Lets say in 2030 following a bunch of significant break through discoveries, expectancy for those that can afford it goes from currently ~85 to ~150. Initially only the super rich can afford it, but it doesn't take long for it to become an order of magnitude cheaper.

By 2050 the original tech (which is mostly out dated), is the same cost as a nice new car ~$50k in today's money, the cutting edge stuff is still 1000x the cost but has a much more significant effect, think at least another 300 years.

The same pattern holds, by 2070 the the original tech is $500, the 300 year tech is $50k and effective immortality (medical) is now available in the market for $50M.

What would the ramifications be on society?

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[–] BalpeenHammer 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don't think it's possible to cheat biology this way but maybe by replacing biological parts with mechanical ones we can sustain our brain for a long time.

Of course civilisation looks like it's going to collapse in a couple of hundred years due to climate change but let's set that aside.

On the plus side it will foster more long term thinking in the population. On the minus side the world population will hit a trillion and we will have to kill another person just to prevent them from killing us.

[–] absGeekNZ 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It is a lot more possible than you think, the key will be the harness the power of regeneration. It may seem far fetched, it isn't though.

20 years is a long time in medical research.

In the 80's AIDS was a death sentence, by 2000 there were drugs that made it less terrible, today it is manageable, in 20 more years it will be curable.

As for population growth, the birth rates are below replacement as it is, without immigration we would already be shrinking. I don't think run away population growth would cause issues for quite a while ~100 years or so; we would need to slow immigration quite a bit.
I think birth rates would continue to fall.

I agree with the idea that long term thinking would probably see a major improvement. Hopefully we would get the climate change thing sorted out, long term thinking and all.

World population would grow slowly, but continuously, to offset this, humanity would need to expand, initially to earth orbit, then beyond. I would put this in the 1-200 year timeframe. I don't think we would hit 1 trillion for quite a while, 1000 years or so (assuming a low birth rate, and very few deaths), there are plenty of resources just in our solar system to cater to a trillion people, 100 years is an awful long time in science and tech, let alone 1000. 100 years ago we were in the middle of the horse/car transition, 1000 years ago paper was advanced tech.

[–] Dave 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

As for population growth, the birth rates are below replacement as it is, without immigration we would already be shrinking.

Are you sure? NZ has about 30-35,000 deaths per year, and about 60,000 births. Without immigration we would shrink, but only because of emigration.

[–] absGeekNZ 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You are correct, that was a remembered stat, it must have included the emigration. Looking at births-and-deaths shows that the "natural increase" is shrinking considerably though.

[–] Dave 2 points 9 months ago

I find it super interesting that the number of births has hovered around 60,000 for most of the last 70 years or so while our population has gone from about 2 million to over 5 million in that time.