Quu

What if our lifespan was much longer, even over a 1,000 years?

People would have had more time to gain knowledge and (life) experience, would development have been faster? Scientists, inventors and explorers would have had longer time to do their research. And spiritual teachers would have been here longer sharing their wisdom. Of course, "bad guys" would have had also more time to do bad deeds...

Or would development have been much slower, because same people would be in power longer time?

What would be history (and current world) like?

AlpinLuke

Not so easy to think about.

One of the engine of the evolution of our society has been just the fight against death [to enlarge our lifespan]. This has carried us to discover a different social environment: the environment in which aged elders are a visible percentage of the general population.

Now, it will depend on how the brain will age. I mean, are we going to live 1,000 years with a sane and adult body, but the brain of an aged elder .... or will we have an adult and sane brain too?

This can sound an odd doubt, but in the studies about aging, the condition of the brain is a main point. The brain, as all the organs, needs to be used and to keep on functioning at a certain level of activity to maintain a good condition. If we become lazy in using our mind we will be old brains in young bodies.

Or we will spend an incredible amount of money in medicines to keep our brain at a good level of functioning .... for 920 years on 1000!

tjadams

Good points about while we'd be very old, would our brains be able to keep up?
I would hate to be 300 years old and then start to loose it all mentally and be
a burden to my family for 400-500 more years.

dagul

That is a possibility with the use of genetic engineering. Suspension of aging between the age of 40 to 50 when a person reaches that age and by attaining the age of nine hundred fifty it will start to decay and cells are dying as it use when a person reaches the age of fifty years old as it is these days. That'll be expensive lifestyle of aging. Imagine, how one should date at the age of 788 with a 30 to 40 years old ladies. Mars should be a colony of earth at that time.

Louise C

The world would get awfully crowded.

Crystal Rainbow

Who on earth would people want to live all those years, having worked in an old peoples home when they got old they were ready to leave their mortal souls.

Brisieis

I don't think he means in the context of - we get old as quick and deteriorate as quickly. If we lived 1000 years, we would probably be youthful for half or more of it, for it to be realistic.

Otherwise we would be like walking mummies.

haloman3

I see enough of them commuting on the Underground every day ..

Brisieis

You sure they're all English?

haloman3

In London ? on the underground....nah...mostly Eastern European i think...you can tell by the armpits...