Think of the scientific advancements we might have made had people like Einstein or Fermi or Tesla been able to live another fifty or hundred years, or were still alive.
If we ever manage to find a way off-planet, being able to live for half a millenium (or "forever", or until-I-decide) sounds AMAZING.
It does sound like quite the economic problem, though, and would certainly make earthbound resources more troublesome.
It's one of those things that's great until you realize that as resource constrained people in a capitalist society we will basically poor our scientific advancement into the preservation of the wealthiest. Or birth control: cue the monkey house.
We're not remotely resource-constrained IMO. And the universe doesn't become a zero-sum game for a very very long time, if ever. We are, however, severely imagination constrained IMO and that's more than enough to suck all the fun out of existence at times.
Exhausting and pointless are obviously subjective.
As for the environmental issues and being selfish, this doesn't have anything to do with how long you live, but rather with how you live. Obviously, a society with life expectation that is so long would have to reduce the birth rates substantially (or, rather, keep them the same in the births-per-lifetime department). But if you can do that, then there's no reason why it's any more straining on the environment, whether its 1 person living for 500 years, 5 people living for 100 years each, or 10 people living for 50 years each.
You could say it's "selfish" to live one life where there could be ten, but how can one be selfish with respect to non-existing persons? How is it different from someone being "selfish" and not having children, for example? And why wouldn't it apply to ourselves with our current lifespans? Why not, say, euthanize everyone at 30, and use the existing resources to sustain more short-lived people, if the number of people having lived is the metric?
> You could say it's "selfish" to live one life where there could be ten, but how can one be selfish with respect to non-existing persons?
It's more selfishly using the resources younger people can use. If you're eighty, I'd rather feed the eight year old. Until we move beyond resource constraints (lol) this is going to be a major effect of the rich being able to afford long lives AND food and the poor affording neither.
But what makes eighty special? Would you say the same thing about someone who was younger? "If you're forty, I'd rather feed the four year old"? If not, then why not?
The only objective metric I can think of is that today, 80 is usually not an age at which a person can do much. But if we have technology that lets you live much longer, and people at 80 would be physically like, say, 20-year-old today, that goes away.
And, of course, the number of young people "in the pipeline" can be regulated by controlling birth rates.
It entirely depends on whether or not the person lives selfishly for those 500 years. If they continue gaining and using experience they could be exceedingly productive.
If they sit around doing nothing but eating and playing video games, that would be a waste.
Productive at what? All of this assumes some grand human plan you can work at. Thus far the vast majority of "productive" humans are "productively" burning through resources with little value: our burn rate is ALREADY crazy with an upper cap on age.
