scientist claim they have found a way to prolong the human lifespan for up
to 500 years . the only down side is sexual organs must be removed in order
for this to work.
so the question is , would any of you want to live so long w/o sex?
talk amongst yourselves.
[Edited on 26/10/2003 by ariadne]
____________________
diane-le-fay
Coward
Posts: 6 Registered: 19/8/2003 Status: Offline
posted on 25/10/2003 at 05:45 PM
i wouldn't. i hardly want to live right now, and im not very old what so
ever. plus, living to be 500, that would mean that you aquire a lot of
knowladge right? and wouldn't you probably love to pass that onto the next
generation? preferably your own? i guess you could have a child, and THEN
have the operation that enables you to live that seemingly never ending
amount of time, but would there be a way to have it reversed if you decide
you want another kid? i don't think it would be right to live that long,
its not natural. what would happen to your memory? your body? would there
be any extreme side effects that would change your life even more? how many
people would really do that? live that long, and have to tell people about
it. get attached to people, and see them die. so much trama would go on,
can our minds handle it? i doubt it. seeing that much would surely leave
some shadows and scares behind.
then again, there would be the happy memories, the good times to remember.
if you even can remember that far back. there would be more time to prefect
the art of living, learn new skills, teach more people, all in all
accomplish more. but i still say its not worth it. what would you do
without sex?
____________________ We are working against the cure, for the cure of anything is death
Actually, they tampered with the "clock" in an earthworm that extended it's
lifecycle to the equivalent of 500 human years. I guess the "clock" in
earthworms is similar to the ones in humans, and yes the sexual organs are
removed. It's nowhere near applicable in humans because tho the clocks are
similar...well it's a worm.
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
Meranda_Jade
Fanatic
Posts: 511 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 25/10/2003 at 06:56 PM
Hypothetically speaking, yes, I think I would like to live for 500 years. I
hate the idea of missing anything and 500 years would give me time to see
and experience so much, not to mention watch as things change over 500
years. I think it would be fascinating. 500 years without sex? Maybe. Just
maybe. it woud depend on a lot of things. Would I be satisfied with just
touching, hugging, kissing someone I'm in love with or would I always yearn
for something I could never have? Would it be worth it to have that
constant yearning and be able to do nothing about it? Maybe it would.
Especially if I found someone who touched me deeply 300 years after I would
have died.
*thinking about it some more* good topic ariadne...
____________________
Ironboots
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 893 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 25/10/2003 at 10:25 PM
500 years without sex?
...man...
You're talking to a once-a-day guy... I don't know if I could handle
that...
But if I had no sexual desire, then I guess I'd go for it. It'd be
different, but the benefits of living longer would be worth it.
But then I don't even know if I'd -want- to live 500 years... I mean, this
place is pretty crappy, and I've only lived 18 years in it... That's a drop
in the bucket compared to 500 years...
But then again, after 300 or so years of study, maybe I would get a
breakthrough and get Dragonball Z-style powers... Then it'd be cool... I'd
love to fly through the air and blow stuff up with my chi/ki energy...
But then again, it might just be 65 good years, followed by 435 years of
being stuck in a retirement home... And to think I gave up sex for it...
OH and one more thing...I don't think it's the FUN stuff they remove, just
the reproductive parts that produce the hormones and all that. So you'd
still get to have sex, but we'd all be 500+ years old, and seriously
androgenous, so ladies the bick isn't just for your legs anymore, and
gents, start making appts at your local manicurist.
I would WANNA live that long, I just don't think I'd SURVIVE. Just think,
I'm livin an extra 500 years, everyone ELSE is livin an extra 500
years....someone'd get pretty sick of me pretty fast, I'm sure, and take
matters into their own hands.
If I did manage to skim by for that long, I'd do it, no question. Of
course I'd have to wait even longer to die and skip out on all my credit
card debts, but just think of the fun I could have in the meantime.
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
Anya
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 656 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 26/10/2003 at 01:22 AM
There's a several ways to look at it. I can live 500 years and get more
knowledge, experience more of life, and everything like that. However,
sometimes it can be a pain since you end up having many loved ones
die...assuming you're the only one who is 500. If not humans, maybe
animals that you grow attached to.
ariadne
Member
Posts: 107 Registered: 26/9/2003 Status: Offline
posted on 26/10/2003 at 05:55 AM
of course scientists cannot be sure how this type of experiment would
effect humans. i just thought it was interesting. about the sex part i am
not sure exactly what this entails for the guys. women have hysterectomies
all the time but receive hormone replacement. from what i understand they
have to eliminate all reproductive hormones in order for this to work , if
this were really possible and everyone went through with it life would be
totally different. we may all become vulcans.
[Edited on 26/10/2003 by ariadne]
____________________
Merry_Widow
Fanatic
Posts: 598 Registered: 24/8/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 26/10/2003 at 11:28 AM
I can't help but think of Eos and Tithonus...sure you would live, but what
would the quality of life be?
Besides, if I get bored now, what the hell am I going to be doing for 500
years?
____________________ Okay, dazzle me.
einzelgaenger
Coward
Posts: 9 Registered: 22/10/2003 Status: Offline
posted on 26/10/2003 at 03:50 PM
I would be up for it. Who knows? In a 100 hundreds they may have a way
for my to live to a 1000, can give me back sexual organs, and demand I have
lots of sex.
I think it'd be cool as hell to live for 500 years in one life.
I don't think I ever fully educated myself about how the penis functions
regarding hormones. I mean females don't have to have their ovaries in
order for the vagina and their clitoris to work as usual, but once a man's
grown does his penis work without having his testes?
____________________ "When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never
tried before." ~Mae West
God but could you IMAGINE the age of RETIREMENT?! I'm sorry, but I'd
rather live 70-80 years and work for 50 of them than live to be 500 and
work 400 of them.
It'd be pointless, you see, because I'd kill myself.
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
Meranda_Jade
Fanatic
Posts: 511 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 27/10/2003 at 10:03 PM
I think the idea would be to make a fortune during the first 100 years so
you could live well for the next 400. What would you do with 400 years of
free time? Since we're thinking hypothetically and all...
____________________
BlueLinn
Fanatic
Posts: 246 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 23/1/2004 at 01:37 PM
as long as it was only the overies and the woumb that was removed I'd be
all up for it. but if my hole was closed up and I had no clit.. then HELL
NO... I like sex a bit too much
____________________ When the world is over, will we wonder how it began?
Tiresias
Occasional Poster
Posts: 12 Registered: 24/7/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 23/1/2004 at 02:30 PM
You wouldn't happen to have a link to the story, would you?
I think it might be interesting to live for 500 years. But then there's
always the possibility that you'd trade your fun bits only to have the
world get hit by a meteor or something 10 years later. And after a while,
statistics would start to catch up and any number of accidents could befall
you. While I find sex somewhat dull lately, I don't think I'd want to
write it off just yet on the off chance to amass 500 years' worth of
knowledge.
For some reason I am now singing "Princes of the Universe" by Queen softly
to myself...
Rogue
Member
Posts: 199 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 23/1/2004 at 07:04 PM
Dude, I would destroy a large nation to live for 500 years, but it would be
largely for the purposes of having sex and watching my enemies die of old
age. I'd take lots of sex and death at 35 before I would take the normal
sex and death at 80. I would qualify that and tell you much more detail
than you wanted to know by saying that my "sex organs" are not the parts of
my body that I tend to use most during sexual encounters, but that would
get us nowhere.
Psychopixi
Fanatic
Posts: 376 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 26/1/2004 at 03:30 AM
Depends on how I aged - I wouldn't want to spend 500 years getting older
and older. I wouldn't be ABLE to have sex by the end cause I'd be too frail
and weak to move. Getting old has to be my biggest fear anyway because I
really don't want to have to deal with going blind / deaf / weak, but even
more scary than that is the thought of going senile. Death would be a laugh
cojmpared to that. So if the 500 years was spent as a demented old lady...
then no thank you.
____________________ Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.
OH you'd age slowly, don't worry, because slowing down the biological clock
and increasing your life span would coincide with slowing aging in general.
The reason we age is that we just wear out, and we wear out because our
genes are programmed to split and reproduce so many times during our life.
We age because this process slows down, genes don't split and become new
genes quick enough to repair damage and wear and tear on the stuff that
makes us up. The genes responsible for cleaning up our systems aren't
reproducing quick enough, allowing more free radicals to inflict damage,
more gunk to build up in our arteries, and don't absorb enough of the right
stuff to keep our metabolisms high and our skin stretchy. When they "slow
down the clock" they are slowing down the decay of genes that determine our
lifecycle.
I think....
So in other words you won't end up looking like a misused muppet
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
i *shock of shcks* agree with betty... it is the rest of life... I mean sex
is great... but frankly my quality of life is not based on how often I get
my dick wet...
the question, truly, should be... is it worth living that long as something
unnatural?
Feral
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
anyhow, moving on from that earthstopping moment curtesy of feral agreeing
with me *gasp*...to the "unnatural" part of it.
TECHNICALLY.....everything is natural in the grand scope of things. Each
of our technological or biological advances are simply the natural course
of a large brain. Tools may have seemed unnatural at first, but look how
far we got with those.
Long ago evolution meant BIOLOGICAL evolution, ie: you mutated over several
generations to better fit your enviroment and give you a better whack at
survival.
Chances are since humans no longer have to physically adapt to our
enviroment (we adapt our enviroment to fit US) we will no longer have the
need to physically "evolve" as we have since we first took a stroll out of
the trees. It seems that our path in "evolution" now lies in technology
and in our brains, and what we can do with both to prolong our survival and
make a more comfortable enviroment.
Drugs, medicines, contact lenses, fingernail polish, shampoo, complex
surgeries, the internet, can ALL be called "unnatural", but all in all it
IS all natural, both in the physical sense and "ethical" sense.
Some might call it "playing god" or "brutalizing the natural order" or
whatever, but so is abortion, chemotherapy, laser vision correction, hair
dye, airplanes.
"if man was meant to fly he'd have given us wings"~ very popular when the
wright brothers were attempting an "absurd" experiment. Now it's so common
we don't even THINK about it. Maybe someday we'll be referred to as
superstitious dullards and naysayers for. Maybe I'll get to see it, if
they can pull their heads out of their butts, move on from worms and GET ME
MY MAGIC PILL.
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.