"andrel" <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:493### [at] hotmailcom...
> On 05-Dec-08 17:50, Darren New wrote:
> > andrel wrote:
> >> Imagine what happens if people live for 200 years or more. How will
> >> the society be organized. Who will be in charge do you think? What
> >> will happen to creativity?
> >
> > So, when the lifespan went from some 25 years to 40 years, then 40 years
> > to 70 years, society fell apart and became much worse for it because
> > people in charge were generally older and all the creativity drained
> > away, so nothing new has been invented in the last few hundred years?
> >
> > Yes, much better to kill you, before you become uncreative. :-)

> This was sort of my reasoning: first 12 years or so is basic training
> then comes a period of puberty when you question everything. Then when
> begin 20s your ideas have more or less formed. You will still learn a
[...]

You are arguing that legs are designed to fit trousers. It's the other way
around. Human lifespan and reproductive period dictates those years. If
average lifespan is 500 years and people don't have kids until 250 or 300,
they can afford to relax and/or study for 200 years instead of 12.
Stagnation is not an issue, any more than it is now. Only slowdown would be
in natural biological evolution, but we are already meddling with it and if
humans can achive extreme lifespans, natural evolution will have been
rendered obsolete anyway.

One og the nice side effects would be increased cooperation. The longer
prospect of living in a society, the less one's likely to engage in "get
rich quick" schemes, screw their fellow humans, or build a bad reputation
(check out repeated prisoner's dilemma). Unnecessary risks would be
voluntarily reduced. Much longer term plans and mega engineering projects
can be implemented instead of a series of 5-10 year plans.

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