Social (and other) implications of longevity

[Vertigo]

Longevity is an area of future science that is beginning to look like it might not be so very far in the future. In particular it seems likely that we will achieve some level of life extension well before we can reach the stars (which has its own implications). At first glance this would seem a wonderful future but I feel it presents some major hurdles to be overcome. Given that we might achieve at least a doubling of the average lifespan there are some serious social implications. I have found that most, though by no means all, SF authors seem to conveniently ignore many of these.

I have listed some of my thoughts below and would be interested in other's views on them and other thoughts you may have. I am not interested here in discussing the likelihood of longevity being achieved I personally think that it is certain sooner or later using one technique or another, but that would be a topic for another thread. Here I am more interested in the impact of longevity. I am also not interested in discussing the religious aspects; whether you are religious or not I feel this is not the forum for that discussion.

OK so here are my thoughts:
Population
The most obvious impact would be on population assuming the treatment will be widely available (see further below). Assuming we achieve say 200+ year life spans we clearly could not continue multiplying at the rate we currently are – the population explosion would be astronomical. Even if we colonised the rest of the solar system I don't believe we could keep up with the population growth. I'm not even sure it could be done even if we were expanding to the stars. So some sort of enforced population control would be essential with probably some sort of application for permission to have a child or maybe you could only take the treatment after having your ova/sperm frozen and then being sterilised. Since children would now be relatively rare and would have to be even rarer the longer average life spans became, it would become difficult to raise a child in a 'natural' environment amongst his or her peers. Would we have to create 'nursery towns' to which new parents would have to move whilst their child is growing?

Work
Lets face it, most personal advancment in this world is by filling dead men's shoes but what if there are no dead men's shoes any longer? Currently (if we are lucky) the average person works from maybe 20 to 65 so that's 45 years in typically one trade. OK we can mange that…just (many of us get fed up long before that and need a change) but 200 maybe 500 years… I think not! So we will almost certainly need to change trades during our life probably several times. Also after working 45 years and with no prospect of retirement we would need some sort of sabbatical arrangement not dissimilar to retirement in that you would have to save towards it; say ten years 'holiday" every 40 years followed by education into a new vocation. At least doing this would create dead men's shoes again so there would be some possibility of advancement. However what about positions of power; monarchies, owners of corporations etc. would these people want or even be able to give up their positions and pass them on to the next generation? How long will the next generation be prepared to await their turn? What about scientists; how long would a potentially great scientist have to work under the shadow of a possibly lesser but more senior scientist? The same could be true of the arts; how frustrating to be a student of some great artist, say a pianist, and your mentor never moves on, everyone wants to hear the master not the student. This area was addressed peripherally in the background plot to some of Elizabeth Moon's Serrano novels but I have not seen it looked at elsewhere.

The Mind
Just how big is our memory capacity? I don't think we really know the answer to that one. Does stuff from a long time back get fainter in our memory because we don't access it so often or does it have to make way for new stuff? Would we live say 500 years but only ever be able to remember the last 100? Would we have to edit out – delete – unwanted memories to make space (as seems to be popular amongst many authors)? Will we just get bored of life? We do seem to be "programmed" for a certain lifespan, many people who have lived a full life seem to be quietly ready for the end. Or is that just because our bodies are running down and we are "tired"? Would we become massively risk averse – it's one think to go out and risk your life when you are say forty and have lived half of your expected lifespan it's possibly another thing altogether if you have barely started your life. "Women and children first"… if your expected life is say 500 years when exactly are you no longer one of the "children"?

Availability
It would seem very likely that such treatment would be very expensive and, even if not, possibly restricted for the population reasons discussed above. If not available to everyone then the possibilities for a massively unstable two tier society would be terrifying; immortals versus mortals. This seems to me to be the most dangerous one – if it cannot be available to all it maybe should not be available to anyone. However of course if it is possible at all then it would become available on the black market. If only the very wealthy could afford it then the resentment from the rest does not bear thinking about. It would have to be the ultimate way of buying someone – "Help me and I'll make you immortal". If it was purely genetic, so the existing generation get nothing, then the transition would be very painful with potentially the same problems as it not being available to all.

I'm sure their are many other issues that you folk can think of...

I apologise if this has been raised elsewhere but I saw no mention when I searched, though I am aware the search mechanism is not perfect. Also I apologise for the rather long opening post but I guess I had quite a few thoughts!

Also hope I've put it in the most appropriate forum this time.

 

[Doctor Crankenstein]

Hehe, Syncronicity. I wrote a blog post about Longevity just recently.

Aging Gene Doctor Crankenstein

I received an email from a religious reader that prompted another post, this time from a religious perspective. If anyone wants to have the religious discussion (Seeing as Vertigo said this isn't the place) I would be more than happy to have here...

Aging Gene II – The Religous Perspective Doctor Crankenstein

I Touch on the first two points you make in my post. As for the other two:

The Mind aspect of it is something I was talking about just a few days ago with some friends. We were talking about being immortal after watching a movie together and most of my friends gave, what I believe is a pretty ordinary answer: They would hate to be immortal because they would have to watch their loved ones die.

My answer was very different and begun a debate about the upper limit of the human minds story capacity. One of my main passions (reasons for living I guess you could say) is learning and teaching. If I was Immortal I would only be able to do so much of this. The Human brain's projected capacity is somewhere between 1 and 100 Terabytes depending upon nature/nurture etc.. So eventually I would reach this limit and would be unable to learn any more. Or I would be learning at the same pace I would be forgetting which would make me very frustrated. I mean, how many of us can remember everything we learnt at primary school? Imagine that process over a thousand years.

So, there would be a point where learning would become redundant/useless and thus, one of my reasons for living, one of my passions, vanishes completely. I can see this process being applied to pretty-much everything in some way or another.

Immortals vs Mortals is also an interesting point but upon reading your heading my mind went on a different tangent. Evolution.

If you become immortal the human race will out-evolve you (assuming we get better that is... I know how evolution works). Wouldn't it suck to be an immortal god-like being that is inferior to the mortals who surround him?

Also, on a grander scale, If the whole race becomes immortal we loose the benefits of genetic diversity and are much more likely to fall victim to some virus or other. I dunno if you have seen the Asgard in SG1 but that is more-or-less what happens to them.

And IIRC the search function has been broken for some time now, so don't sweat it

 

[Vertigo]

They would hate to be immortal because they would have to watch their loved ones die.

Ah but if your loved one are also immortal then that would not be an issue but certainly if it was a sporadic thing - some being compatible with the "treatment" and others not - then that would certainly be a major issue.

So, there would be a point where learning would become redundant/useless and thus, one of my reasons for living, one of my passions, vanishes completely. I can see this process being applied to pretty-much everything in some way or another.

I agree and I suspect this would be a major personal problem. Though maybe a hundred years on you are ready to move on to discovering new stuff and will happily let the old stuff go (either naturally or by some form of editing).

Immortals vs Mortals is also an interesting point but upon reading your heading my mind went on a different tangent. Evolution.

If you become immortal the human race will out-evolve you (assuming we get better that is... I know how evolution works). Wouldn't it suck to be an immortal god-like being that is inferior to the mortals who surround him?

Also, on a grander scale, If the whole race becomes immortal we loose the benefits of genetic diversity and are much more likely to fall victim to some virus or other. I dunno if you have seen the Asgard in SG1 but that is more-or-less what happens to them.

Evolution is an interesting one that I had not really considered. Again if some had it and others didn't then you are right that the mortal population might continue to evolve where as the immortal would not. Possibly more worrying is that if everyone had it you would effectively have evolutionary stagnation; a possibly very undesirable state. Though you could possibly argue that with all our modern medicine and "humanitarianism" we have effectively stopped all the normal forces of evolution anyway and are only left with our own engineered 'evolution'. But even that would cease with immortality.

With regard to your other posts - I shall go look now!

 

[Doctor Crankenstein]

Ah but if your loved one are also immortal then that would not be an issue but certainly if it was a sporadic thing; some being compatible with the "treatment" and others not then that would certainly be a major issue.

This is true but what If you can only afford "Immortality treatment" for one of your three kids?

Though maybe a hundred years on you are ready to move onto discovering new stuff and will happily let the old stuff go

Perhaps. Some people have a 'life-long' dedication though. And even if you were willing to try new things and let others go eventually you will have done everything. "Grow tired of life..."

 

[Vertigo]

This is true but what If you can only afford "Immortality treatment" for one of your three kids?

Now that doesn't even bear thinking about. I can't even begin to think how I would address that one.

Perhaps. Some people have a 'life-long' dedication though. And even if you were willing to try new things and let others go eventually you will have done everything. "Grow tired of life..."

I suspect that that is why even if we could continue to treat ourselves indefinitely most would eventually decide to let go. Isn't that how Heinleins Time Enough For Love begins with Lazarus having been rejuvenated against his will?

 

[K. Riehl]

I believe that Poul Anderson has the best take on this subject in the book, The Boat of a Million Years. He follows several immortals from around 3,000 years ago on through the present and into the future. After the present, when the "gift" of immortality is given to humanity, the combination of technology and immortality leads to humans who will transcend.

In my view several things would happen.

The finite ability of the Mind could be augmented by technology.

The first and best adopters of the immortality drugs would move quickly to have them restricted so they could control the supply and thus the world. What government?, what person?, could resist the carrot of immortality.


Immortality= Alien thinking. An immortal almost by definition could no longer hold the same viewpoint, morality and needs of humanity. They would be cautious to the point of paranoia as they could still die by accident or violence. They would have to control everything in their environment to ensure their security. A reduced population is easier to control; less resources are used. The population would be reduced by whatever means necessary to stabilize the immortals at the top of the power structure. The immortals could use long term tools such as trace amounts of drugs to inhibit fertility in the "ephemerals".

The only way I would ever let immortality be given would be for those who leave Earth and go out to explore the Universe. With the ability to expand into new resources the immortals would not have to rely on finite resources. Of course, how would you convince them to risk their immortal lives on something as dangerous as exploration?

 

[Doctor Crankenstein]

Heh, that's an interesting idea. Instead of 'deep-freeze' for long voyages and sub-light travel just make the crew immortal lol.

Kind of superficial but: I think it would also reshape humanities idea of beauty and things like fashion/make-up. If everyone is immortal and age-less there isn't much room for 'fight the 7 signs of aging' cream.

 

[chrispenycate]

The longer lifespan for star travelling humans has long been around in the SF ingredients bag; the 'anti-agathics' in Blish's "Cities in Flight" were as important as the 'Spindizzies'. And I read that mumble mumble years ago.

I suspect our data storage capacity is adequate for a few centuries of extra life, especially if we prevent or reverse the continuous loss of brain cells, almost essential if we're to get anything out of the later decades, but access might be a little more problematic. Already, at less than two thirds of a century I have difficulty finding data that I know are somewhere in my head; triple this and the search engine will run like an overloaded computer, taking hours to scan what it once found in an instant. Hypnotism shows we can store vast quantities of information about irrelevancies (I promise I can), but recognising and cleaning out the junk is not part of the system ('Oh, you never know; it might come in useful' seems to have been an integral part of the evolution/design process, whether it be for threat recognition or digestion).

Death, while essential for progress, might be nature's only way of saying "Oh, forget it."

 

[Vertigo]

I suspect our data storage capacity is adequate for a few centuries of extra life, especially if we prevent or reverse the continuous loss of brain cells, almost essential if we're to get anything out of the later decades, but access might be a little more problematic.

I think that some form of longevity (notice I veer away from immortal - not sure if that is as likely or desirable) would almost certainly include cell regeneration however would that mean losing and replacing memory? Maybe - which would still give the good Dr's unhappy future. I agree that access would seem to be a big problem, however as KR states possibly some sort of augmentation would help sove that issue.

I believe that Poul Anderson has the best take on this subject in the book, The Boat of a Million Years.

Don't think I've read that one - I shall have to have a look around for it. Though it's been a while since I've read any Poul Anderson so I may have forgotten - oh God it's happening already

Immortality= Alien thinking. An immortal almost by definition could no longer hold the same viewpoint, morality and needs of humanity. They would be cautious to the point of paranoia as they could still die by accident or violence. They would have to control everything in their environment to ensure their security. A reduced population is easier to control; less resources are used. The population would be reduced by whatever means necessary to stabilize the immortals at the top of the power structure. The immortals could use long term tools such as trace amounts of drugs to inhibit fertility in the "ephemerals".

I think I agree that it could well go that way, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you global rebellion might follow. How would the 'immortals' persuade soldiers to fight for them - give all of them immortality too? I also agree that a strong possible consequence of immortality or even significat longevity would be cautiousness taken to an obsessive level.

The only way I would ever let immortality be given would be for those who leave Earth and go out to explore the Universe. With the ability to expand into new resources the immortals would not have to rely on finite resources. Of course, how would you convince them to risk their immortal lives on something as dangerous as exploration?

Not sure that that would prove to be a long term 'solution'. As far a risking ther lives, if you can only get immortality by going exploring then they wouldn't have much choice and it would certainly be a powerful way to get volunteers.

 

[chrispenycate]

Evolution is an interesting one that I had not really considered. Again if some had it and others didn't then you are right that the mortal population might continue to evolve where as the immortal would not. Possibly more worrying is that if everyone had it you would effectively have evolutionary stagnation; a possibly very undesirable state.

We have effectively evolutionary stagnation, and have had it since society became advanced enough to stop continuously culling its population. Once 'inferior specimens (by the standpoint of survival, not my or the Nazi party's judgement) are allowed to breed, there is no driving force for evolution. There has been no essential advance sinceCromagnon. But the human genome is diverse enough that a few tens of thousands of years doesn't let it degenerate much, and within another thousand we should be capable of directing our own evolution.

Now, consider two alternatives; in the first, rejuvenation and life extension can be given to deserving citizens (along with sterilisation) as they start to creak. Deserving meaning rich, or brilliant, or with some artistic gift, or friend of a politician; usual search coordinates.
In the second, slowing of all ageing has to be started at (or even before) birth, so the recipients achieve sexual maturity at thirty, go to school until thirty-five – and the choice of who gets treated must be made before you know what sort of humans they will become. ie the offspring of the first group.

What is the difference between the two societies generated?

 

[Urien]

There are a couple of old immortality threads already floating around... I'll pop off and fetch them and edit them in to this post.

Here's the most recent from Anthony Williams:

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/524806-on-immortality.html


...and an older one from when I was a much younger corvid.

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/34155-immortality-who-wants-to-live-forever.html


...Oh just glanced through; I miss some of those old posters... that's what happens on message boards to many, their posts diminish in quantity until they're gone completely.

 

[Vertigo]

There are a couple of old immortality threads already floating around... I'll pop off and fetch them and edit them in to this post.

I missed that Urien but then I tend to think of longevity rather than immortality and suspect I searched on that. As I mentioned earlier I veer towards the belief that longevity in the order of maybe several hundred years is probably more likely both biologically and pychologically than full blown immortality.

We have effectively evolutionary stagnation, and have had it since society became advanced enough to stop continuously culling its population.

...

Now, consider two alternatives; in the first, rejuvenation and life extension can be given to deserving citizens (along with sterilisation) as they start to creak. Deserving meaning rich, or brilliant, or with some artistic gift, or friend of a politician; usual search coordinates.
In the second, slowing of all ageing has to be started at (or even before) birth, so the recipients achieve sexual maturity at thirty, go to school until thirty-five – and the choice of who gets treated must be made before you know what sort of humans they will become. ie the offspring of the first group.

What is the difference between the two societies generated?

I agree with your evolutionary stagnation point I've always considered this to be a slightly worrying thing in the long term, though can see no humane solution other than directing our own evolution genetically, which has all its own worries attached (but then that's effectively the most likely route to longevity anyway ).

I suspect both societies would still be unstable due to the huge gulf it would create bewteen the haves and have nots. An interesting thought would be on the different mindsets of people expecting a life span of 80 years suddently being given say 500 years and that of someone born to the expectation of 500 years. Not quite sure how they would differ but I'm sure they would quite significantly.

I am firmly of the belief that you could only have a stable society with longevity if it was available to all who wanted it. Utopian maybe but I just see anything else coming apart at the seams (quite rapidly).

I believe that Poul Anderson has the best take on this subject in the book, The Boat of a Million Years.

Have now picked up a copy of this book and it has joined my ever growing TBR pile (mountain - why did I ever join Chrons ).

 

[Urien]

As immortality is the ultimate longevity, and as both threads assume not a god like immortality but a life that can still be cut short by accident or disease, I think you'll find they cover a lot of the same ground.

 

[Vertigo]

As immortality is the ultimate longevity, and as both threads assume not a god like immortality but a life that can still be cut short by accident or disease, I think you'll find they cover a lot of the same ground.

Sure - I wasn't knocking it I just hadn't focused on the word Immortality when I created this one. It would be nice to see the posts from the other threads; I shall wait with bated breath (rather than rush off to view the other threads )

 

[Doctor Crankenstein]

I think it was me that jumped from longevity to immortality. It's the obvious progression so I didn't think it mattered.

 

[Orionis]

Population
The most obvious impact would be on population assuming the treatment will be widely available (see further below). Assuming we achieve say 200+ year life spans we clearly could not continue multiplying at the rate we currently are – the population explosion would be astronomical. Even if we colonised the rest of the solar system I don't believe we could keep up with the population growth. I'm not even sure it could be done even if we were expanding to the stars. So some sort of enforced population control would be essential with probably some sort of application for permission to have a child or maybe you could only take the treatment after having your ova/sperm frozen and then being sterilised. Since children would now be relatively rare and would have to be even rarer the longer average life spans became, it would become difficult to raise a child in a 'natural' environment amongst his or her peers. Would we have to create 'nursery towns' to which new parents would have to move whilst their child is growing?

There is a children's book called The Giver by Lois Lowery that addresses something similar to this scenario (application/permission for children). The book takes place in the future where the the characters live in a utopian/dystopia (let the reader decide which). Members of society are sterilized unless it is their "life duty" to be a "reproducer". The reproducers are artificially inseminated, then give birth to a child who is immediately taken away to a "nursery" and stays there for the first year of it's life until he/she is assigned a family.

It paints a bleak picture of what a life in a society like that could be, to me anyway.

Also, I think greater longevity would only be introduced to us after some sort of global cataclysmic event wiped out the major of the population. A cleansing effect if you will. Those left might be administered some sort of drug that resulted in absurdly long lives. The world would be different. And personally speaking, probably not one I'd want to live in.

 

[Vertigo]

I think it was me that jumped from longevity to immortality. It's the obvious progression so I didn't think it mattered.

Nah - don't think it really does, but I do think they raise slightly different issues.

 

[Vertigo]

...The world would be different. And personally speaking, probably not one I'd want to live in.

I agree depite the immediate and obvious desire to stave off "the end", I tend to think that most likely longevity scenarios are pretty pessimistic ones (at least for the majority).

PS sorry for the double post but couldn't figure how to multiquote over two pages

 

[Anthony G Williams]

There are a couple of old immortality threads already floating around... I'll pop off and fetch them and edit them in to this post.

Here's the most recent from Anthony Williams:

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/524806-on-immortality.html

I've just added some further info to that thread.

 

[skeptical]

A few of my thoughts.

Another consequence of great longevity would be economic. In today's world, the wealthiest people tend to be the oldest. That is because those people who are reasonably smart can accumulate money and possessions. Imagine the situation when everyone gets to 500 years.

For a start, economic planning would become long range. No longer do we invest for 5 years. We now invest for 100 years plus. The obvious long range investment is property, since it can never be degraded by time. With lots of people wanting to buy property, its value would rise, according to the law of supply and demand. Eventually, the majority of people could only fantasize about buying property. It would be out of reach for normal people.

Population control, as previously said, would be obligatory. The logical approach would be to sterilise everyone in childhood - and this would be compulsory - prison for those who avoid it. Reversing the sterilisation long enough to have a child would be given to some people only.

Imagine the effect on human sexuality! No fears of pregnancy. Older people tend to be less sexually repressed. So we have most people very old but sexually young, and totally sterile. Everyone would be rutting like crazed weasles!

It is worth bearing in mind that technology will be much advanced. Significant longevity will not happen in the near future. Those who live so long can expect the support of high tech. For example, we can expect that, by then, robotics will be widespread and sophisticated. Those who wish not to work would not need to. Society's productivity would no longer be dependent on those in the work force, and liesure would be an option.

On the cost of medical procedures giving longevity.
This may be prohibitively high, but only for a time. New technologies tend to become cheaper over time, as improvements are added. Just think of the cost of a flat screen TV! The same principle applies to medical advances, and especially those that have a very large market. In time, patents run out, and many suppliers enter the market, supplying the treatment at lower and lower cost in order to remain competitive. Eventually, the longevity treatment would be readily affordable by everyone.

So our future society would be one in which everyone lives a very long time, and everyone is sterile.

I would not worry about evolution. Biological evolution takes a long time. For example, Homo sapiens as a species is 200,000 years old. Even an average life span of 500 years may not be important against this time span. And anyway, in the future, the main evolutionary influence is likely to be deliberate genetic modification.