But if human effort is necessary for wealth production (a whole other issue that’s debatable), then everyone can’t retire on investments that are ultimately based on someone else earning a profit. Right now retired people live for a time on the efforts of the younger generation. The only reason this isn’t a pyramid scheme is that the old people eventually die. I think the earlier remark that immortality means we (almost) all have to keep working forever is closer to the mark.
In any event, the consequences of an immortal society are one thing; whether we actually get to that point is another. The presumptions stated in this thread are that it would be more profitable to market youth to everyone than to try to hoard it; I’m not so certain. I can with trivial ease imagine a world in which only an oligarchy is privileged to remain perpetually young. Those deemed “unworthy” of life extension are allowed to perish.
One issue might be institutional stagnation. If nothing else, death clears room at the top. The people currently in charge of a nation, business, organization, etc die and that allows new people to fill the vacancies. And things change as a result.
Now imagine a society in which the people at the top stay there for centuries. It’s not just a matter of them being unable to change; they have no incentive to seek change. They rose to the top in a certain set of circumstances and they have no desire to see those circumstances change. So if some immortals had been in charge of a steam engine factories or telegraph networks or gaslight services in the 1850’s, they would have had no desire to see internal combustion engines or telephones or light bulbs developed.
And with the people at the top planning on staying there, the people in middle management would have no prospects for getting to the top. And the workers at the bottom would have no prospects for moving up into management positions.
And this economic stagnation would be supported by a politically stagnated government, full of bureaucrats and officials who’ve held their jobs for centuries and don’t want to see anything changed and risk losing their positions.
I think we like to believe that the status quo is somehow optimal – it makes death seem less tragic – but I don’t think it is.
Yeah, there might be something of an issue with stagnation, I think it depends on how brains work in this hypothetical. Can people who are 90 learn new skills as quickly as a 23 year old in our world? That would help to ameliorate the tendency of older people to get stuck in their ways.
Yes some people might stick in a niche for too long. But conversely, in our world as is, a tremendous amount of knowledge and skill is lost with every death and retirement. And I think the latter is a bigger issue that the former.
So personally I wouldn’t hesitate to predict that in a scenario with indefinite youth – including youthful minds – the net effect would be a big increase in productivity.
I’m not seeing it as an issue of mental acuity. I’m seeing it as an issue of self-interest. The people at the top of the current economic system don’t want to see any significant changes in the economic system - because one of the aspects of the current economic system is that it’s the one they’re on top of.
And while I’ve focused on the economic system, I feel the same is true of the political, academic, scientific, and artistic systems.
But that’s already the case, at the corporate level. Kodak did not see it in their interest to develop digital cameras. Blockbuster didn’t want movies by mail, or streaming. They couldn’t prevent others from innovating.
(Now, I am very much of the opinion that the marketplace is nowhere near as open and competitive as it should optimally be. But not for reasons of individuals getting entrenched).
Yes, but there’s always been a limiting factor. Because no matter how firmly entrenched the guys at the top are, they eventually get old and die. And that opens up places for new guys, who aren’t committed to the old way of doing things.
Change doesn’t come from people at the top. Change comes from people who are trying to get to the top.
Yes, but at some point, they maybe get bored. Take a look at people like Bezos and Musk. They were on the top of their pile, and could have just stayed there raking in the money for the rest of their lives. But they got bored, and started looking for new things to do.
I’m sure there will be some people who are content to just do the same thing for centuries on end, but I’d be surprised if someone like that also had it in them to rise to the top of the corporate ladder. At some point, most people will want a new challenge, or at least a break.
Perhaps. But perhaps they started thinking about their mortality and the inevitability of their deaths and what their legacy would be after they were gone.
Remove aging and death from the picture and maybe they would have decided to stay where they were for a few more decades. You can always leave when you hit a hundred, right? Or two hundred. Or three hundred. Legacies are only a problem for people who plan on dying.
Sure just ignore post #11 like everyone else in this thread. Look, everyone, there’s lots of research going on right now about rejuvenation using the Yamanaka Factors or similar molecules. It’s probably only a matter of time until this technology is ready for prime time.
Bad example. Kodak invented digital cameras. They just couldn’t figure out a way to make money from them.
I didn’t ignore post 1, I’m just saying a delayed rollout is a much more likely scenario that an elixir of youth being deliberately kept by an elite few.
For one thing, the circle of “elites” would get too big, too fast. At the very least, everyone that received the treatment would want their spouses and children to receive it too.
In terms of yamanaka factors, that’s rather short of what I had in mind for “incredibly promising”. I mean something more like the OP, where, say, someone who’s 90 could pass for someone 20 today.
No, I knew that. That’s an essential part of the factoid now.
The point is, film cameras were their bread and butter, for thousands of employees and shareholders. Even if they knew for sure that digital cameras would displace film, that’s definitely a hard turn to make.
I believe that it will be available at a fabulously expensive price. There’s too much money to be made to just bury it. The price alone will make it available only to the elite. Secrecy won’t be needed.
So, were I rich and could afford the best physicists and laboratories, I’d like to pursue the discovery of tachyons, the subatomic faster than light particles that relativity says could exist. If so, and because they are FASTER than light, they would be moving backwards in time. My goal would be to flood an organism with a prolonged tachyon stream in order to affect all the cells of its body in order to determine whether or not the effect on the cells could be to slow down or even reverse aging.
Since cells die and are replaced with new unaffected cells, there would have to be periodic treatments. Since it couldn’t be a one treatment and done deal, it would be pony up or start aging again. You know they aren’t going to bury that.
You’re probably right, but one never knows unless one tries. How often in history have ideas been ridiculed only to end up as useful or even great inventions? If nothing else, it would be a cool movie script.
Sure, that’s the way things are now. Because things change in our world.
But it wouldn’t just be the owners of one big company that would be opposed to change in a world of immortals. Pretty much all companies would be run by immortals who want to keep things the way they are.
And if you’re thinking that some companies would be mavericks, remember that the economy is a system. One company can develop a new product. But it needs other companies to finance its development and manufacture the product and sell it supplies and distribute the product and sell the product and buy the product.
The chances of all that happening in an economy where most of the people in charge want to avoid any change are minimal to the point of non-existent.
It’s not other companies that do this financing, it’s a bunch of people with money to invest known as Venture Capitalists. Would Venture Capitalists disappear if everyone lived indefinitely? I don’t think so.
How well does this drug rejuvenate a body exposed to a guillotine? Because that’s what’s going to happen if the people at the top try to stay at the top forever. Not to mention if they tried to keep this miracle drug to themselves.
No, I’m still not seeing it. You’re talking about a world in which people don’t want to buy better things. And a world in which people who aren’t already rich don’t try to become rich.
Living indefinitely* is not going to change these fundamental aspects of humanity and society.
* And let’s be clear that that’s all we’re talking about here. Living indefinitely is something science may one day enable. God-like bathing-in-a-volcano type immortality is a whole different thing.
Therefore even with such a therapy, no one will know that they will live any particular duration. So I don’t think people will just stop caring about making life more enjoyable in the here and now.