A 200-year life is a fate worse than death

In The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Marvin the robot is left outside the time machine and has to wait for millions of years while his friends travel through millennia in an instant. But far from relishing his long life, Marvin is thrown into depression: The first ten million years were the worst. And the second ten million: they were the worst, too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that, I went into a bit of a decline.

Philosopher Martin Heidegger argues that we need the threat of death to motivate us to do anything. If we could live forever, we wouldnt fill our time by completing PhDs and travelling the world, but would spend eternity waiting lazily for the next millennium to get started on our life goals. Two hundred years is still finite, so we might manage to make headway in a career eventually, but those extra 120 years may not make any difference to lifetime achievements. The only hope is that there are enough box sets to last us.

Obsolescence

In ten years time, the 15-year-old geeks who are glued to their smart watches will bring their coding skills to the working world, shunting older employees even further down the pecking order. Those who were born without childhood access to iPhones and the internet cannot keep pace with the fast-paced habits of the next generation, and so well be displaced by their computer-focused minds. Anyone over the age of 30 has felt a creeping sense of obsolescence, so once youre into triple figures, prepare to enjoy existence as a living antique.

Generational conflict

Overcrowding problems will begin in the home as families struggle to maintain the peace between five generations of relatives. Seventy-year-olds may be fond of their grandkids, but the fourth generation of screaming youngsters are more of an annoyance than blessing. And the value of blood relatives cant outweigh the frustration of dealing with great-great-great uncle Alberts centuries-old values. Playing happy families is difficult enough with three generations lets not make it any harder.

The end of romance

Marriages are already under the strain from our ever-increasing lifespan. As 60-somethings realise that theyve still got another 20 or 30 years to endure alongside their significant other, the silver splitters have helped bump up divorce rates later in life. A 200-year lifespan would firmly destroy any lasting fantasies of romance, as made-for-each-other soul mates struggle to find the conversation to fill the evenings of 170 years of monogamy. If we want to live to be 200, well have to kiss goodbye to the idea of true love. Marriage is for decades, not for centuries.

The practical matters of population growth, retirement, and the inevitable extension of childhood into the mid-40s make the matter of extending life seem even more grim. But from the perspective of personal happiness, we should give up hopes of defying death and be content with our eighty-odd years. Life is short, and we should keep it that way while enjoying what we can of it. The horror of a 200th birthday part is a fate worse than death.

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A 200-year life is a fate worse than death