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Old 11-05-2006, 07:46 AM   #3
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Immortality in THS

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert
The Fifth Wave nations are saturated markets in many ways. Sure, there are business opportunities, but nothing that will really make you rich beyond avarice. On the other hand, developing markets have huge potential for growth - and thus, many Fifth Wavers, especially the young ones who have given up ever rising to the rang and status of the old guys around them (since they neither retire nor die off) will move to other countries and seek their fortune there - and thanks to the generally high Fifth Wave wealth, they usually have enough seed money to pull it off, and a high education to aid them in it.
It's worth noting that Elizabeth Moon's Heris Serrano and Esmay Suiza novels explore the effects of a comparably effective life extension technology, with some good handling of details—for example, what happens in the navy when neither admirals nor top level petty officers will ever reach retirement age? Moon suggests that apart from emigration, the long run logic points at aggressive military expansion.

Another possibility would be an increasingly militant "youth" culture. Part of the whole boomer problem was that the later boomers faced an economy that was oversupplied with labor at their age and experience levels, creating intense competition for jobs and economic stress; a measure of cultural alienation might plausibly follow.
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