Closer, But Still Missing The Point
An op-ed in the Australian has fun with the imagined nuts and bolts of a 1000-year life span and actuarial escape velocity - the result of advancing medical technology. "I think I last gave you an update on my busy life two years ago, on the occasion of my 300th birthday. At that stage, the human lifespan was understood to be an all-too-brief 500 years or so. But now that new advances in gerontology have stretched our fleeting time on this earth to a full millennium, I feel all sorts of new possibilities - and difficulties - opening before me." The missed point? That the long-lived character is alive and healthy rather than suffering the alternative - and that even an op-ed columnist can plausibly imagine enjoying a full and rewarding life for hundreds of years. Boredom is an entirely elective activity, no matter how long your life.
Link: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16937398%255E37556,00.html