Great question, only because I’m baffled by the people who’d choose the longer life. I wouldn’t take the longer life even if it was free with no alternative choice. To make it more palatable to me, you’d have to make it something like not aging at all for the remainder of your life, maybe throw in a “no sickness/disease/injury” clause too. And even then I might still choose the money.
That’s interesting; I was surprised at how many people chose 100 years. The way I figure it, if you’re 25 right now and you age at 1/3 the rate of those around you, when/if you’re peers reach triple digits you’re only going to look fifty. If you’re in a romantic relationship, that could really suck as your SO would totally look like a cradle robber and some of the more pleasurable side effects of still having a fifty year old’s body wouldn’t be things that the SO would necessarily be able to partake in (yeah, I’m working under the assumption that 100 year old people can’t have sex like fifty year old people…I’m twenty-three and I live with a bunch of nuns, so this is most definitely just a guess).
Even if you aren’t in a romantic relationship, the people who are the same age as you by number of years wouldn’t be near as active as you. Any travel partners would be significantly younger. That just seems a bit depressing.
Give me the cash. I’d probably help my family out (my niece, 7 months, and nephew, 1 month, would suddenly get significantly more spoiled from AuntMossie), go on a spending spree, and split the rest between a bank account for when my parents get old and my monastery.
The money. Let me have the years I have in comfort and happiness.
I’m amazed anyone wouldn’t pick life. A hundred million versus a hundred years? Not even a close call. A billion dollars versus ten years? Still an easy choice. A hundred billion dollars plus you get to be Emperor of the World and Pope of your own Church versus one extra year of life? Well, that’s a difficult choice. But will all that money or power matter anything to me when I’m dead? No. So I guess I’d pick what matters. Life is everything because without it you have nothing.
If you were told in 1908 that you could have $10 Million or 100 years, wouldn’t you take the years. Think of everything that has happened the past 100 years. What kind of a price tag could you put on seeing all that?
I’d take the money. I don’t care to live an extra 100 years even if it were free. “Who knows what you’d miss”? People don’t see history as they’re living it, they see the dishes and the blooming of the trees in Spring and taking the dog to the vet. I’ve done all that. Besides, I’m not all that thrilled with how the future is working out.
StG
Unless you’re looking forward to the afterlife.
Money. I’d use it to travel, see the world, do everything I want to do, knowing I can do it all in luxurious style without any financial worries, and would then be quite happy to die.
Life, no question
As for watching loved ones die- well you’re probably going to watch loved ones die anyway, right?
It’s interesting how evenly split the question is, and how both camps seem baffled anyone would choose the other.
A lot of old people are tired and ready to die, and have no wish to live longer. I could understand them not wanting life.
But anyone under 50? Whats wrong with you? Some of you act like you wouldn’t even take it for free! Maybe if the offer was to CUT 20 years from your life?
Plus a little mentioned bonus of the deal is all current ailments you have are eliminated and you are guaranteed to live the vast majority of your years in great health.
It would be interesting to find out what % of people who don’t choose life are either unhappy, or believe in a heaven, And what % of people who choose money are either pretty poor, or pretty rich.
It would be cool to see how my descendents do for themselves, and meet my childrens’ childrens’ children, and to see how technology fares but I’d rather have the cash and use it to help the aforementioned descendents with education, housing, etc.
The money. It’s not about the years in your life, but the life in your years. I read that on a billboard once.
The money. I don’t want to outlive my husband (okay, not by much), and damn, do you know how much of those 175 years I would be old? Even aging more slowly, that’s a long time to toddle around well past my prime.
I’d much rather have a great time with the man I adore for another 30-40 years than work my ass off without him for 100 or more.
I’d fall in to the money camp. Until I read the thread I couldn’t understand how there could be any different opinion.
I have no urge to see the world mature and grow especially if I’m stuck working a 9-5 for the next 90 years. Work sucks there are a million other things I’d rather do. With that kind of money I could do whatever I wanted every day for the rest of my life and die in 50 years fulfilling my every desire. I don’t see how getting up every day and going to a job beat that out even if you do get a 60 year retirement afterwards
To me, the choice is easy. As it stands now, I’m about 15 years from retirement (assuming I work until age 65.) Assuming the market recovers in the next couple of years, I should be relatively comfortable, but if I worked another 20 years beyond that and was really good about saving, I’d have a very comfortable and long retirement. Life, please.
I know where a lot of the desire to choose money comes from, in my case. In addition to the reasons I already gave.
A lot of people in my generation (I’m 27, and the Mr. is 30) have a great deal of anxiety about being able to make ends meet, even if we’re doing everything “right.” We each have two degrees, but with the student loan debt, we’re looking at a long road ahead of us to pay off that (very worthwhile) education. We would like to own our own home someday, have 1-2 kids, and settle in and enjoy without having to work 60 hour weeks just to get by. We want to really watch our kids grow up and raise them in person. We want to give the kids good education–not just in school, but by traveling (modestly) and giving them good experiences that shape them into better people. And then we want to retire comfortably–to never have to worry about starving or getting put out on the street or bankrupting our kids with medical bills. I don’t think any of this is too much to ask.
And right now, that’s all up in the air. The economy is crap, and I’m an unemployed Registered Nurse. Imagine that! An RN who can’t get a job–we never thought we’d see the day. I’ve been job-searching like mad for 2+ months, and I’ve had one interview. My husband is facing layoffs, and he’s the least senior person in his office. They already laid off someone else.
I share these anxieties with many other people my age. It’s a shame, but it’s the way things are right now. Before you think about taking the life, imagine the numerous ways you could go from comfort to poverty in a heartbeat. Layoffs, sudden medical expenses, stock markets wiping out your savings…it’s reality for so many, and a plunge into that kind of poverty usually means living with it until you die.
Just MHO.
Definitely the money. I want to travel, pamper myself and my kids. I’ve had enough of living on scanty money, and enough of struggling with this body.
Life! Life is the tiniest glimmer of light between two immensities of darkness. Why not make that glimmer brighter? Especially with no downsides (immunity to anything that would bump me off early, except by my own hand? Yes please!). Beyond seeing loved ones die, but that’s a grim inevitability everyone must face.
Imagine the technology you could see. Plus you’d likely end up rich anyway, as the unquestioned oldest person on the planet you’d be automatically famous as hell and of immense value to future historians.
By way of comparison if someone who took this deal died today they’d have been born in 1834. Discounting the first ten years as murky childhood memories that’d give you a first hand living witness of everything from 1844, an clear adult memory of (off the top of my head) the U.S. Civil war, Victoria’s reign and death, as well as the First and Second World Wars. Imagine what historians would give to speak to them! $100 million is trivial in the long run, you’d never have to worry about money beyond a certain point anyway.
Image what people would pay to hear your memories on November 22, 2063. December 8, 2080. January 1, 2100. September 11, 2101
The extended life.
As they say, I keep getting older but the freshmen girls stay the same age.
More seriously: Loved ones are treasures, and outliving them would suck. Having said that, I am fundamentally curious about the future. I want to see it. I really think the worst part would be when my future wife looks old enough to be my mother.
I said I’d be back…but WOW. Didn’t realize how many posts this topic would generate.
Fascinating the divergent views, a lot of perspective that I hadn’t considered.
But…if I were to make a choice, it would be the 100 years.
And it’s fairly simple, for me. As others have noted…I want to see what the future holds. Given the constraints I set up, I would be middle-aged (since i am currently at that state) the majority of the time. But that’s ok.
What’s also interesting is how the current life situation affects one’s choice.
Me, middle-aged, married but childless. So I don’t have (at this point) the whole “live longer than your kids thing.”
I’d choose life, because I want to see the following (an incomplete list)
- what amazing technological breakthroughs occur (this could engender an entire subtopic, so won’t go there)
- the discovery of another earth-like planet
- the discovery of life on another planet
- the geo-political landscape one century from now
- Saturday Night Live become funny again (even in 100 years, this is unlikely :))
No, I don’t look forward to working an additional 50 odd years, but I also think that time and perspective will allow me to deal with that, or even become rich.
So give me the time.