
Demographic Consequences of Defeating Aging - JoshTriplett
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192186/
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joe_the_user
One consequence of defeating aging I haven't heard discussed is the tendency
of society to become _very_ conservative.

Even if someone's mind regains the flexibility of a 20 year old, it's hard to
see how the lessons of a lifetime wouldn't lead to some fairly fixed beliefs.
If you can a population with only a trickle of actually young people, it seems
like the rate of change could become very slow.

~~~
theothermkn
This is a very common trope, but it fails to address what might be the cause,
rather than the mere correlation, of age-driven conservatism: imminent
mortality. If you're 50 years in to an 80 year lifespan, it's more difficult
to imagine starting over, with reduced vigor, to revamp your thinking and
lifestyle. If there is essentially no increased risk of next-year mortality
with age, and if we all have the stamina and energy of 20-year-olds, then
there truly are no old dogs.

Also, I'd really like to hear this "tendency of society to become _very_
conservative" fleshed out. I _think_ you meant "as average age goes up," but
I'm not sure why "society" gets brought into it. Aren't we pointing to a
tendency of _individuals_ to become more conservative as they age?

~~~
forkerenok
That's a very interesting perspective! Any particular reads inspired it?

Though I think "imminent mortality" is not the only thing at the foundation of
age-driven conservatism. I think there is also tendency to follow paths of
least resistance (energy conservatism): learning/discovering new ways of doing
things comes with more friction (if one does not enjoy the learning/wandering
process).

EDIT: I just realized that the two points are really intertwined. Time
conservatism is closely related to energy conservatism and cannot be regarded
in isolation. (forgive the awkward terms)

~~~
theothermkn
If anything, I formulated it–I'm sure it's not original–as a reaction against
Kuhn's _Structure of Scientific Revolutions_ and its nearly universal adoption
by the worst kind of smug, vocal startuppity Silicon Valley types, who apply
it to every objection to their newest pet projects. It just seems obvious to
me how the fear and resentment of an imminent decline and demise transfers
into one of the few places in an older person's life where they still have
power, the dinner table and the voting booth. Aging is degrading and
humiliating, and you're supposed to wear it with grace and dignity. And then
the "news" guy on the conservative channel tells you about all the mistakes
that kids and immigrants are making... Presto! Instant "conservative" harking
back to an invented Golden Age.

> ...if one does not enjoy the learning/wandering process...

Or, if one does not perceive that the investment has time to pay off.

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marchenko
The Book _Algorithms to Live By_ describes some research which found that it
is not chronological age, but rather one's position on the explore/exploit
curve that drives the apparent conservatism of old age. So a 70 year old who
expects to live 50 more years might be considerably more novelty-seeking than
a 70 year old who expects to live 20 more years, because the first has a
longer interval within which to exploit the benefits of any useful finds.

~~~
theothermkn
Hey! Thank you for your post! I was pretty sure I hadn't formulated something
new, and it's great to have a new book recommendation!

The result you mention seems intuitively correct, and meshes with my own
experience. The career changes that I'll consider in my 40s are definitely not
the same ones I'd have considered in my 20s. There's no time!

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grondilu
> with the most radical life extension scenario (assuming no aging at all
> after age 60)

That does not sound like the most radical life extension one can imagine.

IMHO the most radical one is : no more aging after the age of say 30. In that
case, one crucial question is : would women remain fertile? If so, what would
be their reproductive behavior?

~~~
nezzle
Further delay in advanced countries. The biological clock puts an upper limit
on how long women can delay childbirth now.

Groups that breed without control will continue to do so.

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zitterbewegung
The biggest consequence of defeating aging is how people will work and will
other people have jobs . We already see this happening now.

If you have a set of very experienced people that can perform their tasks why
do you need to replace or fire them? Consider the job market with professors
in math. Due to tenure you have a bunch of math professors that do
extraordinary work. People who would have replaced them instead get non tenure
track positions or go into other fields .

This is not to blame math professors that have jobs right now. Or the
situation that grad students have in becoming professors.

It also has a weird effect where the social dogma stays for longer than would
be if medical science wasn’t so good. I don’t know what the long term changes
that will do.

To be honest if there wasn’t so much emphasis on people learning calculus math
would have become like getting a Philosophy degree.

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darod
"Moreover, if some members of society reject to use new anti-aging
technologies for some religious or any other reasons (inconvenience, non-
compliance, fear of side effects, costs, etc.), then the total population size
may even decrease over time." I don't understand how this would decrease the
population. Also why would they even bring this point up in the abstract. I
thought this study was supposed to analyze the worst case scenario.
Additionally an increase of 22% is not a trivial number when the population of
the world is 7 billion.

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esturk
Interesting to see this article today with the release of the show Altered
Carbon this weekend. I haven't gone far in the show but the implications there
is that society will bifurcate into the affluent class called the Meths that
can afford to resleeve into new bodies whenever and wherever they want vs the
grounded class that can't afford to.

People are too hung up on the Utopia vision that comes with curing aging but
the probable outcome is that the Rich won't die and will get to accumulate
more and more wealth until they don't have to answer to anyone. And then
society as a whole becomes stagnant because it has reached an optimal point
because the Rich wants to keep it that way.

That's unlike today where the Rich do sway politics and hold considerable
power, but they will eventually die off and then change may come of it.

I recommend folks who like these kinds of sci-fi shows to check Altered Carbon
out.

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staunch
It doesn't make sense to worry about what happens if humanity become immortal
and nothing else changes. Technology is going to change everything about the
world, and immortality may be the least of it.

There's every reason to think humanity will develop super intelligent life, or
augment itself into super intelligent life, within 100 years.

Which means that there will never be billions of ape-like humans living to be
hundreds or thousands of years old. When super intelligent life emerges, it
will probably be immortal, but none of the concerns we have about immortal
humans will apply.

There's only one part of our future we can be sure of, and that's giving birth
to Superhumanity. It almost doesn't matter what we do before this, and we will
have no control over what happens afterwards.

~~~
grondilu
Agreed. People already live quite long, so immortality would take a very long
time to make a difference with how things already are. If the first person to
live 150 years is twenty years old today, he will reach that age in 130 years,
that is in 2148.

I believe that in 2148, the world will be vastly different than it currently
is, and to a degree we can't even imagine. So to me the desire to be still
alive then sounds naive, even futile.

I understand that from a subjective point of view, and especially to people
who fear death, immortality is of prime importance, but in the grand scheme of
things, it's just a detail : paradoxically it does not matter in the long term
because its effects take too long a time to manifest.

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prepend
It seems like the smartest way to prep for these demographic shifts is to buy
renewable natural resources- timber, real estate, etc.

Just get lots of money that keeps getting bigger and outrace demographics.
This has worked for family wealth for thousands of years.

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KasianFranks
Defeating aging or extending human life to some extent say 150 years, gives us
time to extend life to 300 and so on. It solves for true deep space travel and
colonization of habitable planets.

~~~
grondilu
Do you really think a reasonable solution for deep space travel is to spend
centuries in a spaceship? Don't you think some kind of suspended animation
would be preferable?

~~~
KasianFranks
Yes, suspended animation would be great if we did not age during the process.

~~~
JoshTriplett
If we had viable suspended animation technology today, that'd be far _more_
valuable than interstellar travel.

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thriftwy
That's not defeating of aging until you found a way to prolong youth and not
just the old age as this research seem to assume.

~~~
thriftwy
...Aaaaand if you prolong youth, people will eventually have more kids. One at
30, one at 45 and one at 60. And then maybe one at 75.

~~~
theothermkn
Apparently, every opportunity that women are given to delay pregnancy and
childbirth is taken. Education advances, health advances, birth control, and
wealth have each caused a delay and decrease in reproduction. It's a bit of a
cliche fear that is popular because of its simplicity, not its correctness,
IMO.

~~~
kimdcmason
I’m not convinced. It does that for a high percentage of the population.
However, after a period, the smaller percentage of the population that don’t
reduce their birth rate will become increasingly dominant.

Current examples are the rapid growth of Orthodox Jews as a percentage of
Israel’s population, and evangelical birth rates in the US.

My bet is that given technology to allow massive extension of fertility into
older age, the fertility differences between religious groups that believe in
a religious duty to procreate, and everyone else, will increase even more.

~~~
carapace
Yeah, it's weird to me that people in general don't see this.

I like to joke that the Amish are obviously the one true religion because
eventually they'll cover the earth: They live long and peaceful lives, have
scores of children, and are among the best farmers on Earth.

As long as the rest of us don't do something horrible the end state is
inevitable.

