Via Glenn, I find a new group blog about the future. But I found this post pretty disappointing, and I'm hoping that it's not indicative of a more general cluelessness:

According to Cambridge University biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey, the first person to live to 1,000 years of age has already been born. True or not, this idea is frightening to me mainly because the average person today starts to get pretty frail right around sixty, so unless we manage to improve the quality of life for the elderly along with their lifespan, we youngsters are doomed to some 900 years of infeebled misery. While I'm sure that at some point the necessity for some kind of physical rejuvenation process would breed the requisite ingenuity to devise one, I'm still not convinced that several decades, if not centuries, of torture would be worth it.

He can't have actually read much of what De Grey wrote, if he believes that the intent, or likely outcome, is to "provide nine centuries of torture." The whole point is to defeat senescence, not merely to keep frail bodies alive. Note also the commenter who is already bored with life at age fifty seven.

As I wrote in a letter to the editor of The Economist back in the late eighties, if your idea of life is to come home from work with a six pack in front of the television, then three score and ten is plenty (and perhaps even too long). But if you're a Leonardo or Leonarda da Vinci, several centuries could be all too short. We will have to come to terms with the reality that many won't want to live forever, and become more societally accepting, at some point, of the right to end it, lest we do in fact be sentencing people to centuries of "torture" (mental, perhaps, if not physical).

If I knew that I was going to live to be 200 or 300 years old (barring a freak car accident, etc), I would go back to school until I was 50 or 60. In fact, "higher education" would probably have a much longer span in people's lives, knowing that they would still have a majority of their lives ahead of them when they got out of school.

As it is, now that I'm in my late 20's, I would love to go back to school and get another degree or 3, but I dread the thought of essentially dropping out of the job market for the next 6 years, since I've been in the market for 6 already.

There are days when I'm bored with the daily grind of life in the corporate world, but life extension to me means the opportunity to learn more and explore every last square mile of the globe. Bring it on!

There can be only one.

I have never stopped going to school. With 1000 years to play with I could have several PhD’s. Just imagine what Von Braun, Einstein, or Leonardo da Vinci could/would have accomplished with that kind of time on their hands. You could plan and accomplish some serious long term projects in science, math, or even archeology. Imagine what someone like Bill Gates, financially independent, could plan for and then accomplish in their lifetime.

Astrosmith-

:-) After I sent that, I realised that I sounded like the intro to The Highlander. Good one!

JJS-

It would depend on the "Procrastination Factor", too. For every Einstein and da Vinci, you have a handful or more of the "Van Wilder"s, who just kinda hang around in college with no ambition because they have plenty of time later in life to get stuff done. Can you imagine what the world would be like if the 70's lasted for 30 or 40 years?

We don't know about da Vincis or Mozarts and what they would have done had they lived longer. Maybe they did every thing in the years they were here. What did Einstein do after 1905?

Actually, JB3, I was thinking of that Queen song they played in Highlander, that goes something like, "Who wants to live forever?"

Bernard W Joseph says: We don't know about da Vincis or Mozarts and what they would have done had they lived longer. Maybe they did every thing in the years they were here. What did Einstein do after 1905?

Actually, there is a compeling theory that says that advancement in the conventional wisdom in science is made only when the old school thinkers are removed (presumably by their death). Continental Drift was widely ridiculed by the establishment despite the evidence in its favor.

Perhaps in a world of advanced and lengthy senescence we would need "Tenure Limits".

If everyone had the expectation to live nearly forever, why would most people be motivated to do nearly anything? Graduate high school at 18 and college at 22? Why, only to face a working life of 200+ years?

Here in Colorado, we've learned that if you have to do something outside and the weather is good, you'd better do it now because the weather may suck (like it does today) at some other time. Conversely, some friends of ours who live in San Diego (where the weather is wonderful most of the time) talk about "Manyana Fever" (sp). Why do anything today when you can do it tomorrow?

Could you imagine a whole society that operated that way? Super long lifetimes would likely lead to economic and technological stagnation.

Larry J-

It would depend on the methods used to prolong life. If we slowed down the aging process enough, would it take, say 50 years for a human to fully mature? Or would we stave off death merely by prolonging adult life?

You wouldn't have as much of a climate of procrastination if it took "children" 50 years to get through adolescence and schooling, though I can't imagine dealing with adolescence for 25-30 years at a time.

Both methods require fairly significant changes in society to be able to deal with them.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if the 70's lasted for 30 or 40 years?

I've seen it; it's called "Zardoz"
http://www.agonybooth.com/zardoz/

I can think that every 50 or so years, people would be required to reattend University to prevent ossification of thought and the entrenchment of Dogma.

I can think that every 50 or so years, people would be required to reattend University to prevent ossification of thought and the entrenchment of Dogma.

Considering the current state of universities, that would probably have exactly the opposite of the intended effect. Especially if tenure continues...

Life extension I believe is one of the basic requirements for sustained effort into deep space beyond this solar system. It appears that we will never be able to muster the energy needed to travel near light speeds. Then the only other recourse would be to make multi centa-year hops to other star systems. Somebody that can live for a thousand years may actually have the capacity to survive that journey even with current technology. So, the requirement isn't so much how well we can sustain life here on this planet but rather how well we can sustain life for extend journey's into space.

Regarding what older folks of note do later in life - such as Einstein. Please recall that it was he who sent the letter to Roosevelt to warn him of the imminence of atomic weapons. Carver Meade seems to continue contributing. The interesting thing is that pretty much, we don't LOOK for "senior prodigies"...we just expect them. Further, the entire socio-economic system is set up to optimize for current expected lifespans.

Dave