Comments on: Unimaginative thinking about longer lives

By: David Wood

David Wood — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:13:14 +0000

Hi Chris – Interesting thoughts.

These are big topics and they deserve a lot more thought.

I’ll be returning (in a way) to some of these same topics in my next (or perhaps next-but-one) blog – which I have already drafted and which plan to post in the next few days.

By: chrisnsx

chrisnsx — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:00:48 +0000

Yes, a mainstream message – enough for the average politician to understand in a short space of time. There should be influence to produce something like this in the US for the equivalent of a “party political broadcast” (like we have in the UK), so the power is carried to the younger generation of voters – although I think the priority should be on renewable, non-carbon based energy, which is just as feasible. We’ll be in prolonged wars and global warming because of fossil fuels in <20 years, (*) especially as age related deaths have actually kept our carbon costs low up to now. I would hazard a guess that the mainstream consider this more important as well – what would you make of my last point(*) though?

By: David Wood

David Wood — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:36:29 +0000

Thanks for the pointer to the New Scientist article.

Since I posted my blog on the subject, I’ve run across a very interesting 5-minute video about a healthcare, engineering and medical solution to the economic and humanitarian problem of the greying population:

http://www.lifestarinstitute.org/

It’s well worth watching!

By: Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:58:26 +0000

An article in New Scientist [5-Sep-2009 page 42] suggests that, currently, people who live to be “very old” tend to remain healthy and active rather than simply requiring health care for longer.

It quotes a number of studies, and the trends seem encouraging though one would have to look deeper to be sure of the data.

By: Martin Budden

Martin Budden — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:54:58 +0000

David, to be fair to The Times, it probably wasn’t a moderator who butchered your comment. Most newspaper comment boxes have character limits and not very sophisticated formatting software. If you wrote your comment offline and then pasted into the comment box then the butchering was probably done by software.

However The Times is certainly at fault for not having a preview button on its comment box.