The downsides of living forever

[@Change-1820]

Great topic my friend. I think about this a lot. My mom was 17 when diagnosed with Crohn's Disease and wasn't supposed to reach 18. She lived to be 56 and had two children, not to mention impacted so many lives. Yes, her quality of life suffered but looking back, I really believe she would say it was worth it. That calculation is so personal though, I don't know how we could ever generalize. Always enjoy your thoughts.

[@BryanAlexander]

Thank you for the kind words as well as the powerful story. Personal indeed.... yet culture shapes our personal choices.

[@dalequale9365]

I'm 69 and Rxs free because of 3rd year of paleo low carb diet and exercise. So I prioritize quality of life vs. longevity. Live every day like it's your last. IMHO 💪

[@BryanAlexander]

3 years.- impressive! Good for you. An inspiration to me at 57.

[@DreamDetective]

I have also thought about this a lot now at 76. What if not everyone you know your love ones as you mentioned your family your friends feel the same way you do. They do not want to keep living. Then you may be alone. So maybe it depends on your personality. The people who are more outgoing and can make new friends over the years could adapt to living forever or a long time where as the introverted quiet types who do not want to try new things or meet new people will find it more difficult.

[@BryanAlexander]

That's a really good point, @DreamDetective. I remember reading an obscure British novel from around 1805 about an immortal grieving for his non-immortal companions. More personally, I think of the friends I've lost in the past several years. As an extrovert I do reach out. Maybe I'm suited for such a future. Perhaps we can see personality types driving our attitudes towards longevity indeed.

[@petertucker3336]

The challenge of maintaining social connection is compounded by social and cultural change. In just a decade fashions change, political opinions go in or out. Over longer periods, language itself changes.

[@BryanAlexander]

@@petertucker3336 Very true. People can drop out of the social fabric. If we achieve greater longevity, perhaps some older people embrace this, forming small fragments of older times.

[@thepostgradyear]

I should have made this a video reply to you but: I don't feel like it, I'm not sure how I would title it, I haven't done that before my 4 part comment includes a potential solution (below) which I will likely fully explain over the course of 100 videos in 2026 (after I merge the 50+ versions into something coherent and presentable - assuming no health scares or homelessness) LOL 3 parts below so this is part 0 or I suppose I need to re-number everything below haha the third part is likely the strongest and most interesting but won't make much sense without at least the second (and maybe the first) basically I accidentally spent 2 hours typing a reply to this I think it's interesting but I broke it into a few parts as it takes me awhile to get to the point and each section is focused on a different aspect of your video

[@thepostgradyear]

on downsides to living forever dividing this into 3 parts so this is part 1 I really enjoyed how you got right into this! This is loaded with good questions. I'm really nervous about how nations outside of the Americas are going to deal with these problems. The related current century problems that I think about: The Middle East seems to be heavily reliant on being a central distribution hub of fossil fuels. What happens when they can no longer reliably transport fuel out to exchange for: food, water, manufactured goods, younger workers from countries loaded with young people? If the Red Sea requires massive western naval upgrades to remain viable, I'm not sure how food, fuel, and manufactured goods are going to get to/from/through the middle east. I think this is basically guaranteed to apply massive pressure on Egypt. Which will then apply pressure on all nearby systems. I think this will result in massive refugee (or at least immigrant) populations. Which will probably upset many older of the older citizens who already vote right of center. If the number of people declines, I think people will assume the quality of the people will need to increase. I see few ways the older or younger people will think about this and choose more immigration other than temporary (like University) or low survival (foreign legion). I think this is already happening in Europe. What happens when countries no longer have access to the Japanese model of simply using the foreign country's young workforce to make the things in the foreign country? There are some countries I think might be relatively okay - but they are stacked with resources and potential allies. Like Morocco with their strategic location, alliances, unique Arab/African/European culture, excellent potential renewable energy, and incredible fertilizer reserves. the bit from 7:30 to 8:40 probably deserves an entire comment

[@thepostgradyear]

on downsides to living forever dividing this into 3 parts so this is part 2 listed as your third problem: assuming we do drive forward life extension and higher quality of life which is somehow also pushed and implemented all around the world - and massively increase the number of people older than retirement age - do they block advantage and progress for everyone younger than their 40s? I heard a lot about this when I was growing up as I went to a private school which was I think 10% filled with families from China. If the entire society is 4 grandparents, 2 parents, and 1 kid... everything breaks unless people are at least a little healthy and rich. If there is only one kid all the resources go into them and their education. This means they either need the highest level degree to compete with the other people who will also need the highest level degree. I thought this might lead to free college or universal basic income. Turns out those are both fundamentally offensive to a large chunk of the population. Not in every possible way, but each way of implementing them upsets at least one group of people. Make college free now and all the people who went through it still have debt. Forgive all the debt immediately and everyone gets more comfortable with higher prices because it will just be forgiven. Reduce the interest payments and all the little changes and it takes a lot of political focus while generating few loyal supporters. When it comes to universal basic income there are so many basic issues like the lack of ID that we would have to make a brand new system to even get the payments out.

[@thepostgradyear]

on downsides to living forever 3 parts so this is part 3 The solution I came up with was linking a form of universal basic income to a shorter higher quality education. This form of education has to be more focused and yet more broad. The people who will likely be allowed by society to try something like this and receive resources for it will likely be the children of the rich, powerful, and well connected who already have options and don't need something like this but will do it if it means they can flex on other people and avoid embarrassment like their kid not getting into a good school. I go over this on my channel in a much sloppier way than I'll likely explain below: 1. Adding a 5th year of high school - which I will refer to as a post grad year 2. These are attachments for existing schools rather than new schools on their own. 3. Each attachment starts as a single student but scales up by +1,2,3,etc. student per year until stabilizing at 100 in each of the 100 affected schools - thus 10,000 students. 4. This group of 10k students is considered a level. Each level focuses on a specific task we use education for. The first level is focused on sending kids to college. We simply add more levels over time. Each level is given money per student equal to a high school senior + an additional amount. The additional amount is static and not affected by inflation. This means higher levels will need to be made and are more desirable as each higher level gets an additional $10k per student. 5. Distribution of each quarter of the additional funds: directly to the student, student council, shares of a wealth fund, advocates. 6. Advocates: new position halfway between teacher and grandparent. 7. Age distribution: as we deprioritize older levels they are made available to 2 grades of 50 and can be further split. 8. The common link between all of these things is a student created and inherited commonplace book which can be used AT ALL TIMES.

[@BryanAlexander]

@@thepostgradyear Great thoughts. Overall, I don't think humanity is taking this seriously. As you say, immigration is one solution to a dropping youth population, but conservative elders might disagree (cf Japan, which has decided to use robots instead of migrant workers). How might the quality of people increase?

[@BryanAlexander]

Perhaps I should write this up as a blog or Medium post?