Who wants to live to be 110?

Not me, per the cautionary tale of Tithonus, and contra this New York Times piece which, shock me, focuses on a transhumanist.

Certainly, I don't want to live to be 110 in today's United States, with overpriced medical costs.

Per Tithonus, I don't want to live to be 110 and deaf, at least half blind, and having my replacement corneas now giving me a second set of cataracts.

The piece focuses on the subset of "supercentenarians" that are not totally debilitated. I have no way of knowing how much of a bullseye fallacy it commits, but have no doubt it commits at least a bit of it, from pictures and stories of supercentenarians I've actually seen and read.

It also is pretty unscientific. It does mention luck, but only in passing to move on to genes. To the degree it talks indirectly about nurture, outside of luck, rather than the genes of nature, it ignores that much of the long-living lore of said people is at least partially contradictory, and, in cases where smoking is mentioned, is contraindicated for the general population.

Beyond that, it has other problems.

First, we know ever more today that the "one gene = one phylogenetic manifestation" is simply not true. For many, many things, even simpler than the complex we call aging, they're controlled by dozens if not hundreds of genes.

On the flip side of that, a single gene, in multiple different combinations with different other genes, may control for a tendency for (can't forget that — genes generally do not control for "X" directly, with the rare exception of something like Huntington's) a dozen or more different physical expressions.

And, the story doesn't even discuss epigenetics.

That said, if there is "something" behind being super-elderly, Sardinia says it's at least in part diet. But, the typical drooler over extra-long life probably doesn't want to hear that.

Other than that, there's nothing wrong with the story scientifically, of course. Other than not mentioning that this is just as much "just around the corner" as strong AI or something like that.

Also not mentioned — as the homo sapiens population of planet Earth already passes 7.5 billion, can we afford a bunch of people living to be 110?

Christmastime birthdays, aging, and modern America

As a number of social media friends, including one of my fellow Texas bloggers, know, today is my birthday.

No biggie in general, I passed a sort of "milestone" birthday last year. More on that in a moment.

First, talking about Christmastime birthdays.

My parents got me separate gifts, and made sure I had a regular birthday.

That said, I had a dad who refused to open his Christmas gifts one year — and still hadn't opened them months later — because we kids were being too noisy at Christmas. And, two parents together who, when I was 10, or maybe 12, not only didn't get me the Scientific American gift subscription I wanted, but didn't inquire further about how they could bolster the education of a kid that age wanting a subscription to Scientific American back in the days when it was still a real science magazine.

Both parental units are now dead, and I can't overcome the past. I can only continue to work on how the past may affect me today. Anyway, that's a slice of my childhood family life.

Back to today.

As noted, I had a milestone birthday of sorts last year. Not the last decadal milestone before the bounty of Social Security is redeemable, but the one before that, and one that is commonly recognized as a milestone.

And I can report that not only is 50 the new 50, it's got other issues.

For example, as I blogged this summer, I believe I've been the victim of employment-related age discrimination, which is even harder to prove than sex or racial discrimination. And, I suspect something like "social media skills" is going to be an ongoing trick to try to weed out oldsters in the future. That's because I was in Dallas several years back when the Morning News dumped a bunch of older, better paid columnists and such, and justified it on the grounds that it was worried about their ability to improve their computer skills.

Second, I of course hope that some partnership of welfare-hating Republicans and neobliberal Democrats doesn't further increase the Social Security eligibility age, further undercut benefits or make other changes. That's especially true because of the age discrimination issue, and also because of America's continued fraying of the "safety net" otherwise.

There are plenty of near-seniors who have saved nothing for retirement. There's plenty of others who haven't saved a lot.

In many of their, or our, cases, it's not due to frivolity. It's due to some mix of stagnant wages, troubled career fields, job loss and more.

Finally, as I get older, without being lower-c cynical in any greater degree, I do fully hope and intend to become more and more philosophically Cynical. Here's why.

Dogs, humans, Peter Singer, and geriatric ethics

Oh, boy, would utilihtarian philosopher Peter Singer have "fun" with a New York Times column wrestling with how long to let an aged Fido suffer before putting him to sleep. Singer, a staunch animal rights advocate, would probably love to debate, possibly eviscerate, the columnist's comparing this issue to aged humans and the question of euthanasia. That's especially because Louise Aronson, besides being the owner of the pet in question, is a professor of medicine, specifically of geriatrics.

I would approach the issue from an angle somewhat like Singer might, re the dog, myself. The amount of attachment Dr. Aronson shows to her dog is cruel. It's also selfish.

She cares more about her attachment to Byron than she does for Byron itself.

At the same time, if a human were as bad off as Byron, shouldn't we be giving that person counseling about palliative care? Encouragement toward it, in fact?

It's cruel toward that person, even if they're still of reasonably sound mind, not to try to get them to detach somewhat from the desire to live, or "live," or exist, just a few more days or weeks. It's cruel toward others, as it continues to drive up the cost of health care and drain the personal resources of caregivers.

And, to not get loved ones of such a person to think that way themselves encourages their own selfishness.

90 is NOT "the new 50"

Susan Jacoby, whose mother is 90 and grandmother lived to 100, tells us it 90 won't become the new 50 anytime soon, and offers other wisdom from the retirement cusp of the Baby Boom — wisdom you probably won't hear from the rest of her cohort.

Sixty-five-year-old Susan Jacoby says she hopes she doesn't live as long as her 90-year-old mom, noting that our incremental increases in average life expectancy have more and more elderly dealing with chronic pain and such.

And, it's not just that. She notes all the other problems facing the aging Boomers.

As I listed them elsewhere, they include:

Laid off. Forced to take lower-paying jobs. Still holding mortgages, which may be underwater. Stocks and 401(k)s that tanked in the recession. Some serious stuff.

That and more that the newly-retiring start of the Baby Boomer aging wave is all listed here.

Who wants to live to be 90 on Social Security and modest other benefits that are slowly trickling away, or that have to be spent down before Medicaid starts covering nursing home care?

It's an aging world, and not just in the West

In much of the "developing" world, the population bell curve is also projected to shift sharply right, toward senior citizens and near-seniors, by no later than 2050.

But why?

One reason? Blame the boob tube:

In Brazil, television was introduced sequentially province by province, and in each new region the boob tube reached, birth rates plummeted soon after.

Coaxial cable and satellite dishes as contraceptives, eh?

And, what does it mean?

1. For the U.S., it’s true we’re not facing the age bell curve of much of Asia or Europe. But, that's not necessarily good. For one thiong, that means that we could be expected to pick up yet more of the world’s military policing burden. At the same time, birth rates are falling in Mexico, and in parts of Central America. That could reduce illegal immigration. That sounds good, right? Well, maybe, or maybe not, depending on how much illegals bolster Social Security and Medicare.

2. Job obsolescence and related issues will loom even larger. Also not so good.

You know you're getting older, serious division

When you don't have parents anymore.

My mom died in her sleep last Friday night. (Dad died a little less than three years ago.)

With both my mom and dad, I had a fair degree of "distance," in different ways with each one, of which I became more aware, even much more aware, after I went through some adult life changes of my own, and tried to "connect" with both of them on more than the relatively surface level and layers of childhood and early adulthood.

Even though no "breakthroughs" happened with either parent, there's still plenty of emotion, starting with the regrets over those breakthroughs not happening, and going on from there.