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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Here's the problem I see with both population decline and life extension: lots of research indicates that the creative peak happens from 20-40 or so. Geniuses rarely continue to be the same level of productive after that. In other words, progress is probably better served by giving two people the chance to live 50 years than one person the chance to live 100, though resource consumption is about the same. An aging society, one without new generations of people with new ideas, is not a vital and creative one. Progress is served by turnover.

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> Here's the problem I see with both population decline and life extension: lots of research indicates that the creative peak happens from 20-40 or so.

I'm not sure that's as clear as you think it is. There's a number of issues and confounds which mean that simply plotting age vs achievement can be very misleading. Check out "Age and Outstanding Achievement: What do We Know After a Century of Research?" http://www.resources.emartin.net/blog/docs/AgeAchievement.pd... , Simonton 1988

I get a DNS lookup failure for that domain. It looks like the correct URL is http://resources.emartin.net/blog/docs/AgeAchievement.pdf

This comment upsets me.

How pretentious to define what people should do with their lives and how long they should live based on some loosely defined "progress". Society doesn't have a moral obligation of pumping out geniuses. People live because that's a natural right.

Besides, not many things in life are more valuable than sitting down and having a chat with someone 70, 80, 90 years old. It's wisdom you won't find on Google.

I'm not saying what people should do with their lives. I'm pointing out a counterpoint to the usual cheerleading about life extension. It'll be a world in which things change more slowly. Definitely in terms of social progress, but potentially also in terms of scientific progress.

Part of life extension is restoring neuroplasticity. If medical science advances to the point where we can cure cancer along with all the other diseases of aging, rejuvenating the brain ought to be doable too.

>lots of research indicates that the creative peak happens from 20-40 or so

Is that a social or physiological phenomenon?

I always assumed the great thinkers became less prolific as they voluntarily moved into other stages of life, like finding a mate and starting a family, and hence had less time to commit to intellectual pursuits.

But if, on average, we live longer and healthier lives (healthier is not guaranteed), then our creative lives might last longer too.

It could be that creativity doesn't have as much to do with age and health as we think, and is more related to being new in a fascinating field. If we live longer we'd have more opportunities to be new with a large number of years in front of us. You can see this effect in the small when you get excited about a new programming language or industry.

Probably lots of other effects on creativity beyond mere youth. Said the old guy.

Its not a matter of health. You can give a 65 year old the brain of a 20 year old, but you can't give him back his naive unindoctrinated view of the world. And the sheer wonderment of childhood and adolescence is something you can never recapture. I have a 1 year old. There are expressions of joy you will only ever see on the face of a 1 year old, because for them the most mundane experiences are nonetheless firsts. Similarly, you only experience anything for the first time no matter how long you live. And I think there is a tremendous creative energy arising from those firsts.

I'm partial to the idea that geniuses have one or two great ideas in them per lifetime, regardless of how long that life lasts. Given 150 years of life, I don't think Picasso would invent cubism then something else.

> but you can't give him back his naive unindoctrinated view of the world.

Exactly the point of my second paragraph. With enough years in front, it can be worth starting completely over again, and gain the possibility of that childlike wonder and enthusiasm. Maybe school -> genius career -> kids and married life -> school -> completely new genius career.

With a long enough healthy life to go, it can be worthwhile to start completely over, rather than hunkering down and preparing for the decline.

EDIT: Anyway, y'all better hope so, because you're all mostly going to live much longer than we elders do, whether you like it or not. Stay sharp.

Essentially, I don't find your progression plausible. I don't think someone, even a genius, is going to approach a second career as effectively as the first, not after having accumulated a lifetime of preconceptions, biases, attitudes, conclusions, and dogma. I doubt even most geniuses have a second wind of genius in them, whether or not they live 50 years longer than they do now.

Since we haven't commonly lived longer than we do now I don't think we can assume that they way it's been is the way it's always going to be.

> a lifetime of preconceptions, biases, attitudes, conclusions, and dogma.

You left out wisdom, experience and perception.

Probably this is the exception that proves your rule but:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers

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