> The problem is, continuously educating new people to know ever more and to be able to handle more and more sophisticated systems has a continuously increasing cost to society too, since we don't live any longer than before.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35470905#35477122
This is one thing where aging slower could be very important for us. Increasing complexity alone requires more time for developing, planning, handling and maintaining a lot of our devices and infrastructure. Experience gained over long periods is worth much more. It also requires a higher up-front "penalty" in the form of more education before we can even get started with being productive in many interesting and worthwhile projects. For example, compare starting with Linux kernel programming in the 1990s vs. now, or building a house many decades ago vs. now.
On the other hand, our capacity to place the anto-aging benefits with the right people are questionable. We can only hope that higher-level processes, not controlled by us, will still lead us to good outcomes overall. Similar with a lot of stuff already going on which we hardly have any direct control over, even in cases where "in theory" (meaning a theory that does things like "if we all just..", disregarding that coordination and information are physical and cost time and energy and a working algorithm) we could. So adding one more thing for the universe to sort out for us may not make much of a difference anyway, and having the moneyed classes go first, probably for a long time because the anti-aging solution probably won't be a simple pill, but a complex ongoing long-term process, might still work out. For humanity as a whole, if not for the (less lucky) individuals. It probably widens the gaps even more, in wealth and in education and in opportunities. Might still be worth a shot.
People a 120 years ago had to memorize trig tables.
People 60 years ago had to learn how to operate a slide rule and understand how to handle accuracy.
People 30 years ago had to learn how to do algebra and calculus.
People 10 years ago needed to know how to set up the equations to ask Wolfram Alpha to solve the problem.
Today, we're closing in on being able to say, "Draw up plans to build a mixed-use building on this plot with at least 20,000 square feet of retail and 60 residential units." And getting back an answer.
Heh Heh Heh
People -20 years ago need to learn algebra, calculus, slide rules, accuracy, and trig tables as the answers they're getting don't work and they're not sure what to do.
* Nobody ever had to memorize trig tables (unless you mean the values for 30, 45 and 60 degrees)
* Understanding accuracy is not associated with just slide rules. It is ubiquitous whenever you make measurements. Moreso if you calculate with these measured values.
* People have been learning algebra and calculus for hundreds of years. They still are doing so.
* Symbolic math programs like maxima, maple, wolfram alpha, sage and others only solve some problems, but they have been used for 40 years or more for particular situations.
Given this, forgive me if I think your conclusion is flawed. You can ask a LLM model that answer today. And you will get an answer.
Understanding what that answer means and how it is a form of hooey still requires domain knowledge. And it will for a very long time.
Accuracy: first, I can't believe I cross-wired accuracy and precision. Still, you seem to be responding as if I had gotten it right, so I'll respond in kind: sure, understanding precision is still an important concept, but it was much more so when working with a mechanical device that managed at most 2-4 digits of precision. I'm guessing that with 64-bit values, precision isn't a big topic of conversation outside of NASA. (That's hyperbole)
You're saying that algebra and calculus are just as tedious/necessary now as they were 30 years ago? To be clear, I'm sort of fudging -- Mathematica is actually 34 years old. But my point is that tools like it have changed who needs to learn the techniques, and what learning the techniques look like. And of course it's easier to be certain that basically no one today needs to know how to use a slide rule than to say no one needs to be able to solve a quadratic -- the more recent the change, the less absolute it will be.
Finally, "a very long time" seems optimistic. As an analogy, there were articles written in 2010 saying that it would be "a very long time" before computers beat anyone reasonably skilled at Go. It was less than ten years later that the very best humans couldn't beat computers.
It's impossible to know where fast progress will be made vs. slow. I purposefully chose a hyperbolic example to illustrate the point, and it's entirely possible that architecture won't be a field handled well by AI/ML in ten years. But I think it's certain that over the next several years, multiple fields that humans regard as being as complex and domain-knowledge-dependent as architecture will be automated.
>It means that many of us would be in for a very difficult time if the zombie apocalypse happens
People grossly overestimate the amount of knowledge you'd need to learn and retain to survive one of these. Mostly, we're just lazy and don't do it because we think our computers will do it for us.
There are whole shelves of books on how to grow food, and other shelves on how to build shelter. I haven't watched a lot of Survivor or Naked and Afraid, but what I have seen makes me think there's more to survival than can be learned in a few months, let's say. And that's just basic survival. If we want to retain even an 18th century standard of living, we'd need to understand how to build steam engines, a cotton gin, etc., etc. I don't like our odds. To be clear: some people would survive. But my half-assed guess would be that the human population might drop to less than a million.
That said, death is rather terrible so I am in favor of curing aging to the extent that we can, while working hard to ensure things don’t go into the shitter in the process.
As for old people in politics, it's because there's a lot of old people who get to vote.
If it were up to me, your vote would depend on some rough measure of remaining time in the society, plus you'd get to vote for your underage children.
Too many people are voting emotionally based on something someone told them one time about how the world should be.
Not enough people voting based on having to grapple with accomplishing something difficult, wanting to improve the circumstances of their community, and seeing what human nature looks like over time.
But no one asked me.
Or are you suggesting they don't vote based on what they've been told the world should be?
I'll note many countries did have voting restrictions like that, and it did nothing good.
"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people" - Probably Jefferson?
I wish that the voting population were more knowledgeable about civics, the issues at hand and basic economic theory (i.e. no such thing as free money/services, that someone pays and not just everyone but you). I get a spew of party talking points for any interaction. I don't get a sense they even understand what they are saying. (Hence the reason for the first quote).
A lot of people I see (or am exposed to), don't read the news and base their decisions on clickbait-y articles (without even reading it) or shared/liked articles with dubious authenticity from their family/friends.
I get a sense of massive tribalism and am completely dumbfounded about it all.
To quote Jefferson again: “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”
What a great way to jumpstart a new feudal age. Lawmakers start pandering those two groups, eventually burning the bridge of mobility and turning all the renting working people into de-facto slaves.
I am very relieved that nobody asked you.
But restricting vote to property owners is the kind of thing that'd make me seriously consider fomenting armed insurrection.
Most HN commenters seem to not understand that the majority of Americans are homeowners. The “mobile” city dweller is an exception. And although it might hurt feelings, most Americans probably don’t want to have policy shaped by people who are so mobile they can vote in bad policy and then move to somewhere else with little cost to themselves.
Similar to most commenters on the internet don’t realize the TSA didn’t use to exist. The airlines dealt with security and everything was faster and more pleasant.
Not all progress is good. Sometimes society makes mistakes and we need to figure out how to course correct.
And as I said, if I was a citizen of a country that decided to disenfranchise 35% of the population, then despite being a homeowner it'd be time to organise an armed insurrection; it's totally intolerable and a government that tries something like that needs to be overthrown with force.
Our current politics isn’t even representative of what people want, it is a mind control contest. Whoever can manipulate the population the best wins.
What if I changed my suggestion to only people who pay net taxes get to vote. This would disqualify people living on social security so the comment I was replying to would get their wish.
Voting isn’t a natural right, the way speech or self defense is. Voting is participating in making decisions about how the country will be run and what force can be used to curtail other members of the society.
The whole concept of universal suffrage was probably silly to begin with. There should be a buy-in. If you can’t even pull your life together, why should you be empowered to influence how I live mine?
Also, why is is somehow less radical to want to disenfranchise the elderly?
Then the richest 49% will need to decide if the society they live in is worth that, or if they want to leave or otherwise separate.
> Our current politics isn’t even representative of what people want, it is a mind control contest. Whoever can manipulate the population the best wins.
I agree with that, but the solution is not to strip people of rights out of the assumption you know who knows best - that's the playbook of a substantial proportion of brutally oppressive, authoritarian movements who started with a notion of wanting what was "best" only to find out the people they claimed to want the best for had their own ideas of what that meant.
> The whole concept of universal suffrage was probably silly to begin with. There should be a buy-in. If you can’t even pull your life together, why should you be empowered to influence how I live mine?
The whole concept of universal suffrage is based on the concept that if you're not willing to give me a say, you have no legitimacy for demanding any say over my life whatsoever, and so can expect to face years or decades of resistance - however long it takes until you lose. No government will in the long run survive ongoing disenfranchisement, because a proportion of those you oppress will always be prepared to fight for freedom.
> What if I changed my suggestion to only people who pay net taxes get to vote. This would disqualify people living on social security so the comment I was replying to would get their wish.
Property requirement by proxy. Time for an armed revolution.
> Also, why is is somehow less radical to want to disenfranchise the elderly?
It's only marginally so as long as the proposal you replied to was vague on the extent of it, proposing to weight the value of the vote somehow based on the time they'd have to live with the consequences. That could be taken to outright disenfranchise the oldest, or slightly skewing it. Had they come out with something firmer, and you hadn't proposed something very direct with clear parallels to past real-life disenfranchisement they might have been the focus of the same level of opposition instead of you.
To be very clear, I think any disenfranchisement is unjustified. As it is, the US, and the UK where I live, can hardly be considered democracies given their horrible electoral systems have a similar effect for anyone who disagrees with the main options, but at least they don't go so far as to openly deprive any significant competent population group the vote (though I do consider the disenfranchisement of portions of convicted felons to be blatantly undemocratic and unjustified as well).
No more get out the vote campaigns. No more encouraging people to vote. The new message is ‘voting is your right, use it wisely.’
‘Vote responsibly.’
Everyone would have the right to vote, but would be encouraged only to vote when they feel educated about the issues and/or candidates.
And encouraged to abstain if and when they are unclear about what they are voting for.
‘I voted’ would no longer be a point of pride. Voting would be messaged as something to be done carefully, and anything resembling ballot harvesting would be totally illegal. In the broadest possible terms. People would need to care enough to actually figure when and how to vote.
That’s only a small part of it. You can’t get anywhere in US politics without being in one of the two main parties, both of which have become in-effect oligarchies. Age and wealth are big factors in getting ahead in oligarchies.
So voters have little choice but to vote for one of these two oligarchies which are both stacked with rich old people. It’s not that much different from the Roman republic, except that instead of a single senatorial class you get to choose between two competing parties of patricians.
One, all those in favor of living forever will out live the detractors.
Two, enshrine the right to die before making everybody live forever. Our bodies break down, parts stop working. Sure you might cure death, but what happens to those that will forever suffer due to some ailment that isn't curable? Do you let masses of people endlessly suffer just because someone can't fathom letting go?
In a world where the status quo is "nobody ages", then having everyone die after a certain age is also a drastic change to the already proven equilibrium.
In both cases, it's a drastic change, so in both cases we should proceed with caution.
(Related) I seem to recall an example of wolves and rabbits in equilibrium, with the wolves controlling the rabbit population. Take away the wolves and the rabbit population increases to the point where they eat all the vegetation and eventually all starve. (I'm not sure where I remember this from, or if it's even true)
We're talking about people dying. Would you "proceed with caution" pulling a person from a burning building, because of some vague reasons about status quos and upsetting balances? No, you'd save their life. There are times to proceed with caution, but it's not when billions of lives are at stake, equilibrium or not.
Freeing the slaves was a drastic change to a "proven equilibrium" economic situation. If we could have done it even a year earlier than we did, we should have. It was unconscionable that it even took that long. And messing up the comfy status quo and throwing the economy out of balance were absolutely reasons that slave-owners gave as to why they should be allowed to own humans forever. It was all bullshit. Fuck your equilibrium; billions of people are dying!
Political, legal, and economical systems would have to be prepared before that, otherwise countries would stagnate as undying parasites embed themselves in society for centuries. As they won't want competition, the most effective antiaging treatments would be priced out of the commoners forever. In some countries like USA people struggle to pay for insulin, much less antiaging treatments.
Edit: regarding your question, if people lived naturally forever, and it became a problem just recently, I think they're already adapted to living forever, and the problems come from something new. Anyway, let's suppose the problems are caused by overpopulation, then the solution would be to limit reproduction, and let the population fall down a bit as accidents/murders happen naturally.
It’s more of a question of whether somebody would want to stay in this world forever vs go elsewhere after death.
Now, imagine them living forever. You could almost guarantee how crummy the world would become, with an elite few running everything.
On top of that, if you believe that adding new people is important, eventually you run out of room/resources/etc.
So, for these reasons, death as part of our life cycle is a good thing. Fortunately, we didn't have to invent it.
I do not think death is going away any time soon, we are not even able to extend lifetimes by a meaningful amount yet. For now, we can more meaningfully discuss a world where poeple are living for 150 years.
Running out of resources is not necessarily an eventuality. Arguably, it would be possible to live sustainably but regardless of people dying or not, we are not doing that anyway. That's a separate discussion.
Running out of room is a serious concern. I do not have a good answer to that.
I just hate it when people talk about not having kids or not curing cancer because of some Malthusian desire to see humanity wither and die
To me it's always seemed like an interesting and somewhat fair trade. Also prevents the whole "perpetual population expansion" issue.
If you look at the demographics for most countries, we're not running into an overpopulation problem anywhere in the developed world.
If banning medical care after 50 reduced inequality by reducing lifespans should we do it?
I immediately thought of Logan's Run as well. In the movie it was 30(?) years old and in the book 21(?). I would have died some time ago in that world...
"Input too long, submit something shorter."
In a kingdom plagued by a dragon that demands a daily human sacrifice, the people have come to accept the beast as an inevitable fact of life. The dragon represents human aging and the sacrifices symbolize the lives lost to senescence. Eventually, a boy challenges the kingdom's resignation to the dragon's tyranny, igniting a movement to find a way to kill the dragon.
Technological advancements lead to the development of a missile capable of killing the dragon. Despite initial resistance from the king and his advisors, who worry about the social ramifications of killing the dragon, the beast is eventually slain, and the people celebrate their newfound freedom.
The fable teaches several moral lessons:
Acceptance of the "inevitable" can blind us to the suffering it causes. A static view of technology may cause us to underestimate the possibility of finding solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems. Society may prioritize damage control over addressing the root cause of an issue. Societal good must ultimately benefit individuals. A sense of proportion and priority is essential. Rhetoric can obscure the truth and hinder progress. Addressing urgent problems, like aging, should be a top priority. Societal reorganization and adaptation will be necessary after overcoming long-standing challenges. In conclusion, the fable urges society to invest in research to extend the human health-span, combat aging, and improve the quality of life, rather than merely accepting it as an inescapable fact.