There is longevity on both sides of my family. For most of my adult life, people think I'm 10 to 15 years younger than my actual age. There is also no dementia. All my close relatives were sharp until the day they died. About seven years ago I took my dad, then 98, to see a surgeon. When the doctor finished speaking with dad, he turned to me and said, "Your father is amazing. I see people 20 years younger without his mental acuity. How old are you?"
I asked how old he thought I was, and he said sixty, but only because my dad was 98. I told him I was turning 59 the following month. He said to me, "You're going to live to be 120." Dad died the next year after catching COVID, falling a few months short of 100.
But the living to 120 struck a chord with me. I immediately thought, "I'm going to need to work until I'm 90 so I can afford 30 years of retirement!"
I'm lucky that I like my job, but when I take a vacation now, I think it would great just to stay on vacation. At some point, if you are going to live forever, you'll reach a point where you put away enough money that you can live off the interest. Eventually everyone gets there, and then who does the work? I assume fertility fades; while men apparently can generate sperm forever, female eggs have a shelf life. Is it just young children and a few workaholics who sustain an ever increasing population of immortals who do whatever they like? My guess in that scenario is a lot of people starve to death, and immortality loses.
So yes, we would have to have a sense of urgency. If you don't eat your starve. Working keeps you and others fed. So I think my life would be very much like my life if I knew I was living until 120, long years of work and a quarter of my life for retirement.
Assuming that living forever implies that women can bear children healthily for a far longer period, then the ability to have a career and then children sequentially, rather than at the same time, would likely lead to a dramatic improvement in parenting
For men, having more time to mature before having kids would also likely lead to better parenting
In both cases, financial issues could be addressed up front (homes, savings, etc.) to the degree that having at least one parent be home with the kids would be more likely
And unrelated to kids, the ability to multiple, different careers would be wonderful. I made enough money in my first career that I could somewhat afford to change and start over later in life. However, the age discrimination for entry level jobs is huge. That might be as significant if you're aged 200 competing with someone only 100 years old. :-)
Anyway... I would make a deal with the devil (probably) to get just an extra 300 years or so
"Time to play B sides"
Whatever you would still do today if you had forever is what you actually value.
Try hard to get the country / culture / civilisation around me to adapt to the new reality. Without this, I wouldn't seriously expect to live forever!
There is longevity on both sides of my family. For most of my adult life, people think I'm 10 to 15 years younger than my actual age. There is also no dementia. All my close relatives were sharp until the day they died. About seven years ago I took my dad, then 98, to see a surgeon. When the doctor finished speaking with dad, he turned to me and said, "Your father is amazing. I see people 20 years younger without his mental acuity. How old are you?"
I asked how old he thought I was, and he said sixty, but only because my dad was 98. I told him I was turning 59 the following month. He said to me, "You're going to live to be 120." Dad died the next year after catching COVID, falling a few months short of 100.
But the living to 120 struck a chord with me. I immediately thought, "I'm going to need to work until I'm 90 so I can afford 30 years of retirement!"
I'm lucky that I like my job, but when I take a vacation now, I think it would great just to stay on vacation. At some point, if you are going to live forever, you'll reach a point where you put away enough money that you can live off the interest. Eventually everyone gets there, and then who does the work? I assume fertility fades; while men apparently can generate sperm forever, female eggs have a shelf life. Is it just young children and a few workaholics who sustain an ever increasing population of immortals who do whatever they like? My guess in that scenario is a lot of people starve to death, and immortality loses.
So yes, we would have to have a sense of urgency. If you don't eat your starve. Working keeps you and others fed. So I think my life would be very much like my life if I knew I was living until 120, long years of work and a quarter of my life for retirement.
Assuming that living forever implies that women can bear children healthily for a far longer period, then the ability to have a career and then children sequentially, rather than at the same time, would likely lead to a dramatic improvement in parenting
For men, having more time to mature before having kids would also likely lead to better parenting
In both cases, financial issues could be addressed up front (homes, savings, etc.) to the degree that having at least one parent be home with the kids would be more likely
And unrelated to kids, the ability to multiple, different careers would be wonderful. I made enough money in my first career that I could somewhat afford to change and start over later in life. However, the age discrimination for entry level jobs is huge. That might be as significant if you're aged 200 competing with someone only 100 years old. :-)
Anyway... I would make a deal with the devil (probably) to get just an extra 300 years or so