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In a somewhat unrelated idea. I've always wondered what the prospect of immortality, or longer average lifespans means in a world with rapid technological chan
by swalsh 15y ago
In a somewhat unrelated idea. I've always wondered what the prospect of immortality, or longer average lifespans means in a world with rapid technological change. I'm borrowing from the idea of future shock.
Young people on average, seem to be more acceptant of new technology, where older seem to be less acceptant. Additionally, from personal experience; I think younger people think about problems differently as well which leads to new developments. It makes me wonder, even if our capabilities to develop new technology are growing (Kurzweil's theory of Accelerating change) perhaps the age of both the general population, and the engineers will cause some level of impedance.
Along the same lines, if a growing population requires growing technological change. And my concept is correct, that age reduces technological evolution, is it possible that it also reduces our ability to adapt, and a natural population balance occurs?
- onemoreact 15y agoI think it depends on the form immortality takes. Old people are less adapt at technology for two main reasons they have less free time to experiment and it takes longer for them to learn. If immortality means you never retire but the average work week is 3 days and you have the brains of a 22 year old then I don't think there is going to be much of a problem. If everyone is stuck working 40+ hour weeks with a biological age of 70+ then adaptation is going to be an issue.
- JoeAltmaier 15y agoWhat if young people's much-lauded adaptablilty is simply, they haven't learned Anything yet so accept the 1st model they come across? That makes them appear adaptable, yet are no more adaptable than older members of society. I think to change anything substantially, you have to wait for a complete turnover - everybody has to die off, before the seeds of change can take root.
- onemoreact 15y agoYoung people don't become less adaptable when educated. If anything learning new things fights cognitive decline it does not speed it up.
- JoeAltmaier 15y agoAgain, cognitive decline in the aged is taking it a step further. Young people (< 20yrs?) are purportedly more adaptable than older folks, say 20-50. I maintain they aren't really adaptive, they simply have more choices when they learn their first pattern. And they have many patterns to learn, which takes years, perpetuating the myth that they are adaptable.
- onemoreact 15y agoTeaching a 22 year old PHD student or a 22 year old collage dropout a brand new skill does not favor the dropout. However, there is a fair amount of research that link rates of learning with biological age. With critical time periods that favor specific types of skill acquisition with significant benefits. What's interesting is ~25 years old is one of those cut of periods AND education tends to end at about that age. PS: There is also trade offs involved which probably provided evolutionary benefits to those cutoff ages.
- JoeAltmaier 15y agoPerhaps cause and effect are reversed. Measuring young people, many whom are college students shows they stop learning when they leave college - not surprising.
- onemoreact 15y agoNeuroscience researchers are a little more rigorous than your giving credit for. When they want to test learning they find people that don't know something, teach it to them, and test them at all points in the process. They also don't limit themselves to a single type of skill and can measure improvement based on how much they improve over time to measure long term skills acquisition.
- rsaarelm 15y agoIf that would be the only thing going on, you wouldn't be seeing a drastic decline in the ability to memorize new information that isn't tied to complex models of the world, such as sequences of random numbers, in aging people.
- JoeAltmaier 15y agoThat's taking it a step further. Aging people have other reasons for being unadaptive.