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Just Chat! / What if we lived forever?
« on: 20/11/2011 16:19:50 »
Putting aside the living forever concept, let's talk about just living longer. Science is making advances in this area already. My perception is that within a few decades, maybe much sooner, extending life and the quality of that life will be a reality. That is the good news.
The bad news is that it will be so expensive that only the super rich will be able to afford it. Your average Joe and Jill will still live just as we do now. Sure there will be advances in medicine that may give us a few more years, and hopefully better life quality. But the added time will be miniscule.
I for-see a future where the gap between the life of the average person and the life of the super rich will continue to spiral apart geometrically. It will, of course, be in the interests of those at the top to keep this technology as expensive as possible. If only one or two percent of the population can live extended life spans, and the rest of us live as we do now, all the big problems of a population explosion would not occur.
That may seem like a downer attitude. I am extrapolating from my experiences in other areas of life, though. The very rich already lead a life so completely alien to the average person's life experience, and this will only grow more extreme if extending their lives becomes a reality.
The bad news is that it will be so expensive that only the super rich will be able to afford it. Your average Joe and Jill will still live just as we do now. Sure there will be advances in medicine that may give us a few more years, and hopefully better life quality. But the added time will be miniscule.
I for-see a future where the gap between the life of the average person and the life of the super rich will continue to spiral apart geometrically. It will, of course, be in the interests of those at the top to keep this technology as expensive as possible. If only one or two percent of the population can live extended life spans, and the rest of us live as we do now, all the big problems of a population explosion would not occur.
That may seem like a downer attitude. I am extrapolating from my experiences in other areas of life, though. The very rich already lead a life so completely alien to the average person's life experience, and this will only grow more extreme if extending their lives becomes a reality.