Living Forever?

Have you ever thought about living to be 1,000 years old? Have you ever thought that it could be really possible? Probably not. But what if I told you that it was possible, even probable.

Now that sounds like an enormous jump in technology, doesn't it? The good thing is that we don't need to do it all at once. Let me explain. Biologists in the field believe that in the next fifteen to thirty years we will be able to implement in people moderate age reduction techniques now used in mice. That means at minimum, a life expectancy increase of 30 years. Not preserving an old person for 30 more years, but being physiologically 30 years younger. On the exponential scale of technological advancement, this gives us the jump start we need to stave off aging indefinitely. Within that 30 years of life science has bought us, we will have found better ways of putting off the aging process, giving us an even greater lifespan. Soon enough, our life expectancy should rise more than a year, every year, effectively meaning that we will not age. Of course we can still die by a host of other means; accidents, violence, global catastrophe, certain diseases (although it's worth mentioning that 80% of diseases affect us in old age, and this same technology that is fighting aging is also fighting these other diseases).

Don't believe this is really science? Check this page out.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39

Now we have to ask ourselves, should we live forever? What about overpopulation, immortal dictators, the starving poor in Africa? Wouldn't it be boring to live so long? I think these are good questions, but I don't think they weigh as much as the fact that aging kills one out of one people that are not killed by something else first. Whats worse to me, is that it is a very slow, painful, and sometimes degrading death. These years are the ones I fear the most in life, all my friends dying around me, loosing my faculties to do the things I want, and knowing that it is only going to get worse until you die. So for me, dieing is not the scary thing, but being old. Personally, I would love to live to be a thousand. Then I could be the renaissance man that I always wanted to be.

Public Transportation

One of the things that I most hope changes soon with new technology (and yet seems least likely), is the matter of our dependence on the automobile. Technology is well underway in creating more fuel efficient cars, and politicians are lauding how we should decrease our dependence on foreign oil (all well and good). But nobody seems to give much thought about public transportation being the wave of the future. As world population increases, we are going to have to use our land more efficiently. Go ahead and look on Google Earth, fully two thirds of our developed land is dedicated towards roads and parking lots. But lets look at some other pros and cons.

On average, we spend $9,000 every year to own, maintain,and run a car. That's $18,000 for a two car family! Now lets start talking about taxes. I'm sure you can imagine the untold billions that are spent on building and maintaining our roads. Now lets think about energy consumption, our dependence on the Middle East, air pollution, water pollution because of impermeable surfaces, and auto accidents being the largest killer of kids 0-25. It seems to me that our use of the automobile is one of the worst habits we've got.

Ok, but lets step back for a moment. The car is what drives our society. It lets us get to work, live where we want to, truck cargo around the country, and it gives us the freedom to go virtually wherever we want. How can we give that up? Also, using public transportation is inconvenient, slow, unstylish, and sometimes dangerous. That's exactly what I would like to change. I think that if our government could spend half of it's transportation budget on public transportation, than these facilities would be clean, efficient, quick, safe, and free. That's right, free. The amount that it cost to run public transportation is so low compared to automobile travel, that I believe it would be simple matter for the government to pick up the cost completely, in order to encourage people to leave their cars behind.

Of course, this newly funded transportation system would need a massive overhaul. When I think of transportation in the future, I am not thinking about buses, subways and trains. When it comes to public transportation of the future, I think Walt Disney had it right; monorails and people movers. 1) Monorails; fairly long distance trains which would go at higher speed, and be elevated above the ground for minimal obstruction in urban areas, and minimal environmental intrusion in nature. The elevated trains might also to less susceptible to vandalism and crime. 2)People Movers; although the ones at Disneyland didn't go very fast (it was a '60s prototype after all), they could go as fast as a car once they sped up. Since you can jump right on at a station in a continuous line, there should almost never be any waiting. And because they are on tracks going a regulated speed, there will virtually never be any accidents. Unlike Disneyland, these people movers would be on a vast network which would connect society much the same way that roads do now, minus the inefficiency, fuel consumption and accidents. Very similar to the cars in Minority Report without the weirdness of going up the sides of buildings.

The Home Office

I do believe and hope in the near future, a good portion of many people's work will be done from home. With the accessibility of the internet and communication tools such as IM, ftp sites, video conferencing and such, distance will not be so much of an issue. Conference call programs, such as Web-Ex, are progressing fast, and the practicality of video conferencing is getting much better. I am also seeing trends in the design programs of my field of architecture allowing their subscribers to install their programs on one's home computer, as well as their office computer.

The benefits of working at home are multi-faceted. first, you will not have to commute to work everyday, saving gas and time in traffic (not to mention the environment). Offices will not have to spend the electricity their employee's might otherwise use at work. They may not even require as many work space, as employees would be more willing to have a smaller workspace or share one on a rotation, if they are only coming in a few days a week. Of course, the great fear is that efficiency or productivity will decrease significantly, as employee's working from home many not indeed be working, or they may be distracted by other goings on at home.

I feel that programs may be developed to solve this problem. employees can check into a server like a punch clock, and supervisors can use remote access to see their employee's screen, and can tell if they are working or not. The overseer program might even raise a flag if nothing has been done in a few minutes. At the end of the day, the employee's production should speak of their own work ethic. This may also make it more likely that employers will reward good productivity, rather than implied productivity, or extended presence.

Electronic Government

In my mind, the internet has the capability of bringing power back to the people more directly. Of course the most serious problem with electronic voting is security, and error prevention, as these could have major consequences. Best to start small and develop the program and give it more responsibility as security and errors become less of a concern.

I say, start out with home owners associations and allow every member to vote on decisions instead of the board. This will make people more involved in their complex, and make it less influence by an individual's preferences. Hopefully this program would make it's way to the national level where people could vote directly for president I don't know why we don't already). But we could also vote on bills in congress. This would mean that every citizen would take more interest in politics, as they can be an active part of it. They will vote directly for bills and measures they care about, and abstain from those they don't. Of course, education about politics (as well as argument and logic) will become more important. I can't fathom what congressmen's jobs will be, or how we can vote on a secret measure, but i am sure that it would work itself out in time.

One interesting idea would be bill written as wikis. One fear might be that the masses are not as informed as congress and will not make as wise of decisions. However, I believe that people would only vote on those issues that they are interested in, and presumably know something about (at least as well as the politicians do). I think the people's collective intelligence will far outweigh the average congressman's on any given subject. One thing that would be very different, though I am not sure it would be a bad thing, is politicking. 300 million peoplecannot make deals for certain agendas, although writing bills as wikis might solve this problem.

Cell Phone GPS

As technology advance, the use of cell phones will become much greater. They might encompass all your personal information, effectively becoming your ID, driver's license, social security card etc. It could also be your debit and credit card. You would no longer have to carry around these cards, simply sign up for the program, and download your information to your cell phone.

Cell Phones are already becoming cameras, hard drives, music players and video players. One could simply add video messaging with GPS installed. You could track your kids, know where your spouse is, or see if your friends are nearby, or at home. Of course all these settings will be adjustable for privacy. However, it will hopefully put a damper of cheating spouses and wayward children. Obviously it could help with missing persons, as authorities might have privacy overrides (insert political fears here).

Also GPS phones could give you directions from where you are at to your destination on foot or by car. This might also help you if you are lost. They could also download websites about your location or stats about it. Dating services might allow you to see if a potential date is nearby, or you could program your phone to tell you if any of your friends are within a mile of you. Police could track criminals down, who would be reluctant to abandon their phones, as it has their ID and cash on it. In fact, vigilantes might have their means suspended, and people on probation could be much more easily monitored. Traffic stats would be easy to compute, and advertising could be directed towards your demographic in stores and on the road. Music and art preferences could follow you around in any smart house, and light could automatically turn on and off when you enter or leave a room.

As GPS gets cheaper and smaller, I see us putting them on our cars to prevent theft, on our pets (and other animals for research), perhaps even on children and our keys so we won't lose them (or will our keys also be a part of our cell phone?) Obviously, privacy will be a central issue, and settings will have to be adjustable. But as long as the people's and state's rights are clearly defined, I think it will make our society much more efficient.