescence time expand to fill the allotted life expectancy? Lots of questions in the fantasy premise. [1] https://i.imgur.com/8buRWJS.png https://i.imgur.com/8buRWJS.png

majkinetor 6y ago

The problem with this attitude is as always, where is the limit. Certainly some limits can't be crossed - why a week, why not an hour, or even better, a minute ? Because you know stuff takes time and its never sure (at least in IT) how much time is it. So this is unhelpful in general, as there is no action you can deduce from it without risking maybe huge downsides (i.g. quality or quantity of work).

submeta 6y ago
The point I am trying to make is: Budgets are a good tool. Limits and boundaries are necassary to define a system, an organism, a project. And so in life it might be valuable as well to have a limited time to be on earth.
- majkinetor 6y ago
  Or it might be just a scarce resource planing which becomes obsolete once we colonize planets or get involved into nano tech.