[ExI] Ossification (Was: riots)

[Anders Sandberg]

On 24/09/2012 22:36, Charlie Stross wrote:
> I'm watching with interest the age stratification in the polling over 
> two issues that are in transition in the west: gay marriage and 
> cannabis legalization. Both broadly supported by the under-50s and 
> broadly disliked by the over-60s. (One problem with life extension 
> tech or meds, if we get them: cultural ossification may be a 
> side-effect, unless there are significant improvements in cognitive 
> function in terms of regaining youthful flexibility and resilience.)

This is an interesting topic on its own. How much of conservatism is due 
to cognitive ageing due to biological processes, how much is due to 
"software" ageing/experience, and how much it is due to vested interests?

Typically people behave as if they had a declining learning rate across 
the lifespan, producing a "autobiographical bump" of highly influential 
memories in the 20's that likely define much of their world-view. I have 
argued that this might actually be adaptive for a learning system trying 
to maximize stored information in reproductory age, but the problem is 
that the program continues to reduce the learning rate and we live far 
longer. Fixing this now maladaptive program of brain ageing would likely 
produce a tendency towards a recency effect, where people across an 
indefinite lifespan are shaped by the experience of more recent decades.

But what we remember is a function of what we are now: knowledge and 
mindstates filter recollections. Key experiences are reinforced by being 
recalled often and made part of our autobiographical "critical paths" 
(no matter what their actual importance were). So learned schemas might 
be self-reinforcing and persist even if the brain is very plastic.

And then there is the vested interest angle. Older people have reached 
desirable positions in society or professions, and that means they have 
more to lose if things get changed around. This is not always true: they 
are also on average richer than younger people (although the variance 
also goes up), so they might have bigger margins if things go wrong. 
Their human capital is also often higher than what youngsters got: they 
have experience and education, so they have better chances as long as 
the domain is not unknown.

So where does this leave life extension? We likely do not want society 
to ossify too much - but it might not be a bad idea to have somewhat 
slower change if we can afford to wait (consider analysing a potentially 
dangerous technology for a decade or century rather than rush into using 
it). A society with a longer time horizon is by no means a bad thing in 
itself. The problem occurs when the rate of mental/social change is 
suboptimal compared to extrinsic and intrinsic change: if technology is 
racing on, then there better be people on the ball to adapt to it. So 
figuring out some relevant feedback mechanisms seems like a good idea.

If people tend to slow down in their changeability but there is a mix of 
changeabilities (e.g. young and old), then the problem is also reduced. 
The problem seems to occur when it is one of the groups that dictates 
policy: we want to ensure that the society is agnostic visavi age or 
flexibility, and instead puts decisionmaking power in the hands of 
individuals or groups that show they are tuned to the rate of change.

It might be useful to have simple rules of thumb like the century rule: 
nobody gets to keep a job/office more than a century, but again there 
are likely exceptions.




-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Faculty of Philosophy
Oxford University