> Imagine the massive GDP creation from making every 65+ year old feel 40 again.
Come on. It's like more than half a century ago some economists predict because of the improvement of technology and the overall production, most people only need to work 4 hours per day.
aaand now we have a lot of people working 12 hours a day over the wire already. GDP is the millstone that when it's bigger it grinds more soul - because things are operated in scale as technology develops, individuals can only grab every opportunity they have, in order to participate in the economy, even when the opportunity is outstraight abusive.
There will be new jobs but new jobs are either rockstar economies like being social media celebrities, or bullshit jobs that people have to scratch their head and come up with overpriced bullshit products from nothing and marketing those as the best thing ever.
It's not unlikely we ended up working 16 hours a day pointlessly in the so-called metaverse half a century from now on.
Ok, but say the vaccine makes your 65 year old body feel like your 40 year old body, and you would only have to work for a few years to pay for it, say its 3 years salary a dose, and then you would get to be retired again as 68 with a 43 year old body to actually go and enjoy life with.
This strikes me as similar to arguing that we shouldn’t give money to panhandlers because they’ll only go spend it on drugs.
Yes, we as a society have historically made poor decisions about what to do with productivity and lifespan increases. Let’s work on making better choices _and_ enhance our lifespans.
I'm not saying that we should stop making progress - creating new technologies that benefit the world is no doubt a great thing.
It's just the stress on GDP which makes me feel alarmed - historically speaking, things like GDP are always excuses to convince people they're goals worth following before we improve things like inequality or the quality of life. Do people now generally feel happier than half a century ago since GDP has drastically increased? Or the mental health of a large fraction of us was deteriorating all along over the decades?
It almost feels lies like "let us focus on delivering the features first, we'll get back to the technical debt once we have time" in some organizations - there are always new features, and always room for development, other things are always overlooked or keep bare minimum.
Back to the specific topic of increasing lifespan. Inequality is a problem much harder to solve than the technology itself. If we don't solve it carefully, it's very likely to be more harmful than helpful to the world. The right to live and the right to reproduction are the two most sensitive things to creatures - fundamentally it's much more risky than inventing the Internet or plastic surgery.
I can't help but think what I saw in the hospital - people with cancer and with no money giveaway their painkiller to drug dealers in exchange for some dirty motel nearby. Meanwhile, I know there are old, important figures who live in the hospital and spend several years of the average person's income per day, taking up a large fraction of scarce medical resources, equipment, and wards, just because they're old (many of them have no serious problems, just in case) and "important".
Think about the ancient tyrant who spent a lot, searching for immortality elixir died from poisoning. He became a laughing stock because the elixir didn't work, but it wouldn't be so funny if the elixir works. Nowadays, rich people can already fight cancer much better than poor people. Just imagine, how it feels when you know the first 0.1% of powerful figures you know (name the first 3 at least), are going to live for the next 500 years, but not everybody else?
Go be cynical in the corner. Maybe your life hasn’t panned out all that well but stop injecting your pessimism into everything so the rest of us can have nice things.
Come on. It's like more than half a century ago some economists predict because of the improvement of technology and the overall production, most people only need to work 4 hours per day.
aaand now we have a lot of people working 12 hours a day over the wire already. GDP is the millstone that when it's bigger it grinds more soul - because things are operated in scale as technology develops, individuals can only grab every opportunity they have, in order to participate in the economy, even when the opportunity is outstraight abusive.
There will be new jobs but new jobs are either rockstar economies like being social media celebrities, or bullshit jobs that people have to scratch their head and come up with overpriced bullshit products from nothing and marketing those as the best thing ever.
It's not unlikely we ended up working 16 hours a day pointlessly in the so-called metaverse half a century from now on.