If you could live forever, would you want to?
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An extra thought is: Would I retire? My wife wonders why, when I get home from work, I start working on my computers at home. It's because I enjoy programming - creating new software is fun (usually). A few years ago I was given the opportunity to give up the management line (Director/Manager of Software Development) and went back to "pure" programming as a Senior Software Engineer. It was actually slightly more money and much, much more fun! It was the best decision I made, career-wise - and probably health-wise as my stress levels dropped considerably. Since then I moved to another job, also as a Senior Software Engineer, which paid a lot more money, with shorter hours and even less stress - and I got learn a lot of new stuff. Fascinating. Eventually, I suppose, the amount of new stuff that I want to learn may drop off but, until then...
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
I get your point. Coding is my hobby and I too passed up on management offer. The idea of going to work and just talk to people, sitting through mind numbing meetings after meetings and writing reports is not my idea of fun. For retirement, as the way economy is going, most of us would not be able to retire. Social Security may be dried up by the time we get to call it permanent vacation. I will work until I dropped dead on my keyboard. :laugh:
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Assuming a new medical breakthrough allowed you to live as long as you like, barring accidents and murders, how long would be long enough? What problems, apart from having to deal with Y10K issues (still probably in COBOL) do you see coming up?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
Robert Heinlein wrote an interesting book on this topic called, "Time Enough For Love." The central character is Lazarus Long who deals with this question because they have all of the treatments available to do just that. I'll refrain from mentioning his decision.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Assuming a new medical breakthrough allowed you to live as long as you like, barring accidents and murders, how long would be long enough? What problems, apart from having to deal with Y10K issues (still probably in COBOL) do you see coming up?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
The priest talks with this lady of his congregation: - I haven't seen you much in church lately, why is that? - Well, you see ... my daughter has started playing the harp ... - Is that true? But can her harp replace our wonderful church organ? - Oh, that's not it. But I have been considering ... I am not sure that I will be able to handle harp music for an eternity... For answering your question: I am happy to be as old as I am, as close to death as I am. The world changes, and as every aged person knows (and it has been that way for at least a hundred years in the Western world), it changes away from my own ideals, values and principles. When I was young, I expected to be allowed to live my life in my way, not the way my parents and grandparents would rather see it. Now, I grant young people the right to live their way, and shape the world and the society accordingly. I feel like a stranger to a lot of the music being produced nowadays. To the books written. To movies. How people behave even out in the wilderness. Or at parties. The intense turf wars both in my own profession (SW development) and in social arenas. The way people communicate: When I want to ask or say something to another person, I cannot just say it. First I have to wave my hands before their face to make them look up from the smartphone screen, then wait for them to remove the earplugs before I start speaking. I get a brief answer while they impatiently hold the earplugs ready for plugging back in, with an attitude that clearly says: When are you done disturbing me? ... Not evrybody are that way, but quite a few. Noone will read any thorought and well thought out explanation - I can't tell how many times I have received a "tl;dr" in response (and I will for this post as well!). So always when I write something, I read it over to see if I can delete words, shorten sentences, remove marginal arguments... to make it accessible to more readers, by being short enough. I do not relax until I am back in my own living room, with my own music, books, movies, and way of expressing myself. I am getting weary out in the real world. The day I retire, I guess I won't be leaving my house for anything but the food store. If there were anyone that might come to visit me - smartphone in hand - I would lock my door for them. I guess there will be noone. Then, when I have read all my books that today are sitting unread in my shelves, when I have watched all my movies enough times to start boring me, and heard my music
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After 100 years it would be: $1,315,012.58 After 750 years it would be: $77,978,396,963,807,380,000.00 After that, the calculator overflows.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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An extra thought is: Would I retire? My wife wonders why, when I get home from work, I start working on my computers at home. It's because I enjoy programming - creating new software is fun (usually). A few years ago I was given the opportunity to give up the management line (Director/Manager of Software Development) and went back to "pure" programming as a Senior Software Engineer. It was actually slightly more money and much, much more fun! It was the best decision I made, career-wise - and probably health-wise as my stress levels dropped considerably. Since then I moved to another job, also as a Senior Software Engineer, which paid a lot more money, with shorter hours and even less stress - and I got learn a lot of new stuff. Fascinating. Eventually, I suppose, the amount of new stuff that I want to learn may drop off but, until then...
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
I do program in my spare time, but that is not because I find programming fun [any longer]. I program because I encounter lots of tasks in fery different fields where some software can be a nice tool to solve another issue. Like keeping track of my music collection. Like illustrating how real life objects might interact, in a small simulation model. Like making a workable backup system for my computer. Yes, a backup system is directly related to the computer, but what I strive for is to have the software completed and available, not the programming of it. Maybe I want to "solve problems". But those problems are not in multiple inheritance and sofware paradigms and self modifying code and patterns. Those are not the real problems. Even if my problem solving uses software as a hammer and a saw, the real problem has little to do with the compiler. I care for some real problems, not for the tools as such.
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I don't think about dying. It is the last thing I want to do. :)
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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Good point. If everyone lived forever, or at least for a long, long time, then the planet would get seriously crowded! Perhaps just for me and my family (including the dog - my wife cries so much each time we lose a little furry friend).
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Assuming a new medical breakthrough allowed you to live as long as you like, barring accidents and murders, how long would be long enough? What problems, apart from having to deal with Y10K issues (still probably in COBOL) do you see coming up?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
yes, I would love to be immortal. Then when I smite my enemies down, I can rear my head back, and with hearty cry, I wold say "There can be only one!".
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If I put 10K in an index fund at let's say 5% annually, what would that be in 1000 years?
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Well, if they have the same calculators in 1000 years, that would be one of the problems :)
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Well, if they have the same calculators in 1000 years, that would be one of the problems :)
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Assuming a new medical breakthrough allowed you to live as long as you like, barring accidents and murders, how long would be long enough? What problems, apart from having to deal with Y10K issues (still probably in COBOL) do you see coming up?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Maybe they will even have invented log10 by that time to cope with bigger numbers. (Of course natural log, ln, would work as well, but that would require a deeper understanding.)
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The priest talks with this lady of his congregation: - I haven't seen you much in church lately, why is that? - Well, you see ... my daughter has started playing the harp ... - Is that true? But can her harp replace our wonderful church organ? - Oh, that's not it. But I have been considering ... I am not sure that I will be able to handle harp music for an eternity... For answering your question: I am happy to be as old as I am, as close to death as I am. The world changes, and as every aged person knows (and it has been that way for at least a hundred years in the Western world), it changes away from my own ideals, values and principles. When I was young, I expected to be allowed to live my life in my way, not the way my parents and grandparents would rather see it. Now, I grant young people the right to live their way, and shape the world and the society accordingly. I feel like a stranger to a lot of the music being produced nowadays. To the books written. To movies. How people behave even out in the wilderness. Or at parties. The intense turf wars both in my own profession (SW development) and in social arenas. The way people communicate: When I want to ask or say something to another person, I cannot just say it. First I have to wave my hands before their face to make them look up from the smartphone screen, then wait for them to remove the earplugs before I start speaking. I get a brief answer while they impatiently hold the earplugs ready for plugging back in, with an attitude that clearly says: When are you done disturbing me? ... Not evrybody are that way, but quite a few. Noone will read any thorought and well thought out explanation - I can't tell how many times I have received a "tl;dr" in response (and I will for this post as well!). So always when I write something, I read it over to see if I can delete words, shorten sentences, remove marginal arguments... to make it accessible to more readers, by being short enough. I do not relax until I am back in my own living room, with my own music, books, movies, and way of expressing myself. I am getting weary out in the real world. The day I retire, I guess I won't be leaving my house for anything but the food store. If there were anyone that might come to visit me - smartphone in hand - I would lock my door for them. I guess there will be noone. Then, when I have read all my books that today are sitting unread in my shelves, when I have watched all my movies enough times to start boring me, and heard my music
I still dream of having my own library at home - and the time to read every single book at my leisure. The library is possible, the leisure time less so - unless I live a loooong time. A physicist friend of mine set up a Faraday Cage around his den (aka basement) so that when his friends came around to talk and play cards or board games they wouldn't ever be interrupted by their cell phones going off. Eventually, as smartphones became ubiquitous they noticed that they couldn't check things with google, etc. and kept running upstairs to get a signal rather than just doing without the answer instantaneously. I was the only one apart from him that didn't do this so we ended up getting new, older friends instead. The young ones couldn't take it! :cool:
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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yes, I would love to be immortal. Then when I smite my enemies down, I can rear my head back, and with hearty cry, I wold say "There can be only one!".
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Well, I would sit back and watch the humanity go on destroying itself until it is not amusing anymore. So about ten years from now.
Rage wrote:
So about ten years months from now.
FTFY. (yes, it's Demoralized Friday Doldrums in my neck of the woods)
Software Zen:
delete this; -
If I put 10K in an index fund at let's say 5% annually, what would that be in 1000 years?
Confiscated by the government somewhere around year 37. At year 37.006 they turn off the updates for the nano-technology keeping you alive due to non-payment.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Robert Heinlein wrote an interesting book on this topic called, "Time Enough For Love." The central character is Lazarus Long who deals with this question because they have all of the treatments available to do just that. I'll refrain from mentioning his decision.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
I'm glad I read through all the replies before putting in my 2c worth. I loved all the LL stories starting with Methuselah's Children.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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Assuming a new medical breakthrough allowed you to live as long as you like, barring accidents and murders, how long would be long enough? What problems, apart from having to deal with Y10K issues (still probably in COBOL) do you see coming up?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
There are already several billion too many people on this planet, and it's rapidly getting very much worse. It's bad enough with loads of people living to 100 or so, but the last thing the planet needs is extended lifespans. The only feasible way to allow some people to live for centuries would involve a major wiping-out initially, followed by an almost complete cessation of new births. They can be annoying little b****ers at times, but I think on balance I wouldn't want to live in a world without any kids. Who would you be able to say "ha! back in my day..." to?
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That depends. Does this treatment halt, or reverse, physical and mental decline? Or do we get to look forward to 900 years of senility, arthritis, and getting up ten times a night to pee? (Although I supposed getting up ten times a night is better than not getting up. :) ) Also, how much does it cost? If you're still paying off the cost of treatment as a quincentenarian, then it doesn't sound like a good deal. Even worse if you have to regularly repeat the treatment.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
