32 Comments

1. Daniel in Brookline:

…a Cambridge scientist asserts the first person to live to 1000 has already been born…

Is his name Lazarus Long, by any chance?

Mar 15, 2006 - 8:42 pm 2. Kevin Peters:

Roger:

I imagine that with the transplant,gene,bone and muscle replacement technology that is being developed it could be theoretically possible for this 1000 year old human to happen. But the financial cost at this moment, or even over the next 100 years, would be so high that the idea that we have to start planning for a mass implementation of these medical procedures for all humans is so far off that I am not worried. Plus the thought of what 200 years of Botox use would look like is scary enough to make me not want to think of the idea at all.

Mar 15, 2006 - 10:26 pm 3. Bill Quick:

Roger. the biggest problem in talking – and thinking – about news like this is shaking the three-score-and-ten mindset. The question is not “120 and over tennis,” but, “tennis for 120 year olds who are physically only twenty years old?”

We think of physical debility as the primary handicap of advanced age. The real problems will probably be for those raised to think of themselves as old at seventy who find themselves young at 100.

Mar 15, 2006 - 10:28 pm 4. Bill Quick:

I imagine that with the transplant,gene,bone and muscle replacement technology that is being developed it could be theoretically possible for this 1000 year old human to happen. But the financial cost at this moment, or even over the next 100 years, would be so high that the idea that we have to start planning for a mass implementation of these medical procedures for all humans is so far off that I am not worried.

1975: I imagine that with the advances in transistor and microchip technology now being developed, the possibility of supercomputers the size of small suitcases cheap enough for the average person to own one is theoretidally possible. But the financial cost of developlent at this moment, or even over the next 100 years, would be so high that I am not really worried….

Mar 15, 2006 - 10:54 pm 5. Robin Goodfellow:

This is feature being presented as a problem. If medical technology really does advance to a degree to where we can pretty much treat everything, including natural aging, then public pension systems will be an anachronism, not a problem. Imagine the world of, say, 2050 when life expectancy is unknown, because possibly infinite, and when 80 year olds are as vigorous as, say, 20 or even 40 year olds. It’s not going to take long for the public to say “hey gramps, no more retirement, get back to work”.

Mar 16, 2006 - 12:45 am 6. Vexorg:

I think one of Scott Adams’ predictions in The Dilbert Future said it best:

In the future, everyone will have 80 years of complaint-free living to look forward to. Unfortunately, they’ll all live to be 160.

Mar 16, 2006 - 1:40 am 7. Justin Time:

Maybe it’s 1000 dog years?

Hey, Roger, this does this mean you’ll be pumping out books and screenplays for the next 500 years?

This would seem to massively widen the gap between the haves and have-nots. Those who are more valuable to society (in the sense of having high salaries) would have money to save, not for 40 working years, but 400 years.

Another thing: Should prison sentences be increased -e.g. should life imprisonment mean 200 years?

Mar 16, 2006 - 1:49 am 8. David Thomson:

I feel like a 1,000 years old. Does that count?

Mar 16, 2006 - 2:49 am 9. Rhod:

…Or maybe 1000 Husband Years, or even worse, 1000 Parcheesi Years. Speaking of Parcheesi, is it still in production? What a stupid game.

Mar 16, 2006 - 4:55 am 10. pjw:

Roger, I don’t think you get 112 years of retirement. I worry that its even worse, another 100 or so years of work at some blah job. Plus I wonder if you start to feel like you’ve seen everything (all movie plots are going to see very familiar after 100 years of watching movies), done everything, gotten more and more cynical, etc.

Mar 16, 2006 - 6:35 am 11. Stacy's Mom:

You mean I can’t throw the kids out of the house until they’re 50?

Mar 16, 2006 - 7:10 am 12. Charlie (Colorado):

To quote one Woodie Smith, this monkey is going to keep climbing as long as the tree holds out.

Mar 16, 2006 - 7:22 am 13. Tim K:

Roger, you should read Ray Kurzweil’s new book, The Singularity is Near. He makes a very persuasive case that, by the later 2030s or early 2040s, we will have conquered the aging process and people will be able to go back to the biological age that they want to maintain for the future.

Mar 16, 2006 - 8:11 am 14. Anthony (Los Angeles):

Maybe they could tell us if Jefferson really got it on with Sally Hemmings.

He did. DNA testing on descendents proved it.

That devil.

Mar 16, 2006 - 8:16 am 15. Fausta:

I was thinking of a much earlier book. Anyone contemplating very old age would do well to read about the Struldbruggs,
When they came to four-score Years, which is reckoned the Extremity of living in this Country, they had not only all the Follies and Infirmities of other old Men, but many more which arose from the dreadful Prospect of never dying. They were not only Opinionative, Peevish, Covetous, Morose, Vain, Talkative, but uncapable of Friendship, and dead to all natural Affection, which never descended below their Grand-children. Envy and impotent Desires are their prevailing Passions. But those Objects against which their Envy principally directed, are the Vices of the younger sort, and the Deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of Pleasure; and whenever they see a Funeral, they lament and repine that others have gone to a Harbour of Rest, to which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no Remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in their Youth and middle Age, and even that is very imperfect. And for the Truth or Particulars of any Fact, it is safer to depend on common Traditions than upon their best Recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to Dotage, and entirely lose their Memories; these meet with more Pity and Assistance, because they want many bad Qualities which abound in others.

Mar 16, 2006 - 8:18 am 16. Dilys:

A good chance that the very long lived are damned if they do/don’t. “Don’t expect to live on the dole” conflicts with “Get out of the way, old man, I want your job.”

An environment high-technology enough to produce all this will also be so fast moving that cultural obsolescence will decisively separate ever-narrower generations. I’m now old enough that I don’t particularly relish most new fashions in clothing, music, or movies. And those who do aren’t in the market for random riffs on the subject of historical excellence which, at some point, is what is on offer from any of us simply because of the comparative quanta of memory-based information.

Increased stratification of generation-group identities may be one of the worst problems.

Mar 16, 2006 - 8:46 am 17. flenser:

If people start living for five hundred years than the already low birth rates will have to drop a lot further.

One likely result would be that, as in China, people will have strict limits placed on how many children they are allowed. Assuming that children will exist at all, of course.

Mar 16, 2006 - 9:53 am 18. Terrye:

flenser has a point, if people live that long it is going to get real crowded.

Mar 16, 2006 - 11:13 am 19. Pat Curley:

He makes a very persuasive case that, by the later 2030s or early 2040s, we will have conquered the aging process and people will be able to go back to the biological age that they want to maintain for the future.

And here I thought this comic book plot was ridiculous?

Mar 16, 2006 - 11:16 am 20. Pat Curley:

Sorry, there should be quotes around the first paragraph of my comment.

Mar 16, 2006 - 11:20 am 21. Rhod:

Anthony:

I think DNA testing has proven that a member of the Jefferson family handled Sally, but not necessarily that old devil Thomas.

Mar 16, 2006 - 1:06 pm 22. tim maguire:

Another 500 years of showing up at this office, sitting in this chair, staring at this computer, shuffling these papers…dear lord, kill me now!

Mar 16, 2006 - 2:38 pm 23. triticale:

Is his name Lazarus Long, by any chance?

Nope. Woodrow Wilson Smith.

Incidently, there is also speculation that Sally Hemmings herself was a Jefferson descendant.

Mar 16, 2006 - 4:45 pm 24. Knucklehead:

A while back I called my remaining uncle to wish him a happy 90th birthday. As it came toward ending the call I wished him 90 more and he replied, “Oh, no, don’t wish that on me.”

…a Cambridge scientist asserts the first person to live to 1000 has already been born…

All I can say is:

Go lightly from the ledge, babe,
Go lightly on the ground.
I’m not the one you want, babe,
I will only let you down.
You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Who will promise never to part,
Someone to close his eyes for you,
Someone to close his heart,
Someone who will die for you an’ more,
But it ain’t me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe,
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.

Mar 16, 2006 - 5:50 pm 25. Joe Schmoe:

The Boomers will live to 1,000? Great, now I’ll never make partner or buy a “starter” home.

Mar 16, 2006 - 5:59 pm 26. Knucklehead:

Rhod,

…or even worse, 1000 Parcheesi Years. Speaking of Parcheesi, is it still in production? What a stupid game.

Spoken like a man who has been ganged up on, by wife and daughters, and ruthlessly abused in a game of Parcheesi. Wanna try Mille Bornes?

Mar 16, 2006 - 6:01 pm 27. Knucklehead:

Joe Schmoe,

Thanks for the belly laugh. I’m still laughing thinking about that purchase of my “starter home”. It was during a real-estate boom and there were bidding wars on houses. It was frustrating (ain’t thinking back great – it allows one to laugh at things that once seemed like major problems) to look at a listing price and think, “I gotta stretch, and do it quickly, to meet or beat this price” and get out-bid by 10%. Which was immediately followed by, “How the heck can anybody pay that much for a freakin’ shack?”

I’m a tail-end boomer. We’ll die out, don’t you worry, but not before we cause untold pain and suffering ;> (We will, however, leave a lot of assets behind – assuming Uncle Sam don’t nationalize them.)

Mar 16, 2006 - 6:11 pm 28. Knucklehead:

Anthony,

Last I looked into it the DNA testing showed that a male of Jefferson’s lineage “got it on” with Sally. There are arguments which support, and others which counter, the claim that he fathered children by her.

I haven’t found an argument, at least since the DNA stuff hit the fan, that I find convincing for either case. One of his biographers (maybe it was Alf Mapp but I don’t remember fersure) laid out a timeline case that was pretty convincing but that was, IIRC, before the DNA analysis. If I were on a jury I’d be going the “reasonable doubt” route.

Mar 16, 2006 - 6:19 pm 29. Vulgorilla:

I want to live to be 120 and die at the hands of an irate husband. Hope springs eternal …

Mar 16, 2006 - 6:37 pm 30. mythusmage:

Instead of retirement think of sabbaticals. With a sabbatical ending either in a return to work, or death.

Of course, if you really mean to live a very long time there is one thing you need to do. Learn how to let go.

Mar 17, 2006 - 3:35 am 31. AnnNY:

The answer is simple really; terraform Mars.

Seriously, space travel will make living to 1000 much more exciting.

Mar 17, 2006 - 6:50 am 32. Assistant Village Idiot:

It depends, at minimum, how many of my age-mates intend to keep on living. I already find younger people annoying.

Of course, I find nearly everyone annoying…

Mar 21, 2006 - 7:31 pm

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