The First Person Who Will Live to Be 1000 Is Alive Right Now!
Methuselah is going to be l-i-v-i-d.
According to the latest immortality research (oh, it is a field), the possibility of a person making it to their first millennium is not only possible - it’s almost guaranteed that such a person is already alive right now. Of course, philosophical debates are raging, but everyone agrees that perhaps something more reasonable - say, five additional years on the old lifespan - would be totally acceptable. But according to Aubrey de Grey, the spokesperson for the anti-aging movement, the moral debates are futile: “Whether they realise it or not, barring accidents and suicide, most people now 40 years or younger can expect to live for centuries.”
This is exciting news, right? Just think of all the wonderful things you can do with an extra 920 years or so! Would you travel everywhere, taste everything, try every job, take one exciting lover after another? How many languages might you learn? How wise and zenny we will all become!
Or…will boredom replace everything as the #1 cause of death? After your 700th trip to the dentist and your 840th “surprise” birthday party and your 3,459th wedding shower and your 75,000th church service, what possible magic could any ritual have to offer us? Will humans start doing even more stupid, selfish things well beyond their youthful years because they know they’ve got centuries to make up for it? Most people already fritter away their lives knowing full well that death is imminent. What will happen when we all start living to be 1,000?
Some predictions for adulthood in a world of millennial lifespans:
Highlander: the reality show version.
In the ongoing effort to foster an ownership society, banks will offer the affordable and convenient 350-year mortgage. The only trouble with this is that you will outlive your house.
No one will be scandalized by the May-December romances of rich geriatric crusties and lissome blond bunnies. The real scandal will be that guy with sixty ex-wives. I mean, thirty, yeah, everyone makes mistakes, but come on, sixty?
Teen girls will finally stop with the incessant BFF slinging because the prospect of the same BFF for, like, centuries is BSC. FR. OMG. RUFKM?!?
Instead of spending 3 years of your life waiting in lines, you have 42 years of waiting to look forward to.
Frying up the perfect omelet for your first breakfast with the new love: big deal. You’ve had what, like 500 years to practice? You’re gonna have to do more than that to impress. Even poaching loses its luster after the first 3 centuries.
Just think of how much fun is in store for you now that your marriage is for cennnnnnnnnnturies instead of decades! Till death do you part. Sweet.
You will perfect the art of housebreaking your puppy. Because you will have had 100 of them.
Fast food: what’s the point?
If you think mothers who dress like their daughters are annoying now, well…
There are only so many ways you can rearrange the living room. Think about it.
Do we really want to live for hundreds of years, or is it that we just wish we could be young our whole lives?
50 opinions for The First Person Who Will Live to Be 1000 Is Alive Right Now!
yeah sure
Jul 26, 2007 at 4:17 pm
I doubt they’d give this elixir to just anyone.
DopeyLaRue
Jul 26, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Awesome. Just…awesome. Think about how many days of work will be involved. Can we still retire at 55?
Trisha
Jul 26, 2007 at 5:57 pm
There is a lot of longevity research taking place now. Hopefully we will start to see some benefits in not too many more years.
A lot of the research is focused on actually stopping or even at some point in time reversing the aging process. So while we would be living longer, our bodies would not be aging at the same rate they are now.
Sara
Jul 26, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Good point, Trisha. Thanks for your comment.
Brian
Jul 26, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Highlander — classic… well the first one at least … “There can be only one!”
Seriously though…I’m not sure I’d want to live to a thousand…most people are procrastinators already. What happens to a society where death is no longer a time constraint…
Sara
Jul 26, 2007 at 7:07 pm
I was chatting about this with a pal today and she wondered if people would choose to die at a certain point. Sort of a choose your lifespan deal.
Brian
Jul 26, 2007 at 7:13 pm
yeah … I was going to make a quip about Kevorkian, but thought it might be in bad taste … and is this the death knell of the Catholic church???
Sara
Jul 26, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Oh snap!
I am confident the Catholic Church can overcome any PR disaster that reality happens to send its way.
Brian
Jul 26, 2007 at 7:30 pm
LOL…I am sure you are correct.
Oh snap??? I must be getting old…i had to look that up… :(
Jennifer
Jul 27, 2007 at 3:16 am
There’s an old black & white Twilight Zone about this and guess what — it did not end well. I don’t know that I’d want to live so long. You are smack on about the boredom. I could get some more reading time in. But think of all the laundry and mopping. Ick.
Crabby McSlacker
Jul 27, 2007 at 10:15 am
Don’t know if I’d want 1,000 years, but if I could go back to having the body and stamina of a 20 year old combined with the wisdom of a few more decades–man, I’m pretty sure I’d like to hang out there for a few hundred years or so.
(And the line about the annoying mother/daughter dress-alikes –hilarious. Be very afraid.)
steve
Jul 27, 2007 at 12:12 pm
There’s talk of the planet already being overpopulated…What about once the thousand-year lifespan is introduced?
I’ll opt out; thanks anyway, Science.
m
Jul 29, 2007 at 2:32 am
we are in the infancy of the nano age. In the next 20 years, nanotechnology will be commonplace. In addition, genetic research will advance exponentially. Having nanomachines, and the genetic knowledge needed, nearly indefinite lifespans are possible.
As far as population issues, since other technology is also advancing exponentially, interplanetary travel, and colonization will easily handle the population issue.
Time has always been the greatest obstacle to interplanetary, and extrasolar travel. If we are able to extend the human lifespan to these theorized ages, time will be a far less precious commodity, and more will be willing to take the long trips.
As we age, our perception of time changes. If we are to live to 1000 or longer, our perception of time will be altered to the point that a 1.5 year trip to Mars will seem like a flight from New York to Tokyo.
Of course, chances are that if we are able to reach the advances needed in genetics and nanotechnology, that we will have made similar advances in propulsion which would greatly shorten the trip to popular locales within our own solar system.
The “fountain of youth” no longer need be the end of humanity. Since all technology advances exponentially, all the required elements should be available at the same time.
We will be an interplanetary species, and we will extend lifespans greatly. Remember, just 1000 years ago, in most cultures it was rare to live past 50.
We live in an exciting time in human development and evolution.
Sara
Jul 29, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Brave new world, M. Thanks for your participation. You bring up many great points.
Appleton
Jul 31, 2007 at 8:02 pm
I’m with m. I think a longer life would be fascinating. I doubt I’d repeat the same old things that occupy my daily life today, birthdays and anniversaries and so on. I’d think on a much larger scale, a humanistic scale as opposed to the personal scale most of us are stuck in. I’d learn, learn, learn. Read every good book every written (well, almost). Pursue all the creative projects I’d like to do — some of them would extend over a LONG time. Perform Many Good Works to benefit my species. Finally Get Over My Cheap Self and gain some perspective. Wouldn’t this be a golden opportunity for all of us to become renaissance men and women?
Martin Poulter
Aug 1, 2007 at 6:25 am
Somebody has to call BS on this. Significant improvements in life span, yes, but most people in their 30s now living centuries? Pure hype, even if we charitably assume that the quote ignores people who aren’t rich Westerners.
We already have the ability to wipe out diseases like malaria and make sure no one ever dies of starvation. This hasn’t happened, because in going from a scientific possibility to an economic and social reality, lots of things intervene. People should think about these factors if you don’t want your predictions to get wildly out of sync with reality.
Even taking it to be hypothetically true, wouldn’t there be terrible social and political implications? Death and old age have traditionally meant that one generation of leaders gets replaced by another. Over time, cognitive dissonance and consistency bias will fossilise people in their beliefs and habits - a problem exacerbated by longer lives. I admire you commenters who would do good, humane things with the extra time, but where’s the scientific or historical evidence that people generally will do this?
m, yes, nanotechnology means that in theory any disease can be cured. That “in theory” is a huge caveat, and means that it won’t be feasible for you or me in practice. When computers came along, in theory all sorts of problems were gone forever, but along came bugs, crashes, viruses, spam… Same with many other major technological innovations. Hence the need to reign in expectations for something revolutionary like this.
I’d love to live a centuries-long life but wishful thinking shouldn’t shape our views on what’s actually possible.
Sara
Aug 1, 2007 at 9:45 am
Martin, great comments. Thanks so much for stopping by. If you think de Gray’s conviction is a bit misguided, you should read about the scientist who is utterly convinced we’re just a few years away from a time machine. ;)
JC
Aug 5, 2007 at 9:56 am
I’m just thankful this new expanded lifespan will allow me to spend more time with my beloved flying car and video phone
Cal
Aug 10, 2007 at 5:50 am
Here’s a thought, once we do get promising results, if we use the results, we’ll have people that know this stuff alive longer, allowing more results, allowing longer time to research, it’s a very nice cycle.
GNNR
Aug 10, 2007 at 7:48 am
Personally, I want to live for ever. The article skips over a boat load of points in support for doing so.
For instance, the impact on the behavior of people if they have longer to live and know it will be simply staggering. While it is in our nature, all silly arguments aside, to be violent and fearful people filled with a variety of ‘isims’ , our rational sides will constrain our natural side more than we do today if you know you are living 1000 years instead of 60 or 70.
Stepping beyond that tangled argument, personally I want to see mankind continue it’s social and technological development. Exciting things are in our future, potential abounds. Everything from the sci-fi to the very personal will grow and change. That alone means the world to me.
I think too that all the social conventions constrained by our current lifespans cited in the article would undergo radical changes if I am not mistaken. With timescales so stretched out from what we live in today a lot of concepts would undergo change. Everything from ‘home sweet home’ to marriage to sex is bound to change.
Jimmy
Aug 10, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Robert A Heinlein wrote a novel called ‘Time Enough for Love’ which addressed the benefits and complications that come with greatly enhanced longevity.
Personally, my question with this has been what sort of fun new diseases will we discover. Alzheimer’s and senility weren’t reall issues until people started living long enough to develop these conditions. Give me 900 more years, what else can I develop.
And how will human memory handle 900 years of new events. I can’t even remember classmate’s names from 10 years ago. Heck, the game show ‘Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader’ shows that most people can’t remember basic facts about the world around them and their culture after 25 years.
Niali
Aug 10, 2007 at 5:14 pm
The side effects of longevity may include a slow form of amnesia (nano that repair cells might “fix” the chemical brian corrosion we call memory), which puts an interesting twist on living forever.
Nanotechnology, if it works the way we think it will, is an advancement of ridiculous power. Technological progression everywhere, in everything, would accelerate like a dragster. This includes advances in nanotechnology itself, so the incline itself accelerates until we reach the limits of what one can do with complicated microscopic machines — and no one knows, or even can know, what that limit is yet.
We can dream and speculate, but anyone who claims to have a firm idea of what that would do to humanity hasn’t really thought it through.
The Dog
Aug 11, 2007 at 2:25 pm
1000 years of mental pain and anguish. Imagine that. I’d rather have death or nirvana or oblivion any day.
Jake Paul
Aug 13, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Do you think wars would be fought by men only in their hundreds so long as their physical condition was still in its peak? I can’t imagine an 18 year old risking losing a 1,065 year life versus a 65 year life.
What about the grudges certian religious and political groups hold against one another? If they live for thousands of years, so will their problems.
What about accidental incest? If you think about it, someone 600 years old is going to have thousands and thousands of living realitives. If 60 year olds are marrying 18 year olds now, 600 year olds will be marrying 18 year olds in the future, and quite possibly their great great great great great niece.
Which leads me to my next question, where is everybody going to go? The population increase versus the decrase of deaths is going to cause a major unblalance to society. Extraplanetary relocation is the only real solution but relocating a billion people to another galaxy may only be feasible a thousand years away versus just a few decades for nanotechnology to increase our longevity… not fast enough to stop the population from doubling every 20 years…
What about the relevance of an artist spending two years on a sculpture? Today, that is amazing. In the future, if you live to be 1,000 you’d have to spend 200 years on something to be considered an extremely long amount of time. Would movies be a few hours longer? Would books have 50 more chapters?
Would we still need the same amount of sleep?
If not, and we could stay awake for weeks, would we multiple sunrises and sunsets in a single “day” in order to accomplish more?
The questions could go on FOREVER.
Fortunatley I’m plan on dying in my 60s or 70s so I won’t waste any more PRECIOUS time on these…
Tim Palmgren
Aug 13, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Dancers at the end of time, Michael Moorcock.
It would be an interesting era to live in for sure.
Trisha
Aug 14, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Humanity has overcome many problems that we have faced, I’m pretty sure we could figure out how to work around all the social, political, etc. issues that would come up with longer lifespans.
And I don’t think I would ever get bored. I get depressed now just thinking about all the things I would like to do and experience knowing that I won’t live long enough to even do a small percent of them.
I doubt it will happen as soon as some predict though - not because the science can’t be done that fast - but because it won’t be. Funding problems, people taking it seriously, etc.
Alex
Aug 16, 2007 at 5:16 pm
This will eventually cause the replacement of values and currency with the right to access the life prolonging drugs/technology.thus forcing the less productive or disturbing elements to die sooner.
And some people will become “gods”.
Bil.A
Oct 16, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Of course people would become “gods”; but isn’t that what everyone wants? Being wise is a very special gift and it is all mostly based on experiences. Living for 1000 years can give you unbeliveable amount of knowledge that would make you superior to anyone else in the world. I believe if this is possible i would go for it straight away. But i would much prefer if a selected group of individuals were to have a life span for 1000 years and were hidden among other people in the world. We could teach people what they do wrong from our own past mistakes. I think even 1000 years is too short to live. 5000 years sounds much better, although i would love to be at the age of 20 - 25 so i stay in top physical condition. I would explore different worlds and just observe and interact. I would cause no problems what so ever. Being bored is a very small price to pay for all the knowledge that is hidden in the universe. Thats all i have to say for now. - 16 year old btw
Raytard
Oct 18, 2007 at 12:50 pm
this sounds like a load of bull shit
Sara
Oct 18, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Raytard, your name is the best ever.
Michael
Nov 8, 2007 at 7:06 am
and after 1000 years we STILL wouldn’t understand women!
But I know one thing… I’m NOT spending another century standing in dress shop holding her purse!
Sara
Nov 8, 2007 at 10:42 am
Michael,
But it looks so good on you! ;)
steve
Dec 13, 2007 at 1:58 pm
so does this bring pro choice or pro life into play again?
poweroftime
Dec 16, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Guys I read most of your comments. You all bring valuable information to the table of life in general. Some of you want long life span, some don’t, isn’t that there prerogative? But to my point life is a tool used threwout space. Back sense Intelligent life became aware on earth. Humans created mythical creatures. These creations are exactly what humans want to become. For one reason or another humans created these mythical gods, to become less inferior so their brains can grow and bring them to life. Which by bring them to life they create their self. With Nano/biotechnology that is exactly what you are doing. This is the first step in becoming what you call a Class 2 Civilization. You still have a lot of work to do, but within another 200 yrs + or - 50 yrs you very well might become a Class 2 Civilization. I’m interested in how this will pan out, I will watch and see.
But for now lets see where you can end up threw the Nano/Biotechnology era. The next step after that, I believe is your ultimate goal or destruction. Don’t know yet, But I will say this longer you live more there is to learn threw out space and time. Learning everything about galaxies doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the Universe. But learning this Universe does. Who knows even I might be surprised at what’s to come or maybe not.
I will say one thing 1000 yrs is still short, 1 million yrs is also short, forever isn’t.
bryan
Jan 11, 2008 at 7:32 am
well I think everyone has a great point about the topic. I for one have always wanted to live to be 100 yrs +. My great grandmother lived to be 109 and just died from old age. Nothing was wronge with her what so ever. However, if i could live to be 1000 yrs old that would be even better for me. I just want to see where we go from here. I want to witness it all. Death is something i hate aswell as everyone does. It sucks just knowing that you have basically 40-50 yrs with loved ones. but really i think in a few hundred years we will be on mars and that would limilt the population if we were to live to be 1000. But, for extreme space I thinks thats way over 1000 yrs to come… REALLY I would say that the LAWS would be really bad. they would have to be. Could u imagine jails, prisons, and detition centers. I sure would hate to get life in prison! limits to children per household would probley have to be in affect to control population for the first 1000 yrs anyway….
Liz
Jan 11, 2008 at 11:58 am
Getting older is fine as long as you get to keep your health (and your mind) as well … we live in interesting times, technology is changing everyday and sometimes, it’s hard to believe that we won’t be around to see all the changes …. but living to 1000 - I don’t know…
miranda
Feb 10, 2008 at 6:12 pm
well it doesn’t really make sense because when there kids they want to be adults and when there adults they want to be kids again. i think that is really weird. anyway it actually would be cool to see what have changed when you where a teen till 1000 years from now. on the other hand i think life is great just the way it is and it should be that way…well thats from my opinion! all i want to know is if you think do to? OMG, 1000 years old : 1
emily
Feb 10, 2008 at 6:22 pm
i have a question . . . is that person frozen? ? ?
emily
Feb 10, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Jan 11, 2008 at 7:32 am
well I think everyone has a great point about the topic. I for one have always wanted to live to be 100 yrs +. My great grandmother lived to be 109 and just died from old age. Nothing was wronge with her what so ever. However, if i could live to be 1000 yrs old that would be even better for me. I just want to see where we go from here. I want to witness it all. Death is something i hate aswell as everyone does. It sucks just knowing that you have basically 40-50 yrs with loved ones. but really i think in a few hundred years we will be on mars and that would limilt the population if we were to live to be 1000. But, for extreme space I thinks thats way over 1000 yrs to come… REALLY I would say that the LAWS would be really bad. they would have to be. Could u imagine jails, prisons, and detition centers. I sure would hate to get life in prison! limits to children per household would probley have to be in affect to control population for the first 1000 yrs anyway….
well if you read this would look familiar to you!!
yo omg lol brb kk im/b wb/wbf/wbasap
Feb 10, 2008 at 6:47 pm
u r so crakin me up, pepol thes days! lol
yo omg lol brb kk im/b wb/wbf/wbasap
Feb 10, 2008 at 6:49 pm
yo tink about how r lives would b. . .
Matthew Farrow
May 4, 2008 at 7:10 am
I had possessed the answer using very fast powerful nanobots and a redone wireless command operating system with old Redhat.
I was attacked at a nightclub by a pile of girls when I screamed the music was too noisey no one heard me scream. They placed a crystal on my eye and used the crystal to try to blind me and take my nano probes. If you do find out how
to live forever someone from another demention will take it for their own benefit.
Needless to say they slipped past the security guards in 1996 and took my stuff when I was out. It was weirder then hell. But yes you could make your own nanobots control them wireless bluetooth program them to rearrange the atoms you have to a younger genetic code and never die. But good ole Spock would probably say that great power and no discipline is foolish.
One must have reason to live so long like a job like space travel or finding out how big this universe really is. Is it finite or infinite? I think it is finite. It has an exact mass and size. Finding other planets that earth people can live on. Or as a form or regenerating a human lifeform to meet with another alien society. Combinitng Bionantechnology and Chronogenics of frozen life or retrieval of the ice man and bringing him
back to life. Or bringing back to life a mummy in egypt. But we still know very little about the workings of the bioelectrical electrical systems of the human soul. Science and religion has not figured out they are one in the same.
We study life to come closer to the creator and the creator wants us as a race to understand science so we won’t have to depend on the creators help all the time. The creators of humanity want us to be more peaceful and more science will be told in pieces in our culture.
And one day we will find out that time is nothing more then a matter of dementional atomic frequency. We still don’t understand gravity A and gravity B. That as we get larger in space time gets faster. As we look down to the atom it
moves so fast that all of it is almost impossible to record. As we look up in space that it moves so slow you need a camera with a huge hard drive and fast forward to see time move. But as you get larger in mass you enter a different time frame because if you were the mass size of the entire size of the universe you would be able to travel across it in no time at all. The gravity A is our gravity on earth and gravity b is the gravity out in the larger masses of space. If you become attracted to Gravity A you stay here on earth. If you become attracted to gravity b you will see time move faster and you will enter the future. A high massive electro magnetic force surrounded an object will attract to the larger dementions of the universe and you will remain in your own time but outside the electromagnetic feild time is moving faster. One would almost be foolish to not take all the things that support life. Like an entire ecosystem being sent through a gravity b time field would be a good idea in case if you went to another time where everyone is worse off then you were on earth.
Nanotechnology would buy us more time to find out the answers to science and religion. Which is a good thing. I tend to think that even if you spent only 100 years finding God is good but 1000 years you would be even happier knowing God let you live as long as our ancestors did in the Bible. It is almost a curse only living 100 years if your lucky. It is like the end times the devil is cursing all of humanity because of his struggle with God.
mary lou
Aug 13, 2008 at 1:01 pm
accept CHRIST as your savior and live 1000 years and then some!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!! even FOREVER!!!! do it today!!
mary lou
Aug 13, 2008 at 1:03 pm
accept CHRIST as your savior and live 1000 years and then some!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
carol hernandez aka baby loca
Oct 21, 2008 at 12:10 pm
idk i dnt thnk i wuld want 2 live dat lng because i neva really lkd my lfe and i still dnt every1 practicually treats me lk sht!!!
carol hernandez aka baby loca
Oct 21, 2008 at 12:14 pm
well im at sku n board on my email so if u wanna hit me up u can if u want
by da way ladys im bi!!
mija_ch@yahoo.com
angie ochoa
Oct 21, 2008 at 12:15 pm
hi guys im angi and carol is my best friends
haha wer jst messin around on da internet
Rutters1983
Dec 9, 2008 at 3:39 am
I would love to see the future, and have always wished of having more time.
People say there would be a population problem, why would there be all that needs to be said is, if you use this technology you can’t have children, which would mean you would be replacing your child’s life with your own and so on, until we reach the point where our space technology can take us to another planet that we could populate. I would be willing to wait to have children till we reached that point and I am sure other people would be willing to wait too.
Also look at what Albert Einstein achieved in his life, imagine if his amazing mind lived for a 1000 years, just a thought.
Amoo
Dec 20, 2008 at 11:58 pm
And verily, you will find them (the Jews) the greediest of mankind for life and (even greedier) than those who - ascribe partners to Allâh (and do not believe in Resurrection - Magians, pagans, and idolaters, etc.). Everyone of them wishes that he could be given a life of a thousand years. But the grant of such life will not save him even a little from (due) punishment. And Allâh is All-Seer of what they do
Mike
Dec 31, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Living a 1,000 years would be cool if you could do it as others have said with a 20-25 year old body. Population growth would probably (guessing) not be that bad because the price tag on this bottle/pill of life would more than likely only allow for the rich to enjoy it.
Private parties have gone into space through Russia’s space tourism program but at what price was that $20-28 million ?..I couldn’t afford it but some people can. I believe at first besides the guinni pigs that it is being tested on, once it is released to the public it will be astronomicly expensive just like a flight to a space station is today. That price in itself will keep population at bay until we have means to accomodate the growth explosion that a lower more affordable price would bring.
I for one could use part of that 1,000 years to decifer Matthew Farrow’s gramatical & spelling errors in that long post I just read above OMG, my brain is fried after trying to make sense of that lol. I mean a few is ok I’m not perfect in my grammar either but my lord that took longer to read than the rest of the article and posts put together!
Back to the subject, I think if & when this miracle drug does come out they still leave some room for nature to cleanse the world of those worthy of Darwin awards ;)…I for one could do without someone with enough smarts to strap a rocket to his back to find out how fast a human can go on rollerblades! lmao
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