7 ms·

Retiring Retirement

46 points by dnetesn 8y ago

reasonattlm 8y ago
The article falls a little far on the side of saying there is nothing wrong with a 60-something year old. There is a lot wrong with a 60-something year old. It might not yet rise to the level of constant debilitating pain and loss of basic function, but it is there, and accelerating. The high-functioning 60-something doesn't have great odds of becoming a high-functioning 70-something, or of continuing to evade cancer. If a 20-year old had the skin and cardiovascular system of a high functioning 60 year old, they would be in and out of the hospital, and undergoing serious therapy to prevent a predicted death in their 30s. Rejuvenation therapies are best applied in advance, when the damage of aging is low. Don't play the game of saying that a 60-something who can walk around without a cane is just fine. They are not just fine. They are candidates for every form of therapy we can build that repairs the molecular damage of aging. Every 60-year should be taking senolytics today, right now, for example. Their good-for-a-60-year-old metrics would be greatly improved by doing so.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  > Every 60-year should be taking senolytics today, right now, for example. Their good-for-a-60-year-old metrics would be greatly improved by doing so. Are you joking? Senolytics have not been proven to work in humans yet. Only in mice. And there's a large, very large literature of drugs that don't work at all the same way in mice and humans. It reminds me of the DHEA that was touted as a miracle drug for seniors back in the 90s, and the completely failed to meet any expectation.
- nawtacawp 8y ago
  > Every 60-year should be taking senolytics today Other than this, what other rejuvenation therapies are you referencing?
chadAnon69 8y ago
Their seems to be a concerted effort to propagandize the population into believing that lowered living standards is a GOOD thing Not being able to get a full time job with benefits isn't bad, it's the Gig Economy! Not being able to afford a house or car isn't bad, it's the future! Not being able to afford to have kids isn't bad, it's more freedom to do what you want! Not being able to afford to retire isn't bad, it's empowering! All the while the gap between rich and poor continues to grow. Globalism is neo-feudalism, offshoring and massive immigration lowers the cost of labor for the rich and the result is death of the middle class and the creation of a global equilibrium for wages. Riots like the Yellow Vests in France are going to become common if nothing changes, people aren't going to just sit back for much longer
- bryanrasmussen 8y ago
  also not having kids is good because if you have them now they will die in horrible ways in about 30 years from Global Warming!
  - booleandilemma 8y ago
    Would you give up having children to save the planet? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/give-up-having-children-couples-save-planet-climate-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/give-up-having...
    - deogeo 8y ago
      A large part of the West has children at below the replacement rate, so in a very real sense we're already doing that.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    Literally why I don’t have kids. I could afford them (with some sacrifices to my quality of life, of course), but I can’t stomach the ethical consequences of bringing a kid into what I think is a dying world.
    - ksdale 8y ago
      I’ve often thought that this is like someone living at the fall of the Roman Empire deciding not to have kids because the world was falling apart. It wasn’t pleasant by any means for a lot of people and the population in Rome declined drastically, but if everyone decided to pack it in when the world felt like it was falling apart, Europe would never have become what it is (which I like to think would be a great loss).
      - village-idiot 8y ago
        There’s a big gap between “the empire I’ve known forever is going away” and “this world might not be habitable in a century”. You’re being incredibly disingenuous to draw a comparison between the two.
ekianjo 8y ago
> After controlling for confounding factors such as demographics and poor health, the researchers made a startling find: People who worked at least a year past retirement age had an 11 percent lower risk of dying during the study period. No source? That's a shame because such an extraordinary claim requires scrutiny (to see if the study was properly designed to be able to reach such conclusions).
- EADGBE 8y ago
  I’m not sure about such a quantifiable metric, but anecdotally, it’s quite obvious that those who still maintain some work after “retirement” live a longer and healthier life. Source: my retired grandfather who took up farming and lived another 30 years, my grandfather-in-law who retired after teaching and took to looking after cattle well into his 80’s. Maintaining the forced social interaction and mold exercise always help out in the long run.
  - rightbyte 8y ago
    Uhm ... those who are able to work after retirement are of better health? I mean, if your health is bad you can't work. It's far fetched to assume that working longer gives better health is a stronger effect than that better health makes you able to work longer. Some work might make your health better, but the effect should be weaker than the statistics suggest.
  - gedy 8y ago
    Sure, but I'm guessing your examples and the examples I've seen are people who have a pension, etc and can optionally work if they choose to. The current crop of people mostly don't have that, and with the low interest rates even saving for your own retirement is difficult. Work will likely be only option to survive above poverty in older years.
    - ekianjo 8y ago
      Thats is already the case in Japan where you see quite a few elderly people (in their 70s or more) working in convenience stores since their retirement pension is probably too low to live on it.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
sigi45 8y ago
It still depresses me to read stuff like 'still wanna work'. Our society still is unable to create something besides work and don't get me wrong, i'm falling for this as well. I see people, i go out for lunch and my hobby (CS) is just a little bit interesting if you don't have access to AWS/GCP etc. accounts your company is paying or some metrics without services behind it. When i'm 60 or 70, i will have worked for so long, that it probably feels right :-|
- rtz12 8y ago
  Gee, I wonder how people did software development as a hobby before AWS was a thing. Totally impossible, way to hard!
  - sigi45 8y ago
    I don't think someone did a grafana, prometheus and elastic stack setup at home with relevant data. Softwaredevelopment is a wide field.
Accujack 8y ago
Our society isn't ready for workers to function longer at their jobs and still maintain the pace of innovation and opportunity for younger workers with new ideas. Human nature resists change, and often the only thing that allows dominant ideas to be supplanted is that their powerful supporters retire or die. Imagine what our government would be like if Strom Thurman or Joseph McCarthy were still dominant politicians.

46 points by dnetesn 8y ago

The article falls a little far on the side of saying there is nothing wrong with a 60-something year old. There is a lot wrong with a 60-something year old. It might not yet rise to the level of constant debilitating pain and loss of basic function, but it is there, and accelerating. The high-functioning 60-something doesn't have great odds of becoming a high-functioning 70-something, or of continuing to evade cancer. If a 20-year old had the skin and cardiovascular system of a high functioning 60 year old, they would be in and out of the hospital, and undergoing serious therapy to prevent a predicted death in their 30s. Rejuvenation therapies are best applied in advance, when the damage of aging is low. Don't play the game of saying that a 60-something who can walk around without a cane is just fine. They are not just fine. They are candidates for every form of therapy we can build that repairs the molecular damage of aging. Every 60-year should be taking senolytics today, right now, for example. Their good-for-a-60-year-old metrics would be greatly improved by doing so.

ekianjo 8y ago
> Every 60-year should be taking senolytics today, right now, for example. Their good-for-a-60-year-old metrics would be greatly improved by doing so. Are you joking? Senolytics have not been proven to work in humans yet. Only in mice. And there's a large, very large literature of drugs that don't work at all the same way in mice and humans. It reminds me of the DHEA that was touted as a miracle drug for seniors back in the 90s, and the completely failed to meet any expectation.
nawtacawp 8y ago
> Every 60-year should be taking senolytics today Other than this, what other rejuvenation therapies are you referencing?

chadAnon69 8y ago

Their seems to be a concerted effort to propagandize the population into believing that lowered living standards is a GOOD thing Not being able to get a full time job with benefits isn't bad, it's the Gig Economy! Not being able to afford a house or car isn't bad, it's the future! Not being able to afford to have kids isn't bad, it's more freedom to do what you want! Not being able to afford to retire isn't bad, it's empowering! All the while the gap between rich and poor continues to grow. Globalism is neo-feudalism, offshoring and massive immigration lowers the cost of labor for the rich and the result is death of the middle class and the creation of a global equilibrium for wages. Riots like the Yellow Vests in France are going to become common if nothing changes, people aren't going to just sit back for much longer

bryanrasmussen 8y ago
also not having kids is good because if you have them now they will die in horrible ways in about 30 years from Global Warming!
- booleandilemma 8y ago
  Would you give up having children to save the planet? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/give-up-having-children-couples-save-planet-climate-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/give-up-having...
  - deogeo 8y ago
    A large part of the West has children at below the replacement rate, so in a very real sense we're already doing that.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Literally why I don’t have kids. I could afford them (with some sacrifices to my quality of life, of course), but I can’t stomach the ethical consequences of bringing a kid into what I think is a dying world.
  - ksdale 8y ago
    I’ve often thought that this is like someone living at the fall of the Roman Empire deciding not to have kids because the world was falling apart. It wasn’t pleasant by any means for a lot of people and the population in Rome declined drastically, but if everyone decided to pack it in when the world felt like it was falling apart, Europe would never have become what it is (which I like to think would be a great loss).
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      There’s a big gap between “the empire I’ve known forever is going away” and “this world might not be habitable in a century”. You’re being incredibly disingenuous to draw a comparison between the two.

ekianjo 8y ago

> After controlling for confounding factors such as demographics and poor health, the researchers made a startling find: People who worked at least a year past retirement age had an 11 percent lower risk of dying during the study period. No source? That's a shame because such an extraordinary claim requires scrutiny (to see if the study was properly designed to be able to reach such conclusions).

EADGBE 8y ago
I’m not sure about such a quantifiable metric, but anecdotally, it’s quite obvious that those who still maintain some work after “retirement” live a longer and healthier life. Source: my retired grandfather who took up farming and lived another 30 years, my grandfather-in-law who retired after teaching and took to looking after cattle well into his 80’s. Maintaining the forced social interaction and mold exercise always help out in the long run.
- rightbyte 8y ago
  Uhm ... those who are able to work after retirement are of better health? I mean, if your health is bad you can't work. It's far fetched to assume that working longer gives better health is a stronger effect than that better health makes you able to work longer. Some work might make your health better, but the effect should be weaker than the statistics suggest.
- gedy 8y ago
  Sure, but I'm guessing your examples and the examples I've seen are people who have a pension, etc and can optionally work if they choose to. The current crop of people mostly don't have that, and with the low interest rates even saving for your own retirement is difficult. Work will likely be only option to survive above poverty in older years.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    Thats is already the case in Japan where you see quite a few elderly people (in their 70s or more) working in convenience stores since their retirement pension is probably too low to live on it.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

sigi45 8y ago

It still depresses me to read stuff like 'still wanna work'. Our society still is unable to create something besides work and don't get me wrong, i'm falling for this as well. I see people, i go out for lunch and my hobby (CS) is just a little bit interesting if you don't have access to AWS/GCP etc. accounts your company is paying or some metrics without services behind it. When i'm 60 or 70, i will have worked for so long, that it probably feels right :-|

rtz12 8y ago
Gee, I wonder how people did software development as a hobby before AWS was a thing. Totally impossible, way to hard!
- sigi45 8y ago
  I don't think someone did a grafana, prometheus and elastic stack setup at home with relevant data. Softwaredevelopment is a wide field.

Accujack 8y ago

Our society isn't ready for workers to function longer at their jobs and still maintain the pace of innovation and opportunity for younger workers with new ideas. Human nature resists change, and often the only thing that allows dominant ideas to be supplanted is that their powerful supporters retire or die. Imagine what our government would be like if Strom Thurman or Joseph McCarthy were still dominant politicians.