Age Simulation Suit

My dad is 85 and this article hits hard about what he fights going on in his body. What sucks is how much of a downward, self reinforcing spiral it all is. It's so hard to see the curbs to walk over or how to get to a thing himself, so he just naturally chooses to do fewer and fewer things. Watching TV is safer and kinder and becomes the default to anything. Which just makes his brain less and less stimulated and active, and you can imagine the drag that adds to keep figuring out life.

But like the empathy found in this article, it's caused me to be incredibly more patient with anyone struggling to walk in front of me on a crowded or narrow sidewalk.

Aging is rough. Thank you to everyone working on accessibility and aging related tech and science.

Aging should be recognized as a disease already. It's long overdue.

Disease is abnormal to some "norm". When everyone has it, it's not a disease.

I would appreciate if the "norm" was recognized to be not having your body rot away over time.

It really is simple: aging is incredibly harmful and undesirable. It strips away your quality of life until there isn't much left and then you die. It doesn't take any more than that for it to be declared a disease.

Whether it's "natural" or whether "everyone has it" is a distraction. If everyone was born with cancer, that wouldn't make cancer any less of a disease.

I wouldn’t call one of the most essential parts of the life process (moving towards the end of your life involuntarily) a disease.

It’s actually very disturbing how people seem not to be worried about the growing potential for immortality. THAT is a disease, if anything.

If you want to decay and rot and die a miserable death, that's your choice. If your genuine preference is that all of your friends and family and your own children should decay and rot and die a miserable death too, then that's your opinion and you can hold onto it.

But don't you dare force that outcome onto everyone.

In my eyes, "decay and rot and the inevitability of a miserable death is a good thing actually" is a fucking insane viewpoint to hold. The only possible reason I see to hold onto it is that it's the socially accepted cope. If you truly believe that nothing can be done about aging, then "death is good acktually" makes for a good coping mechanism.

I'd rather humans cope less and problem-solve more.

i’ll leave you with this to ponder.

It would be pretty weird if george washington, Thomas Jefferson, etc were here with us today. We’d probably still be debating if slavery is acceptable or not LOL.

People complain about boomers hoarding all the wealth and “never letting go” so younger folks can take the reins. Imagine how much worse it would be if those boomers lived until 200?

Imagine how much more fossil fuel we’d be burning if we all lived until 200?

You know how old people tend to get stubborn? Not all, but most? Now imagine if the U.S. government was comprised of mostly people age 100+. Imagine how they would do keeping up with changes that affect youngsters in 2025?

Imagine how bad the housing crisis would be in 2025.

Imagine how unmotivated people would be in day to day life if they knew they’d live to 200 years?

In summary…if everyone could easily live forever, that is not a good thing. It would drastically change society as we know it, and not 100% for the better. I’d argue it would actually make things worse.

Death is literally a biological process that affects all living organisms on this planet, and in the galaxy. Sorry if that’s hard to accept? I personally find it beautiful how “energy” is recycled once we die, through the soil, and eventually into other things - like a tree, etc.

I find it hard to imagine that an 80 years old politician today spends a lot of time thinking of what would happen 50 or 100 years down the line. And things like fossil fuel use are very much a "50 to 100 years down the line" kind of problem.

Now, if that very politician thought that with the way anti-aging technology is going, he'll probably live to 150, maybe 200 if he's lucky? That might change the equation - for the better.

I don't think that "kill everyone to avoid the risk of the political system getting marginally worse" is an optimal solution. I'd rather deal with aging and the shittiness of politics as two separate problems with a minor overlap.

>I personally find it beautiful how “energy” is recycled once we die, through the soil, and eventually into other things - like a tree, etc.

I think that this is nothing but socially accepted cope. A load of pseudo-profound bullshit that might be easier to accept than the idea that aging and death are really fucking bad and we aren't doing much to stop them. And that even if we did, we and our loved ones may not be the ones to ever benefit from it.

cope? it’s what happens to all the fauna and flora on this planet. Including humans. Bit of a weird take if you ask me. I know my place so to speak…

I do agree with you that if politicians lived longer, they’d (hopefully) think long term. That’s an interesting point I hadn’t considered.

Lastly - nobody is suggesting killing anyone here. Feels like i’m being interviewed by a reporter with my words taken completely out of context. This is what being famous must feel like. :) If someone finds a way for humans to live longer I won’t be upset in the slightest. I’m just saying “be careful what you wish for”. That is all. There would be many unintended consequences. Viewing it as strictly a beneficial thing is naive i think.

Yes, cope. "It’s what happens to all the fauna and flora on this planet" is cope. A literal "it's more okay if I rot to death if everything else does!"

Modern agriculture has enabled the human population to grow rapidly without people starving to death, which had "unknown unintended consequences" too. As well as the well known consequence of food being affordable and available to most people worldwide.

I'd take "unknown unintended consequences" over the well known consequences of the status quo. The current consequences is that everyone dies a miserable death. It's a very easy choice.

My takeaway from this chat is that one of us is content, and the other is petrified of death. :-)

Anyways thanks for humoring me. Enjoy the rest of your day!