RE: ethical problem? Some kind of problem, anyway...

O'Regan, Emlyn (Emlyn.ORegan@actew.com.au)
Tue, 20 Apr 1999 11:56:45 +1000

[...]
>
>How long do you all think marriages will last in a world where everyone is
>ageless. I know I'm not going to let the preacher include, "Till death do
>us part." in the vows. I suspect that the average marriage in the future
>would last for a shorter period of time than it does today. To be blunt and
>insensitive, I think that many people stay in a relatively loveless
>relationship as they get older because they feel there are no other options.
>
[...]
>
>Scott

I think a lot of people stay in loveless relationships as they get older because they think "what the hell, one of us will die soon enough". Which leads to the same kind of dilemma in the context of agelessness, and I wonder how people will resolve it.

Similarly with jobs. I think that a lot of people work their 40+ years in a career happy to know that it will come to an end in some imaginable period of time: I'd say a lot of (or most) people don't like their career, or to put it another way, if they were idependently wealthy, they'd stop working. Try telling them that they're ageless now, and the retirement age has moved to 400, or 800, or 100,000, or never.

Hopefully they'll quit, and do something interesting. Go surfing? Start building Transhuman AIs?

There are some excellent, and very difficult changes to come from extended life.