How Long Do You Want To Live?

If you came across a genie that granted you the gift of living to be 1000 years old would you accept it?

Why or why not?

Please answer using comments area.

John

Posted by johnbarban in Uncategorized
Tags: Life Extention, Longevity |39 Comments

39 Responses to “How Long Do You Want To Live?”

  1. Grok Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 6:35 pm

    Forever no, but 1,000 might be tolerable. That’s probably enough time to work out the mental issues of watching everyone you’ve ever loved perish, humanity destroy itself, etc…

    You could obtain a tremendous amount of valuable knowledge and wisdom during this time and develop a solid efficient plan for sharing with others. All of humanity could potentially benefit from your gift.

  2. Jennie Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 7:20 pm

    1000 years is nearly immortal for me. No, I don’t want to live for such a long time like that. It’s so boring and painful. I can’t bear to look at my beloved ones leave me one by one. Who would love me, care for me? Life is no meaning if there is only me living. I might not know what I should do with such a long lifespan and end up wasting it.

    With sharing knowledge, I can use machine to store and share my experiences to people more efficiently than I do it by myself. Thus, why do I have to live too long like that to do the thing that a machine can do better than me? Furthermore, I might not keep up with and adapt to the change of environment during this long time. This would be miserable for me.

    No thanks, my present life is better. Because I know my life is limited, I love it and understand its value. If I had to last for 1000 years, this would be a curse for me, not a gift.

  3. KWOK Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 7:21 pm

    100yrs is more than enough time.

  4. Shannon Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 7:24 pm

    Yes, but only if I could stop aging. I wouldn’t want to live 1,000 years and be unable to move for 950 of it.

    I would want to live that long because I love life and want as much of it as I can get. It would take the pressure off so you could really enjoy your experiences instead of hurrying to finish one so you can squeeze in the other. You would also be able to spoil more of your grandkids :-)

  5. Cynthia Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 7:34 pm

    1,000 years would be very interesting strictly from an observational point of view but to live long past your family, friends, your children and even their children would be horrid and I think mentally we would become detached and eventually fade. Everyone we met would die and we would remain.

    The only way living that long would be beneficial would be if you were a scientist or some such thing, and you were working on a project that would take several lifetimes to complete.

  6. Roger Kerkenbush Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 7:35 pm

    If healthy, YES! Think of all the things you would see!

  7. Robert Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 7:42 pm

    Absolutely, and with advances already being made, it will soon be reality, and in good health, which of course would be the only reasonable way to benefit from extended life. Think of all that could be accomplished!

  8. Clint Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    Hell Yes! Too many things to learn and do, too little time! My plan is to live to be at least 108. If we figure out a way to extend human life expectancy by then, I’ll take whatever I can get.

    How about this for a question . . . If we (i.e. humans) discovered a way to bio-digitally upload our memories and consciousness into some type of mainframe where we live in a veritable “virtual world” with one another — essentially providing immortality, unless you decide to erase yourself via digital hara kiri — would you do it? Or would you prefer to live and die “naturally” as Mother Nature intended?

  9. pat mcleod Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 7:56 pm

    Intesting ? We ask that a lot in our ministry. Most people say no as they wouldn’t want to live this life much longer with all of the pain & suffering. But if we further query what abt. a paradise earth where they could live together with loved ones & no suffering now that is another story & yes think about all we could/will see & achieve!!

  10. kevin taylor Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 7:57 pm

    Hey John, I would just to see what happened to the earth and how freaky it might become.Probably by then we will all be living on supplements?

  11. jenifer Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 7:59 pm

    I want to live as long as I can have quality of life. Not a minute longer!
    As a nurse, I have seen so many people kept alive by medications who have no qaulity of life. What is the point?
    I exercise and eat healthy and am fighting the aging process every step of the way!
    Age is just a number-the important thing is how old you FEEL you are and what you are able to do. I am more fit and healthy at my age (mid 40′s) than I was in my 20′s and plan to stay that way. No nursing home for me!!!!

  12. David Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 8:23 pm

    If we were to live for 1000 years it would change our perspective to each other and our environment. We behave like politicians who only worry about their next election in 4 or 5 years. If we knew we were going to live for 1000 years we would take greater care of our body and our environment. The world would be a much better place and we would be healthier and happier. So yes it would be good to live for 1000 years.

  13. jasmine Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 8:51 pm

    Yes. All the knowledge and wisdom that you would accumulate regardless of what you did in life would force you to be constructive to the world. You could remember history and powerful people would request knowledge from you. You would be godlike and the whole world would worship you.

  14. privatestudmuffin Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 9:01 pm

    hmmm depends as someone who has tried to end his life twice within 8 weeks (3 years ago) it would anger me ha ha also how many years would you be working 900??? i want to retire by 50 not 950

    no thanks man ya can have this one i will be happy to die anything over 70 :)

  15. Grok Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 9:12 pm

    Shannon :
    Yes, but only if I could stop aging. I wouldn’t want to live 1,000 years and be unable to move for 950 of it.

    I’ll second this ;)

  16. johnbarban Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    @jasmine
    Jasmine,

    Love your answer –> “you would be godlike and the whole world would worship you”

    So here is a wrinkle for all of you to consider. What if everyone could live to 1000?

    John

  17. johnbarban Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 9:26 pm

    Shannon :

    Yes, but only if I could stop aging. I wouldn’t want to live 1,000 years and be unable to move for 950 of it.

    :-)

    Shannon,

    You hit the nail on the head. This is what I think is the heart of the matter. The QUALITY of those 1000 years is more important than the number of them.

    If 980 of those 1000 years were spent in perpetual vigorous health of a 20 or 30 something year old person…who would say no to this?

    John

  18. workin' on first century Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 9:27 pm

    In reading the comments two interesting points struck me. One is an obvious concern: quality of life. Obviously I wouldn’t want to do it if it deteriorated beyond a certain point (and everyone would have a different benchmark for that). But the more critical is the one we think more about as we age: people relationships, especially family. Would I age with friends or family who were approximately the same age or would I have to “hang out” with hundred-year-olds or, God forbid, with those who are still trying “find themselves” or who are “getting their lives back together”. One thousand years is 25 generations. Can you imagine repeating that process 25 times?!

  19. Miss T Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 10:27 pm

    Wow every interesting topic but if I had the opportunity to live up to a 1000 years, I am affraid I wouldn’t take it, you see Life is great and I love it to the fullest but not enough to want to live a thousand years. Besides I believe in heaven and hell and though i don’t know where I will go after death, I try to put my good foot down so that i will have a place in heaven and lets face it, i will choose heaven over earth anyday.

  20. Michele Andree Lemieux Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 10:28 pm

    You bet, but in a perfectly healthy forever young body. So many things to learn, to discover, to uncover, to explore. I am an artist, I paint, I can just imagine how good I’d be after 1,000 years. Life is such a wonderful adventure, I’d like to live forever!

  21. Bev G Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 11:17 pm

    It would be great if you were to live for a 1000 years. but I would like to have my cake and eat it.I would like to be born and live a normal healthy life and to die healthy at 100 and then to be born again remembering all the previous knowledge and to keep doing this for 1000 years. This way you could experience everything, being every colour, poor/rich/;sickness/health; you could build on the previous knowledge in every way. You could help people so much. Can you imagine not having to repeat the same lessons life time after life time because you forgot to remember that you had done that before???

  22. Alan Says:
    July 18th, 2009 at 1:25 am

    No, if it were only me living to 1000 years then it would be too painful seeing everyone I loved die.

  23. Esther Says:
    July 18th, 2009 at 2:54 am

    Shannon :Yes, but only if I could stop aging. I wouldn’t want to live 1,000 years and be unable to move for 950 of it.
    As for the ‘wrinkle’ in this thought: No harm or ill will toward others would ever occur. If you knew that you’d likely run into someone again, given the probability of all being around 1000, you could never say to someone “oh,just crawl in a hole and die”. Forgiveness and gratitude would be automatic, in fact, it’ll be so practiced if you knew you were around for 1000years, it will become unspoken, people will BE automatically a person of forgiveness and gratitude…imagine that! Now, what if we all were already supposed to live to 1000y, and we’ve already screwed life up to reduce it to 100 max (with the odd blip of 108 or so),hmm, we have work to do still ;) .

  24. Esther Says:
    July 18th, 2009 at 3:05 am

    ahhh, forgot to end quote Shannon, forgive me! :) I got excited about this topic, but for now, work one keeping my body healthy to see what the next 40-60years has instore for me.

  25. isah Says:
    July 18th, 2009 at 8:44 am

    I will not want to live that long even i am fit as a fiddle…….juz the people i love won’t be around……..i will be lonely and i believe to live a life full of people u love is more than enough than living 1000 years old and witnessing all ur love ones dying one by one….

  26. Rowans Says:
    July 18th, 2009 at 5:01 pm

    1000 years… Maybe I just might take it!!
    * I will see technology advance immensely… I think I’m going to enjoy that.
    * I will probably see humankind turn the corner… If we bust ourselves, I get killed (maybe kill myself), if we don’t, I’ll be in a better society.
    * I will have so much more time to make myself a millionaire ;)
    * I think if the genie says 1000 years, he would mean more or less the same rate of ageing pro-rated over 1000 years. Otherwise it would be senseless to lose nearly all faculties at 100 0r 120 and spend 900 years as a miserable heap of flesh. If
    that be the case, I would have to marshal all my energy and reach for the cyanide capsule :(
    Maybe medical science just might be able to replace all my joints, give me new teeth and renew all my organs and muscles by my 250th birthday!
    * I think I’d be a bit of a celebrity, what with being the ’500 year old’! Ooff! I’ll have to pull out the hairdryer to blow out the candles on that cake!
    * The great downside is that I will lose all my relationships after say 100, as nobody would really be-friend a 100 year old. I might solely have to turn myself to contemplation, philosophy and learn to enjoy my solitude. Ahhhh… The net would surely be at terabit speed in 2109. I would have to learn to operate those advanced gizmos every few decades.

    Lets see. Mr Genie, I’m waiting for you.

  27. Don Andrew Says:
    July 18th, 2009 at 5:01 pm

    1000 years. Healthy? Mobile? Happy? Lonely? Independant? Eternally youthful? Continued potential? Come on Genie … tell me more.

    Healthy in terms of longevity only? We all know that quality of life is a bigger deal-breaker.

    Mobility without pain? OK … let’s negotiate.

    Happy? Depends how needy you are. Most people are too needy to deserve one tenth of what’s on offer. But that’s a separate argument.

    Lonely? Who else can come along for the ride? OK … everyone (thanks Jasmine). So we’ll have 300 trillion miserable, needy, greedy people living on a planet designed for 3 billion. That would be fun. But by then we’ll have figured out a solution to space debris and the viabilities of permaculture on Mars … or a way to warm up and oxygenate that huge planet we discovered beyond Pluto.

    Independant? We still negotiating? Eternally youthful with a full pallette of unfulfilled potential? Tempting … but no thanks.

    If it takes you more than one twentieth of that time frame to figure out it’s not just about you then you’ll remain a waste of resources and you will never add value.

    Give me 80 good years and a legacy that means something to a kid under 20!

  28. Yenny Moreno Rodriguez Says:
    July 18th, 2009 at 9:27 pm

    I really think that’s not a good idea that of living 1000 years, maybe because i consider that each of us is placed in an specific time, with specific persons,THAT is the world we are to enjoy. Every 60 or 70 years ahead you will be out of your real worl, out of your moment, far from those you have loved and unfortunetly are not with you anymore.
    I simply ask the genius for 100 years, enough isn’t it?

  29. Mike Serovey Says:
    July 18th, 2009 at 11:57 pm

    According to the Bible people did live over 900 years prior to the great flood. Living 1000 years would be great IF I had family and friends that lived that long too. If everyone lived that long the world would quickly become over crowded and polluted. As is, I want to live as long and as wel as I can.

  30. Kevin Says:
    July 19th, 2009 at 6:05 am

    OFCOURSE! I would love to live to 1,000 years!

    There is so much to do, first, I’d set up companies to generate money to be able to enjoy my long life with as little work as possible, what about governments? Wouldn’t they be a little suspicious of someone who lives over 120 years in good health? would I have to be in hiding from them? I KNOW they’d wanna do testing and have tons of questions…..ugghhh

    No matter what, the answer is YES, I’d take it ANYDAY and Deal with all that when it happens.

    Imagine the amount of knowledge one can accumulate in just 100 years if making an effort to learn almost everyday, by the time I’m 200, I would’ve already made history and continue to do so till I die.

    Where is this genie? LOL

  31. Coach Timi Says:
    July 19th, 2009 at 6:57 am

    Yikes, no mental models for this one! It’s hard to imagine the implications. As a group, humans are so resistent to changes. And we are basically very social. I’m not sure living a 1000 years would work very well until we’ve evolved further. But if I wasn’t the only one, and we could be youthful and healthy for the majority of the time (998 years), then I agree with many of the others who are eager to try it. The sense of history, the potential wisdom, the variety of relationships and many, many life experiences would be great. You could live 10-20 lives and continually reinvent yourself. But most of us aren’t that emotionally adaptable or resilient for such an opportunity. I think we’ll have to “work up” to that one!

  32. Tania Says:
    July 20th, 2009 at 2:44 am

    whats the point of living this time if you know when your life is going to end?
    1000 years pretty cool in words, but will yo live without your best friend?, without family who to turn to.
    Life is not about the years is about what you can do and with who.

  33. Gordon Says:
    July 20th, 2009 at 7:58 am

    That sounds like a cool idea – living through massive changes in the world and social order, and perhaps contributing with my experience from one or two centuries to the nex two. That would be awsome! Plus you truly get the time to learn from your mistakes and improve yourself over such a long period of time.

  34. CR Says:
    July 21st, 2009 at 8:02 pm

    When we understand that life is about creating beauty and understanding the Universe around us, what a gift living 1000 years would be. It could be enough time to understand what the Genie did and grant yourself immortality.

    Knowing that you would live to at least 1000, going to school to learn about new areas of thought would be standard in your life. Saving for the first 100 years would provide a resource base without limit. The family you could father and raise would be remarkable in scope. I have currently dedicated a portion of my life to Healthy Longevity and have written a few basic principles to live well past 100. To be able to take the lexicon “Life is too short” out of ones vocabulary would expand their thinking and planning beyond our imagination.

  35. Zashkaser Says:
    August 5th, 2009 at 10:30 pm

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  36. Sdanektir Says:
    August 6th, 2009 at 5:34 pm

    Thanks for your blog! is very interesting…

  37. Rahim Says:
    August 21st, 2009 at 7:39 pm

    I would accept it only if my loved ones could live that long too. I don’t think I could go on for 1000 years and see my loved ones go year after year. Just wondering, what made you ask that question?

  38. Chris Says:
    August 24th, 2009 at 8:31 pm

    I would be an EatStopEat vampire….it would be awesome, in fact I’d probably stay for an additional 1000 years after my 1st millenia, just to hang out with the senior citizens.

  39. Oliver R Says:
    November 18th, 2009 at 3:44 pm

    Absolutely – I would like to live at least that long — as you know, gerontologist Aubrey de Grey of the SENS Foundation believes that is entirely possible, and what is more this figure is just an average, based on current death rates from non age-related causes (ie some people would live to 50, some to 15,000 etc). His organisation is funding research into all the kinds of cell damage that result from the aging process – clean them up and there is no need for us to age. Guys like Aubrey are certainly not talking about wanting people to hang on for centuries in bad health, the idea is to have excellent health until you fall under a bus aged 500 or whatever. Also, if the therapies were there for you they would probably be there for your loved ones too. There is no reason to think we would want to die at an arbitrary age like 100 if we were still youthful and healthy and interested in life. Imagine you were a 99-year-old with a 30-year-old’s health and someone says “time’s up, are you ready to die next week?” The likelihood is that you would not be.

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