scott 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 long as it happens gradually (which I think is likely) I don't see 
> the problem.  I also assume that if people live until 200, they will 
> also be perfectly ok to carry on working until they are well past 100 
> years old.  As is the situation now, jobs that require a lot of 
> experience will be carried out by people who are like 120 years old, and 
> jobs that require young fit energetic people will be done by people 
> between 30 and 60.  Maybe education will even be adjusted to last 
> longer?  I mean if you are going to work for 100 years, you might as 
> well have a few more years education at the beginning.

The problem is, people are often *alive* until the age of 80 or 
something, but the period of time where they're able to do useful work 
is still more or less what it was before.

How many 80 year old people do you know who can drive 400 miles per day, 
every day, without killing somebody? They exist, but they're fairly rare...

PS. I feel old already! And I'm not 80 yet...

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"andrel" <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:493### [at] hotmailcom...
> On 04-Dec-08 23:14, Darren New wrote:
> > andrel wrote:

> >> I sure hope not. I'd like everybody to die before 100 if you don't
mind.

> > My goodness. Why ever for?

> 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 average life span was something like 30 years, it was better than
today?

The problem here seems not to be longevity or even immortality, but limited
vision.

Who is in charge *now*? What's happening with creativity *now*? What's your
thesis that 70-80 years is the ideal lifespan on these counts?

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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. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The NFL should go international. I'd pay to
   see the Detroit Lions vs the Roman Catholics.

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"somebody" <x### [at] ycom> wrote in message news:493954c4@news.povray.org...
> "andrel" <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
> news:493### [at] hotmailcom...
> > On 04-Dec-08 23:14, Darren New wrote:
> > > andrel wrote:

> > >> I sure hope not. I'd like everybody to die before 100 if you don't
> mind.
>
> > > My goodness. Why ever for?
>
> > 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?

> Who is in charge *now*? What's happening with creativity *now*? What's
your
> thesis that 70-80 years is the ideal lifespan on these counts?

Besides, what's "good" for the society is not always desirable. If it were,
we would be killing off the sick, infirm, handicapped, and generally
unproductive individuals *now*. The individual's motives are not, and should
not, be to maximize the benefit to the society at all costs. There's no
being as the "society", it's an emergent phenomenon. We all strive to
maximize our own happiness, and society emerges as a means to achieve that,
not as an end. Who cares if society settles in a less than perfect state, so
long as individuals increase their happiness? And I'd be happier having the
option to live to 800 or 8000 or 80,000 instead of 80, and I don't see many
people preferring to have that option not present.

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:49395440$1@news.povray.org...

> The problem is, people are often *alive* until the age of 80 or
> something, but the period of time where they're able to do useful work
> is still more or less what it was before.
>
> How many 80 year old people do you know who can drive 400 miles per day,
> every day, without killing somebody? They exist, but they're fairly
rare...
>
> PS. I feel old already! And I'm not 80 yet...

Why do you assume lifespan increase would add extra years at the end?
Increasing lifespan would involve slowing down or even stopping aging (or,
more precisely, inducing regeneration). It's actually much more feasible
(relatively speaking) to extend present day 20-40 age period into 2000 years
than extend 80-90 years into 2000 years, for the simple reason that a frail
body would be orders of magnitude harder to keep alive for a longer period
than a robust one, and the battle is obviously already lost if you wait till
near deathbed.

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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 
lot, but the framework won't change much (with possibly a few 
exceptions). After that you enter the rat race. Some will float to the 
top because of quality but in many cases rats will fight to the top. In 
quite a few cases the rats have the best change of winning when 
everything is new. The beautiful thing with our current lifespan is that 
that period will last at most 30 years or so. After that the baton is 
handed to a new generation, often within the family (and else they won't 
tolerate another one as their successor anyway). There is a big change 
that the new generation is less of a rat, also because big rats are, 
fortunately, rare and the next generation was raised in good 
circumstances. What I fear will happen if the lifespan goes to 1000 
years or more is that there will be a lot of rats at the top that have 
all the time consolidating their power. Or dictators if you will. And I 
don't think particularly on the level of countries (though 1000 years of 
mugabe or mao zedong may not be nice) but also on the level of 
universities and companies. I think that it is good if there is a 
regular handing over of power just to keep the system stable. Of course 
I don't know whether the optimal time lifespan in this respect is 70, 
100 or 200. My gut feeling says that it is probably below 100. Feel free 
to disagree. ;)

Note that nowhere I used my personal preference for a lifespan, as I 
don't think that is relevant. Note two is that this is all without 
taking into account that the relative periods of development can also 
change. Again because I don't think that would differ that much.

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On 05-Dec-08 17:20, somebody wrote:
> "andrel" <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
> news:493### [at] hotmailcom...
>> On 04-Dec-08 23:14, Darren New wrote:
>>> andrel wrote:
> 
>>>> I sure hope not. I'd like everybody to die before 100 if you don't
> mind.
> 
>>> My goodness. Why ever for?
> 
>> 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 average life span was something like 30 years, it was better than
> today?

I don;t think so

> The problem here seems not to be longevity or even immortality, but limited
> vision.
> 
> Who is in charge *now*? What's happening with creativity *now*? What's your
> thesis that 70-80 years is the ideal lifespan on these counts?
> 
see my answer to Darren.

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"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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On 06-Dec-08 5:19, somebody wrote:
> "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. 
I had thought about it if my position was based on the pitfall that it 
is how society is now and I simply am against change. In the end I have 
decided for a number of reasons that that is not the case. Feel free to 
disagree.
> 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.

There is atm not much more to learn as basic skills that won't fit in 12 
or so. Tell some 14 yo now that he/she may be stuck in highschool for 
yet another 150 years and see how well that will be received.

IMHO the major part to extend would be the period at the end of puberty 
and just after, so after those 12. That is the most productive period in 
most scientists now. But even in a modern society not everybody is an 
Einstein and things still have to be produced. Luckily there is a large 
group of people that like to do that and don't want to spend time at a 
university. For them extending this period in life will be more of a 
burden(, picture everyone going through a puberty of 50 years).
Or do you want different lifespans for people depending on what role 
they perform in society?

One thing that would be highest on my list of things to change in 
growing up is that getting and raising children almost coincides with 
the most productive period in ones live. It would be better to postpone 
getting children to after 50 or so (in current measures). That could 
also be mostly solved by skipping a generation and getting the 
grandparents to raise the kids, which might be easier to achieve. Note 
that this is again very narrowmindedly seen from the perspective of the 
ruling/studying class.

> 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.

That is a different scenario based on a very optimistic (and in my view 
unrealistic) view on mankind. It in no way invalidates mine. Of course I 
  though about positive effects, but my estimation is simply that at 
least for the coming millennia greed and egoistic behaviour would 
dominate society.
The main reason why your scenario is unrealistic is because it is based 
on the assumption that everybody thinks about what they do and how to 
optimize outcome. There are however people who are (biologically) unable 
to think through the consequences of what they do and don't care what it 
means to other people. So before extending the lifespan of mankind first 
find the empathy genes, test everyone who owns more than 100k$ starting 
at the top and prevent those that are unfit for the next society from 
reproducing. That group would contain a lot of bankers and captains of 
industry, so good luck in passing that bill.

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"andrel" <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:493### [at] hotmailcom...
> On 06-Dec-08 5:19, somebody wrote:
> > "andrel" <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message

> > You are arguing that legs are designed to fit trousers. It's the other
way
> > around.
> I had thought about it if my position was based on the pitfall that it
> is how society is now and I simply am against change. In the end I have
> decided for a number of reasons that that is not the case. Feel free to
> disagree.
> > 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.

> There is atm not much more to learn as basic skills that won't fit in 12
> or so. Tell some 14 yo now that he/she may be stuck in highschool for
> yet another 150 years and see how well that will be received.

A couple of centuries ago, even a 5 year education was deemed unnecessary
and burdensome for the general populace. Preschool practically did not exist
a couple of decades ago. We have at least tripled the average time spent in
school just like that, without a relative significant extension in lifespan,
so that schooling years eat into our lives. And yet, we manage. Now imagine
extending the lifespan, and the technological advances.

Students have always complained about school, as have workers about
workplace. Dilbert is hardly fiction. Don't think that proves anything at
all.

> IMHO the major part to extend would be the period at the end of puberty
> and just after, so after those 12. That is the most productive period in
> most scientists now. But even in a modern society not everybody is an
> Einstein and things still have to be produced. Luckily there is a large
> group of people that like to do that and don't want to spend time at a
> university. For them extending this period in life will be more of a
> burden(, picture everyone going through a puberty of 50 years).
> Or do you want different lifespans for people depending on what role
> they perform in society?
>
> One thing that would be highest on my list of things to change in
> growing up is that getting and raising children almost coincides with
> the most productive period in ones live. It would be better to postpone
> getting children to after 50 or so (in current measures). That could
> also be mostly solved by skipping a generation and getting the
> grandparents to raise the kids, which might be easier to achieve. Note
> that this is again very narrowmindedly seen from the perspective of the
> ruling/studying class.

> > 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.

> That is a different scenario based on a very optimistic

Not at all. I assume the worst in people. However, when the prospect of
coexistance is extended, people tend to cooperate more and behave in a more
"civilized" manner. That's been shown in numerous studies and follows from
everytday experience. Vendors rip of tourists but not locals.

>(and in my view
> unrealistic) view on mankind. It in no way invalidates mine. Of course I
>   though about positive effects, but my estimation is simply that at
> least for the coming millennia greed and egoistic behaviour would
> dominate society.

Selfishness is necessary and fine. But selfishness need not contradict
cooperation, in fact, we cooperate out of selfishness. Extension of lifespan
better aligns selfishness with needs of society. Are you an AGW proponent,
for instance? In that case, it should be obvious that had we have lifespans
of couple of centuries or millenia, we'd be doing a lot more about the
issue.

> The main reason why your scenario is unrealistic is because it is based
> on the assumption that everybody thinks about what they do and how to
> optimize outcome.

It works on the gross scale, even if individuals do not consciously think of
such things. Each goose doesn't deliberately and precisely compute their
trajectories to stay in formation. It's an emergent pattern dictated by
constraints and realities.

And people are not totally dumb. All but a few amongs us worry about
retirement and plan ahead. People worry about paying off their debts, kids'
school expenses... etc. They may not always succeed to make good plans, but
they still try to optimize their lives.

> There are however people who are (biologically) unable
> to think through the consequences of what they do and don't care what it
> means to other people.

There will always be pathalogical cases. There will be religious nuts who
don't care about their or others' lives. That's not a relevant argument. We
live with those people with a life span of 80, and next generations can also
live with them with an age span of 800.

> So before extending the lifespan of mankind first
> find the empathy genes, test everyone who owns more than 100k$ starting
> at the top and prevent those that are unfit for the next society from
> reproducing. That group would contain a lot of bankers and captains of
> industry, so good luck in passing that bill.

What's wrong with being wealthy (and 100k$ is a pitifully small amount for
any such consideration anyway)?

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