tony draper

Interesting Horizon episode just been on re aging ,how to stop same, how to extend human life, dumbed down as the Horizon series has become of late it was as I said still interesting,but not once was the obvious problem of the human race all living to be 100 or more was raised.
Thick end of seven billion of us swarming about this mudball now,are they mad.

SASless

But one would have to work until dead to support one's self as no social program could pay for folks being retired for 30-40 years. Just another way of getting the very last Shilling out of us!

Loose rivets

I've suddenly got old, and I don't think much of it.

MG23

A friend once worked out the ultimate carrying capacity of the Earth if we all lived in tower blocks and grew plants with hydroponics, etc... I forget the precise number, but I think it was a few trillion. Seven billion immortals would not be a problem, and most would emigrate off the planet or into a non-physical existence at some point during their life; similarly, the birth rates would drop even lower if people knew they could still have kids five hundred years from now.

Either way, I do often wonder whether the post-boomer generation will be the first to have some immortals, or whether that honor will go to their kids; despite the recent research on curing aging I strongly suspect that turning the results into viable technology will take too long for the boomers.

arcniz

Quite so! The inevitable consequence of even today's prolongation of age will be sufficient to break the bank in most nations.

What must needs come about is a restructuring of the "working" concept altogether - 's bout due, given that the current implicit model for many workers is Manchester style, 1850 version. Throw in some online teleworking methods and methodically slice certain kinds o jobs (investment banking, anyone?) into a few thousand discrete pieces from each - with one new ( but well worn) worker per subcomponent type of work, and ya'll have an actual sensible rationale and productive employment mechanism for employing older folks, in fractional jobs, until they're on the verge of solid dotty.

Result of a top-down redefinition of what comprises work and how it is to be done will not only create opportunity for the folks on the margins, but it will also magnify the real productive capacity of the society, and so doing will create additional wealth for the sharing.