MetaChat - If it were possible, and if you had the choice, would you want to live forever?

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31 October 2007

If it were possible, and if you had the choice, would you want to live forever? Or, if not forever, for 500 years?→[More:]

If the drug store was offering longevity shots along with flu vaccines, would you take one? Just think -- you'd get to see countless new technological and social developments, discover how so many stories end, watch countless Super Bowls. But you'd also experience the daily heartbreaks we all suffer, without any immediate relief. Still, along with 500 years (or an infinite amount) of pain, you'd experience 500 years (or an infinite number) of joyful experiences.

So, if given the choice between today's life expectancy and 500 years (or forever), which would you choose?

post by: mudpuppie at: 01:04 | 36 comments

500 years just sounds like a curse. I'm just fine, thanks.

posted by arse_hat 31 October | 01:08

Given what I've seen of people aging into their 90s, I can't imagine how hellish 500 would be. No thanks.

posted by bmarkey 31 October | 01:11

Ha! You must be joking. I'm trying to bargain down on my four score and ten, thanks.

posted by elizard 31 October | 01:12

I'd choose forever if I retained the option to kill myself before the expansion of the universe causes all sorts of problems some hundred trillion years from now. It'd be pretty rad to be immortal and walk around getting up to no good because what are they gonna do? Outlive you? Hah.

posted by cmonkey 31 October | 01:13

No.

I think dying gives life meaning. 500 years seems close enough to infinite that I think I'd just get majorly depressed.

posted by occhiblu 31 October | 01:23

If it doesn't involve physically aging past 34 (or whenever it is that women start losing bone mass, may be adjusted upwards if my calcium levels improve), hell yeah bring it. Just think of all the stock options I could clean up on.

posted by casarkos 31 October | 01:34

Who says I'm not?

posted by eamondaly 31 October | 01:42

NO WAI, because after the shot, it'd be like Poof! You're a Clam!

For serious? Sure, I'd go for it... assuming there were some sort of youth technology involved there, so that you don't spend 400+ years as an extremely elderly person, and only if suicide by some means was possible. And, of course, you would have to live as an outlaw, in darkest secrecy, because once future generations find out you were one of the planet killers, they'll hunt you down and torture you for a few hundred years.

posted by taz 31 October | 01:43

I plan to be a brain in a vat and live forever in a nanosecond.

That, or die of lung cancer at fifty.

posted by BitterOldPunk 31 October | 02:43

Oh yes, would definitely take the immortality jab.

posted by By the Grace of God 31 October | 04:19

Having learned what physical decline (from 25 to 45, in spite of diligent efforts) is all about, you'd have to throw physical youth in for me to agree anything past a normal span. I'll probably feel immense relief when I check out in my late 70s or so.

posted by PaxDigita 31 October | 05:16

How many humans can this poor old planet support? We're already creeping up on seven billion. Let it go.

posted by chuckdarwin 31 October | 05:23

God, no. It's bad enough that I have to live this long.

posted by dg 31 October | 05:34

i'd like to know in advance.
Planning for the next hundred or so would be important.
i'd floss more.

posted by ethylene 31 October | 05:37

If I wouldn't continue to age, sure, why not?

Esp. if I get to live in secrecy like taz says.

posted by BoringPostcards 31 October | 07:42

live 400 years in my mid-30s? absolutely. I might be able to fucking relax. Liev 400 years getting older each year? not a chance.

posted by crush-onastick 31 October | 07:49

I'm gonna live forever
I'm gonna cross that river
I'm gonna catch tomorrow now

posted by Hugh Janus 31 October | 08:28

Another yes, if youth-ifying technology and and opt out clause was included. Or, what taz said.

posted by rainbaby 31 October | 08:55

No, simply because I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. 80 years tops, is MORE than enough.

posted by hadjiboy 31 October | 08:56

500 year life span plus lots of sleeping pills equals time travel, so yeah I'd do it.

posted by StickyCarpet 31 October | 09:01

Honestly, I don't think I would. The final gift we give to future generations is to make some room for them.

On the other hand, screw future generations. I want to LIVE!

posted by muddgirl 31 October | 09:05

Nope. I read Tuck Everlasting.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 31 October | 10:04

Yes! Provided I can stay my current age, of course. One of the things that pisses me off about dying is not being able to see the future. Flying cars, personal robots, monsters on terraformed planets coming to take over Earth.

Oh, wait...

posted by deborah 31 October | 13:02

I'd take it if it came with eternal youth and a legal pain-free suicide pill escape clause. Then, I'd take the escape clause the next week. Just so they'd be all, "WTF?!!"

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 31 October | 13:34

Holy cow, Mr. Janus, is that a Billy Joe Shaver original you're quoting? He doesn't come up too much.

I would do it, with the provisos taz offers. I mean, today's technology makes the stuff of 5, 10 or 20 years ago look like crap; who knows what we'll see down the line? I'd be a great spectator.

I don't think I'd go public with it, either. Just move somewhere from time to time.

posted by ibmcginty 31 October | 13:58

I don't think so. But if you ask me on my deathbed, my answer might be different.

My husband's grandmother is pushing 100. She's still mobile, coherent and basically OK, but she's just so miserable. She has no interest in anything new at all, thinks everything and everybody was soooo much better back in the day and basically seems like an alien trapped on a strange planet most of the time. DO NOT WANT.

posted by jrossi4r 31 October | 15:23

If the rest of the period were like the previous 35, no.

posted by King of Prontopia 31 October | 15:49

She has no interest in anything new at all, thinks everything and everybody was soooo much better back in the day and basically seems like an alien trapped on a strange planet most of the time.

I'm already like that and I'm only 36. bet she was too.

posted by jonmc 31 October | 20:34

Oh yeah. I'd like to see how things turn out. Although I'd have to stipulate independent wealth, cause working forever would suck.

posted by theora55 31 October | 21:16

I'm with theora55 -- I'd really like to see how things turn out. As long as I could remain healthy and alert, I'd go for it. Maybe not the immortality one, but the longevity one for sure.

But yeah, it'd be important to be discreet about it. And unless some of the people you're close to did it too, it could get awfully lonely.

posted by tangerine 01 November | 00:38

oh, yeah - no way I'm doing it without my sweetie... Also I'm going to set up the community site for secret immortals. When we say "bunnies", we mean superseekrit meetup only for us awesome ones, and when we say "whuffles", we mean ancient cabal business opportunity for accumulating incredible wealth (we have to eat, don't we?), and when we say "vajayjay", we mean vajayjay.

Now, who's in? C'mon, don't be a laggard. Time's a wastin' ... or in our case, not. Muahahaha!!!

posted by taz 01 November | 02:55

taz, they already did that in a movie.

≡ Click to see image ≡

There can be only one.

posted by chuckdarwin 01 November | 06:54

The Frog Thane!

posted by Hugh Janus 01 November | 08:27

I'd totally take the jab, as long as I'd be more or less Alzheimer-proofed. If the shot would cause me to continue to age, with all the infirmities, but not die, no way.

posted by ikkyu2 01 November | 15:54

You'd become a paranoid freak, always wondering if a car accident or random freak event would kill you. You'd develop extreme eccentricities, like someone living along for forty years, only much worse. You'd carry the burden of every single person dying before you. You'd stare into the face of loved ones and strangers alike and see a rotting corpse grinning back at you.

Still, those 100 year investments would be sweet. But one of the employees for the shell company holding your money would figure it out and torture your children to get your money.

posted by craniac 16 November | 10:49

Sorry for the grimness, I'm read No Country For Old Men he said then taped a beer can filled with fiberglass to the end of the pistol and picked up the oxygen tank.

posted by craniac 16 November | 10:50

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