Posted on 06/30/2005 6:56:03 PM PDT by Pharmboy
I'd think about investing in birth-control pills, or at least the companies that make them.
And private accounts for Social Security start looking much more attractive as well!
And invest in companies that make robots, too.
Can you imagine these 70 year old billionaires if they had another 700 years to multiply their fortune?
They would own the solar system, maybe the Milky Way; the Hubble volume would take a little longer.
In fact, I wonder if they aren't really 70 at all, but maybe 140 and just say they are 70 to put us off our guard and make us think they are just too smart for us.
It gives a little more impetus to the dictum, "You only have to get rich once!"
Doesn't it?
Yeah. There would still be a lot of people who don't get it together, not even in 1000 years.
Heinlein seemed to think it would be challenging to start over occasionally.
If one felt perpetually youthful, why not?
Still ... compound interest...
The pictures of those poor souls nearly brings tears to one's eyes.
Have some class, pal.
There was a book of stories on the subject of immortality. How would you deal with it? Everything, even Heinlein, would get kind of plebian. You could probably master every musical instrument, all the math there is, run every white water creek and climb every face of every mountain and you would still be faced with immortality. I suppose you could get a 40 acre farm and tend it with scissors to keep busy.
If the average lifespan was 700 years, think about where you'd sit down.
Seriously, the progeria research seems just terrific. Those poor victims are basically youngsters or youths who never had the opportunity to gain the wisdom that their countenances seem to dislay.
We have too many of these uncurable kinds of diseases and disorders as it is, so Godspeed to the dedicated researchers who work to solve these tragic health matters.
And God bless the victims. May they all be helped.
You could say the same thing about the afterlife, if there is one. That's something I've pondered from time to time. Would you get tired of Heaven? It's a rhetorical question more than asking for an answer. We'll find out eventually, I suppose.
Bad effect: living with the liberals' whining for 600 years...
There is an old Gahan Wilson drawing of some angels standing around on a cloud smoking cigs looking bored.
Clifford Simak already answered this -- "Time is the simplest thing."
We are already dealing with it. The Human Being lives twice as long as other creatures of the same general size. Our lifespan has already been increased.
For me, it is a philosophy. If you are ninety years old, and you decide to plant a fruit tree, do so!
Plan for the future as though you will live forever, and enjoy each moment as though it could be your last.
You can't go wrong with that!
Time is the dimension of consciousness and there is only now. What's done is not anymore and what will be isn't either. Even if we could live forever, how could we possibly know that we are in the process of living forever? Living forever now? Seems like apples and oranges.
The now of consciousness gets interrupted from time to time. For all intents, now is forever.
Just remember, if you die in your sleep, you won't know it until you wake up.
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