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He lived till 98. At some age cut-off point, shouldn't we be thankful that he lived so long?. If you consider the first 25 as useless/building stage of life an

He lived till 98. At some age cut-off point, shouldn't we be thankful that he lived so long?. If you consider the first 25 as useless/building stage of life and the next 35 as contributing/productive part. This man lived another 38 years after that (an entire new useful life span for an average human).

randmeerkat 5y ago
> If you consider the first 25 as useless/building stage of life and the next 35 as contributing/productive part. I never thought I’d read a comment where someone just called their youth worthless. Aside from being reductionist and utterly devoid of empathy, there’s an entire industry built around life extension that disagrees with you.
- drewzero1 5y ago
  Not to mention implying that people over 60 aren't contributing or productive.
- deltree7 5y ago
  There are multiple philosophical points. For someone who lives/interacts with David Cox everyday, the loss is immense. But OP was referring to 'loss to the society'. When you bring in 'loss to the society', then it is inevitable that you measure their net-positive-contributions-to-society. Unless you are an outlier (<0.0001%), 25 and below is usually where you are sucking away resources without contributing back (easily measured by net worth or artifacts or offsprings). 25 - 60 is when you are peak contribution (offsprings, net worth, artifacts), after 60 most stop producing (offsprings, artifacts, wealth accumulation). Yes there are outliers to these too. Now to the controversial. Yes, offspring creation is (the ultimate) productive service to the society. It's the *only* way to keep humanity not going extinct. Thought experiment: Tomorrow if everyone decides to stop offsprings, humanity is guaranteed to be extinct in 100 years. However, if everyone decides to have a baby or two, humanity will chug along for at least quite a few hundred years (Climate Change is not going to make us extinct)
kitd 5y ago
One might hope that his last act was to calculate the chance of his reaching 99.

randmeerkat 5y ago

> If you consider the first 25 as useless/building stage of life and the next 35 as contributing/productive part. I never thought I’d read a comment where someone just called their youth worthless. Aside from being reductionist and utterly devoid of empathy, there’s an entire industry built around life extension that disagrees with you.

drewzero1 5y ago
Not to mention implying that people over 60 aren't contributing or productive.
deltree7 5y ago
There are multiple philosophical points. For someone who lives/interacts with David Cox everyday, the loss is immense. But OP was referring to 'loss to the society'. When you bring in 'loss to the society', then it is inevitable that you measure their net-positive-contributions-to-society. Unless you are an outlier (<0.0001%), 25 and below is usually where you are sucking away resources without contributing back (easily measured by net worth or artifacts or offsprings). 25 - 60 is when you are peak contribution (offsprings, net worth, artifacts), after 60 most stop producing (offsprings, artifacts, wealth accumulation). Yes there are outliers to these too. Now to the controversial. Yes, offspring creation is (the ultimate) productive service to the society. It's the *only* way to keep humanity not going extinct. Thought experiment: Tomorrow if everyone decides to stop offsprings, humanity is guaranteed to be extinct in 100 years. However, if everyone decides to have a baby or two, humanity will chug along for at least quite a few hundred years (Climate Change is not going to make us extinct)

kitd 5y ago

One might hope that his last act was to calculate the chance of his reaching 99.