[ExI] net wisdom

[Tara Maya]

Currently, aging people tend to become set in their ways, less able and therefore less eager to learn new technologies. Certainly less inclined to take risks. This has some advantages; an older population is less crime-ridden, safer, etc. But it has an obvious cost to innovation.

What I wonder is how much of the increased conservatism (with a small “c”) of the elderly comes from simple experience (most ideas that young people think are “new and revolutionary” have already been thought of, tried and seen to fail) and how much comes from the frailty of the body and deterioration of the mind?

If we could increase healthspan, including brain cell health, perhaps older people (who would look, feel and think “young”) would remain much more open to innovation, and at the same time be less inclined to take pointless risks or lose their tempers as easily in interpersonal relationships. Perhaps we could have the wisdom of age along with the innovations of youth? Imagine a scientist, an athlete, an artist, with one hundred years of experience in a field, or many fields, but the same enthusiasm and energy of a twenty year old. What would people like that be capable of achieving?

If such an unprecedented combination were possible, I think the benefits of longevity would be even greater than the obvious economic benefits of not wasting billions on healthcare in the last year of life, or even of keeping people in the work force longer.

Tara Maya


> On Jul 21, 2016, at 8:29 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>> ... On Behalf Of Anders
> Subject: Re: [ExI] net wisdom
> 
> On 2016-07-18 18:04, Tara Maya wrote:
>>> ... Question: If people have a longer healthspan, will the net wisdom 
>> (which is different from general intelligence) of the population 
>> increase?
> 
>> ...Maybe. We know older people have higher conscientiousness scores....
> --
> Dr Anders Sandberg
> _______________________________________________
> 
> What concerns me is reduced adaptability as the population ages.  We are
> suffering from reduced adaptability in a time which demands more of it.
> Nowhere is this more apparent than in public schools.  Governments do not
> seem to be adapting well to increasing involuntary transparency either.
> 
> spike
> 
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Tara Maya
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