10-21-2019, 11:33 AM
Todd:
One reason I can think of for population reduction being difficult is that it might well lead to social problems. To reduce the population, it's necessary to reduce the birth rate; but that necessarily shifts the average age of the population upwards, a phenomenon already being seen in Japan.
Even if one assumes that the various problems of old age are reduced or eliminated by such things as boosterspice, it's quite likely that someone two hundred years old (even if they mostly have the body of a 30-year-old) would have rather inflexible attitudes and might find it difficult to respond to technological change.
I said "mostly" there because it is fairly obvious that a boosterspice-enhanced body is in fact aged; the fact that Tree-of-Life is lethal to oldsters, even if kept apparently young by advanced medicine, is evidence of that.
None of this applies, perhaps, to someone who is kept in all respects physiologically 25 or so at the age of 700 or more, as in OA.
BTW, why isn't this discussed in the books? Because they are ficitional stories written to entertain, perhaps.
One reason I can think of for population reduction being difficult is that it might well lead to social problems. To reduce the population, it's necessary to reduce the birth rate; but that necessarily shifts the average age of the population upwards, a phenomenon already being seen in Japan.
Even if one assumes that the various problems of old age are reduced or eliminated by such things as boosterspice, it's quite likely that someone two hundred years old (even if they mostly have the body of a 30-year-old) would have rather inflexible attitudes and might find it difficult to respond to technological change.
I said "mostly" there because it is fairly obvious that a boosterspice-enhanced body is in fact aged; the fact that Tree-of-Life is lethal to oldsters, even if kept apparently young by advanced medicine, is evidence of that.
None of this applies, perhaps, to someone who is kept in all respects physiologically 25 or so at the age of 700 or more, as in OA.
BTW, why isn't this discussed in the books? Because they are ficitional stories written to entertain, perhaps.