So the question is, how long can we live? (picture is a link to main article. I didn’t do it. The forum system did)
My question is, how much of this it potentially true and how much is bogus. I see some of this related article (link that was found in the article above) to be far fetched, but worth discussing. Can we live to be 200? Will we do it this way or another way? Do we want to live to be 200, if we are in good health the majority of the way there? Think how many great, great, great, great… grandchildren one would have. Would you even know all of this extended family? Then there is population control. How long will women be able to have children? Will generations be farther apart than they are now? How would a society function with so many generation or will the generations be so far apart that we’d have issues with filling positions because people aren’t in a hurry to have kids… if they have kids at all? So many questions come up and I know I haven’t thought of some questions yet.
Good point. We won’t live to be 200 on average if we don’t care for Mother Earth too. She will destroy us before then. Case in point is this latest pandemic and the good possibility of more in the near future. Then there is the increase in flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other tools she has at her disposal to destroy life as we know it. Shoot another ice age could also solve the issue of destructive humans. We need to get Climate Change under control or we won’t have long and prosperous lives.
The normal life span of humans is 60-70 something years. By “normal” I mean that is what our DNA and evolution has selected for. We know this from studying ancient remains worldwide and modern hunter gatherers. Some people live 10-20 years longer but not most. And very few people reach 100. Our societies cannot handle countless extremely old people even if it were possible to get to that point.
I suspect things like AI medicine and genetic engineering are over-exaggerated theories at best.
I don’t know what is normal given many people in my family tree live well into their 90s. There were many before the 1900s who allegedly lived into their 80s, if not longer. So, many of my ancestors, living and dead are over achievers in lifespan. 70 is young in our family and 60 is way too young. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone dying before 75 years old, in my family, unless they had an accident or caught some deadly virus. 70 surely isn’t the average age for a human being. I really need to read some reliable source on this “average”.
I know there are some people really into the notion of living for ever because life can be very wonderful and exciting if you have more money than you know what to do with.
I think most regular working humans, but the time they get into the 70s, 80s, and beyond, it ain’t easy, it’s an increasing hassle and the thought of never waking up becomes more inviting. My mom, by the time she neared her ultimate death at 92, all of her friends and relatives were gone, that was the second most painful thing, after the body giving.
Then imagine this experimental medicine taking place, if successful in a few dozen, a few hundred individuals, a few thousand, at best. What kind of mental life would that be in a world where next to no-one could relate to the world of your formative days and such. Where you’re next of kin would be grandchild from a totally alien reality from what you knew. And so on, it sounds like such a dystopian nightmare, but I know people who get all excited about every new break through.
As long as I have my sons I’m good. Of course, my husband believes I’ll “outlive us all”, meaning everyone in both our families. However, if I didn’t have my sons and grandchildren, I think I’d feel much like those you mentioned @citizenschallengev3. However, I don’t know if it would necessarily be a dystopian nightmare.
Before we make any effort to live longer, we could work on respecting on our elders. I heard the phrase, “too soon old, too late smart” once. I think there are a lot of people in the world who have gained wisdom from their years, but because they don’t the energy, we don’t hear it. It’s also really hard to pass on the wisdom that comes with age, because it requires time. But we lament when a great writer or speaker dies young, what if they had lived to gain that wisdom and had the skill to articulate it?
I live just a few miles from the small town where Robert Bly raised his family. He could have gone to New York and made more money, but instead he stayed in the Midwest and convinced a few thousand people to listen to their mothers and fathers. Hopefully that idea spreads.
I don’t know what is normal given many people in my family tree live well into their 90s. There were many before the 1900s who allegedly lived into their 80s, if not longer. So, many of my ancestors, living and dead are over achievers in lifespan. 70 is young in our family and 60 is way too young. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone dying before 75 years old, in my family, unless they had an accident or caught some deadly virus. 70 surely isn’t the average age for a human being. I really need to read some reliable source on this “average”.
In ancient times, if you outlived infant mortality you could live long lives. But, for instance in ancient Roma, half of the children died before 5 or 10, according different sources.
But if you survived, you could live a long live. for instance, Cato the elder lived 234–149 BC.
It was not so different in Europe up to the 19th century.
Even if living to 200+ was possible AND you were guaranteed good health, what the heck would you actually do for 200 years? Kind of analogous is people for whom money is no object. You’ve travelled to every place on earth, you’ve done all the fun things, you’ve established foundations to help others, etc. etc. You’ve read all the great books, seen the great movies, and on and on. Then what? Similarly with living for 200 years. Assuming one wasn’t rich, ugg, how boring would that get.
<p style="text-align: left;">how boring would that get. - cuth</p>
I think the same question goes for just about everyone today who has made it past 50 or so. We figured out how to live to a ripe old age, and what are we doing? Hooking ourselves up to machines to live an extra 3 years, sitting in casinos, watching Wheel of Fortune. Sad really. I was thinking about the ones who would do something worthwhile in my post above. One more breakthrough from Stephen Hawking, one more book from Christopher Hitchens, how many more great songs did John Lennon have in him? But, if we start picking a select few, we can guess where that will lead.
Maybe by that time it may have nothing to do with money. I seriously doubt economics of the future will be as they are now and no, I’m not saying they will be Star Trekish, though it might with everything else that’s we have that is like Trek (cell phones, tablets, Alexa, etc), but it will be different. Maybe the goal won’t be to just survive anymore. Life should be more than just survival and should be more than just working until one drops from being overworked and severely underpaid. IF we get to the point where medical science keeps us alive longer, twice as long as we live now, MAYBE by that point we MIGHT be living and striving to better ourselves, instead of just existing as most people do now.
I have a quote saved, something like that, Morgan. It’s about being a poet, saying it’s hard to be a poet, that you should try something easy, like blowing things up.
I don’t know, given there are people who live over 100 years, I think it could be possible to expand human life to maybe 120 years. Not sure how old the oldest living human was/is, but I think it was over 110. Granted, the people who do live well over 100 are outliers, but it gives us a framework to achieve for more humans. I’m not sure of the number of humans who have lived well into their hundreds, but it’s been many. Of course, many of these people don’t eat a lot of meat and eat far more plant based foods than most other people. The Okinawans are well known for living to a ripe old age and their diet is heavy with plant based foods. So at least 120 is possible for medical science to strive for and strive for quality of life, not just longevity for humans.
