this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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How would a longer lifespan affect technological development? (lemmy.radio)
submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Assuming here that longer lifespan also means slower birthrate, I can see two sides to this argument:

  • Development would be slower because there's less turnover over time, and fresh eyes aren't looking at the same problems.
  • Development would be faster because a single person could build on centuries of experience rather than having to train newcomers.

How have you approached this problem in your own projects?

I've gone with the second option in my own setting. A yinrih reaches maturity at around 53 Earth years, and lives for over 7 centuries on average. I've stated elsewhere that they achieve spaceflight 5000 years after gaining sapience, which if you scale that to a human lifespan would be like H. sapiens going from crudely knapped flint hand axes to orbital flight in 500 years.

In the yinrih's case, there was no ice age to impede the invention of agriculture, and they unlocked writing at the start of the game, so to speak, instead of having to spend science points to invent it.

But most of all, they were hyperfocused on getting to the stars before even knowing what exactly the stars were, so they spent a lot of collective energy answering a lot of questions. What are the stars? If other sophonts dwell among the stars, and we ourselves are sophonts, does that mean we have our own star? Is that what that hot light in the daytime sky is? Why is there a round shadow cast on the ring on summer nights? Does that mean the earth we stand on is round?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

I can see arguments for both sides.

  • Low-Development: Long lifespans lead to people taking a generally longer view on the present/future, and this leads to a lack of urgency in solving the problems of today when they will (hypothetically) be easier to solve with better tools tomorrow, only complacency means no one is making the better tools of tomorrow.
  • High-Development: Long lifespans allow for greater accumulation and mastery of skill; Legendary creators with centuries, not decades, of experience create magnificent wonders almost beyond imagining, wise and aged theorists achieve greater intuitive leaps to new understanding than the short-lived could imagine, technology is urgently needed to automate away the mundane aspects of their craft so they can focus more on the visionary parts and contribute even more to society. imagine how much higher someone like NIkola Tesla or Frank Lloyd Wright could take their skill or art if they lived a thousand years instead of 75.
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A wise man plants trees even when he'll never enjoy the shade.

With substantially longer lifespans, people would plan further ahead by default, which long-term is a good thing.

Advancements wouldn't spread as fast, but people wouldn't jump to stupid get rich schemes as much.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Por que no los dos? What if we increased wealth inequality until we ended up with one short-lived group and one long-lived group? Best of both worlds?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Nope, but there's a lot of fiction like that already.

Altered Carbon for instance has the wealthy able to swap bodies at a whim, effectively making them immortal.

However, for the vast majority...

One scene that always stuck out was a brief shot of a family at a "resleeving clinic". Two middle aged parent brought their six year old daughter in, she was brought out in the body of a man so old that he was probably her grandpa's age.

People arrested for minor sentences get their body auctioned off, and then thrown into whatever scraps no one else would buy on release.

But it's been done a lot, it would be interesting to see humans naturally (and equally) have significantlynlonger lifespans.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Eloi vs Morlocks?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Yes and engineered by Elon and the Murdochs

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I've approached this with my own aliens, a species which can routinely live to 1,000 years due to advancements in medical technology. Their average life span in generally between 700-800 years so a long time. For them technological development didn't actually move slower in comparison, as there's a lot of factors that goes into developing tech with the environment, locale economics, and geopolitics playing a much larger role in general. But one thing of note, because they live so long this gives them the opportunity to become skilled in a variety of trades in comparison to other short lived sophonts which means they tend to prefer technology that's more geared towards increases in individual productivity and self-sufficiency than say mercantilism or mass commerce.

I'd imagine generational differences would be pretty extreme if they developed so quickly. Early cultures didn't really have a concept of futurisms or progression, life was cyclical. If tech advancement was faster and occurred over the course of a single generation, this greatly changes their perspective of religion and the world around them. The idea of "progressing" might flavor their words perspective much earlier in their history than with us. I'm still developing this part for my own aliens