I had an interesting conversation with a client this morning about the aging population, since Finland just crossed the "million over 70" for the first time ever. That equates to 18% of the total population, so it is significant - considering the age of mortality in Finland is 80 for men and 84 for women. Combine this with the negative growth in birth rate, and it isn't looking great for the economy.
My client lost his parents recently, aged 87 and 90, and we had the discussion about how life has changed because it wasn't so long ago that 75 was considered very old. However, what I brought up was that we tend to value "quality of life" based on length of living, and more and more I disagree with that stance. For instance, his parents whom both suffered from dementia for years, might not have really had a very high quality of life in their final decade, so is living a long time really worth it?
I suspect not.
But, people of course have a self-preservation mechanism in them that says "keep living" and it is hard for the majority to rewire. If it was easier, I suspect that suicide would go up significantly. Yet, quality of life is different to length of life, and I have considered that for the majority of people, what "quality" really comes down to is whether an individual feels that they are valuable, that they are needed, that they are adding to the wellbeing of others in some way.
For example in the distant past, the elderly were elders, who would essentially help raise the children of the group, caring for them, teaching them, and sharing the stories that would help them be valuable members of society. There was respect for elders because not only had they spent their working years providing for the community, but they continued on providing their experience for the future community that they themselves wouldn't share. Nowadays though, in most cultures and countries, the elderly are not actually part of society in the same way, with many spending the majority of their time staring at a TV screen.
From a resource view, the elderly a near complete cost with almost no return, but that is not the issue here. The issue is from the human perspective, and the quality of life question of whether this is a high enough standard of living to consider it worth living at all. A person in a coma for instance is technically alive, but what is their quality of life? Is staring at a TV all day, not being able to do much for oneself or others and being a burden on others much different than being a coma?
I brought in a hypothetical scenario where everyone died at 75 years of age by magic, and everyone knew this was the checkout time, and whether we would be better off as a society for it. If we all knew that we would only live to a maximum of 75 years, knowing that if we take care of our health we will still be very capable at that age, would we live our lives differently? Right now most people don't do enough to support themselves in retirement to live to the average, but knowing that 75 was the cut-off point, it would make planning much easier for everyone. Plus, it would also mean that breakdown diseases like dementia wouldn't come into play for the majority of people at all. At 75, most people would die in decent shape, being able to look after themselves, and having near complete mental faculty.
Why extend life, if it is a rapid degradation over the next decade?
Wellbeing of humanity should be the focus of our resources, where the vast majority of effort goes to improving human life. Extending human life doesn't equate to improvement though, just like a wealthy economy doesn't mean a healthy population. We conflate these though, where there is an assumption that the problem with society is not enough money, when money itself is irrelevant. Money is only a factor because it is a proxy for action, but if that action is what makes more money rather than more wellbeing, then wellbeing can suffer while wealth increases. Similarly, the extension in age is not down to an improvement in wellbeing, but an improvement in the technology that can keep us alive for longer, keep us consuming more to generate wealth for a few, at the expense of the many.
After unprecedented growth, we are now contracting as a species in more ways than shrinking and aging populations. Even as technology improves to provide more options and more efficiencies, our wellbeing is suffering. The economy can keep growing, companies can make more and more wealth, but if it isn't being spent on making our lives better as a whole, eventually, it all comes crashing down for everyone. Everyone. No matter how rich you are.
If there was a relatively clear definition of what quality of life is and most business activities were rewarded financially based on how well they provide wellbeing to society, then I believe that the world would be an exponentially better place. The entire focus of business would shift course and would become far more innovative in ways that matter, like in clean and cheap energy development, pollution clean up, healthcare, education, and all the fun stuff that people like to do for sport or hobbies. The businesses that would suffer would be the ones that are harmful for wellbeing, so the polluters and the machines of war would not generate wealth for anyone - they'd be a clear cost.
That is not the case now.
We have been increasing our longevity for a hundred years now, but we haven't really grown up enough to understand that we should be looking for quality over quantity in all things. Quality of goods and services, quality of society and community, quality of people and relationships.
Our quality of life demands it.
Unfortunately, our consumer life wants quantity.
Taraz
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