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The core thesis is really only true if money can't be exchanged for some expectation value of additional years of healthy life. Up until fairly recently (say 20

The core thesis is really only true if money can't be exchanged for some expectation value of additional years of healthy life. Up until fairly recently (say 20 years) that was the case. You couldn't really do a lot with a lot of money to swing odds, any more than you could with just a little money and some forethought. The free stuff like planning, exercise, and calorie restriction outweigh everything else, and by the time you're in late old age how far you get is a complete lottery of genes and happenstance. It isn't true any more, however. You can outlay money to increase your life span down the line - though it isn't an individual thing, it is increasing life span for everyone. It is a collaborative effort. How: money can be used as a lever at all levels of research and development in the science of aging to increase everyone's life expectancy by pushing forward the right lines of development. Whether that is by being an insider putting in five figures into a seed round in a useful startup, or by being a billionaire establishing a research foundation, you can move the needle. Early stage research is dirt cheap. Venture capital is overflowing the sandbags for any venture that can do something credible with its seed round. There are startups at various stages today that have means of repairing/removing some of the cell and tissue damage that causes aging, and are pushing towards human testing. The game of life used to be limited. It used to have a line at the end, you are done. Everything in life and all of our culture is very much defined by the existence of that once-immutable endpoint. The endpoint is fading, however, in the sense that bringing aging under medical control is a research and development project that can and has been envisaged in some detail. But next to no-one has yet adapted to the new reality: the world is still full of old people playing the same old game of gathering points in politics and markets for some final score, and of young people aiming to be in the same position. If there was sanity, the old game board would be thrown out, and immense interest and investment would be directed towards the biotechnologies of aging and longevity. There is a big difference between a world in which you can't buy time with money, and one in which you can.

pjmorris 10y ago
I think the lifespan issue misses the point. The core thesis is that 'more' - money, houses, lifespan - doesn't buy you happiness. You've still got to figure out what to do with each day you get, and that's where happiness either happens or doesn't.
- forloop 10y ago
  If you have 10 units of happiness per day, and live twice as long, then you'll have twice as many units of happiness at the end of your life. Arguments for not expanding lifespan are often easy to debunk.
scandox 10y ago
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". Perhaps we'll find the same is true about life itself. We'll live twice as long, but we'll be twice as cautious, twice as likely to say 'tomorrow'. Everything has to end. Even the human race. For me the deadline gives our activities meaning. Ironically, even your eager desire to extend longevity only has a sense of urgency and interest because we die. But the actual lifespan itself will always be arbitrary, a number picked out of a hat. So why isn't 80 years ok? Why is 160 years really better? In fact, wouldn't faster generations make the world even a bit more interesting?
- Tiksi 10y ago
  I may still be too young at 25, but I can't think of a single time in my life where the threat of eventual death was a motivator of any kind. maybe as I get older it'll come, but only because it'll be just over the horizon. If I lived 800 years instead of 80, it might motivate me for the last 30 years, but that still gives me an extra 690 years of being motivated by other factors (happiness, comfort, pride, love, whatever floats your boat).
incompatible 10y ago
Looking at society as a whole, there's not much to be gained by increasing lifespan. There's no shortage of people being born. They come up to speed quickly to be able to do useful things (20 years or so). There are a few people doing great work even in old age, who couldn't easily be replaced by somebody younger, but I'd say they are an exception. There's no reason to think those particular people would be chosen for life extension first.

pjmorris 10y ago

I think the lifespan issue misses the point. The core thesis is that 'more' - money, houses, lifespan - doesn't buy you happiness. You've still got to figure out what to do with each day you get, and that's where happiness either happens or doesn't.

forloop 10y ago
If you have 10 units of happiness per day, and live twice as long, then you'll have twice as many units of happiness at the end of your life. Arguments for not expanding lifespan are often easy to debunk.

scandox 10y ago

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". Perhaps we'll find the same is true about life itself. We'll live twice as long, but we'll be twice as cautious, twice as likely to say 'tomorrow'. Everything has to end. Even the human race. For me the deadline gives our activities meaning. Ironically, even your eager desire to extend longevity only has a sense of urgency and interest because we die. But the actual lifespan itself will always be arbitrary, a number picked out of a hat. So why isn't 80 years ok? Why is 160 years really better? In fact, wouldn't faster generations make the world even a bit more interesting?

Tiksi 10y ago
I may still be too young at 25, but I can't think of a single time in my life where the threat of eventual death was a motivator of any kind. maybe as I get older it'll come, but only because it'll be just over the horizon. If I lived 800 years instead of 80, it might motivate me for the last 30 years, but that still gives me an extra 690 years of being motivated by other factors (happiness, comfort, pride, love, whatever floats your boat).

incompatible 10y ago

Looking at society as a whole, there's not much to be gained by increasing lifespan. There's no shortage of people being born. They come up to speed quickly to be able to do useful things (20 years or so). There are a few people doing great work even in old age, who couldn't easily be replaced by somebody younger, but I'd say they are an exception. There's no reason to think those particular people would be chosen for life extension first.