At 13:07 06/07/2011, Barry wrote:
On Jul 6, 2011, at 2:52 AM, Keith Hudson wrote:
At 21:22 05/07/2011, Barry wrote:
It is perfectly obvious to me that the biomedical longevity treatments
will be reserved for wealthy Americans, and for those in the rest of
the world who have single-payer medical systems (lucky Canadians &
Brits!). The rest of us will be left to fight for scraps among
ourselves until we starve to death, succumb to one or another plague,
or are eliminated in one or another of the resource wars.
No! The longer the rich live the more likely it is that they'll be
increasingly bypassed by the young. Medical science may well be
able to keep their bodies alive for longer but not to rejuvenate
their brains. The vast bulk of innovative ideas (90%+) arrive in
the rapidly developing frontal lobes of the young, tailing off
fairly rapidly after about 25-30 years of age.
Keith
And yet, with an increased life expectancy, the wealthy will be able
to only increase their strangle-hold on the productivity gains of
those younger creative individuals.
They may be well able to do so in the case of their own younger
associates and employees but not of the young who breeze into the
market place from the outside. Of recent years, think Microsoft,
Netscape, Apple, Amazon, Google, etc -- all bringing swathes of
destruction to previous dominant firms. (And, to anticipate the next
point, all started by young people.)
And, current thinking is that creativity doesn't necessarily drop
off after a couple of decades. For many, it simply changes focus and direction.
There's some confusion here. There's been a revolution in
neuroscience in the last ten years or so in that it was then believed
that a child was born with all the neurons he will ever have. It is
now realized that although major culling takes place between birth
and puberty (in the rear cortex), millions of new neurons are created
in the frontal lobes at puberty, ready to establish new networks for
the adult world. This very largely finishes by about 25-30 years of
age. However, there has been a subsequent realization that this
creation never completely terminates and that new learning (and even
new ideas!) can take place into even advanced old age. But the
learning of brand new skills takes place with increasing difficulty
as one gets older, and the creation of new ideas with diminishing
frequency. It still remains the case that the really innovative ideas
occur almost exclusively among the young.
Keith
Cheers!
Barry
On Jul 5, 2011, at 4:08 PM, Mike Spencer wrote:
A biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist of a foundation
dedicated to longevity research, de Grey reckons that within his own
lifetime doctors could have all the tools they need to "cure" aging
-- banishing diseases that come with it and extending life
indefinitely.
In another foray to bridge C.P. Snow's cultural divide, I suggest
Bruce Sterling's _Holy Fire_, a novel that projects the economics, the
society and the concomitant psychological landscape were this research
to come gradually to fruition.
Pace Keith, the matters of overpopulation and resource depletion are
(I would assume intentionally) avoided in order to address the
implications of extended life technology.
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
/( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/07/
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/07/
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