
You Are Going to Die - scottkduncan
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/you-are-going-to-die/
======
rayiner
I think the part about segregating the elderly away so we don't have to
confront death is spot-on.

Even though I was raised in the U.S., I find the American approach to the
elderly a bit bizarre. My family is from Bangladesh. My grandparents moved in
with their children when they were too old to take care of themselves. Yet
here in the U.S., the popular culture strongly pushes back against multi-
generational living. So we end up with a fairly bizarre situation: a country
that is in crisis about how to take care of retirees, and also faces the
challenge of middle class couples not wanting to have children because of,
among other things, the enormous costs of child care. I feel like one problem
is a built in solution to the other problem.

I'm not trying to criticize anyone's lifestyle choices. But to an extent our
lifestyle choices are cultural. See, e.g., the cultural attitudes about young
people living with their parents into their 20's in places like Spain versus
the U.S. I think one thing the economy and the retirement crisis will force is
a changing attitude towards multi-generational living. We're facing a future
with fewer workers per retiree. At this instant it's a zero-sum game: we
either tax working people more so the elderly can maintain independent
lifestyles, or we reduce benefits to older people and force them to depend
more on their children. Either way, the efficiencies that are inherent in
multi-generational living will be an attractive way to deal with the smaller
than expected pie that must be split amongst more people.

~~~
MartinCron
_So we end up with a fairly bizarre situation: a country that is in crisis
about how to take care of retirees, and also faces the challenge of middle
class couples not wanting to have children because of, among other things, the
enormous costs of child care. I feel like one problem is a built in solution
to the other problem_

As someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about this, I feel that the
status quo will be remembered as a peculiar little historical blip.

It is so outrageous to me that my kids' grandparents are lonely as heck
wasting away in their 55 & older retirement community in an inhospitable
desert wasteland at the same time I have spent literally tens of thousands of
dollars on child care. Whenever I see other grandparents actively
grandparenting, I am filled with jealous resentment.

~~~
dr_doom
You are absolutely right, I plan to move my parents in when I start having
kids. I still remember going to one of grandparents house everyday after
elementary and middle school.

I'm mexican so it's normal to have multi-generational homes but I always
wondered why white people don't do this more.

~~~
Turing_Machine
I'm not sure if it's a white people thing specifically, at least other than
locally and recently. Maybe more of a "recent American society" thing.

Certainly when I was a kid I was usually watched by my grandparents, great-
grandparents, aunts, and so on. Only very rarely was I watched by sitters.

Part of it is modern mobility. Parents may live thousands of miles away from
the grandparents, and elders are working in their own careers longer nowadays.

------
fusiongyro
Americans are afraid to die, sure, but there's something we're much more
afraid of which explains all of this so much better.

We're afraid of old people fucking.

We're afraid to know our parents had sex. We're afraid for our kids to know we
have sex. We're afraid of what happens when we get old and wrinkly. We're
afraid that when we're old and wrinkly, nobody taut and sexy will want to have
sex with us. We're secretly afraid when we're old and wrinkly we won't be able
to get it up. And, of course, we're terrified that our widowed grandparents
might be having sex with other widowed grandparents.

I think the whole youth and beauty thing falls out of this.

~~~
marquis
>I think the whole youth and beauty thing falls out of this.

Yes, you're right but that is more of a side-effect of why we value youth and
beauty: our primary drive for sex is to reproduce, and there is a nice bell-
curve on the age of a person as to when that is optimal, made clearly obvious
by their outward appearance of youth and beauty.

Plenty of older people have sex, and I've heard anecdotally that retirement
homes are a good place for finding a partner.

~~~
fusiongyro
> our primary drive for sex is to reproduce

Clearly you and I are not watching the same pornography.

> Plenty of older people have sex

Sure. I'm just positing that the retirement home phenomenon is exacerbated by
our cultural fear of finding out about this.

------
Eliezer
The world doesn't have to be like this. Not anymore. It's too late for my
little brother - but Kim Suozzi made it, and it's not too late for you, or any
of your loved ones who are still alive.

<http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Cryonics>

~~~
rpm4321
Hey Eliezer, what do you think it would take to bring the price point of
cryonics down to a level where it could become commonplace?

Right now, the primary barriers to its widespread addoption are still probably
incredulity and religious objections, but I think those would quickly fall by
the wayside if it didn't cost as much as a house.

Perhaps an X-Prize style competition to develop more cost-effective
technologies and techniques?

~~~
AngryParsley
The cost is low enough today that it could be much more common. Even the most
expensive set-up (Alcor whole-body, whole life insurance) is about $130/month
for a healthy person in their mid 20's. With term life and neuro (head-only),
you could cut that in half. Still, only a couple thousand people are signed
up.

Alcor has published a cost break-down
<http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CostOfCryonicsTables.txt> and explained it
at <http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CostOfCryonics.html>

A big chunk of cash is spent keeping a team on-site while waiting for the
person to die. Assisted suicide for the terminally ill would help reduce costs
significantly.

~~~
nodata
> for a healthy person in their mid 20's

Oh come on, quoting the cheapest price isn't fair or realistic. How about
showing us something more representative, or at least quoting the most
expensive rate as well?

~~~
AngryParsley
I'll address it, but I don't think cost is your true rejection[1]. If I was
talking about a highly-experimental cancer treatment, I doubt you'd nitpick
the price. Doubly-so if you had cancer. In fact, I bet you'd do your best to
estimate its effectiveness.

I didn't quote the cheapest price. I quoted what I pay. I have no idea how
much older people pay for life insurance. If you looked at their website,
you'd see that Alcor dues are $800/year. Neuropreservation is $80k and whole-
body is $200k (<http://alcor.org/BecomeMember/scheduleA.html>). This may sound
like a lot, but the standard way to pay is to buy life insurance. When you
die, the policy pays Alcor. You can see the cost break-down in my GP comment.

Alcor is expensive. Cryonics Institute is the budget option. CI dues are
$120/year and whole-body preservation costs $35k. CI members usually pay with
life insurance as well. CI can charge less because they have less staff. Their
research budget is practically zero. Most importantly, they won't camp at your
deathbed. IIRC, Eliezer is signed up with CI and pays around $300/year.
_That's_ the cheapest price possible.

It's often said that getting cryopreserved is the second-worst thing that can
happen to you. Cryonics gives you a small chance of living a much longer life.
I'll be the first to admit that it's highly unlikely to work. But for myself
and many others, the expected value calculation heavily favors signing up.
After all, consider the alternative: You die slightly wealthier.

1\. <http://lesswrong.com/lw/wj/is_that_your_true_rejection/>

~~~
dennisgorelik
"A small change" of living after being cryopreserved after you are declared
legally dead is less than your chance to win powerball jackpot with single
ticket.

The alternative is that you do a little bit more with your life, because you
don't spend $120/year and all the mental energy for planning your after-life.

~~~
AngryParsley
The probability of revival varies based on who you ask. SEM micrographs of
cryopreserved mammal brain tissue show intact nanostructure. One can even see
synaptic vesicles with neurotransmitters in them. Also, Alcor's
cryopreservation protocol has been used to preserve and revive rabbit kidneys
successfully (<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781097/>).

If cryonics works, this is the sort of evidence you'd expect to see today.
Demanding a revival doesn't make sense, because cryonics relies on the vast
gap between preservation tech and revival tech.

------
diziet
Strangely enough, the observed / estimated mortality rate is around 93% -- the
seven billion living people haven't yet died.

On another somber note, even if we could transcribe our consciousness to
machines, achieve singularity, etc -- all we do is delay it by another number.
The sun is going to burn out, explode an expand, and eventually stars in
general will run out of fuel. Is only hope is to change your conscious
understanding of life and existence to accept non existence?

~~~
rpm4321
_"all we do is delay it by another number"_

10,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000
> 80

~~~
dennisgorelik
There are way too many zeroes in that number.

~~~
erre
True, but I think it illustrates his point further: given enough zeroes, it's
close enough to infinity that it doesn't matter :)

------
barry-cotter
Not if Aubrey de Grey, Eliezer Yudkowsky or a number of other people succeed.
Donate. Death is not the end of everything but it will be the end of you.

~~~
wissler
Too much government interference right now for that kind of thing to bear
fruit. We need radical research not the slow meandering kind that the FDA
allows us.

~~~
dennisgorelik
Government is way too incompetent to prevent technical progress.

The real enemy of technical progress is natural complexity of things.

~~~
wissler
You don't need to be competent to destroy. As they say, it's far easier to
destroy than it is to create. Government destroys incentive by threats, laws,
regulations, direct appropriation, usurping the educational system, etc. etc.
etc.

You far underestimate the problem. We are now living in a virtual dark ages
compared to what is possible under a proper system of government.

~~~
dennisgorelik
There are 100+ governments on Earth.

Why wouldn't you pick a proper one?

~~~
wissler
Why do you suppose that there's a proper one? You clearly need to read more
history.

------
carleverett
I'd like to point out first that this author has an awful attitude, and I'd
also like to point out that his opinion about the "flattened bell curve" of
life is factually incorrect. Most studies show a linear improvement in
happiness during the twilight years of life -
<http://www.economist.com/node/17722567> \- it is in face a U-shape, the
opposite of a bell curve.

Don't let depressed assholes like Tim Kreider affect your outlook on life.
You'll note that he, at age 45, is right next to the statistically lowest
point of self-reported well-being. One day he, like his Mother, will learn to
enjoy the good things in life and not look so morbidly at his pending doom.

~~~
helmut_hed
It may be an awful attitude, but it coincides remarkably well with mine. And
he's not an asshole - just a bit morbid, perhaps.

I think we spend a lot of time and mental energy suppressing the fact of our
own eventual decline and death, leading to stress and cognitive dissonance.
It's nice to occasionally face the facts directly.

------
hashbrown7
We certainly start to come to grips with our own mortality as we age. At 28,
I'm having thoughts and concerns about illnesses I never thought I would, even
though I'm certainly more aware of what I put into my body than I was just
years ago.

I remember a conversation with my mom a few years back, where she started with
something like "If I had died a few years ago." That was unfathomable to me
because the thought of losing my parents is something I've always wrestled
with and my mom is still very much youthful and carefree despite her advancing
age.

Its a great piece that highlights the fact that at sometime we can and do come
to terms with the fact that we won't be here forever. It's a sobering thought,
but one that gives us perspective on life about the things that matter. In
addition, realizing that we are mortal makes us want to leave behind a legacy,
whether its a family, a product, or a book, we all want to be remembered for
something.

I think we all come to this realization at different points in our lives.

------
meric
Death may be inevitable, but there is life to live yet.

------
delinquentme
Life-extension as the pursuit of the every-man: " The mortality rate is
holding at a scandalous 100 percent. "

What are YOU doing?

------
dade_
The article states that films rarely have infirm or elderly characters, though
a great film that does is "Away from her". It isn't the easiest to watch, but
it is sobering.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0491747/>

~~~
MartinCron
Similarly, I just saw the trailer for "the Quartet" with Maggie Smith, Michael
Gambon, and John Cleese and it looks remarkable.

------
ttar
Most people act as if they are immortal though.

~~~
Evbn
Is there any other way to stay sane?

~~~
virtualwhys
heh, heh, is sanity even possible given the circumstances?

born to die, blink of an eye, gone, become, everything.

------
virtualwhys
What luck, there is no you.

------
anonymouz
"Hacker News"

------
benched
"the well are without mercy"

This line jumped out at me, as if taken from my own thoughts of the day. I
have found, anytime that I am functioning at anything less than 100%, that
almost every other human becomes like a jackal. Nonchalantly, politely
divesting me of whatever scraps are left of my spirit, dignity or bank
account, with a smile.

The same goes for people who are thought to be helpers, like doctors, nurses,
counselors, social workers and the like. Human instincts to prey on the weaker
seem to trump professional narratives in many cases.

I see this in the way doctors treat my grandfather. I see it in the way well-
off members of the family treat poorer. Life is brutal, and as ever, it's we
who make it so.

~~~
delinquentme
By * all * measurable aspects we're living in the most peaceful time known in
all recorded history.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violen...](http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html)

You should make a conscious effort to see this. Otherwise you're going to
begin to believe the amygdala-driven "what is the world coming to" type
statements.

------
Evbn
This article is an obnoxious meander. It is an "anxiety" blog for heavens
sake, not very productive.

Getting care for the elderly is nice. Modern medicine is a mixed blessing,
where we live long enough to get old with alzheimers and cancer.

Make the most of the years you get, the last one will be bad no matter what
you do, unless you die of a heart attack during sex.

And set up your grandparents with Skype or FaceTime or Hangouts, the joy it
brings them is beyond measure. Nothing is better for the cost of a device and
Internet connectivity.

------
Evbn
This conversation is not good for mental health.

~~~
MartinCron
One may argue that the denialist approach to mortality is even worse for
mental health.

~~~
Evbn
It is too late for us, but spare your friends and especially your children. We
who search for all the answers suffer when find the unanswerable ones. The
minds who are lucky don't encounter the darkest questions of life, and we
should let them be happy, and help protect their innocence.

~~~
rayiner
Death isn't an unanswerable question. It is, in a world with finite resources,
a necessary inevitability. The only question is whether that death comes in
orderly cycles, or catastrophically.

Not everyone wants to live forever. My grandparents lived to their 80's. My
father, who is a bit over 60, considers that to be a very reasonable number,
and I feel the same way. I don't want to still be here in 60+ years straining
the resources of my daughter's generation.

~~~
capisce
Let me know the day you feel you've had your fill and you're ok with pulling
the plug, if not due to your body ceasing to function properly.

~~~
rayiner
Maybe I'll feel differently in 50 years, who knows. My dad certainly feels
more strongly about not wanting to take unusual measures to extend life than
he did 10-20 years ago (when he probably hadn't thought of it much).

Death is not a failure of the design. It's an integral part of it.

~~~
nova
> Death is not a failure of the design. It's an integral part of it.

And that's Stockholm syndrome at its maximum expression.

------
hayksaakian
And water is wet, and the sky is blue.

