Or, people are not good at changing their stances as they approach death. In game-theoretic “explore vs exploit” terms, the closer you get to the end of the game, the less value there is in exploration. If people lived to 200, would we see 150 years of “young and reckless” or 150 years of “old and stodgy”? I tend to lean toward the former, but of course nobody knows for sure.

I fall under this belief too. I think people also over estimate the lack of exploration done in older years. Culture changes too fast for a lack of exploration strategy to exist in older populations. In developed nations it is far more acceptable to be gay, an ethnic minority, etc than it was 50 years ago. While this still takes longer than we'd like it is faster than what you'd expect if we required people to die off for culture to change (we've all but forgotten discrimination of Caucasian minorities, like the Irish and Polish, that was so prevalent even in the 60's and 70's). Things have drastically changed since the 90's even.

I'd also argue that another factor in the "explore vs exploit" strategy is fear (which encompasses fear of death). If you view your world as dangerous then it makes sense that you should focus on an exploitation strategy over an exploration strategy. The world is becoming far safer (despite American perception) and I think this is helping accelerate this cultural change too. I'd expect that if we lived to 200 we'd treat people in their 50's/60's like we do people in their 20's now, and I'd expect them to act similarly too (under the premise that health degrades in this new age system as our current age system).

Though honestly we'll never know until we do it. I do think fear of trying it is dangerous though. One of our advantages as humans is the fact that we tend to use an exploration strategy more than many other species. We've also gotten pretty good at mitigating risk while exploring dangerous territories. But that's how we push forward technological advancements.