

What Happens When We All Live to 100? - benbreen
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/09/what-happens-when-we-all-live-to-100/379338/

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geebee
Probably a nitpick, but i disagree with this statement

"Evolution doesn’t care about you past your reproductive age. It doesn’t want
you either to live longer or to die, it just doesn’t care"

I've heard this statement a few times, and it appears to be untrue. Menopause,
in particular, is evidence of this - that humans evolved to shut down
reproduction at a certain age rather than allow it to peter out - perhaps
because grandparents are so relevant in the evolutionary prospects of their
descendants.

This next part is most certainly a nitpick, but the statement
"nature/evolution doesn't care", while not meant literally, does fall into the
trap of assigning intent or purpose to evolution (in this case, more subtly,
through the presence of absence of caring, rather than the non-existence of
intent).

~~~
kolev
Who cares if evolution doesn't care (pun intended) - we are known as the
hackers of this planet and we've evolved to start to master genetic
engineering ourselves (for good or for bad), so, evolution will become less
and less relevant with time.

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mattchen
I've actually always pondered about the economic effect of the aging
population and had done some research here and there about it. If we do not
increase the current retirement age more frequently and gradually towards 70,
there will definitely be economic consequences. I don't want to bore you guys
with the math here, but imagine if one lives to 90 years old, and retires at
65. This individual would spend more than half of his or her life being
"economically unproductive" (either in school - 22 years or retired - 25
years). With that being said, there have been many successful individuals,
Morris Chang (83 years old) from TSMC for example, who are well over their
retirement ages, but still making great contributions to business and
technology. I believe that there should be a movement, especially with the
advent of online education, where individuals in their late 40s / 50s should
brush up on their understanding of emerging technologies, so that they can
continue to be available in the working force without being technologically
outdated (clearly, this statement does not apply to many of the individuals on
this site, but for general masses, a brushing up on technology can certainly
be a great thing).

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jgamman
Not stated explicitly but it looks like the article is referring to average
age which is heavily skewed by infant death rates - which have been decreasing
drastically over the last few decades (yay for that ;-). the real question
when talking about the upper limit is "If you make it to 25, what are the
chances you'll make it to 100". Last time i looked at this it wasn't nearly as
spectacular as you'd think.

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jacquesm
Well, that's pretty simple: we'll need to consume _far_ less per capita
otherwise the system will collapse. The good news is that you can start that
today.

~~~
seanflyon
Or produce more.

