How long would we live if we could only die of unnatural causes?

[DainBramaged]

Basically, say that our bodies never aged, that nothing we did took a toll on us, the only thing that could kill us would be something such as a car accident, a gunshot, a drug overdose, etc.

Anything that had a gradual effect would never kill us such as excessive drinking, smoking, STDs, etc.

I'm guessing we would live somewhere around 300-500 years.

I'm starting the poll off around the average life expectancy and going from there.

 

[KK]

6 days.

 

[Bateluer]

The Bible says about 1000 years.

 

[Mrvile]

I think there would be a lot more killing.

 

[Special K]

This actually raises an interesting question - what exactly is aging? What causes it?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Would starvation or dehydration be considered a gradual effect?

 

[DainBramaged]

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy
Would starvation or dehydration be considered a gradual effect?

Assume that life continues as it does today and that overcrowding isn't an issue but if you lived in Africa, it could still happen.

 

[BudAshes]

Originally posted by: Special K
This actually raises an interesting question - what exactly is aging? What causes it?

If we never aged and died we would never need to reproduce and therefore evolution would never have kicked in.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Originally posted by: DainBramaged
Assume that life continues as it does today and that overcrowding isn't an issue but if you lived in Africa, it could still happen.

In that case I'd bet an average of 100-300 years. There are always wars and genocides to kill off people, but there's a (sort of) high chance of surviving one or two of those. However, after a while it's only a matter of time.

 

[DainBramaged]

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy

Originally posted by: DainBramaged
Assume that life continues as it does today and that overcrowding isn't an issue but if you lived in Africa, it could still happen.

In that case I'd bet an average of 100-300 years. There are always wars and genocides to kill off people, but there's a (sort of) high chance of surviving one or two of those. However, after a while it's only a matter of time.

That's what I was thinking. Eventually, we'll die in a car accident or in that freak midwestern earthquake. But I figure we'd last a while.

 

[BlancoNino]

Depends on how able we are to take care of ourselves when we get older. Do we still get crippled and lose control of our bowels? Perhaps suicide would be more common amongst people over 100 years old who have these problems.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Originally posted by: DainBramaged
That's what I was thinking. Eventually, we'll die in a car accident or in that freak midwestern earthquake. But I figure we'd last a while.

As a whole, yes. Thankfully, I'm a hermit so the only thing that could easily kill me is a war or a nuke being dropped downtown.

 

[magomago]

Well the thing is these days more and more people are dying of "natural" causes - with much better medical technology we live longer....

...and thus cancer is a massive problem, because it is a "natural cause" (unless you live next to Chernobyl...)


So my guess is maybe 100ish years give or take a decade or two

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: Special K
This actually raises an interesting question - what exactly is aging? What causes it?

Cell degradation. Cells don't always make perfect copies of their DNA when they divide. Occasionally small amounts of DNA is lost from the ends. However this really isn't an immediate problem since we have a bunch of meaningless repeats at the end. Eventually the DNA degrades so much that it is no longer only worthless information that gets discarded.

 

[DainBramaged]

Originally posted by: BlancoNino
Depends on how able we are to take care of ourselves when we get older. Do we still get crippled and lose control of our bowels? Perhaps suicide would be more common amongst people over 100 years old who have these problems.

No, we don't get crippled or lose control. We do not age at all. Anything that takes say six months or more to affect us has not effect on us.

 

[IvanAndreevich]

Originally posted by: Special K
This actually raises an interesting question - what exactly is aging? What causes it?

If you are interested, read up on it. There has been a lot of reasearch done on this.

 

[Kreon]

100-300 years

like somebody said, war would kill us off

That'd be pretty interesting, getting drafted at 100...
No escaping that one, need a very long college course

 

[BlancoNino]

Originally posted by: DainBramaged

Originally posted by: BlancoNino
Depends on how able we are to take care of ourselves when we get older. Do we still get crippled and lose control of our bowels? Perhaps suicide would be more common amongst people over 100 years old who have these problems.

No, we don't get crippled or lose control. We do not age at all. Anything that takes say six months or more to affect us has not effect on us.

Well now that we got that cleared up I'm going to say...........................












































42?

 

[KarmaPolice]

prob around 200....you can only "almost" get hit by a bus so many times until you actually are hit.

also depends on where you live...africa..prob only like 30...

Also do we count starving a cause of death? Cause if we are all living to 200-300 years old w are deff gonna run out of food and thus we will all die earlier.

 

[habib89]

i don't see why i wouldn't live forever.. i can just go hide in a cave and live there forever

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Originally posted by: habib89
i don't see why i wouldn't live forever.. i can just go hide in a cave and live there forever

And then get bored with living in a cave, only to wander out and get eaten by a pack of hungry bobcats.

 

[pontifex]

if the only way to die was to be murdered or caused by an accident, then you'd live forever as long as none of the previous things happened to you.

 

[Mo0o]

we would have run out of food long ago. and most likely killed ourselves through war

 

[Luthien]

Ditto Pontifex.

Likely would be a lot more killing and a lot less children until the two met some kind of equilibrium in the world if we could live forever. Suicide would become the number one killer. Been there done that would take on a new meaning. I would think that all of humanity would have to be a lot smarter to live that long so we could leave earth and explore the vastness of space and that would require technology far beyond what we have now.

Fox news alert Mr. Smith died today in a tragic accident he was 10,000 years old.

I just don't think the human brain is advanced enough to live that long and absorb all that information in a life that long. Alzheimers would likely be a big problem.

Also with lifespans that long I would think that genetic would play a large part in offspring. Children would be screened heavily for abnormalities and only the best of the best allowed to be born.

 

[FleshLight]

I'd say ~80 years. Heart disease would still be our major killer. Unless we completely gave up meat, then what would be hte point of going on living?