>Living longer would not increase our society's capability or capacity, it would almost assuredly decrease it, not to mention life would be exceptionally crowde

>Living longer would not increase our society's capability or capacity, it would almost assuredly decrease it, not to mention life would be exceptionally crowded, everywhere. I think it would improve our capacity. Look at how much investment is put into someone before they can productively give back to the economy - kids take years of being raised, teacher's time, plus years of experience before they start paying their own way. I think life extension would spread that capital cost out over a much longer productive life - right now say years 1-20 you are a resource drain, and the same for years 65-90. So you are producing stuff for society just half of your life (yet, this is enough for a surplus - the quality of goods output today in the world is continuously increasing) If we double lifespan it would double the productive years, so each life would be MUCH more productive. That's not even including the fact that the second (doubled) productive section could take advantage of the first section's experience. So if we doubled each individual's productive lifetime, (by increasing total lifespan by just 50%) it would most likely more than double their total output. Imagine how valuable someone who had 40 years of experience, plus a 20 year old's fast mind would be? [note that by productivity I mean the amount of human / natural resources a person takes up; kids take up parents & teacher's time, older people take up highly trained doctor's time. People who are "productive" are generating more valuable services than they're taking up. So, people spending longer within that middle section would make them even more of a gain for the world]