lpetrich
Contributor
Jonathan Swift's satire Gulliver's Travels covered a lot of territory, and one bit of it was the issue of immortality. Gulliver learns that the Struldbrugs, certain inhabitants of Luggnagg, are immortal, and he thinks about how great it must be, all the things one can learn and the things one can do and all the places one can visit. But there is a catch. The Struldbrugs suffer from aging, and they spend all but the first half-century or so in the decrepitude of old age, unloved by the rest of Luggnaggian society, unable to enjoy very much, and wishing that they could die.
Advancing technology has enabled us to live longer and longer, but has it improved our quality of life enough to keep us from becoming real-life Struldbrugs?
Ezekiel J. Emanuel has written Why I Hope to Die at 75 - The Atlantic, "An argument that society and families—and you—will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly"
Though he never mentioned the Struldbrugs, his article could be summed up as "I don't want to be a Struldbrug".
The problem is that we've slowed down or stopped a lot of diseases but we have not slowed down aging.
Unless we can slow down or reverse age-related degeneration, more people will end up becoming real-life Struldbrugs.
Slowing down or reversing aging may produce problems of its own, it must be pointed out, but that's another issue.
Advancing technology has enabled us to live longer and longer, but has it improved our quality of life enough to keep us from becoming real-life Struldbrugs?
Ezekiel J. Emanuel has written Why I Hope to Die at 75 - The Atlantic, "An argument that society and families—and you—will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly"
Though he never mentioned the Struldbrugs, his article could be summed up as "I don't want to be a Struldbrug".
Though he feels that his life will be complete at age 75, he nevertheless does not believe in offing himself:I am sure of my position. Doubtless, death is a loss. It deprives us of experiences and milestones, of time spent with our spouse and children. In short, it deprives us of all the things we value.
But here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.
He states that he prefers a purely passive approach. He will accept only palliative care and not any attempt to cure any disease after 75.Since the 1990s, I have actively opposed legalizing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. People who want to die in one of these ways tend to suffer not from unremitting pain but from depression, hopelessness, and fear of losing their dignity and control. The people they leave behind inevitably feel they have somehow failed. The answer to these symptoms is not ending a life but getting help. I have long argued that we should focus on giving all terminally ill people a good, compassionate death—not euthanasia or assisted suicide for a tiny minority.
Thus becoming real-life Struldbrugs, long-lived but decrepit.The American immortal desperately wants to believe in the “compression of morbidity.” ... The claim is that with longer life, an ever smaller proportion of our lives will be spent in a state of decline. ...
It is true that compared with their counterparts 50 years ago, seniors today are less disabled and more mobile. But over recent decades, increases in longevity seem to have been accompanied by increases in disability—not decreases.
The problem is that we've slowed down or stopped a lot of diseases but we have not slowed down aging.
It's been studied in detail.Half of people 80 and older with functional limitations. A third of people 85 and older with Alzheimer’s. That still leaves many, many elderly people who have escaped physical and mental disability. ...
Even if we aren’t demented, our mental functioning deteriorates as we grow older. ...
It is not just mental slowing. We literally lose our creativity.
The article contains a diagram:Dean Keith Simonton, at the University of California at Davis, a luminary among researchers on age and creativity, synthesized numerous studies to demonstrate a typical age-creativity curve: creativity rises rapidly as a career commences, peaks about 20 years into the career, at about age 40 or 45, and then enters a slow, age-related decline.
- First: 26
- Best: 39
- Last: 61
As one becomes less capable, one ends up doing less-difficult things and fewer things.Mentorship is hugely important. But it also illuminates a key issue with aging: the constricting of our ambitions and expectations.
Unless we can slow down or reverse age-related degeneration, more people will end up becoming real-life Struldbrugs.
Slowing down or reversing aging may produce problems of its own, it must be pointed out, but that's another issue.