SF books with long-lived humans/aliens?

[luzula]

Can you think of SF books where there are long-lived humans/aliens who by reason of their long lives are better at overcoming the problems of short-term thinking? Problems I'm thinking of are things like "let's go on hunting this species for food, even though if we do, it'll go extinct", or "let's go on burning fossil fuels, even though if we do, it'll wreck the climate".

I guess another question is whether longer lives would necessarily make us wiser that way...we already do have long lives compared to lots of other organisms. No matter how long you make it (500 years?) there would still probably be even longer-term problems that this society would take a short-term approach to, on their terms. And even if you have a long life, you might still discount the future as opposed to the present.

KSR's Mars books do have lots of interesting thoughts about how a longer life changes you personally, and also changes society.

Comments

[luzula]

Oh, interesting!

In any case, I think we may have talked me into yet another reread of Left Hand. The whole section that passes over the ice to Karhide is so stunning.

Sounds like a good decision. : ) I love that book. Actually, there's an audiobook of it which is also one of my favorite audiobooks ever, it's narrated by someone called Ruth Stokesberry and seems like it was on tape first. I can't find it for sale online and someone shared it with me as mp3's a long time ago. Would be happy to share if you want to try it out.

[chestnut_pod]

Oh, absolutely! Yes please, I’d love to try it, and thanks very much.