Retired people largely live off their savings; their economic activity is almost entirely consumption. Life extension would presumably allow people to stay productively employed in the workforce longer.
Plausible economic losses:
Death of society’s “old guard” may be serving a useful purpose by destroying calcified institutions and ideas, allowing better ones to bloom.
This question is important because, if it turns out that raising new humans to replace old ones is at least as resource-efficient as anti-aging treatments, then inter-society competition will not particularly favor anti-aging investment.
[Question] What economic gains are there in life extension treatments?
To put it another way: does stopping or slowing aging save resources for society as a whole, compared to raising new humans to replace old ones?
Plausible economic gains from life extension:
Raising a human from birth to age 17 in the United States costs about $234K.
Retired people largely live off their savings; their economic activity is almost entirely consumption. Life extension would presumably allow people to stay productively employed in the workforce longer.
Plausible economic losses:
Death of society’s “old guard” may be serving a useful purpose by destroying calcified institutions and ideas, allowing better ones to bloom.
This question is important because, if it turns out that raising new humans to replace old ones is at least as resource-efficient as anti-aging treatments, then inter-society competition will not particularly favor anti-aging investment.