Yale professor suggesting ‘mass suicide’ of elderly 'inappropriate' but understandable: Japanese commentator

Bluntly put, the elderly were once young and contributed to society. It’s not like they’ve always been old and a drain on society. What an odd perspective.
To be fair, I guess we'd have to then get into how much each person contributed while young. Sort of a SS contribution determines at what point society determines you're too much of a mooch and you need to go. Everyone could have a contribution/usage counter - you watch it go up throughout your working life and then start counting down after retirement/sickness.
 
To be fair, I guess we'd have to then get into how much each person contributed while young. Sort of a SS contribution determines at what point society determines you're too much of a mooch and you need to go. Everyone could have a contribution/usage counter - you watch it go up throughout your working life and then start counting down after retirement/sickness.
I painted with a broad brush, but one would assume the majority of Japanese elderly contributed to society.

Here in the US? Who knows.
 
I painted with a broad brush, but one would assume the majority of Japanese elderly contributed to society.

Here in the US? Who knows.
We already track it. You can look up your "Earnings Record" on the SS website - mine goes back to 1994.
 
The article's premise is not about suicide to die in peace. Completely different subject.

The article premise is for elderly to commit suicide in mass, so younger people don't have the financial liability of the older generation- and it is implied the younger people can then have immediate access to the older people's property/assets.
Yes, that to me is what it is about. The younger population finding an easy way out of working hard. But this is a study in Japan and like you mention a study from a college(nothing needs to be said further about that). A study of "entitlement" since obtaining the assets of others to enrich your life says it all.

In the USA the person who pays into Social Security rarely gets back what he/she puts in then if the money was self directed.
 
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It's morbid but this is an important conversation we need to have as a society and we need to move beyond certain organizations that mandate an absolute prohibition on suicide because every one of us, everyone we love and know, will die.

It does play a very large part in why I won't be having children. Too many hereditary problems coming from my parents. Physically healthy on my father's side, but Alzheimer's. On my mother's side, it's heart problems and cancer.
 
Physically healthy on my father's side, but Alzheimer's. On my mother's side, it's heart problems and cancer.
Precisely why once aging is slowed or stopped, the majority of these conditions will never develop. It's just too radical of a concept for the medical community to grasp right now, not to mention what a big hit pharma would take if fewer patients needed their products.
 
I certainly am in favor of physician assisted euthanasia with the approval of the one getting euthanized.
And as mentioned. People should work longer.
 
Precisely why once aging is slowed or stopped, the majority of these conditions will never develop. It's just too radical of a concept for the medical community to grasp right now, not to mention what a big hit pharma would take if fewer patients needed their products.
So how will people die in this anti-aging future? Aging can't be stopped. Nothing lives forever and that is baked into the natural world. As you get older your DNA WILL accumulate more mutations because DNA polymerase never has perfect fidelity and spontaneous mutations accumulate over time. As you live there is constant damage from the environment. Intrinsic aging means you are genetically programmed to age and die because that's how we as animals have evolved. Extrinsic aging can not be stopped either as you are surrounded by radiation and chemicals.

It's a naive idea - kinda like looking for "THE cure to cancer" I heard about as a kid in the 80's. The statement showed no understanding of cancer. Every single cancer has a unique cause and there would have to be as many CURES for cancer as there are cancers. The same goes for aging - you'd have to address every single intrinsic and extrinsic reason for aging and many of those are totally out of our control.

As for Big Pharma - you don't think Big Pharma wouldn't be in on the ground floor for whatever anti-aging technology you're envisioning? I can answer my original question BTW - how would people die - starvation and trauma secondary to severe overcrowding of the planet and insufficient resources to meet the needs of the world's population.
 
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And barring some bombshell discovery like finding a switch that turns off aging, people wont just not die from medical causes. Average lifespan might increase gradually, 100 years, 120, 150 while individual cases could be longer.
 
And barring some bombshell discovery like finding a switch that turns off aging, people wont just not die from medical causes. Average lifespan might increase gradually, 100 years, 120, 150 while individual cases could be longer.
Aging is a multifactorial combination of extrinsic and intrinsic factors - there is no single switch - more like hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of switches that are all unique and working independently and all of which need to be studied, understood, and then some technology developed to manipulate each and every switch.
 
Precisely why once aging is slowed or stopped, the majority of these conditions will never develop. It's just too radical of a concept for the medical community to grasp right now, not to mention what a big hit pharma would take if fewer patients needed their products.
Interesting article - some of it has value and some of it I think drivel.

Valuable:
1. Every day we accumulate damage that is not perfectly repaired and over time this is aging.
2. While there are animals that show little signs of aging (Hydra), they are drastically different from humans and have evolved to favor channeling all their energy into repair while humans channel most of their energy into reproduction.
3. There are trade-offs for increased cellular longevity that may have consequences for the organism's longevity. Telomere length is a good example. In humans, telomere length shortens every time a cell divides and this sets a limit on the number of times a cell can divide. There are cancers/immortal cell lines used in science whereby the cells telomerase remains active (it is not normally active in humans in somatic cells - all the cells we are interested in as far as aging) and while these immortal cells don't have a limit on cell divisions they can also cause cancers. Telomeres do not shorten in hydra but hydra and not large multicellular organisms who die of cancer.

Drivel:
1. That we're anywhere close to even understanding aging not to mention developing technology to prevent it.
2. That aging and death is somehow unnatural or unfair. The entire world ecosystem is based on the idea that things consume other things and that there is a balance of new things being made and old things being consumed. Death is as natural as it gets.
3. The article does not deal with HOW the world would cope with the population explosion that would happen if even life expectancy increased significantly. Population growth is exponential and the world's resources are finite and so the fact that the world has been able to absorb prior increases in population due to increased life expectancy has little relevance on how the world, now with 8 billion people, would cope with huge increases in life expectancy moving forward.

Another way to look at it - we are so limited in our ability to treat mortal cells that have acquired unnatural immortality (cancer). We are soooo much father from being able to intentionally make mortal cells, immortal, safely.

Anyway, I thought it was pertinent to the discussion and worth a read.

 
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This is not some person. This is a professor from Yale University.

Four of the nine US supreme court justices on the bench today are graduates of Yale.

Maybe a way to reduce the costs of housing in the US to his have mass suicide in the US of all people 55 and older. That would surely lower housing costs overnight. It is never ever right to take someone else property or life to make your life easier or better.

What a horrible thing for the professor to have thought of as a course of action in his mind. There is always a way to address anything except poor health. The fix more often than not requires sacrifice and putting off some easy pleasure. Mass suicide is never ever a course of action.

I am quite sure this Yale Professor will have a very healthy mid six figure pension and lots of healthcare benefits to boost.

Look at it this way.... by him "suggesting" it, he might have actrually ensured it's not slowly imposed on us because it's got the spotlight. And getting rid of elders can be done in various ways, including denying medical cover due to cost....

How can a society be a society if it doesn't take care of the ones who gave what they had to give?
 
Didn’t New York City kill enough elderly people during the pandemic? This year I will officially become elderly, so I guess I need to watch my back more than ever. 🫤
 
Just a single voice with an opinion...

"Professor Narita's opinions on the media and academic work are his own and do not represent the views of the Economics Department or of Yale University. This disclaimer applies to news media reports about his past statements."

 
And as mentioned. People should work longer.
And/or save more. Why should anyone care about how old you are, if you are able to live off that which you stockpiled? Squirrel away a few mil in your 40’s then live to be 100… if you are paying out of pocket, why should anyone give a rip?

What I don’t know is, if one spends every dime until 70, then expects society to prop them up… thing is, an economy is based upon the circulation of money. Stuffing ones mattress helps one individual, not the collective. So if one is a good consumer and spends all their money, they help everyone in the timeframe known as “now”. In the timeframe as known as “the future”, should they be rewarded for what they did in the past? To look at this differently: let’s say everyone today changed their habits and started saving 20%. That’s 20% less money being spent on goods and services—what would happen? might there be a reason why tax deferred retirement savings have contribution caps? [now that’s getting political, eh?]

All I know is, this whole “retirement” thing is something kinda new to the human race. No wonder we haven’t figured it out yet, used to be, we dropped dead before or around the end of our productivity. This ability outlive our usefulness is something only a few generations have had to deal with, and it’s no surprise that we’re still figuring it out—we don’t have the bulk of history behind us here as a guide.
 
I've always been an advocate for voluntary euthenasia...the way we keep the elderly would land us in trouble if we kept aged pets the same.

I am always wary of the "slippery slope" that such well intentioned mercies can take....as I explained to my parents in a convo about it 35 years ago....terminal illness and three doctors becomes two, become one, becomes Soylent Green...

And it's happening just north of the US, people being suggested it as a means of escaping poo public housing, and depressed teens without parental consent.

We always take something good, and make it something bad.
 
So, is 64 retiring early?

Or late?


I saw an actuary on the media one day. I listen to actuaries, because that's what they do.
Raising the retirment age was topical, and one of the ministers explained that we live "on average" x number of years post retirement (pension) and now we are living that much longer.
Actuary explained that the "conversation" is a three card trick.

Average includes all the things that were horrid about early and mid last century, infant mortality, deaths in childbirth, teenage misadventure etc. Suggested going to a 100 year old cemetary, and forming your own opinion.

I DO take the time to look at old rural cemetaries, and he's largely correct.
 
I saw an actuary on the media one day. I listen to actuaries, because that's what they do.
Raising the retirment age was topical, and one of the ministers explained that we live "on average" x number of years post retirement (pension) and now we are living that much longer.
Actuary explained that the "conversation" is a three card trick.

Average includes all the things that were horrid about early and mid last century, infant mortality, deaths in childbirth, teenage misadventure etc. Suggested going to a 100 year old cemetary, and forming your own opinion.

I DO take the time to look at old rural cemetaries, and he's largely correct.
903F8D4F-9FBD-46C2-9D7A-D4013B871F2C.jpeg
 
I saw an actuary on the media one day. I listen to actuaries, because that's what they do.
Raising the retirment age was topical, and one of the ministers explained that we live "on average" x number of years post retirement (pension) and now we are living that much longer.
Actuary explained that the "conversation" is a three card trick.

Average includes all the things that were horrid about early and mid last century, infant mortality, deaths in childbirth, teenage misadventure etc. Suggested going to a 100 year old cemetary, and forming your own opinion.

I DO take the time to look at old rural cemetaries, and he's largely correct.


The cemetery I visit has one section full of people that died in 1918.
 
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