Does (local, regional, and/or international) society need death? Is working to increase human longevity desirable? Is enhancing life span more a burden on the youthful -- who must care for the longer-lived aged, or is it a gift of prolonged youthfulness for deferring old agedness? Are tendencies to approach certain socio-political problems (e.g.: philosophies of governance or social ordering) with solutions that rely exclusively on generational change (can't kill 'em so just wait for them to die) indifferent to extended human longevity? I'm dying to hear your timely thoughts.
If you're asking whether we need a complete turnover of the population in order for civilization to advance, I would guess that we don't. Sure there are people my age and older who resist change and yearn for some "old ways" that they don't even remember accurately and weren't as good as they recall. But there are plenty of younger people who stand just as resolutely in the way of progress for various reasons. I think the point is that on the balance most people just keep things running, some are a drag on the system, and only a few make improvements, and that paradigm cuts across all age groups. There are certainly plenty of older people who make great contributions to society; someone just posted an interview with Alvin Toffler here a couple of days ago. Many musicians and other kinds of artists keep contributing sometimes literally right up to the day they die. I'd put up with a whole lot of Baron Maxes in order to have Jim Henson, Frank Zappa and Isaac Asimov back. We're all of two minds about our own deaths, but we all have someone in our heart who was cut down too young and we wish there'd been a miracle cure or preventive for whatever ailed them. Even pets. The sweetest dog I ever had died before he was two, of a birth defect. Medical research benefits all species. In fact most surgical techniques are perfected on non-human animals first. If the surgery we had done on that puppy had succeeded, he'd only be eleven now, not even very old for a small breed, and I'd be so happy. These discussions on longevity often take such a self-centered turn. What would it be like if the people we loved lived longer, rather than we ourselves? Would we all be more content, and would that result in more peace and harmony in the world? As for myself, given that immortality is not likely to be discovered in time to give me that choice, the choice I really want is to die rather than be kept alive artificially. That is becoming increasingly difficult, as entire industries spring up that profit by extending lives devoid of meaning. Having been around since the 1940s, I'd say that in my observation life extension has been proportional. On the average the people I know in their 60s like myself are about as healthy and vigorous as people fifteen years younger than this were when I was a kid. The people I knew who were in their 60s back then resembled the spectrum of the 80-year-olds I know today. Childhood has been extended, so have youth and middle age, and old age runs longer too. If everyone's costs and contributions are proportionally increased, the net effect on the economy should balance out. I'm more worried about the deficit being built up by our failing educational system and the entire gamut of care for the young. People step off the university assembly line, often incurring a six-figure debt for a bachelor's degree, yet on the average they read and write at what for my generation was the sixth-grade level. I'm not sure what you're referring to. People tend to become more conservative as they grow older, but like the health curve that curve has also been stretched. The greatest perturbation in contemporary American politics that is age-related is merely due to the phenomenon of the Baby Boom: a spike in the birth rate from the end of WWII to the beginning of the hippie era, when feminism, contraception, abortion, and a long list of social changes resulted in a steep drop in fertility. That huge generation is retiring, just as the very much smaller generation who follows them steps up to fund the social programs that the Boomers' ultra-liberal elders instituted during the Depression. Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme which I'm sure didn't seem like fraud at a time when population was increasing steadily, Carlo Ponzi's engine writ large. I find it amusing that the only salvation of Social Security is immigration, which will keep the coffers full, and it's primarily old farts (not cool old dudes like myself) who want to fence off the borders. But people become old farts about fifteen or twenty years later than they did when my grandfather became one. And of course that is only a temporary salvation as we come up with a workable transition to a genuinely self-sustaining plan, public or private.
At times yes it helps. I think it is funny when someone says it is God's will. I think he would get a laugh out of that implication as well.
If it can also include good health as well as longer life. Only too if the society can stand the burden of taking care of people who live for a long time but cannot support themselves.
Death is a constant, Its something we know must happen. To prolong life, would alter the balance, and because its the young that fight and die, you might have a top heavy population pyramid. In response to the OP, Yes. To provide stability and the grounds for change. for example, If the older generation stayed around longer, older ideals and stereotypes might still prevail, thus preventing a lot of new ideals/methods of doing things. note its still alot of "mights" It is desirable to the extent of fighting diseases and saving lives,increasing the age "limit" isn't, because IMO, theres nothing to fear from death. It is a burden on the youthful, as they would have to support their parents far longer than any earlier generation. With enough support from the majority of the population (which should be the younger generation in ideal population), any approach can work.
That should balance out. As I mentioned in my earlier post people stay in good health longer and can stay productive. The retirement age keeps rising. It was traditionally 65, now we have to keep working to 70 in order to get maximum benefits. You know that's going to keep going up. More importantly, more and more people just don't stop working. Consultants like me continue to be in demand as we get older because we have more experience and better perspective. That's changing too. The percentage of the population killed by government violence has been dropping precipitously for three generations. Only three wars since WWII had more than a million victims (China, Korea and Congo, the leader with three million) and we're now able to be outraged over five- and six-figure body counts. I estimate that more people are now killed by drunk drivers than by deliberate acts of violence, military or civilian--roughly 20,000 per year in the U.S. alone. Of course those deaths hit the young disproportionately too, but now that war is on the wane I think we can muster up the resources to conquer drunk driving. A breathalyzer in every car would pretty well take care of it. Excuse me but it was my generation that made mainframe computers reliable and secure. It was a bunch of young numbskulls who invented Windows and refused to learn our lessons. Why does everyone assume that we need to be supported? Admittedly it was old numbskulls who invented the Ponzi Scheme called Social Security, but today's retirees have invested their money. My wife and I have no children, we'll live off of our investments. Perhaps what you're saying is when people become so frail that keeping them alive is a significant drain on the economy, they should be allowed to pull their own plugs. I'm all for that. Please lobby your congressmen to make that option available to us and it will still be there for you.
