There is arguably a discrepancy between the title of the question “P(Anti-Agathics)” and the actual text of the question; there might be ways of “reaching an age of 1000 years” that I at least wouldn’t want to call “anti-agathics”. Uploading into a purely virtual existence. Uploading into a robot whose parts can be repaired and replaced ad infinitum. Repeated transfer of consciousness into some sort of biological clones, so that you get a new body when the old one starts to wear out.
My sense is that the first of those is definitely not intended to be covered by the question, and the second probably isn’t; I’m not sure about the third. “Magical” options like survival of your immortal soul in a post-mortem heaven or hell, magical resurrection of your body by divine intervention, and reincarnation, are presumably also not intended.
In future years, it might be worth tweaking the wording by e.g. inserting the word “biological” or some wording like “in something that could credibly be claimed to be the body they are now living in”. Or some other thing that better matches the actual intent of the question.
Hrm. My definition of “anti-agathic” is something that prolongs life, so it isn’t obviously not counting a brain transplant to a younger body.
I’m somewhat opposed to tweaking the wording on long-standing parts of the census, since that makes it harder to compare to earlier years. If we want to go this route, I’d rather write a new question and ask both some year so we can compare them.
Yeah, I do see the value of keeping things the same across multiple years, which is why I said “might be worth” rather than “would be a good idea” or anything of the sort.
To me, “anti-agathics” specifically suggests drugs or something of the kind. Not so strongly that it’s obvious to me that the question isn’t interested in other kinds of anti-aging measures, but strongly enough to make it not obvious whether it is or not.
There is arguably a discrepancy between the title of the question “P(Anti-Agathics)” and the actual text of the question; there might be ways of “reaching an age of 1000 years” that I at least wouldn’t want to call “anti-agathics”. Uploading into a purely virtual existence. Uploading into a robot whose parts can be repaired and replaced ad infinitum. Repeated transfer of consciousness into some sort of biological clones, so that you get a new body when the old one starts to wear out.
My sense is that the first of those is definitely not intended to be covered by the question, and the second probably isn’t; I’m not sure about the third. “Magical” options like survival of your immortal soul in a post-mortem heaven or hell, magical resurrection of your body by divine intervention, and reincarnation, are presumably also not intended.
In future years, it might be worth tweaking the wording by e.g. inserting the word “biological” or some wording like “in something that could credibly be claimed to be the body they are now living in”. Or some other thing that better matches the actual intent of the question.
Hrm. My definition of “anti-agathic” is something that prolongs life, so it isn’t obviously not counting a brain transplant to a younger body.
I’m somewhat opposed to tweaking the wording on long-standing parts of the census, since that makes it harder to compare to earlier years. If we want to go this route, I’d rather write a new question and ask both some year so we can compare them.
Yeah, I do see the value of keeping things the same across multiple years, which is why I said “might be worth” rather than “would be a good idea” or anything of the sort.
To me, “anti-agathics” specifically suggests drugs or something of the kind. Not so strongly that it’s obvious to me that the question isn’t interested in other kinds of anti-aging measures, but strongly enough to make it not obvious whether it is or not.