Kristen said 27 minutes later

World Toilet Organization??!! You must be kidding me!

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GJ said about 1 hour later

Nope. Had this been April 1, maybe, but no, it's legit.

Marc said about 1 hour later

I just spent the weekend in Charleston, where Laura and I went on ghost tours and visiting cemeteries (We did a lot of other cool things, but this was one of the most interesting parts of the trip). They seemed to have most things in order in terms of documented burials and history of the people, although many of the tombstones themselves were unreadable. I found a tombstone for a revolutionary soldier, civil war soldier, Harriet Mackie, as well as many other interesting people.

While I agree there's just no way we could keep every gravestone, they certainly serve a purpose for quite some time. Perhaps the right way to do things would be to "archive" the gravestones into a combined gravestone of people from a similar time or family. I'm not sure what to do with those caskets and bodies though. :)

To me, it's the history behind the people that is important, I can't say it would be too smart to continue to grow cemeteries indefinitely.

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GJ said about 2 hours later

I totally agree about the history portion--that's really all that's left of folks that matter, for the most part. Whether you believe in a deity or not, what happens to your physical body after you die really shouldn't matter, but I get the idea that it's nice to have a place to come to remember your loved ones. Cemeteries are incredible sources of history, and fascinating. I so could get into becoming a town historian--it's just neat seeing how people lived and died years ago.

Plus, if you believe in ghosts, there's nothing like playing hide and seek in one at night. It's not nearly so much fun for me these days. :)

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GJ said about 2 hours later

Oh, and yes, my experience with cemeteries is pretty much limited to New York. We have a LOT of undocumented cemeteries in these parts.

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Geoff said about 2 hours later

Can you bury the dead on your own property? I'd like to be sealed up in my walls for extra insulation.

Seriously though, I could care less where I'm buried, but I think you need some sort of memorial for at least your 2nd generation to mourn. After that, your plan is up unless you buy more minutes!

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GJ said about 5 hours later

Laws have changed over the years, and it is something (at least here in NY) is governed by local municipalities. In cities and most larger suburbs, I'm guessing the answer is no. Outside of those areas, where much of NY is still farmland, I'd say it's probably yes.

Burying people on your own properly in the burbs and cities would likely contribute to increased scavenger activity and with it, an uptick in disease breakouts. I'd recommend against it. :)

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Steve said 1 day later

you guys will love Parsla's response to this question...."why even bury people? burn them and use the heat to create electricity!"

Geoff said about 4 hours later

I'm Game...pun totally intended.

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Marc said about 20 hours later

Seconded.

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GJ said about 21 hours later

I figured both of you would go for it. However, if this is going to work, it would need to include everyone. Not sure how (at this point) that might work, especially since people tend to come and go during the days, and some folks may get irritated about being away from a TV for most of the day. :) Also, only a few of us are into gaming for most of a day at a time--so if I'm a non-gamer, or a moderate gamer, what am I going to do at the Aspen House?

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Geoff said about 22 hours later

play with the babies :) There should be two of them floating around...

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Kristen said 1 day later

I'd be game, at least for a half a day, until we get to the games i suck at !

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GJ said 1 day later

We could bring enough stuff so there's something for practically everyone to do. I think a half day is about what we'd be able to do, as you pretty much have to set up and clean-up all in the same day.

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Geoff said 1 day later

Ok...so who's bringing the stereo?

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Steve said 3 days later

I'm in! I'll be bringing Stocks and Bonds, and Settlers of Catan (with expansion pack for more players). I could also bring Weapons and Warriors, if someone wants to relive their childhood. I picked it up cheap, thinking it was the game I had as a kid, but I was mistaken, it's not as good as Crossbows and Catapults, which I think I really enjoyed having as a kid.

Between the board games and Wii Tennis and bowling, what more could you want? Oh yea, lots of Christmas cookies. And cream soda. And gallons of water to handle the sugar overload.

Who has a reasonable size stereo? I'd rather not cross the border with a stereo and speakers.

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Geoff said 3 days later

Reasonable...hmmm

We'll I do have some "smaller" bookshelf speakers in my attic and my stereo. Not sure what I can fit in the car though...

Geoff said about 2 hours later

The real question for me is how long can the brain go?

You can regenerate any part of the body you like, but the brain in particular is what houses "who we are." Unless they can devise a way to download your thoughts and experiences to a new, healthy grown brain, "YOU" personally, can only live as long as your brain lives. Perhaps the brain can live on its own for 100's of years, who knows.

This is so far off in all likelihood that life will be so much different than it is now, we can't possible fathom what it would be like. It is probably equivalent to a dark ages knight trying to envision what life would be like with the Internet.

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Marc said about 21 hours later

I don't see risky behavior diminishing greatly. As much as that may seem like it could, people make risks to get ahead in life. And regardless of how long someone is going to live, people still want to always get ahead with life and do it fast, which always involves risks.

Life being boring is a possibility for many, mostly I would fear for the uneducated or people living in hardship. People generally stuck in a rut, who typically don't get out in their lifespan, likely won't increase their chances even if they're going to live longer. For those of us more fortunate, I think there's plenty to life to make it not boring if you so desire to search out new things.

The thing I personally would have to do is change jobs "frequently". Most people can barely stand to do a job for 40+ years, they would have to change jobs. Maybe my job just sucks though :) But I think the ability to live longer and be able to redefine yourself or to accomplish many "lifelong" goals in one life time would certainly be interesting. I think I would enjoy living a really long lifetime, but Geoff brings up a good point. Even if my body could stay younger longer, would my brain want to? We may be able to curtail our aging body, but maybe our brain ages in a different way and eventually it's natural instinct to die may make us wish we didn't take that magic serum to keep us alive forever.

But if I had the option to extend my life another 100 years without having my body aging as fast, I'd be all for it right now.

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Geoff said about 22 hours later

Me too. It may take me 100 years to win another fantasy football game.

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GJ said 1 day later

Geoff, for the purposes of discussion, assume that if your body can now live for 500+ years, your brain can too. After all, it's part of your body. :)

Downloading the "who we are" to a computer is indeed one of the things discussed in the article. However, people's brains (as far as I know) far exceed the capacity of all the computer storage in existence today, and that's just for one person. We don't even understand the brain in its entirety, and until we do, it will be pretty much impossible to download yourself to a computer, let alone upload your info to a new set of wetware.

Marc, by risky behavior I'm talking things like extreme sports rather than time-based or opportunity-based risks. In fact, with a longer life span, you're more likely to take financial risk. It's physical risk that you'll be wary of, since as we live to 500+ years, accidental death will automatically become the biggest cause of death worldwide. You'll pretty much be guaranteed dying by accident rather than any other cause. So, obviously, you'd do what you could to minimize that risk to a much greater degree than people do today.

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Marc said 1 day later

I agree accidental death would be the leading cause of death should this all come into fruition. I still think people would generally take the physicals risks though, as they usually do it out of either a passion or desire for an adrenaline rush.

Living to be 500 years old could actually be good on humans. Right now life moves so quickly and it seems like there is so much that has to be accomplished in such a short time, that we are in constant havoc and it gets worse the more efficient we are at doing things. Maybe if we had a couple hundred years more, people could take it slow. Less stress, more enjoyable life. But I'm sure they thought the same when computers started hitting it big..."now that we've got all these computers, they can do all the work while we sit back and relax!" Maybe it would be that much worse with so many more living people.

One thing is for sure, we'd have to start pumping loads of money into the space program, we're not all fitting on this planet.

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GJ said 1 day later

Bingo--population overload, which is already happening, thanks in part to the medical advances and healthier living. The corresponding birth rate would have to fall, or as Marc said, we'd have to start finding new places to live and new resources to consume. Of course, expanding irresponsibly makes us a plague, wouldn't you say? We certainly take a dim view of other animals or plants that are that prolific and heavy consumers (and thus, competition).

A book I'm reading actually talks about this difference in lifespan. In Harry Turtledove's Homeward Bound humans and aliens known as the Race have an ongoing occupier - occupied relationship. The Race are reptilian, and their home plant revolves around their sun at double the rate of Earth, yet they live for a looooong time. As such, they take things very slowly, and are finding that occupying Earth is troublesome because, while the humans don't live so long, they are damn changeable and incredibly hard to predict. Worse, their rate of scientific progress is outstripping the Race, and have already demonstrated some advancement that the Race can't even begin to decipher. Cool stuff, and makes you wonder if the story's genesis was based on the concept of living far longer than a normal human lifespan.

Geoff said 31 minutes later

We don't need to worry, YouTube was invented so now we can watch BBC in Europe for free! Sucks to be British though. :)

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GJ said about 5 hours later

When I can watch CBC live, I'll be happy.

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Steve said 1 day later

Are you kidding me? We already are heavily taxed for cable TV. It's only the public stations that we personally aren't taxed for. I don't think there are many people like myself without cable TV right now, though that number seems to be growing with the advent of video on the internet and cable prices rising while satisfaction decreases.

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GJ said 1 day later

TV tax in England is about $200 / yr / TV. How much are you paying in tax right now for TV? As for not being taxed on the public stations--please explain. You're not taxed on any stations, you're taxed on the delivery of the signal to your house (by cable or dish). Getting a signal by an antenna or dish without a provided package is both free and untaxed, though depending on what you're receiving, it may be illegal (like decrypting and using Direct TV's feed).

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Steve said 3 days later

As I said, I don't have cable TV, so I don't pay any taxes on my TV service. And no, we don't get taxed anywhere's near what they do in the UK.

On that topic, what right does the government have to tax you for TV use? They can and should tax on the service (STATE sales tax), and if you are using any government supplied things (satellites, etc), some tax should be applied to pay for those things, but in no way should TV be a tax revenue source. Nothing should be.

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GJ said 3 days later

That's the view of someone who thinks there are no good uses for taxes. ;)

Of course, wait, we do get channels like BBC here in the states. They're called HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, TMC, etc. And their original shows are far better than what's on cable or the networks, since *we* pay them. No sponsors, not much government control, just good old TV. What I'm saying is, I'd pay for a channel that was more than just a movie channel with original programming. I'll put $10-20 a month into a channel that delivers what a network should: news, original programming, sports, and like, all with just the influence of its own subscribers.

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GJ said 3 days later

Also--the concept of rights in regard to taxes is kind of funny. The government can tax us on whatever the hell it wants to tax us on. If we don't take to it, we vote the jerks out and put new jerks in place to revoke that tax (and screw up some other part of the government).

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Geoff said 3 days later

that last part is so true...

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Steve said 3 days later

What I'm trying to say is the government should not be taxing something just because it feels like taxing someone for it. Gas taxes, for example, should be used to repair and maintain roads, and may asso be used to fund research for alternative energy motor vehicles. Gas taxes should not be used to pay medicare expenses or to build schools. Income taxes should be used to pay for all of the public service goverment backed initiatives, not taxes on TV, Gas, etc.

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GJ said 4 days later

Taxes are taxes are taxes. Whether it's a sales tax or an income tax or a fee, it's still a source of income for the government. Who cares whether a tax on gas pays for roads, or pays for the space shuttle? More important is what the government is actually spending money on in the first place, no?

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Steve said 4 days later

Are you kidding me? Let's talk taxes on fuel. If I drive 30,000 miles per year, and you drive 10,000 miles per year, and we get the same fuel economy out of our cars, I pay 3 times as much gas tax as you. Given that, how could it be fair that I am forced to contribute 3 times as much as you to the space shuttle development? That would be an unfair tax. However, I do think it is fair that since I use the public roads 3 times as much as you, that I pay 3 times as much to maintain and build new roads.

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GJ said 5 days later

Using that logic, then childless people shouldn't pay school tax. Or am I missing something?

GJ said about 9 hours later

Yeah, push down on the ends of your car. It if snaps back with little or no bounce, you're fine. If it bounces, your struts are bad. Have you ever had them replaced? They don't last forever.

I'd wait for Steve to weigh in, as I'm not the most mechanically inclined of the family. :)

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GJ said about 9 hours later

Also, if he saw you drive in, that may have been enough to tell you need struts.

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Steve said about 22 hours later

I already emailed this response to Geoff, but thought I'd post it here for you all to see.

The only way you can tell from looking outside the car is to look for oil residue on the top of the strut body. This would indicate the struts may be bad. Another quick check you can do is to push down on the car a fair bit (sometimes bounce it a few times, to get it to move a lot). When you let go, if the car oscillates more than 3 times, the struts are likely bad. While driving the car, if you feel a lot of shake in the car after hitting a bump, that's another indication that the struts were bad.