(June 13, 2012 at 12:10 pm)SleepingDemon Wrote: Something else you have to consider, if science was able to extend human lifespans to say 250 years, at what age would people retire? Jobs that open upon retirement wouldn't be open for centuries, leaving people who are 20 SOL. Can you imagine Supreme Court Justices who lived that long? Fuck me in my beard, that would suck.
Fifty years ought to be long enough for most people to retire on in a 401K type arrangement, although we might have to give Justices term limits. I'll take early retirement if I can afford it, I don't want to keep doing the same job for another ten years, let alone thirty. I think it will turn out to be a non-issue for the most part, although I'm sure there will be isolated cases of people who fill the same slot decade after decade; but how many of us even work in jobs that existed fifty years ago? If I stay in my job ten more years, I expect it to change so much that it will hardly be recognizable as the same job (I manage a Data Entry department for a government contract). I expect my division will not need as many managers and if they can't pare it down by attrition, eventually they'll have to let some of us go. The job world is dynamic, and technology is likely to change more in the next thirty years than it did in the last hundred. I think the most viable model is for as many people to sock enough money away so they can have a reasonable secure retirement, and then do whatever they really want to do until they've done enough and are ready to die.
Caveat: I have optimistic tendencies.
