this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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We should invest massively in longevity. Healthy longevity, fighting aging.
Why would you wanna fight aging when we reproduce in such a massive way that we are pretty much doomed? The last thing we need is a bunch of 120 year olds who rule the world.
Well the old people in power just gets replaced withother old people. Making people grow old and die isn't working against dictators either.
But your idea is that it would be better if we became ill even earlier then, like we should stop fighting aging the way we do it today (medicin, operations, transplants...)?
"Kill the old people because of their politics" is all I hear whenever someone argues against longevity.
How about we solve the quality of life issues with higher age first before we work on extending the lifespan even more. Nobody benefits from old senile people who have to stay in bed all day and can't see properly having a few more years of suffering in that state.
We agree. See Valmond's comment above:
Reversing aging is exactly that (edit : making quality of life better, longevity is a mere byproduct). I think it's the best way.
But people don't seem to think so, and today we try to "make people stay alive as long as possible" which as you points out is just bad for everyone.
So I can be overworked even longer? No thanks.
So you'd prefer be a decripit sick old person, today already?
Most people thinks they'd change their mind and sort of welcome death at old age, but barring a very small number, nah, they want to live on as much as you and me today.
I will take getting old and decrepit over having to work forever for soulless companies amd shit. Then again it's not like I'm gonna see a pension anyways so I'd rather not get that old in the first place and die earlier.
Our society ain't ready for this type of shit, get everyone to be young forever and most of us will be living sad lives working forever to make someone else richer. And furthermore you'd have a lot more old people, who grew up in a different context than young people and don't always tend to accept the fact the world is different now from when they were young, but they outnumber young people by such a huge margin that the voices of young people will be completely ignored and societal change will happen at a slow crawl, if at all, with a good portion of the population being unrepresented because "gotta cater to the majority if you want enough votes to win"... no thanks.
The world doesn't need more old people and I sure as shit don't want to live in an even worse world than I have now. With climate change and all.
Also I'm not sure if the wording in your first question is correct because, as it is now, it reads like if I don't like extending life to eternity (assuming you don't get shot, etc etc) then I must want to be old immediately which is a completely stupid jump to make so I'll assume it was misworded.
When you say "the world doesn't need more old people", I agree with that, I agree a 100% with that.
You seems to mix everything up, and also, life can be good, it's worth it IMO.
I'm not saying life can't be good but an infinite one is definitely overrated
That's not the thing either, it's just living in good health.
It won't protect you in a car crash or from some deadly disease either. Just not getting sick and decrepit.