Specifically the quote "Hey, since we live for millions of years, let's go make some staggeringly beautiful art that can only be created by synthesizing thousands of years of experience, hopes, fears, triumphs and failures into one transcendental expression of life!"
I think the problem with the question as posed by the author is that he offers no "very long but finite" life span. Most people reject (correctly, I think) the possibility of living forever; "living forever" is actually code for "living until some accident kills you" or "living until society breaks down to the point where your life-extension technology is irrelevant." Moreover, people may realize that there may come a time at which they have accomplished everything they want to do. If you live forever, however, you would be forced to carry on living with no goal in life. Could you endure 10 years of life without a purpose? 100 years? In other words, people may ultimately want to die even though they are healthy. An "infinite" lifespan raises the possibility that you might just kill yourself at some point.
A better set of numbers might have been 100 years, 1000 years, 10,000 years, etc.
http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1384
Specifically the quote "Hey, since we live for millions of years, let's go make some staggeringly beautiful art that can only be created by synthesizing thousands of years of experience, hopes, fears, triumphs and failures into one transcendental expression of life!"
I think the problem with the question as posed by the author is that he offers no "very long but finite" life span. Most people reject (correctly, I think) the possibility of living forever; "living forever" is actually code for "living until some accident kills you" or "living until society breaks down to the point where your life-extension technology is irrelevant." Moreover, people may realize that there may come a time at which they have accomplished everything they want to do. If you live forever, however, you would be forced to carry on living with no goal in life. Could you endure 10 years of life without a purpose? 100 years? In other words, people may ultimately want to die even though they are healthy. An "infinite" lifespan raises the possibility that you might just kill yourself at some point.
A better set of numbers might have been 100 years, 1000 years, 10,000 years, etc.