Centuries-long lifespans are necessary for interstellar colonization.
We are poorly designed entropy-defying systems. The universe is a harsh place for biological life. We need to upgrade. We are almost at the point where our technology allows us to pick up where evolution left off.
A healthy brain is adaptive, which is not necessarily true for an unhealthy (aged) brain. Interventions that make extreme longevity possible will surely include maintaining brain function at its peak.
A person is a moving average of their current focuses/experiences. That's why we change with time.
People get bored doing the same things over and over again. Eventually, we try new things. The more free time we have, the more this is true. New technologies help people work less and have more free time. This potentiates the previous statement.
Cognition wise, different generations have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, people born in 1945 have unusually large vocabularies, people born in 1980 have an unusually good working memory, and people born in 1990 have unusually fast processing speed. Society should thus benefit from the coexistence of different generations.
The fact that people don’t want to grow old indicates that they haven’t lost the desire to explore. Keep them healthy and they will continue seeking change.
Keeping people in optimal health/youth in perpetuity solves the threat of population collapse.
For space colonization, we need to optimize for the cost per weight ratio. What is the cost of healing aged adults in space until they eventually have to be replaced by new humans who must learn everything from scratch?
Big visions might not be achievable within the current human lifespan. Extreme longevity would help visionaries finish what they started. (Nikola Tesla, Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Darwin, etc.)
Some think that different generations don’t “vibe” together because of the chronological age gap, but it might instead be because of the health/fitness/youthfulness gap.
Different generations might not “vibe” together for the same reason that any other groups don’t - we default to competitive rather than collaborative social dynamics. Letting older generations die is a poor solution to this problem.
Future long-lived humans will have all their systems constantly regenerate on a cellular level. The ultimate goal is to maintain peak/optimal function in perpetuity. When healthy, we are adaptive, curious beings. Because we get bored, we explore. Because we explore, we change over time.
Dragan Otasevic Jun 01, 2022
