“This might be the least considered societal advantage of prolonged vitality, and it might just be the greatest advantage of all. Perhaps when we’re not all so afraid of the ticking clock, we’ll slow down, we’ll take a breath, we’ll be stoic Samaritans.
I would like to emphasize the word “perhaps,” here. I will be the first to say that this thesis is supposition more than science. But the small-sample Princeton experiment both followed and portended a lot of other research demonstrating that humans are a lot more humane when they’ve got more time. All of the studies, though, take stock of how people behave when they have a few more minutes, or perhaps a few more hours, to spare.
What would happen if we had a few more years? A few more decades? A few more centuries?”