5 obscure consequences of humans living to be 1000
If you were to travel back in time to when your parents were the age you are now, what would be the most mind blowing thing that you could say to them? After whatever how many years of history and technological developments have passed, what would be the one stand out thing that you could say which would seem completely alien to them? As tempting as it would be to say that the world became over run and enslaved by some sort of mutant creature from the sea, I would have to tell my parents that there is this device that fits inside your pocket, which has the capability to contact anyone, anywhere and has access to all the information in the world. I would probably not disclose that it's mostly used by people for looking up pictures of cats and to make fun of each other, but going by what our phones are capable of doing, it is pretty savage, especially when there are people walking around you who might have grown up without a house phone. It's amazing how things can develop so quickly. The internet as we know it was only invented in like the 80's, now look at it. The first manned flight was in 1903, and it only took another 60 odd years before man was flying up to walk on the moon. Things in this life change at an alarming rate, and if history is anything to go by, things that might seem impossible now, might just be the standard in the near future. Which I suppose is why the next point fascinates me....
Say what you want about technology, but one thing that has progressed further than anything in the last century has got to be medicine. It has come out with some of the most amazing achievements in history so far, and I think it has gone even further now and given us one the scariest. Lads, they have discovered the cure for aging. The elusive "aging gene" was singled out and treated in rats, and with this scientists were able to increase a rats life span by 10 times. I suppose its not something to get overly excited about yet, except that within the next 25 years the first person live to 1000 is predicted to be born. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/04/us-ageing-cure-idUSTRE7632ID20110704). Ok ok, lets take this with a pinch of salt and stuff, but the fact that we are even talking about this now, and that it is potentially possible, gets you thinking that at some stage in the future, shits going to get weird and crowded.
So with this, instead of talking about the obvious ramifications of all of this like wars braking out over a lack of food and resources, and technology going even further because scientists are living and working longer as well as all that human suffering, here are 5 obscure consequences of man kind being able to live to be 1000.
Right so maybe this isn't the most radical of insights, but it would be pretty inevitable none the less. Like at the moment the greatest limitation that is posed to space travel is that fact that space is big. Really big. Shaqueille O'Neal on steroids on pogo sticks big. It takes years to get to the thing that is closest to us, and that turned out to be shit. We are never going to get anywhere decent in this universe because we won't live long enough to get there. It's not like in the movies where we have super fast rockets or freeze people for 50 years. Those things would destroy our puny fleshy bodies. One of the best ideas so far is to send out some kind of space colony type thing where people have kids, and then those kids have kids, and those kids have kids etc etc , and this whole process is continued until they land somewhere. I can only imagine the end result would be a planet full of nervous aliens staring and awkwardly welcoming their new visitors from Earth, the Fritzels. So yeah, being able to live to 1000 and would work out here.
2.Christmas dinner will be so annoying.
After a couple of centuries you'll be related to half the city in some way, and just as it is now, over Christmas you'll all be forced to meet up with all your dads aunties second cousin's daughters and exchange pleasant small talk around a table the size of an acre, while you just know your mom does all the cooking by herself. But in saying that, I'm sure the presents will be great. Just watch out who you ride about town, it could be incest.
3. Your CV will be ridiculous.
If we only live to around 90 at the moment, and spend that majority of those years working, multiply it by 10 and see what kind of crap you might have done to make money. Looking back on my CV right now, mines pretty detailed and I'm only 23. Applying for jobs when I'm 854 is going to be a bit mad when they have this thesis to read for each applicant. "oh I see you worked in Starbucks for 230 years, now was this before or after WW17?"
4. House prices will sky rocket.
The whole point of a mortgage is to take out a loan so big, you'll be paying it off until you die. It's in the name, "Mort" being the French for death. So with the current price of a house now in mind, how much would you think it will be if you're expected to live in one for over 900 years? How is that for a property bubble? But imagine all the weird crap you'll leave somewhere and forget about for years. Like this one time when the school term finished I forgot I had a banana in my bag and left it there for the whole summer. It wasn't a nice experience when I looked for the bag a couple of months later. Relating that back to this point, I could find a mutant banana tree growing out of stuff if I'm not careful.
5. Mankind will become more intelligent.
This is in relation to the evolutionary theory of "natural selection", or in other words, all the stupid people will die off. Ok this is probably the most conscientiousness of the points, but it makes sense I think. So think about what are the chances of you getting killed in some kind of misdemeanor of your own accord in your current lifespan. Now think of someone in this world who you, well, consider a bit thick, and more than likely will die or suffer some sort of misfortune due to themselves. Now once again, these chances are then multiplied by 10. If you figure you're going to have 10 near death experiences in your whole life, then you'll have 1000. if the person you were thinking of is lucky to make it to next week without getting themselves into some kind of risk situation, then you can see where I'm at. There is a pretty good chance that you will come out unscathed if you if you have to deal with something once every so often, in contrast to someone who tempts fate every day. My thinking is, just as it is now, stupid people will kill themselves off within the first 50/60 years or so. Yes they will probably have kids who will carry it on etc but these will theoretically die out within the same number years, as there will be more stupid for a while to do stupid things to each other to hurry it all along. After that we will be left with a planet where smart people massively out breed the stupid people. Give it a couple of 100 years and whatever existing weak traits that are present now in people could be potentially removed from the gene pool entirely, leaving everyone much more intelligent, and probably black or something. I suppose it will be then, and only then, will the music charts have decent songs on them once again...
But with regards to all of this, this is not me wishing for this to happen. Immortality is not something I'm interested in and the fountain of youth can go get shat in. I would hate to live to beyond 80, I'm 23 now and this place is already starting to bore me...
snowghoul
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
izzy806
vaporwave