If you could live forever, would you want to?
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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
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If I can retain my physical health and my mental health then I would live for at least a thousand years. There's so much to learn and see...
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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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:
Leng Vang wrote:
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've *always* taken for granted this is actually going to be the case. If there's anything left, don't want it to live on, I want it purely as a bonus. I have some retired acquaintances who are living miserably (no other way to put it) with whatever the government decides they're allowed. I don't want that for me.
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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.
Only if I get to choose who else can join the club.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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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.
Forogar wrote:
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.
I have been considering something similar, but never learned enough about signal propagation to know how to do it properly. How realistic is it to make a successful shield? The elevator at my workplace has a steel ceiling, steel walls, steel door, and I assume there is steel in the floor as well. It is a closed box of steel. I am not sure how good the grounding of the steel is. Even without grounding, I would expect at least some weakening of the mobile signals, but the signal indicator is at top of the scale all the time, even with the elevator going down to the basement. So what does it take to make an effective shield against the signals? Is an ungrounded shield completely worthless - is that why the steel box elevator does "nothing" to weaken the signals? Is a mesh better than solid steel plates? If it is: Should the mesh size be selected according to the frequency? Cellular phones use a good handful of frequency bands, so do you need different meshes for each band? Maybe we are wasted in this country: We expect excellent mobile coverage everywhere, from deep sub-basements to wilderness mountain plains a hundred kilometers away from any signs of civilization. We expect capacity to be unlimited, and signal strength to be at top of the scale, everywhere. Maybe successful shielding is possible at some desolate mountain farm in an area where no mountain hiker ever goes (i.e. noone needs to update their FB profile with their most recent mountain climbing achievements). But how realistic is it to shiels cellular signals in a rural area?
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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.
Depends on so many things... But given everything else remains the same, I'd wanna be alive as long as someone I love or care about is around. As soon as no one is, I'd rather stop being alive!
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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.
I'd say, after 3 or so thousand years, you'd have seen all there is (new tech is fine & dandy but in the grand picture, everything develops in a spiral, not a straight line) so life would become rather boring.
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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?
In the long, long, run common rate of return assumptions just wont pan out. Story made short: Two descendents of two men find a 2000 year old scroll that is a document of one shekel loan at 8% annually between their ancestors, never paid back. The one descendent decides to make good to the other on the ancient debt only to find that the cost of the compounded interest is a ball of gold bigger than the sun.
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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.
On one hand I would love to develop skills for hundreds of years and truly master them, and on the other hand after being around already 64 years I have lost pets to old age and those times hurt.
Motto: Ask for help when needed, give help when asked, and remember where you came from.
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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.
Read Robert Heinlein's "Lazarus Long" series of books. They are a really great series on that topic.
I don't want to live forever. Just long enough to pay off all of my credit card debt.
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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.
Who really wants to live forever?
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
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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.
If we're limited to the Earth, no. I would think the old proverb 'familiarity breeds contempt' would hold true. Eventually you'd have seen everything and pretty much done everything to do, so why stick around? Heh, everyone would be a know it all, and you know how hard it to be around them!
