Non-aging body - Would you change your lifestyle?

[carlosy]

Imagine in a few years we invent the ability to stop the aging process for us humans. For simplicity, imagine it can by done with a simple injection.

You choose when you want your body to stop aging. Most would probably choose something around the age of 25 (if they are still young enough). But that's not important.

So you stopped aging, and became immortal in a sense that you are not going to die as long as you can maintain your body via energy input from the outside. You can still be killed. If someone cuts your head of, if you fall from a building, if you crash in your car... you're dead. But you won't die just by aging anymore. So, all of a sudden, your life expectancy changed from let's say 100 years, to now thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years. Imagine all the knowledge that is suddenly in reach. All the inventions you are going to be a part of. All the things you can learn. All the epxeriences. All the science you are going to witness.

Would you change your current life/lifestyle?
Would you even go outside, risking death by stupid car accident or something similar?
What risks would you still accept?

 

[P.J. Denyer]

I'd probably be a little more careful, maybe reduce the alcohol intake a bit, take Covid distancing type things even more seriously (I've been pretty damn careful as it is) and might make more of an effort to get in shape... But I don't think I'd go much further. But to be fair I live a reasonably healthy (except for drinking a bit much) life, in a very safe area, don't commute through high traffic areas and for the first time in my life am doing a low stress job I absolutely love. Unless our finances collapse (which unfortunately is possible at the moment) life's pretty good.

 

[Tony99]

Well damn. There goes looking forward to any leisurely retirement I may have planned. Now I have to keep working for the next 99 thousand plus years just to keep paying for stuff.
So no real lifestyle change, just more of the same except I'm perpetually 25 physically. Still only 24hours in a day...5-8 of those spent sleeping.

Now, if you want to throw in an unlimited income with no need to work for it, all bets are off!
In that case it would be a life of hedonism, unlimited fried shrimp and naps.

 

[p0lka]

I have vices that apparently lower the present lifespan, yet I still do them.

I suspect I would still be doing them if my lifespan was extended as per the OP.
Some people just gotta have vices.

 

[Pope130]

I'd have continued flying tac-airlift, but would take a couple of years off to finish a degree so I could move up to the left seat. As it is, I was time-changed out.

 

[Ranb]

I keep breaking things like bones and teeth so I'm going to wear out eventually. For long life there is also long working /employment; kill me now.

So how do we keep the population from outgrowing the planet's ability to keep us fed?

Ranb

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I would single-minded focus on becoming a judge with lifetime appointment.

 

[arthwollipot]

I would work until I had enough in savings that I could invest sufficient to give me an annual dividend that I could live on, and then I'd stop working and produce art and play video games for the rest of my life.

 

[Chanakya]

As pies-in-the-sky go, this one looks nice.

Until that injection's cleared by the FDA, might HCQ help?






















If the answer's 'yes', then you face the prospect of an immortal Trump, with immortal idiot supporters, all frozen in time.

Careful what you wish for!

 

[rjh01]

If this could be done by many people it would be disaster. The population of the world would go up until the planet was destroyed. However if it could be given to only a few people then they could be highly educated and then put in leadership roles and other top jobs. Then the world would be a much better place.

 

[Darat]

Lots of science fiction has examined this and many of them mention the idea that you would get fed up of life, that you’d eventually take more and more risks to get a buzz.

The one idea I’ve always thought would be more likely is that many of us would simply kill ourselves. Do you really want to be a shoe seller for the next 1,000 years. Becoming immortal doesn’t mean you become rich and can have a life of leisure - it just means more years of what you already have!

 

[Bikewer]

As Darat says..... Larry Niven’s character, “Louis Wu”, from the “Known Space” tales, is effectively immortal due to “boosterspice”.
He hangs around the Earth till he can’t stand people anymore, then goes out into space till he can’t stand being alone any more.....
It may be we’re more or less genetically programmed for a certain “allotted span”.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

If this could be done by many people it would be disaster. The population of the world would go up until the planet was destroyed. However if it could be given to only a few people then they could be highly educated and then put in leadership roles and other top jobs. Then the world would be a much better place.

pretty much disagree with all of this.

For one, if people had centuries to have children, they would live for centuries before they do.
Higher life-expectancy leads to lower birthrates every single time.


Secondly, giving only, or even just primarily people in authority eternal life would lock-in the Status Quo and make progress impossible.

 

[jrhowell]

For one, if people had centuries to have children, they would live for centuries before they do.
Higher life-expectancy leads to lower birthrates every single time.

Maybe, maybe not. Society would change so drastically that I don’t see how any predictions can be made of what people would end of doing.

As far as I know women have a fixed number of eggs, but they could be harvested and frozen, allowing for hundreds of children over a lifetime. Some may want to do that especially if they can space them out a century or so apart.

 

[EHocking]

Lots of science fiction has examined this and many of them mention the idea that you would get fed up of life, that you’d eventually take more and more risks to get a buzz.

The one idea I’ve always thought would be more likely is that many of us would simply kill ourselves. Do you really want to be a shoe seller for the next 1,000 years. Becoming immortal doesn’t mean you become rich and can have a life of leisure - it just means more years of what you already have!

I agree. What a load of cobblers that’d be.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Even if the body stops aging there is still a finite amount of memory the brain can hold. If you lived for a thousand years you'd inevitably end up forgetting huge chunks of that, mostly the earlier stuff. Since we are, in a large part, the sum of our memories we'd end up being quite different people than we started out as. No memories of childhood. We'd forget everybody who predeceased us. We forget all our firsts--first loves, first sex, first jobs, first homes, first adventures in doing anything.

I think any human whose life got prolonged indefinitely would go mad, or succumb to ennui. Eternal life is only tempting if you get other things with it--like becoming a god, or developing superpowers. Something more, to kill the tedium. Living forever if you're a Time Lord with a TARDIS and can travel having adventures would be great. Living forever if you're a middle class schmuck of average looks and intelligence and no particular wealth...not so much.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

I guess that would change a LOT. Till death do us part? I really love my wife and fully expect to live my life out with her, but forever?
How long would you keep in touch with your children? And theirs? And theirs?
How long would you like your job?
And there is the fact that newer generations will still want to change society as has been the case with humanity forever. But now the old generation is not dying off so the change can happen.

My personal guess is that most would make it to 200-300 years before killing themselves anyway. as we're just not wired to live that long.

 

[Modified]

I would work until I had enough in savings that I could invest sufficient to give me an annual dividend that I could live on, and then I'd stop working and produce art and play video games for the rest of my life.

That's fine if there are only a few immortals. Too many people doing that would cause a labor shortage. The value of labor would shoot up and lead to massive inflation. Soon your savings and the dividend it could produce would be worth so little that you'd have to go back to work.

 

[dann]

People who assume that a couple of hundred years of life would be too much must lead incredibly boring ones.


Would you change your current life/lifestyle?

Only to the extent that I would be forced to. As a few of you have pointed out, in the current economic system, the market economy, you would need enough retirement savings to last you ... forever. But on the other hand, you would have many more years to get get there and maybe even without working as much as you have to now. But it would give me even more incitement to replace the present economic system with one that is more suited for living breathing human beings instead of capitalism. I don't know if some people put up with it because they are thinking, 'Well, who cares? I'm going to die soon anyway.' But I don't really think that this is what makes many of them put up with it.

I might consider learning math properly or even a new language. There aren't many things as boring as learning languages - and I say this as a language teacher! I really, really don't understand people who start learning new languages after they've retired 'because now we have the time!' Don't they have anything better to do with that time? They hardly ever really learn it anyway. It only makes sense if they take language classes to meet other people, but the other people will probably be as bored and boring as they are themselves, but maybe that's the point.

I assume that carlosy's injections will make brains as good at learning new things as when you're 20, and it that case, it might be worth the boredom.

Would you even go outside, risking death by stupid car accident or something similar?

Isn't it supposed to work the other way round? You know, 'Life is so precious because it's only temporary and short.'

Anyway, the idea that that's the way it works was always wrong. Hardly anybody takes up bungee jumping, skydiving or mountain climbing when they are in their seventies or eighties because now they don't risk losing as much life as when they were in their twenties. On the contrary, they usually want to get as many years of retirement as they possibly can. (And a lot of them no longer have the physique to do any of those things anyway.)

I have been riding motorcycles since I was 18, and it was not because I didn't know that it doesn't tend to put a damper on longevity. I'll pick up a new one next week, #6, and the first one with ABS.

What risks would you still accept?

Since Carlosy didn't mention if his injection also makes us immune to the 'rona, I might consider wearing a face mask.


ETA: A stark warning against the idea that injections with synthetic DNA introduced into the human germ plasm will arrest the process of aging and extend human life almost indefinitely.
It can go horribly wrong!

 

[rjh01]

That's fine if there are only a few immortals. Too many people doing that would cause a labor shortage. The value of labor would shoot up and lead to massive inflation. Soon your savings and the dividend it could produce would be worth so little that you'd have to go back to work.

All depends on how it was invested. If it was invested in companies the value of these go up with inflation. An alternative to inflation if too many people retired would be to produce machinery that did not require much labor for what it could produce.