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Comment by kpmcc | Hacker News Reader

Gonna go out on a limb here and say that old age and dying are actually good, and that many of the problems in Western society are due to people living too long and holding onto power longer than they should / not passing on power and resources to younger generations.

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Looking at heads of states in non-western countries I'm not sure why you think it's a western thing. African countries got multiple 90+ year olds as head of state for example.

name 3?

I might've been exaggerating a bit, there's only one right now who's 90+, Paul Biya. Peter Mutharika will be 90+ when he steps down. Beji Esseni was 92 a few years ago. Many are 80+ and will not step down before dying

As disturbing as the film "Midsommar" was, I found the concept of a human life being divided into 4 seasons of 18 years each pretty compelling. Not necessarily that life should end after Winter, but a person's contributions to society probably should. Having politicians in office pushing 80 is a disgrace.

Hey now, don't crush my dreams of biological immortality! That being said, if the average lifespan continues to increase then we will have to consider rethinking the current social order. Right now we place seniority/experience at the top of what we consider socially useful in a person, but it's already clear that the effects of gerontocracy are hurting the average person in the US and other countries. Should these people automatically be considered the wisest and most socially responsible? Is your 60s really the time to be leading, or should it be when you're younger? Lower neuroplasticity, snowballing wealth, more dependents are all inhibitions to solid decision making that get worse as people grow older. We will have to address this as our lifespans continue to grow.

Nitpicking but early 60s still seems perfectly fine? I’d start the offramping between 66 - 70. Fully pass the baton by 70, basically.

Then what you're looking for is mandatory retirement ages and term limits, not condemnation to death.

Wars or pandemics like COVID-19 are more effective solutions.

You mean the ones which kill the young first? Especially the wars. "War" and "effective use of resources" are antonyms.

I think some amazing people should have lasted longer and society would be better for it.

> holding onto power longer than they should

The Western world lives under democracy. Power is held by the population at large. If it appears that the older population is holding more power, that is simply because they have more time, being retired, to exert their democratic duty.

At least where I live, the older are also substantially higher in number.

I think blaming America's problems on gerontocracy is correlation-causation confusion. The reason we have a gerontocracy is that ordinary rank-and-file voters are too cynical and individualistic to participate in politics.

Funnily enough a lot of these 'boomer' haters love to pretend the silent generation or the greatest generation were so much better. I believe a lot of this cynicism and individualism is caused by political decisions by these generations. Decisions like subsidizing the 30 year mortgage and urban design plans made it more difficult to have a 'real community', one which you would engage in politics for.

The power balance of local politics and national politics also got changed with TV and the internet, things which would've happened regardless of how good a 'generation' is.

In many wealthy countries the old are literally outnumbering the young so it wouldn't matter if everyone under the age of 40 turned up to vote.

Nations haven't tried to implement mass immigration because they are woke- it's a last desperate gamble.

A gamble which they managed so poorly that the planned wins got buried under collateral losses. And I still don't see much talk about solutions, just destructive radicalization.

> longer than they should

Just great. And who is to decide how long is "too long"? You?

I am sure people said the same 100 years back when they probably thought living beyond say 60 was too much. I know that in poorer countries due to high infant mortality rate and other issues just reaching 60 was a big milestone for the average person. The bigger question is how will the existing financial system adapt for such a scenario if even 10% of the population manages to extend from 82 to 100+

AFAIK most societies historically respected the wisdom attributed to old age, and many cultures still do.

If anything, we’ve seen that older generations of leadership can’t keep up with changing technology and fail to adapt to massive upheavals.

In times of rapid technological development, the old are not wise. They are reactionary and cannot adapt. Their brain stopped developing before the internet. To expect them to make adequate decisions for the current landscape is to expect them to understand a world they simply weren’t built for.

Massively ageist.

A lot of older people are more adaptable, have a better understanding of technology. The older you are the more change you will have experienced.

Yeah that’s why congress is just so on top of technology regulation.

Just because it’s ageist doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

So you end up with octogenarians in power? No thanks.

I am glad that in my country people retire and fuck off to spend their last days on holiday. Spending their accumulated wealth has become a major engine of the national economy.

Not too much wisdom in sight.

> I am sure people said the same 100 years back when they probably thought living beyond say 60 was too much.

At least in Western cultures, 70 was long considered the "natural" lifespan for humans. E.g., Dante's Divine Comedy takes place when the main character is at the literal midpoint of his life, 35.

50% of highly educated women in certain countries are expected to live to 100+ years old according to some demographers, although others believe there's genuine biological limits making this unlikely (they still believe a substantial amount will reach it).

People have been reaching the age of 100 since antiquity, reaching 110 probably happened hundreds of years ago as well. Which just shows the biological limit hasn't been extended just that there's more people reaching it.

Term limits.

Well, before we figure out who to send to the old age camps to be ground up and turned into McDonald's and Legos... first let's get some nice "age discrimination" laws in place preventing running for government office after age 67.

I think some sort of cognitive test would be a good place to start

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YES!!! Old age and dying are actually good for inherited wealth.

The finite lifespan is an integral part of the earth's ecosystem for the reasons you specify. The planet only has so many resources and life has only so many experiences. As I get older, my perspective changes on what is important. If I was stuck perpetually in my prime, I would think I would get bored. If you're dating someone much younger than you, what do you have in common? I'm glad we're only here for a little while. Change is good.

This hardfought wisdom has served the planet well for a couple billion years. What are the odds the Silicon Valley tech-bros have thought this through?

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