How do YOU think longevity would affect society?

[Ryujin]

Our relation to work, careers and retirement would change. Working is important. It is how most of us spend our existence. It gives us purpose, a sense of selfworth and wealth. It is also a source of depression, frustration and can be tedious. How many careers will one have in such a long life time if careers still exist? Would people periodically return to school to get training in a new job? Older people find it hard to go back to school when they are older. Does the state make sure people can go back to school often without needing to work because it is just a necessacity? Having quasi-immortals just hanging around at home or in bars can be a source of social unrest. Having them work, even in a post-scarcity world might be important.

Our relations to our family would change too. Couples often grow appart and leave each other. How many significant relationships will quasi-immortals have? What about children? Will parents and kids lose sight of each other after a century or two? What about grand-children? Will people want to see their grand-kids if they saw their child for the last time five centuries ago? Will all the face changing people will be able to do, mabe people will date their own famly without knowing. Ew. It seems human relations will be long lasting and at the same time fickle and ever changing.

What will human minds be like? How will memory be like? Will you still remember your childhood after a few centuries of living? Your parents? Your first spouse? Your first kid? Your first job? Will you remember who you are if you can change your face and gender all the time? Identity is gonna be an ever changing concept.

It opens up space travel. If science can keep us healthy and feed, we'll be able to travel between Earth and the Oort cloud and colonize all that is in between. The question is what will people do to occupy themselves during the years is take to travel between colonies?

In my 50s, I'm already finding the mental need to cultivate other skills than those needed for my job. I've started chainmailing, jewellery making, leather working, bow making, and am considering others. If I lived for a thousand years, how many skills would I acquire? How many COULD I acquire, before reaching the practical limits of my puny human brain? In the "Horseclans" novels that I mentioned, in the other thread, High Lord Milo Morai spent his life before the apocalypse learning dozens of languages, tons of survival skills, reading history, and fighting in various wars.

On the interpersonal relationship level how many discrete individuals can I hold in memory, or manage to give more than a general empathetic damn about? I seem to remember another conversation on this matter, regarding how many generations someone can relate to, on this very board some time ago. I can't remember the specifics though. If I can't remember that, then what are the odds I'll remember great-great grand nephew twice removed Egbert, when I hit 1500 years of age? His great grandchildren? How many generations before everyone is related to everyone else, by either blood or birth?

 

[Kramodlog]

In my 50s,

How was it riding those dinosaurs?

I'm already finding the mental need to cultivate other skills than those needed for my job. I've started chainmailing, jewellery making, leather working, bow making, and am considering others. If I lived for a thousand years, how many skills would I acquire? How many COULD I acquire, before reaching the practical limits of my puny human brain? In the "Horseclans" novels that I mentioned, in the other thread, High Lord Milo Morai spent his life before the apocalypse learning dozens of languages, tons of survival skills, reading history, and fighting in various wars.

And what if part of our mind is downloaded in a cloud? What are the limits then?

On the interpersonal relationship level how many discrete individuals can I hold in memory, or manage to give more than a general empathetic damn about? I seem to remember another conversation on this matter, regarding how many generations someone can relate to, on this very board some time ago. I can't remember the specifics though. If I can't remember that, then what are the odds I'll remember great-great grand nephew twice removed Egbert, when I hit 1500 years of age? His great grandchildren? How many generations before everyone is related to everyone else, by either blood or birth?

From my anthropology days, I remember that this was studied in groups of monkeys. I do not remember the species, but I remembered that their society was organized as a matriarchy and the priviledges of the dominant female extended to her great-grand-daughters.

Is it the case for humans? I do not know, but it would be interesting to check cultures where family and the cult of ancestors are still prevalent.

 

[Tonguez]

Dunbars number, the suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships, is between 100 and 250

also I was once told by a geneticist that after 6 generations ((4x great grand children) you are as genetically related to a person with a known common ancestor as you are to one without. I'm not qualified to argue if thats true or not, but it kinda sounds plausible

 

[Ryujin]

How was it riding those dinosaurs?

Rather spikey. No one had invented saddles yet.

And what if part of our mind is downloaded in a cloud? What are the limits then?

Morrus specifically took that issue off the table. Besides, I would hate to forget how to use the three seashells, just because of a wireless outage.

From my anthropology days, I remember that this was studied in groups of monkeys. I do not remember the species, but I remembered that their society was organized as a matriarchy and the priviledges of the dominant female extended to her great-grand-daughters.

Is it the case for humans? I do not know, but it would be interesting to check cultures where family and the cult of ancestors are still prevalent.

I don't think that there are any societies, where more than four generations live together. They tend to be tribal. I doubt that it could go much further than that, in practical terms, without creating a small family village of sorts. In that case you still wouldn't really be dealing with many more people, due to stratification and separation within the village.

 

[Umbran]

Actually, we are almost all making a big assumption here - that the human brain, even if kept healthy, doesn't have limits.

The human brain is not designed to last 1000 years. We should not assume unlimited ability to hone skills, or even keep adding memories for that long. We probably need to decide on what, for our purposes, human ability is, as nobody actually knows, and a society in which we can store 1000 years of memories clearly is different from society where we can only keep 100 years fresh in our heads. The answers to the OP depend on this.

 

[slightlyprime]

I agree with the notion that the rich will get richer and social inequalities will increase. However, after about 500ish years something bad would happen, depending on how these enhancements occur to let humans live longer either the medication will become altered or useless or cybernetics become hacked or incompatible. Over 1000 years humans of each new generation would change slightly due to evolution and the diseases and world change due to changing technologies and nature would cause older humans to become incompatible with the world, or younger generations lack the ability to initiate change and humans become stagnant as a species, either way we will all probs die due to it.
More likely though a group of people believe that longevity to this extent is wrong due to social implications, it is against religion, or it is an environmental problem. Thus, mass extermination, either the elite pick and choose who can live as they have the aquired resources due to longer life or an underground group starts killing off people.
Another issue would be grudges if you live for a long enough time you have enough time to ruin any friendship or make any amount of enemies.
Overall, I feel longer life will create a dystopia for most and a paradise for the select few, then majority of people die and the the population is whitled down.

 

[MarkB]

Actually, we are almost all making a big assumption here - that the human brain, even if kept healthy, doesn't have limits.

The human brain is not designed to last 1000 years. We should not assume unlimited ability to hone skills, or even keep adding memories for that long. We probably need to decide on what, for our purposes, human ability is, as nobody actually knows, and a society in which we can store 1000 years of memories clearly is different from society where we can only keep 100 years fresh in our heads. The answers to the OP depend on this.

Ashildr from the last season of Doctor Who is a good example there. She's immortal, but her memories aren't, so she's forgotten more lifetimes than most people have lived, even with entire libraries of memoirs to refresh her memory.

Technological improvements would help there, though. Eventually, sufficiently advanced computers with sufficiently advanced interfaces will be able to remember it for you wholesale.

 

[Morrus]

she's forgotten more lifetimes than most people have lived,

How many lifetimes have most people lived?

 

[MarkB]

How many lifetimes have most people lived?

Well, thirteen if you count Time Lords.

But yeah, I regretted my phrasing as soon as I'd thought it through.

 

[Ryujin]

Actually, we are almost all making a big assumption here - that the human brain, even if kept healthy, doesn't have limits.

The human brain is not designed to last 1000 years. We should not assume unlimited ability to hone skills, or even keep adding memories for that long. We probably need to decide on what, for our purposes, human ability is, as nobody actually knows, and a society in which we can store 1000 years of memories clearly is different from society where we can only keep 100 years fresh in our heads. The answers to the OP depend on this.

That's why I made my "puny human brain" comment

As we age our memories become less of a narrative and more of a highlight reel. That process begins with what passes from short term memory to long term memory. Between Episodic Memory, Semantic Memory, and Procedural Memory there has to be a practical limit to the human brain's storage capacity.