I think that even I would get pretty bored after only a thousand or so.
12 thoughts on “Living A Million Years”
“I think that even I would get pretty bored after only a thousand or so.”
Any likely tech that could keep you alive for thousand(s) to say nothing of a million years would have the means to do far more than keep you “young”. Imagine not only genetic engineering but implanted nano-bots enhancing both your physical, mental, & esthetics. There would inevitably be cognitive and physical enhancement upgrades occurring at the same time; intelligence, appearance, strength, stamina, reflexes, coordination, sensory upgrades etc. “You” would no longer be you after awhile; maybe looking like an idealized version of yourself. Even “super-powers” of a sort analogous crudely to Marvel Comic’s X-men wouldn’t be totally out of the picture eventually. So enjoy your “X-ray vision”, super-strength or “Adamantium Claws”.
What are the chances anyone could avoid accidental death (auto crash etc) for a thousand, much less a million, years?
True enough, though they will likely find ways to make the body way more resilient and improve it over the eons. Still, I worry more about their ability to clear the cobwebs from between the ears – already forgetting things more than I would like and adding new skills is not easy.
But even the first people to travel to Proxima will not take 100,000 years, even if we really cannot travel FTL – that just shows the writer’s lack of imagination. Twenty years, tops, or nobody will want to go.
People with extra-long lifespans are going to be Lazarus Long, changing occupations and partners on a regular basis. Customers will look askance at any provider who has been doing his job for over a century, assuming that they lack talent or recent training.
Did I once read a story about a couple of Methuselahs who got married and only realized several years later that they had been married before, thousands of years previously?
“True enough, though they will likely find ways to make the body way more resilient and improve it over the eons.”
Yes. Our bodies wouldn’t make it to a million years as they are now even if we didn’t age; you would need all manner of enhancements physical/cognitive. Our frail fragile little blobs of 70% water simply aren’t robust enough to last anywhere near that long without considerable augmentation.
“Still, I worry more about their ability to clear the cobwebs from between the ears – already forgetting things more than I would like and adding new skills is not easy.”
Gradually replacing your neurons with both enhanced versions of your original “wetware” and some kind of nano-tech computerized implants should help clear those cobwebs. That way you shouldn’t accidently remarry your ex; unless of course for some bizarre reason you want to.
That’s a lot of Solitare.
In the end there can be only Uno.
In terms of star travel, you wait for a star to get closer to Sol:
“Gliese 710 currently is 63.8 light-years (19.6 parsecs) from Earth in the constellation Serpens and has a below naked-eye visual magnitude of 9.69…
It is projected to pass near the Sun in a timeframe well within the parameters of current models which cover the next 15 million years. The predicted minimum distance will occur in about 1.281 million years, with Gaia DR2 suggesting a slightly closer distance to the previous estimates of 0.0676 parsecs—0.221 light-years (14,000 astronomical units)[11]—a distance about 20 times closer than the current distance of Proxima Centauri.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_710
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars_and_brown_dwarfs
“One of the first stars known to approach the Sun particularly close is Gliese 710. The star, whose mass is roughly half that of the Sun, is currently 62 light-years from the Solar System. It was first noticed in 1999 using data from the Hipparcos satellite, …
The second-closest object known to approach the Sun was only discovered in 2018 after Gaia’s second data release, known as 2MASS J0610-4246. Its approach has not been fully described due to it being a distant binary star with a red dwarf, but almost certainly passed less than 1 light-year from the Solar System roughly 1.16 million years ago.”
And they will find more of them.
So I take we have completely given up on Harold “Sonny” White’s Alcubierre warp drive derivative experiments bearing fruit? Even if we have a hypothetical thousand(s) of years to wait for it? And EmDrive possibly for our “impulse” engines?
If you believe in reincarnation. Wiki:
“Reincarnation is a central tenet of Indian religions, namely Buddhism, most Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and most Paganism, although there are Hindu and Pagan groups that do not believe in reincarnation but believe in an afterlife. In various forms, it occurs as an esoteric belief in many streams of Judaism in different aspects, in some beliefs of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas,[6] and some Indigenous Australians (while most believe in an afterlife or spirit world)”
And so lot people, do.
Then some people might already have waited more than 1 million years.
It seems it has been taking a long time for NASA to explore the Moon to determine if the there is mineable water.
It could be possible that the moon doesn’t have mineable water, and also possible Mars doesn’t have mineable water.
In terms of some place other than Mars being suited for human settlement, it seems it’s given that our ocean has mineable water.
And after looking at the issue of ocean settlements, I have determined the main problem is you need to stop the ocean waves- particularly storm waves but also any waves. So idea is to make a floating breakwater which use what call pipelaunchers and cheap way anchor them to ocean floor. A pipelauncher is similar to spar buoy, wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spar_buoy
I think a good place to put a ocean settlement would be 10 km from the coast, thereby allowing quicker transportation {having quicker commute time, quicker access medical services.
And rather than leave country, these towns more of US towns and more of US territories as their beyond State water, but within Federal waters.
Also idea make them “cheap housing” and particularly cheap beach housing.
I suspect that living for that long wouldn’t be the dystopian image that people have for it.
“I suspect that living for that long wouldn’t be the dystopian image that people have for it.”
Agreed. The “dystopian image” fits more the way we leave now and have had through throughout human history (and especially pre-history).
Or put another way; Death Sucks
“The Speculist: Death Sucks”
“I think that even I would get pretty bored after only a thousand or so.”
Any likely tech that could keep you alive for thousand(s) to say nothing of a million years would have the means to do far more than keep you “young”. Imagine not only genetic engineering but implanted nano-bots enhancing both your physical, mental, & esthetics. There would inevitably be cognitive and physical enhancement upgrades occurring at the same time; intelligence, appearance, strength, stamina, reflexes, coordination, sensory upgrades etc. “You” would no longer be you after awhile; maybe looking like an idealized version of yourself. Even “super-powers” of a sort analogous crudely to Marvel Comic’s X-men wouldn’t be totally out of the picture eventually. So enjoy your “X-ray vision”, super-strength or “Adamantium Claws”.
What are the chances anyone could avoid accidental death (auto crash etc) for a thousand, much less a million, years?
True enough, though they will likely find ways to make the body way more resilient and improve it over the eons. Still, I worry more about their ability to clear the cobwebs from between the ears – already forgetting things more than I would like and adding new skills is not easy.
But even the first people to travel to Proxima will not take 100,000 years, even if we really cannot travel FTL – that just shows the writer’s lack of imagination. Twenty years, tops, or nobody will want to go.
People with extra-long lifespans are going to be Lazarus Long, changing occupations and partners on a regular basis. Customers will look askance at any provider who has been doing his job for over a century, assuming that they lack talent or recent training.
Did I once read a story about a couple of Methuselahs who got married and only realized several years later that they had been married before, thousands of years previously?
“True enough, though they will likely find ways to make the body way more resilient and improve it over the eons.”
Yes. Our bodies wouldn’t make it to a million years as they are now even if we didn’t age; you would need all manner of enhancements physical/cognitive. Our frail fragile little blobs of 70% water simply aren’t robust enough to last anywhere near that long without considerable augmentation.
“Still, I worry more about their ability to clear the cobwebs from between the ears – already forgetting things more than I would like and adding new skills is not easy.”
Gradually replacing your neurons with both enhanced versions of your original “wetware” and some kind of nano-tech computerized implants should help clear those cobwebs. That way you shouldn’t accidently remarry your ex; unless of course for some bizarre reason you want to.
That’s a lot of Solitare.
In the end there can be only Uno.
In terms of star travel, you wait for a star to get closer to Sol:
“Gliese 710 currently is 63.8 light-years (19.6 parsecs) from Earth in the constellation Serpens and has a below naked-eye visual magnitude of 9.69…
It is projected to pass near the Sun in a timeframe well within the parameters of current models which cover the next 15 million years. The predicted minimum distance will occur in about 1.281 million years, with Gaia DR2 suggesting a slightly closer distance to the previous estimates of 0.0676 parsecs—0.221 light-years (14,000 astronomical units)[11]—a distance about 20 times closer than the current distance of Proxima Centauri.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_710
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars_and_brown_dwarfs
“One of the first stars known to approach the Sun particularly close is Gliese 710. The star, whose mass is roughly half that of the Sun, is currently 62 light-years from the Solar System. It was first noticed in 1999 using data from the Hipparcos satellite, …
The second-closest object known to approach the Sun was only discovered in 2018 after Gaia’s second data release, known as 2MASS J0610-4246. Its approach has not been fully described due to it being a distant binary star with a red dwarf, but almost certainly passed less than 1 light-year from the Solar System roughly 1.16 million years ago.”
And they will find more of them.
So I take we have completely given up on Harold “Sonny” White’s Alcubierre warp drive derivative experiments bearing fruit? Even if we have a hypothetical thousand(s) of years to wait for it? And EmDrive possibly for our “impulse” engines?
If you believe in reincarnation. Wiki:
“Reincarnation is a central tenet of Indian religions, namely Buddhism, most Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and most Paganism, although there are Hindu and Pagan groups that do not believe in reincarnation but believe in an afterlife. In various forms, it occurs as an esoteric belief in many streams of Judaism in different aspects, in some beliefs of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas,[6] and some Indigenous Australians (while most believe in an afterlife or spirit world)”
And so lot people, do.
Then some people might already have waited more than 1 million years.
It seems it has been taking a long time for NASA to explore the Moon to determine if the there is mineable water.
It could be possible that the moon doesn’t have mineable water, and also possible Mars doesn’t have mineable water.
In terms of some place other than Mars being suited for human settlement, it seems it’s given that our ocean has mineable water.
And after looking at the issue of ocean settlements, I have determined the main problem is you need to stop the ocean waves- particularly storm waves but also any waves. So idea is to make a floating breakwater which use what call pipelaunchers and cheap way anchor them to ocean floor. A pipelauncher is similar to spar buoy, wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spar_buoy
I think a good place to put a ocean settlement would be 10 km from the coast, thereby allowing quicker transportation {having quicker commute time, quicker access medical services.
And rather than leave country, these towns more of US towns and more of US territories as their beyond State water, but within Federal waters.
Also idea make them “cheap housing” and particularly cheap beach housing.
I suspect that living for that long wouldn’t be the dystopian image that people have for it.
“I suspect that living for that long wouldn’t be the dystopian image that people have for it.”
Agreed. The “dystopian image” fits more the way we leave now and have had through throughout human history (and especially pre-history).
Or put another way; Death Sucks
“The Speculist: Death Sucks”
http://www.speculist.com/archives/000587.html
“live now” not “leave now”; “and have had to throughout”