[extropy-chat] Extropian Scorecard

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On Nov 6, 2004, at 11:05 AM, Damien Broderick wrote:
> If `social security' is shorthand for collective funding of pensions 
> for the ill, the incapacitated and those made feeble by old-age, plus 
> collective funding of some or all medical expenses, then `practical 
> immortality' largely does away with the need for such a system.


Unfortunately, "social security" is a pension for anyone over a fixed 
age.  Problematic, since it is funded by taxes and a greater and 
greater percentage of the population qualifies for longer and longer 
periods as life span increases.  Most of the economic problem is in 
this definition.  We are rapidly approaching the point where people 
receive the pension for more years than they worked to pay into it.

To put it another way, imagine if everyone in the population was put on 
the dole for a third of their life, and that the fraction of their life 
the average person was on the dole was increasing every year.  It is a 
very serious problem, economically.

j. andrew rogers