Ponder future questions at Singularity U!

Turns out Kurzweil, whom I followed on stage at TED in 2005, has got a university set up to address the very issues I recently raised in another post: Will our economies and polities be ready to handle serious life extension and everything that goes with that unprecedented challenge.

(Thanks: Jeffrey Itell)

Comments

[Javaid Akhtar]

Older folks have accrued more things..( more assets that need stability/security to persist)...feel more fragile physically ( compared to young-uns and will be inherently a more risk averse society..) have left the parental power complex for longer ( less need to rebel against everything or something ).Society dials itself further into the Right of the political spectrum.Relatively fewer younger people to burn in wars ..less inclination to start them...a second flowering for civilisationIMHO

[al]

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services2020: A New Vision - A Future for Regenerative Medicinehttp://www.hhs.gov/reference/newfuture.shtml

Maybe life extension and regenerative medicine will bail out the healthcare system, delaying retirement significantly in the future?

[Javaid Akhtar]

Maybe regenerative medicine further mires the health care costs and longer life means we also have longer retirements ( I'm sure our less functional phase will be longer as well) ...So we save more ...spend less .Everyone would live long enough to see multiple turning points in technology+societal relationship ( technology/Science races ahead as experts in field live longer & accrue ever more experience)...Could technology become a threat to such a risk averse society.How you would feel if your retirement portfolio was about to be decimated by a new technology and you still have 70 years of retirement to fund.

[Javaid Akhtar]

Or do we get Logans run if all the new medicines prolong the retirement phase for too long...creating an 'unfunded' and unproductive section of society .Yikes...

[large]

Quoting Javaid: "Or do we get Logans run if all the new medicines prolong the retirement phase for too long...creating an 'unfunded' and unproductive section of society"

The "Unproductive" part is a situation created by Society and Business as a whole. A large number of people ovr 65 would work and produce IF . . they weren't discriminated against because of "AGE" . . Retired professionals can only find steady work as greeters at Wal Mart and such. Corporate and Small Businesses don't want 'em . . it affects their overall benefit package cost, and in most cases, H.R. tends to believe those same retirees to be either "Over Qualified" or "Technically Ignorant" . .

I've explored going back into Construction Management (as a retired V.P.), but in every case, from Bechtel down, I'm either overqualified or "Technically behind the curve" so to speak . .

So until Discrimination against Old Age ceases, in the eyes of the Younger Business Execs, we certainly are "Unproductive"!