1000 Years to Live

If I actually believed in a diagnosis of ADD (attention deficit disorder) I would then believe that I have an adult version of it.

I would then blame that on why I only post sporadically on here because there are so many things that run through my head that I have a hard time focusing on one long enough to expand my thoughts on anything.

Therefore I’ll post this way.

Things on my mind right now:

I have been reading more about the possibility of living to be 1000 years old. In fact a story crossed my path the other day that said that someone is alive now who will reach that threshold. 

I wonder what 1000-year old skin would look like. I would imagine that figuring out how to keep it looking from the horror that is conjured up in my mind would be really key to really wanting to live to be 1000. I can’t stand how I look at 53, let alone what might happen in a natural progression in 947 years from now.

I am someone who thinks there are too many people on the planet now. I don’t really care what the Bible says about “going forth and multiplying.” I think, “job well done there,” and now its time to move on to another goal of Biblical proportion.

How will it be possible to sustain 40 generations of families all at the same time? 

If we do end up with the ability to reach the age of 1000 I would have to think that there would need to be some trade off, unless with that ability and the ability to colonize and live on new planets, we could manage that immense population size.

So what would be that tradeoff? It would have to be sterilization, in my opinion. Yes, in order to live to be 1000 we would have to keep from adding to the increased numbers of the population. 

Then that calls into question what would happen if there was a huge disaster where a significant portion of the population were wiped out. Or, even if by attrition, it was determined that new members of society were needed. That would then mean we would have to start cloning people in order to increase numbers. Wouldn’t it? 

Makes you stop and think a little doesn’t it? It sure has for me. Ask my girlfriend who has heard me bring this up a few times in the past few weeks already.

This made me think about Social Security. When SSI was created, the age necessary to reach to begin collecting SSI benefits was 65. At the time, however, the average life span was 60. So, basically, SSI was designed to rarely even become collected. Now we are living to be 72-75 rather easily. What the hell would happen to our treasury if we lived to be 1000? 

I know that’s just a simplistic thought and question but at the very least I am rather certain that a REAL discussion of increasing the age for SSI benefit collection HAS to be raised to help keep it solvent because the math of SSI doesn’t work, and it was never intended to work.

Robots are doing more and more jobs that humans used to do and this is simultaneously awesome and frightening. 

When we think of robots, however, we need not necessarily think about Lost in Space robots or those similar to Terminator robots.

Much more simple machines have taken over for humans and have done so for a long time. I was at my local BJ’s Wholesale Club yesterday where there were 6 cash registers open but only two had live cashiers. That’s four people who didn’t have jobs right there. Ok, say three because I suppose one is necessary to fix the machines when they break down. 

In some other country I read last week that McDonalds had ordered 7000 order-taking kiosks. That is going to put 7000 people out of work.

Could the McDonalds kiosk project be a result of workers asking for increased wages of as much as $15.00 per hour to do such tasks as take orders? Hmmm....makes ya think, doesn't it?

This has been going on for a long time, as mentioned. There used to be a job called Telephone Operator, for example, and I’ll refrain from adding a bunch that you already know.

I’ll be truly worried when robots can start hypnotizing people since that is my main source of earning a living. I would think, though, that we, as a society, truly need to wake up before we are forced to wake up to the fact that we need to re-establish a hard-work ethic and not one of an entitlement mentality. The latter only forces businesses to come up with ways to get their work done, and their products produced, in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

This makes me think about my particular community and taxes. Our school districts keep trying to sneak past us these referendums to raise our taxes to give to our schools. I happen to live in the second worst district in my state and I DON’T HAVE ANY KIDS. Yet they continue to try to steal my money and pump it into this failure and joke of a district. 

Why is that related to robotics? Because too many kids come out of these schools incapable of succeeding. I keep getting told that my taxes help our community because these kids need the education and they will return to the community to make it a better place to live. Its not happening here.

I swear I just read a Facebook post in the middle of that paragraph from a writer acquaintance of mine promoting a tax increase in his district. Seems that he has some grandchildren there who will somehow benefit from the fact that the government is going to forcefully take tax money from the residents there. 

I have an idea. How about those who actually have kids in schools shoulder the tax burden for it? And if your family can’t do it then how about thinking that its time to stop having kids and placing that true burden on society?

Watch The Goldbergs on ABC. It’s a great sit-com. How did I get to that subject? Because when I start going down that path that ultimately leads me to get into basic political conversations I have to divert my attention somehow and that is one way to do it. 

But its very hard to steer clear from politics when people are now beginning to jump into the Presidential race for 2016. Make no mistake that I am very much invested in what happens in 2016 as WE ALL SHOULD BE. In these past 6 years I have suffered major setbacks that I can directly attribute to specific policies laid down in that period of time.

What you don’t know is that I just had to delete two full pages of material because I just went off into some detail and needed to replace that with this sentence.

See what I had to do there?

Back to work-related issues though. If I can impose ANY wisdom on anyone who actually reads this, or any young person who should ever ask me, I will say this. You MUST be able to do a variety of things to earn a living and DO NOT focus on just one particular thing. Develop multiple revenue streams because it is never known when one will become obsolete because of some new technology or some governmental regulation. 

That is why I don’t only focus on a comedy-hypnosis stage career. With that particular skill set I do a variety of things…hypnotherapy both group and individual, sales of hypnosis material and hypnotist training. Even the highlight videos I create from my shows are posted in a revenue-sharing program at YouTube.

There are other things I do as well. Even this blog generates revenue from ads embedded in it. 

So while I admitted, up front, that I might suffer from an affliction, in which I don’t even believe, I think it even helps me in that I can bounce from project to project which is necessary for me to do to try to survive in an economic environment that is wobbly at best, a disaster at worst.

Now I am thinking about lunch so that is what I am going to focus on now after I post this mess.

Done