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by barrkel 2182 days ago
A lot of people talk about repairing decrepitude of the body, but what about decrepitude of ideas and world views?

What if advancement depends on the death of people with outdated ideas?

2 comments

About 0.7% of the American public dies each year:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db355.htm

An idea that sees its support changing substantially faster than 0.7% per year is not primarily driven by older members of the public dying.

The original Civil Rights movement, the fight for gay marriage, cannabis legalization -- all of these saw public acceptance shift much faster than population turnover can account for. Do you have examples in mind of trends that actually required the die-off of older people?

"Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?" - https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20161574

Another one is dictators. It seems like it took Franco's death for things to change in Spain, and Salazar's brain hemorrhage to change things in Portugal. Would Mubarak have been able to control the situation in Egypt if he was physically younger?

Would people wait for their death if it was not coming?
Yep. Death is the one true source for renewal we have. A world without death is a world with potentially immortal dynasties and dictators straight out of Altered Carbon.

Science progresses one funeral at a time, markets function by companies dying out, at the very fundamental biological reproduction relies on death.

If you think 70 year old politicians and university deans are corrupt, wait for the 400 year old boomers. The end of death is essentially the beginning of stagnation. It's a libertarian fantasy pushed by Thiel et al, because death is the one last thing these people can't buy themselves out off.

Death puts a natural end to even the worst individuals, wiping the slate clean is, sadly but necessarily, what keeps our species and our culture moving .