The economic value of targeting aging • Hacker News Board

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#71

Post by Stupulous » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:38 PM UTC

writeslowly wrote: post #25

wgolsen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite response to this and related objections to ending aging (such as “what about the dictators”): imagine a scenario where humans did not age, but still had the problems of “gerontocracy” and dictatorships. Would you propose subjecting the whole of humanity to debilitating degenerative diseases and ultimately death to solve these societal problems? I picked this up from Ageless by Andrew Steele, a highly reco…

I've never considered this question before, but if people did live forever, requiring people in certain positions of power to be subject to some sort of incurable, debilitating disease or guaranteed death seems like a pretty reasonable safeguard to me.

If people live forever except for those in power, and power is opt-in rather than, e.g., sortition, power can only go to people who prefer it over eternal life.

That group will be composed of the insane/irrational, those who value power at extremes, those who value improving the world over their own lives, and those who have lived long enough that they're ready to move on. The last two categories are great candidates for empowerment, but one is rare and grows rarer, and the other doesn't show up for upwards of centuries. Until then you mostly get the first two, which suck. Eventually, I think, we burn through everyone willing to make the trade-off and we're left with no power centralization.

Unless you mean they only face death for the duration that they are in power, as an enforcement of term limits. I don't think that is materially different from other enforcement of term limits- if a dictator is able to compromise the military, they can probably also compromise whoever has the power to stop their impending death.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#72

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:38 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #33

mensetmanusman wrote: post #17

It’s obvious that healthy people that live shorter are better for the ‘economy’ but clearly humanity doesn’t live to optimize for the economy. If we did, we would be fighting obesity with 10x the seriousness of how we fight COVID.

There is no cohesive "humanity" with any sort of desire or ability to optimize for "the economy." Individuals optimize for their own (often short-term) economic benefit. That's it. The corporate overlords at ACME don't care about fighting obesity, because there are more than enough non-obese workers for them to exploit, and they don't want to cannibalize their highly profitable line of products that obese people need…

> humanity is innately selfish and short-sighted. If this can't be fixed, we are completely fucked.

The communists tried pretty hard to do that, and just made things much worse.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#73

Post by courtf » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:40 PM UTC

Ostrogodsky wrote: post #67

courtf wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Physical and cultural evolution don't stop. If someone lives forever, they don't evolve physically. This is basic. To the degree we evolve culturally, most of our culture comes to us in our eponymous "formative years." Leaving those behind tends to result in comparatively little change in culture over the remaining course of our lives. > Selfish immaturity? It seems that you yourself is a reflection of culture. I r…

Please feel free to end your life at your convenience, billions of others will take the opportunity of living for as much as possible.

This is not an appropriate comment for HN.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#74

Post by mkoubaa » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:41 PM UTC

wgolsen wrote: post #12

mkoubaa wrote: post #3

The average age of university presidents and members of Congress in the USA is in the 70s. At the risk of sounding callous can we fix our gerontoctratic system and then fix aging?

My favorite response to this and related objections to ending aging (such as “what about the dictators”): imagine a scenario where humans did not age, but still had the problems of “gerontocracy” and dictatorships. Would you propose subjecting the whole of humanity to debilitating degenerative diseases and ultimately death to solve these societal problems? I picked this up from Ageless by Andrew Steele, a highly reco…

I might not have the heart to but a rational agent acting in the interest of the entire population would. In fact this is basically what natural selection did to us. If much longer lifespans would have benefited our species we would already have them.

It turns out that the way out brains crystallize as we age and make us better at teaching but worse at changing our minds means our ideal lifespan is not very different than the ones we have. I know individuals can work very hard to avoid this outcome but most people don't.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#75

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #59

Ericson2314 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Individuals optimize for their own (often short-term) economic benefit. That's it. Don't go to too far with this sort of atomistic analysis. Large firms are better at enforcing coordination than "society at-large" or other groupings. The fact that at different scales the coordination is markedly different has a huge affect. We're not an "economy of households" as the orthodox macro might have one model.

> Large firms are better at enforcing coordination than "society at-large" or other groupings. The "large firms" that I'm familiar with are cesspools of political infighting, gamesmanship, and backstabbing. People in positions of power at these firms use their influence to achieve their own goals, often at the expense of the firm and its employees. The counterexamples to this are so singularly rare that they are the…

This is why larger companies tend to fail rather than growing to take over the world.

There's another recent HN topic about how IBM's size prevented it from competing successfully in the PC market:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27912138

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#76

Post by retzkek » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #34

wpasc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind me asking (off-topic), are you less into longevity stuff now? if yes, what made you less into it/possibly more skeptical of it?

Not the same person, but it used to excite me when I was younger. Now I realize that life is mostly full of bullshit outside our control. I hate my job, so why would I want to live significantly longer when it means working longer? Political and cultural changes could be difficult to handle too.

Climate change is also going to make the world increasingly less pleasant to live in over the next couple decades, directly (weather, flooding, drought, famine, etc) and indirectly (instability, social unrest, war). Unless you can extend your life long enough (and otherwise have the means) to see the other side of this epoch, suffering through more of it is probably not desirable.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#77

Post by kiba » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

throwkeep wrote: post #55

mensetmanusman wrote: post #17

It’s obvious that healthy people that live shorter are better for the ‘economy’ but clearly humanity doesn’t live to optimize for the economy. If we did, we would be fighting obesity with 10x the seriousness of how we fight COVID.

It's strange. Obesity is our biggest preventable health problem, and it gets almost no attention in the media or by public officials. We heard endlessly from health officials and news media personalities to wash our hands, stay indoors, wear a mask, get vaccinated, but nothing about eating healthier, eating less, exercising more? "Obesity steals more years than diabetes, tobacco, high blood pressure and high choleste…

It's strange. Obesity is our biggest preventable health problem, and it gets almost no attention in the media or by public officials. We heard endlessly from health officials and news media personalities to wash our hands, stay indoors, wear a mask, get vaccinated, but nothing about eating healthier, eating less, exercising more?

Because it's been going on in the background so long, that it became part of the background.

Also, it's not like it's not noticed by public officials. You hear all the time in recommendations and guidelines we should lose weight and get more exercise.

That said, I would also note that current public health policy is basically a failure in that we largely failed to move the needle regarding the obesity pandemic or getting the recommended exercise dose.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#78

Post by wincy » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:46 PM UTC

willwashburn wrote: post #57

It seems that their calculations use metformin. At what age should we start using it for health-span extension? I'm already using it to avoid glucose spikes, even though I'm not even prediabetic, but I'm curious if it's known how powerful is the health-span effect is younger humans.

If glucose spikes are bad for you, why not just exclude all foods with a glycemic index? That’s what I’ve done and find my mental health and energy levels have improved substantially.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#79

Post by kiba » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

courtf wrote: post #63

kiba wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. We change everyday through forgetting and remembering and learning. Physical and cultural evolution don't stop. It's another sign of the selfish immaturity ingrained into our culture. Selfish immaturity? It seems that you yourself is a reflection of culture. One of our very first epic poems, the Epic of Gilgamesh basically railed against immortality and accepting one's fate.

> Physical and cultural evolution don't stop. If someone lives forever, they don't evolve physically. This is basic. To the degree we evolve culturally, most of our culture comes to us in our eponymous "formative years." Leaving those behind tends to result in comparatively little change in culture over the remaining course of our lives. > Selfish immaturity? It seems that you yourself is a reflection of culture. I r…

If someone lives forever, they don't evolve physically. This is basic. To the degree we evolve culturally, most of our culture comes to us in our eponymous "formative years." Leaving those behind tends to result in comparatively little change in culture over the remaining course of our lives.

That is not a law of physics or biology. People get heart implants, or even exercise and become stronger.

I rest my case.

Rest your case how? You didn't demonstrate that it is selfish and immature to desire to live, perhaps indefinitely.

This was not a call to try and live forever, this is a call to live boldly, take risks and not to fear death. Striving for immortality is the absolute opposite, the coward's response to the challenge made in the poem.

I assure you that I do not make conscious decisions about whether I live a thousand years if I undertake a given activity. I am also pretty sure that I routinely undertaken relatively dangerous activities that would kill me.

I doubt most people who becomes immortal will become the sort of conscious decision makers deciding not to take risk lest they jeopardize their thousand years+ lifespan. That doesn't seem to jives with human nature.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#80

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

kiba wrote: post #61

courtf wrote: post #35

The quest for immortality is popular, but it would mean the end of physical and cultural evolution. Seems as though this topic is gaining steam now, only as a large corpus of aging narcissists are finally grappling with the concept of death. It's another sign of the selfish immaturity ingrained into our culture.

This is nonsense. We change everyday through forgetting and remembering and learning. Physical and cultural evolution don't stop. It's another sign of the selfish immaturity ingrained into our culture. Selfish immaturity? It seems that you yourself is a reflection of culture. One of our very first epic poems, the Epic of Gilgamesh basically railed against immortality and accepting one's fate.

I am constantly attempting to improve myself. Sometimes, I wonder if I will finally achieve perfection only to run out of time and die :-/

There's a heluva lot I wish I could tell my 20 year old self. Sometimes I counsel my friends in their 20s, but they don't believe me, as I didn't believe this stuff in my 20s.