Who Wants to Live Forever
- Thread starter El Mahdi
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Baron Opal
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Whew! I though that this was about a Highlander remake...
Living to 150+ would be great if I wasn't an invalid for half that span.
Living to 150+ would be great if I wasn't an invalid for half that span.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
I thought it was about a Flash Gordon remake!
*If* this is true, I foresee huge social problems besides the obvious overpopulation risks. Aging population is already a big problem in many parts of the world: here in the Netherlands, for example, early retirement has been virtually abolished, and the legal retirement age will be raised from 65 to 67 over the coming years.
Will people be willing to keep working for centuries? Or will the working population be willing to keep paying for an almost immortal and ever-increasing group of retirees, who might also require constant healthcare? Will the increasing number of retired voters mean a powershift toward a gerontocracy? Will an extended life only be affordable by the very rich?
Or will it go the other way, and will we see something like in Logan's Run? (Personally I imagine that this would involve cities full of young people partying, with a wilderness full of grumpy old men and women. And they wouldn't need lifeclocks. To quote Mike Gayle, "Thirty means only going to the pub if there’s somewhere to sit down. Thirty means owning at least one classical CD, even if it’s NOW That’s What I Call Classical Vol 6."
Will people be willing to keep working for centuries? Or will the working population be willing to keep paying for an almost immortal and ever-increasing group of retirees, who might also require constant healthcare? Will the increasing number of retired voters mean a powershift toward a gerontocracy? Will an extended life only be affordable by the very rich?
Or will it go the other way, and will we see something like in Logan's Run? (Personally I imagine that this would involve cities full of young people partying, with a wilderness full of grumpy old men and women. And they wouldn't need lifeclocks. To quote Mike Gayle, "Thirty means only going to the pub if there’s somewhere to sit down. Thirty means owning at least one classical CD, even if it’s NOW That’s What I Call Classical Vol 6."
Unless there's an energy technology breakthrough that makes "wealth" a non-issue, the working population's capacity to support non-working people may be large, but it is finite. However willing they may be, if the non-working population grows too large, the cannot be supported.
We like to think that, but I think it is overstated. Do remember that what most of us consider "modern" healthcare isn't available to large swaths of our species even yet, and that it has only been around for a short period of time. Lots of folks still die before reproducing.
Honestly, unless economics change a lot in the near future, even a breakthrough like this won't make a giant impact.
As Umbran notes, healthcare is a long, long way from universally available. Even in nations like the US, lots of people have substandard healthcare -- or none at all. Even with advances in healthcare, I can't see this becoming a standard practice. Insurance companies would *not* want to have to pay for medical therapies allowing folks to have such long lives -- the industry is already gambling that you'll die before something really expensive happens to you!
As such, maybe the really-rich could afford this kind of care... but the majority of people will go to their graves without this kind of treatment unless there is a major change in society. Juvenant treatments from WH40k, anyone?
As Umbran notes, healthcare is a long, long way from universally available. Even in nations like the US, lots of people have substandard healthcare -- or none at all. Even with advances in healthcare, I can't see this becoming a standard practice. Insurance companies would *not* want to have to pay for medical therapies allowing folks to have such long lives -- the industry is already gambling that you'll die before something really expensive happens to you!
As such, maybe the really-rich could afford this kind of care... but the majority of people will go to their graves without this kind of treatment unless there is a major change in society. Juvenant treatments from WH40k, anyone?
This reminds me of this comic:
I am also reminded of Jonathan Swift's "struldbruggs", from Gulliver's Travels.
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