Tiberius Gracchus wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 12:09:19 +0100, you wrote:
> >See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/population/Story/0,2763,544116,00.html
> >
> >Executive summary: population growth is slowing, people are living
> >longer. This means that the elderly population is about to bloat,
> >while the work force shrinks. End result: an "ageing recession". Former
> >Japanese prime minister blames country's woes on demographic shift that
> >took years to recognize; Centre for Strategic and International Studies
> >asserts that half the economic growth since 1950 mirrored growth in the
> >work force, and a shrinking workforce means negative growth.
> >
> >Folks, we _need_ those anti-ageing treatments. Badly!
>
> Right! we need to be able to keep working and working even as we get
> older and older. I want to live forever so I can keep going to the
> office and working and working....
Frankly, I do. Of course, my "office" probably varies from what you're
thinking of: the office of a freelancer, or maybe a CEO, helping to
make various good things available to the public. Right now it's
relatively mundane improvements to various Web services, but perhaps in
a decade or two it'll be upgraded AI modules, or maybe nanoassemblers.
Several decades after that, possibly it'll be helping to design the
local Dyson sphere, or maybe we'll have enough energy available that
development can begin on one of those stardrives that are currently
only theoretical because they need so much power...
> This article, the assumption made by its author, and your response to
> it, exemplify very well common misconceptions about economics made by
> the media.
> I don't have much time to make my arguments ( I have to go to work!),
> but I'll simply point out that the assumptions made by the author make
> perfect sense if the country of Japan were a business entity owned by
> the author. However, the company of Japan is a business owned by its
> citizens. The same concept applies to all western democracies, and all
> of us.
> This is a *crucial* difference!
Regardless of who owns the nation-company, *someone* has to do the
work, making sure food gets to mouths, keeping up whatever
infrastructure is desired (like power/phone lines and roads), coming up
with ways to improve everyone's lives (like researching further
anti-aging treatments), and so on. AIs, immigrants, non-retired
de-aged centenarians...any labor source will do, but the traditional
source of native youth is not as plentiful as it once was.
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