If people lived to, say, 150 or 300 years, 500 years, I wonder how hard it would be to convince people to risk their lives in war? I wonder if people would be more careful with the environment if they knew they'd actually have to live with their treatment of the environment?
On the other hand, leadership positions strongly attract psychopaths and sociopaths, and at least some segment of the population will think, eh, I'm going to live for 500 years, I can afford to give President Palin a mere four year chance, and next thing you know we're launching missiles at who knows who for no particular reason, or they're launching missiles at us.
My point being a 500 year lifespan allows a "survival of the craziest" to likely result in truly awful people naturally ending up in positions of leadership. Every nutcase having his 4 years of fame instead of just some of them, or just 15 minutes of fame for some of them.
It could be really bad. And not just politically, imagine the typical CEO psychological profile under centuries of those selection pressures instead of mere decades.
"if they knew they'd actually have to live with their treatment of the environment"
Imagine a 500 year old hoarder.
This whole discussion is enjoyably ripe with possible sci-fi or fantasy novel plots, very interesting.
