MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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I Want You To Live Forever
By Michael Maiello on Tue, 12/03/2013 - 2:56pm |My latest for Reuters.
URL:
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/12/03/longer-lives-would-lead-to-better-living/
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Comments
Interesting think piece. But you've neglected a negative consequence of significantly longer life-spans--massive overpopulation.
by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 12/03/2013 - 3:17pm
I have a kid in Manhattan, you think I'm scared of overcrowding?
by Michael Maiello on Tue, 12/03/2013 - 3:52pm
Living space isn't the problem. Earth has plenty of space for more people to live in Manhattan-sized apartments or even McMansions. Farmland, on the other hand, will run out. Water will run out. Fossil fuels will run out.
It would be challenging enough if we lived substantially longer, but if our reproductive periods were extended as well, the problem would go geometric.
by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 12/03/2013 - 4:17pm
We'd fix it because we'd have no other choice. That's the crux of my argument.
by Michael Maiello on Tue, 12/03/2013 - 5:12pm
We've been debating this since Malthus in the late 18th century, with some significant counterproofs like Norman Borlaug. At the moment we're fixing our energy distribution for the next century, which helps moving the goods around as well as we move from combustion to electric vehicles. People like Stewart Brand became amazed when they realized that these sprawling urban environments like Nairobi have a lower eco-footprint than farms - efficiency at a much higher level despite the squalor. And that's 3rd world - one of the great economic treatises is "how can I walk out of my office in Manhattan and get a sandwich with fresh lettuce and tomato at the street corner" - vast self-organizational capabilities. Why don't we trust these? It's the scumbags that rig the system that screw things up, not our ability to innovate & evolve new needed processes.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 12/03/2013 - 7:00pm
Interesting and well-written, of course. (But why is it in the News sidebar and not on the main page?)
I'm looking at this from my vantage point, (which may well put me at 80-90% of my life span) wondering why we're so intent on lengthening normal life spans? We're already living longer, and possibly better, than the last generation. I don't quite get what this group is trying to do, and I didn't get what is in the home testing kit. What are they testing for? How does the FDA fit in?
What are the benefits of extending normal life spans? Death is not a solvable problem. Prolonging death may be, but only in the short term. If we each could live to be 100 (which of course is my goal) wouldn't that be long enough? If we managed to live to be 110 or 115, fantastic! I guess.
One hundred years is not a short life span. Anything beyond that is gravy, of course, but why mess with it? What will it cost to try to help people gain a few years? Will it be worth it in the end?
by Ramona on Tue, 12/03/2013 - 7:32pm
I think prolonging death is amore accurate description of some treatments than prolonging life.
AIUI, they were selling home testing kits that purported to tell you whether you were at risk for such things as breast cancer, so you could get a mastectomy early enough to do some good. There have been some high profile women that have done just that, too. But if it isn't accurate, then they're just fooling people into getting expensive elective surgery.
by Donal on Wed, 12/04/2013 - 8:44am