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The economic value of targeting aging

nature.com

121–130 of 162 posts

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#121

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.

The linked abstract claims the opposite: "We show that a slowdown in aging that increases life expectancy by 1 year is worth US$38 trillion, and by 10 years, US$367 trillion." Is saying the opposite is just "obvious" enough of a rebuttal?

A slowdown in aging is a ‘healthy person’ being given more time.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#122

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…

Because, like alcoholism, it's a choice. If you force people to lose weight, why not force them to stop poisoning themselves.

Of course, it's all a bunch of hypocritical bs when other, safer, more useful drugs are banned or restricted for stupid reasons.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Really? There are multi-billion dollar industries catering to the obesity issue - health food, supplements, exercise equipment, exercise gurus. Employers offering incentives since it leads to lower insurance costs. In the USA, health food options have grown tremendously in the last 10 years, but at the same time obesity has gone up.

All of those are useless. But profitable. As long as they don't solve the core issue, which seems to be in the brain.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incredibly important fact that is often downplayed. We remember the Inquisition and the Vikings but they are small fry compared to Communists (and Nazis). I'm not saying Communists are inherently evil - most of them are well meaning I think - but almost every single time it has been tried it has ended in genocide! The one single exception I am aware of is the Israeli Kibbutz system. Edit: communism has kil…

The Kibbutzen don't work, either. The Israeli government taxes the capitalist businesses in order to subsidize the deficits of the Kibbutzen.

What's the cost burden to Israel of the Kibbutzen vs the cost of supporting the ultra-conservative religious groups that don't serve in the military and rely (presumably) more heavily on welfare and other social subsidies?

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My personal belief is that we do not go quiet into that dark night I think many do. One of my takeaways from the pandemic is that there are people--intelligent, informed, unoppressed people--who will self select away from benefits. Even seemingly obvious ones. The fictional dystopias of the last century would have had an immortal elite keeping aging treatments from clamoring masses. I don't think that's how it woul…

Or those who prefer not to (for whatever reason) may be categorized in a way similar to the way we treat the suicidal. Anyone unwilling to attempt to live forever would be considered mentally ill.

I have suicidal thoughts before. I prefer not to let my mental health condition determine if I want to die or not.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incredibly important fact that is often downplayed. We remember the Inquisition and the Vikings but they are small fry compared to Communists (and Nazis). I'm not saying Communists are inherently evil - most of them are well meaning I think - but almost every single time it has been tried it has ended in genocide! The one single exception I am aware of is the Israeli Kibbutz system. Edit: communism has kil…

The Kibbutzen don't work, either. The Israeli government taxes the capitalist businesses in order to subsidize the deficits of the Kibbutzen.

You are probably right. And that is a good point too, it fails economically too.

My original point was only that the Kibbutzen didn't end up massacring their inhabitants like almost every other communist experiment.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#127
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I second your thought. For sure, I am smarter and wiser then I was in my 20s, which wasn't long ago. But I am also carrying baggage of the past with me, which in some case makes less wise and less brave than I wanted to be.

> There's a heluva lot I wish I could tell my 20 year old self.

Like?

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#128
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's generally safe. The point I was trying make is why work extra years to pay for a single year when it's not guaranteed. I'd rather quit at 60 and die at 78 than pay $200k, quit at 64, and die at 79.

When I did construction, many conversations were about the generous retirement benefits. It was always, "When I retiree I will be able to do this, and that, in comfort." There was always the big decision of shouid I retire at 25 years (25 year old working 25 years), or get a few hundred more if I wait until 65? I knew a person who worked accounting at the union. She told me the average retire whom waits for the bigge…

Yeah, I've seen some studies that link early retirement to earlier death, but also some that show retirement can trigger underlying issues like stroke and heart attack from the changes.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#129
post #88

This article seems to be about the economic value gained by reduced health care or something. If you actually extended lifespans by a significant margin (say to 200 years) there would be other knock on effects that would completely derail the global economy & markets. This study doesn't seem to think about how those things could actually negatively impact economics. Eventually if you're intelligent and you're trying…

These concerns seem pretty hypothetical because AI's going to be putting everyone out of a job before such things could be an issue anyway.

That said, even in a hypothetical primarily-human labor-market, market-dynamics would fix the problem anyway.

For example: say food becomes scarce because no one's farming. Then the remaining farmers would become rich (they could raise their prices tons) while everyone else would end losing their money to buy the food. Eventually folks would start going into farming until the imbalance is corrected. And, yes, this would mean that those who'd refuse to go into farming would end up draining their retirement funds away -- a retirement fund wouldn't be a permanent no-work ticket, at least in an economy where labor was in too short of supply.

At least, in an ideal free-market economy. In practice, we tend to simplify things and have regulations for practical reasons. Such deviations from an ideal free-market economy might mess up the correction-process.. at first. However, if such regulations did prove to be problematic and prevented the economy from working, then we could just change the laws/regulations to fix that problem -- the simple approach would be to simply repeal problematic regulations.

In short, the stuff you're worried about can't happen (because AI will take the jobs anyway) and wouldn't be a problem even if it could (because market-dynamics fixes such things).

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Separately, might be worth noting that the big future problem would likely be population-control. Once we have good AI/robotics providing exploding wealth, and then clinical-immortality, it'd be all too easy for people to just keep having endless babies. Doubly so when we have good enough 3-D printing to literally print people, and easy test-tube babies before that. That may be an issue society'll need to address.

Re: The economic value of targeting aging

#130
post #76
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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