Watching the video I realised I am wasting valuable time watching the video...
- Also I would have preferred a grant total of seconds remaining rather than years / months / days / hours etc.
depends on the person, I guess. Some people might think "not much time, so let me not waste it" and some might get stressed/depressed thinking about it, and waste even more time than before.
Does a deadline produce better work and happier employees?
I doubt that this kind of think will have a motivating a effect. Reminding you of the estimated point in time when your body degraded so much that you will die does not sound great.
It's also purely egoistic. How about making some else's life better by doing things you don't like?
The time you have remaining is not a fixed number. It is increasing at about one year every decade at the moment, and that rate of increase might leap dramatically in the near future.
You can either be a freeloader, roll the dice and see where the work of other people on medtech takes you, or you can help to increase the amount of time you have left. Participate in initiatives like http://healthextension.co/, or donate to the SENS Research Foundation.
It is interesting to see that in a community ostensibly focused on creating change the first response to length of life line items is usually that length of life and trajectory of life is fixed and immutable.
For a middle class person, they are probably better off saving their money rather than funding life extension research. Having money enough to get good health care in their old age will extend their life more than adding a few dollars to research they would barely speed up thanks to the small amount. Heck, the money might even be needed to buy application of the results of the research. If you are rich, OK, fire away at funding life extension research.
That's not what I meant.
"18262 days" doesn't say much, but a progress meter (or maybe a pie chart with "Life lived" & "Life left") is more informative IMO.
Ah. I agree it would be more informative but also more depressing: a countdown gives you a (inaccurate of course) number of days left to 'make the most of'; showing the number of days done gives you an (accurate) count of days you (perhaps) haven't made the most of.
But to be honest the App was something I quickly put together in a few hours and I didn't really consider alternatives to a countdown.
I don't believe we are reminded of this at all. People make ridiculous decisions today with no thinking of the future. It's a common fallacy on the mind. We think of our today "self" and not the grander "self" of from birth to death. If you think about the finite-ness of life you've live healthier and more productively.
I expect it's designed for people who don't think about the future, yet I imagine people like us will end up getting it and just get dipressed every time we have fun rather than preparing out legacy.
Is simply "not thinking about it" the answer though? It seems to me that a lot of people deal with death by forgetting about it, and avoiding anything that reminds of it.
At 1st look this is depressing, but strangely enough they've already raised 16k out of the required 25k, AND there's still 24 days left to go until the end of the campaign.
Perhaps the backers are looking at it in a different way: time left to treasure.
Actually, I'd love a generalized countdown clock. Not necessarily for my lifespan, but set it up for goals like, "My side project will be profitable in 2 months."
They exist. I use one that counts down to anniversaries, birthdays, and project milestones. It's not good enough to merit mentioning, but if you search the app store for 'countdown', you'll find several.
Take a moment to realize there are "only" about 1000 weeks in 20 years.
Now think about your weekly patterns and start counting down.
Bonus depression for the morning, your chance of cancer doubles every decade.