Thursday, July 26, 2012

Contest To Sequence Centenarians Kicks Off

Increasing longevity would presumably increase the useful working life of a person too. That increases taxes. Every year you get out of a person before they retire is another nine months they can "live for free" once they do retire (think about it - you work for, say, 45 years and you're retired for, what? 20-30?). Assuming that longevity also brings increase in health and working ages (which historically it has done - people used to die before they reached 30, now 65 is the retirement age!)

As people get live longer, they also feel less need to breed immediately. This means fewer children, more widely spaced. This is why women are now putting off having children until into their thirties while a few generations ago that was impossible and they were more likely pregnant before 20. This, however, means that not only are there fewer children to support, but fewer working adults to support the generation about them later on (so it's 50-50).

But there are numerous unquantifiable side-benefits. Living longer as an individual means that things like scientific research can go on for longer. We don't lose talent just through old-age. We keep geniuses around who have 50+ years experience of quantum physics, who can teach the next generation. This also means better education, better research, but comes at the cost of longer-held positions, less job opportunities, and longer time spent in education.

So, basically, it's not an all-lose situation. Longevity has been increasing for centuries, if not millennia. It has advantages and disadvantages that, on the whole, balance out and even provide "profit".

The problem we have is not longevity, per se - it's failing to adequately save for that retirement when working, and stopping working too early because we've hit an arbitrary age. The UK health system is also set up to encourage people to not save for private healthcare, which can be a problem when it comes to an ageing population (but I wouldn't give it up for the world, despite all the problems with it!) - other systems fare better under this sort of strain.

Longer lives do not mean longer retirements, necessarily. If it works out, it means longer working life, shorter retirements, better pension coverage and MORE tax, not less.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/3mp1Qoy2Ohg/contest-to-sequence-centenarians-kicks-off

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