4 ms·
In case anyone is still reading this, I'd like to add to this. Think about humans in terms of corporate employees. A single human in today's society costs an
by magduf 8y ago
In case anyone is still reading this, I'd like to add to this. Think about humans in terms of corporate employees. A single human in today's society costs an absolute fortune to raise to adulthood in resources. It takes a lot of investment by society and the parents both to have the child, then to educate it. It takes many years of education to turn the child into a citizen. It takes more education (college) to turn the citizen into a highly productive one. Then, assuming all goes well, they go into the workforce and then there's a lot of ramp-up time, gaining expertise, etc. If they go the postdoc degree route, that's more time. Even worse, look at all the training/education needed for specialized doctors and surgeons. People aren't usually really productive until they're 25-30 years old. Then they only have so many decades until they're too feeble to really contribute a lot, and during that time they're expected to have kids of their own, which is basically a second job. (Even worse, women need to have those kids in their 20s-30s, which is exactly the wrong time career-wise.)
In short, the actual overhead needed to produce useful citizens in today's complex society is enormous, relative to the total lifespan of that person.
It wasn't a problem in the hunter-gatherer days because we didn't need much education to learn some simple non-written language, nor much training to go throw a spear and kill some animals and cook them. Things are very different now.
Extending useful and healthy human lifespans would change that equation, and be a huge boon for modern society. Just look at how many women end up postponing having children, or giving up on it altogether, because it just doesn't fit in with a high-paying career. As a result, developed nations are seeing negative population growth, which isn't sustainable.