Mona Charen on Longevity on National Review Online: "What would happen to the already high divorce rate if people had to spend the better part of two centuries together? How about military service? Would young men and women who could otherwise expect to live to such astounding ages be willing to risk dying at 20 or 25?"Seriously. She's objecting to longer lifespans because more people might find themselves getting divorced?
As opposed to waiting out their partners and dying?
4 comments:
Wow. As though anyone would sign up for military service nowadays thinking, "What the heck. I'll never make it past 90 or 95, outside most, so no biggie if I'm shot dead in the next year or two."
Yeah. As I was saying the other day (I'm 51) "If I'd have known when I was 210 that I wasn gonna live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself."
Leon Klass has made similar sorts of statements: that it was unethical to extend life. Rosie O'Donnell, similarly, said old people had a responsibility to "get out of the way" of younger people.
Personally, I figure they're within their rights, and I look forward to their good example.
Oh, dammit. that shouldf read "when I was 20".
I think when you're young, death is just an abstraction and something they don't think will happen to them--no matter what activity they're engaged in from military to extreme sports.
I don't know if living longer would change the age at which this perception changes. So either we will have older people participating in dangerous activities or it won't make a difference much at all.
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