Aging Behavior

http://uk.news.yahoo...9/80/dxcdx.html
Blair dreads being 50
Wednesday April 9, 08:38 AM

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tony Blair dreads being 50 but at least his children keep him feeling young.

The prime minister told Saga magazine: "I must be honest with you, I've been dreading 50. Funnily enough, I don't feel 50 at all. I suppose people always say this, do they?"

Blair, who turns 50 on May 6, has three teenage children and a three-year-old son, Leo.

"It's really after 50 that a gradual realisation creeps on you that you will never again be thought of as young," he said.

"Elderly fathers -- that's what worries me," he told the magazine, whose target market is elderly readers.

"Our eldest kids are always telling us we're better with Leo than we were with them, but there are events we go to where all the other parents are 18 years younger, and you think: `Hmmm, some mistake, surely'."

Blair said he worked out several times a week and played tennis and football.

He felt advancing age hit home when he was playing tennis near his country retreat and was asked if he would like to join the veterans' section. "Apparently you are a veteran at 45 in tennis," he said.

Asked how age had changed him, Blair said: "When I was young, I paid more regard to intellect than judgment. As I've got older, I pay more regard to judgment than intellect."

Asked how age had changed him, Blair said: "When I was young, I paid more regard to intellect than judgment. As I've got older, I pay more regard to judgment than intellect."

I have found this perception to be very true and will add I also see children's vitality and the love shared between family as a very critical aspect of retaining a youthful outlook. It is ironic that these are contributory reasons I disagree about whether or not there is a future for procreation. I can sympathize with Blair as I complete my half century year.

The benefits of love far outweigh the risks of stress. Is there a need for balance?

Always.

But I warn everyone that if there is something of vital and precious nature that defines the character of being Human that Transhumanists would be wise not to be seen as directly opposing, it is the value of Family Love. We learn much as a species about "social treatment" issues by how we are developed through "family".

This aspect of primate social behavior leads to both tribalism and governance, it leads to ritual mating and gender identification, it determines communicative style and social organization with regard to hierarchal relationships and it is essential in the development of a balanced personality and "fullness of being".

I am aware that many technocrats disagree but I suggest you take pause and think clearly for at the heart of all the conflict between Fundamentalism and Progressive Technocracy is the defense of the family. It is a common & divisive cause between Islam and Christianity, it transcends and subsumes Socialism and Capitalism or East/West concerns at any level of cultural clash and can be seen at the heart of all dispute between gender as well. I suggest that an assault on the "family" will inevitably distance women from this movement.

The Family is the crucible test of maturity, wisdom and an indivual's "humanity".

So my Transhumanist cohorts: Do you want to be seen as a bunch of childish boys with toys avoiding all commitment? Or Men that shoulder responsiblity and move forward in common cause with the most "populist" issue possible?

It is decision with profound ramifications that can lend validity to Kass’, Dr. Fukuyama's, and many other rejectionists of our stated purpose of going full ahead in this area of self determined evolution. The vast majority of humanity, as in so many cases ranges around the middle, their support will be based upon the perception of us. If the promise of unlimited life is only possible in their minds through the destruction of all they value of life as they understand, it then we will lose another opportunity of popular approval. This is complex issue that shouldn’t be allowed to be cut into only two opposing pieces

Edited by Lazarus Long, 09 April 2003 - 03:01 PM.

I think family values are very important. I've been living with my wife for almost 4 years now. Even though we are not legally married, to me she is my wife. She has a nine year old daughter who considers me like her father (I've been her father since she was five) and I'm very happy and proud of this. I also consider her my daughter and we love each other very much.
I always talk to my wife about our posthuman future and how someday we could become one being and share all our experiences. I don't know if our daughter will decide to join us but I guess she will probably prefer to become a separate being and maybe merge with her future husband. My wife listens to me like I’m just talking about science fiction since she is not a transhumanist yet, but still, my wife and I don't want to have more children for now. At the beginning we thought we wanted to, but now we have realized that one is enough especially with the bad political and economic situation in Venezuela.
I also have a very good relationship with my parents, my brother and three sisters. I visit them every evening and my wife visits her mother at the same time because they live in the same building.
What will happen to all this when we become posthuman? I don’t think we will lose it, but it will change. We will have to adapt to a world where we have to decide if we want our offspring to become separate beings like my daughter is now, or if we only want to create extensions of ourselves. If my daughter merges with her husband and they decide to have “mind children”, will they consider them separate beings, or just part of themselves. Maybe families will become one being and, in this case, family values will be even more important.
In conclusion, what I want to say is that we will have more possibilities, not less, and what we do will depend on our choice and not nature’s choice.

By the way, I see that you are worried about what others think of Transhumanism. I had the same concern when I saw the "Guide to Transhumanists" in Wired, but everybody told me not to worry about it. That it was better to have people read about us, even in a sarcastic form, than not to be known at all. I would still prefer for people to have a positive image of us, and also try to show that important values in live do not conflict with our views, even religious beliefs, although I am atheist.

Get Married

Don’t' have children (why?)
transferred from another thread

For women child birth was the leading cause of mortality until well into the early 20th century and for men it is associated with a variety of stress related ills, not to mention patricide. I often quip and tease my children that they are a guarantee of my mortality due to trying to force me to endanger myself in their defense. But while it is meant sarcastically there is more than a grain of truth to it.

Marriage (both polygamous and monogamous) when between loving individuals is very successful in extending the life of the members by creating a loving environment for conducting one's life and also a powerful collective support structure.

All human children are born as parasites. If this behavioral dependency is indulged into adulthood it is not only contributing toward the mortality of the parent, it is contributing toward the mortality of our species.

The challenge is to transmute the paradigm of evolutionary psychological behavior such that the maturation process "succeeds” in demonstrating that a transition from a nascent parasite is possible into a mature symbiotic (and reasonably socialized) adult. This is the memetic challenge all parents face (as in always have and always will) and one that has profound consequences for both the success and failure of the mentor/parent.

Maturation is a "lifelong” process but it also involves a dynamic and profound shift in values and perspective as a consequence of aging. There is no "guarantee" that the outcome will be positive from this process but when it is, the result is significantly better for BOTH parent and child. There is a parallel of this process that is confronting human development as a species as we transition to what some call a Type 1 Civilization.

The "controversy” is only an aspect of "stress" as defined but individual versus collective concerns, stress is certainly generated but so is opportunity. This is a complex multilevel risk/reward relationship, not a simplistic do or don't relationship with simple benefits derived from a yea or nay decision. That is another reason why the process is so rife with challenge to an individual's mental and I would suggest physical growth.

But this is a paradigmatic example of Nietzsche’s comment: "That which does not kill you makes you strong". Consider the raising of children like a moderate stress to the immune system, if you never test the body's defenses they never develop sufficiently to provide adequate protection.

Edited by Lazarus Long, 02 December 2003 - 05:16 PM.

Finally Tony Blair becomes 50.

Hopefully this will give a push to the immortality movement:-)

I think Laz's idea about the dangers of being against family lover are very well taken. Indeed, his suggestion that the basis of all the conflict between technology and fundamentalism rests on fears of weakening or rearranging the family ties is right on target.
This is the core of opposition to reproductive human cloning. You could raise your mother as a daughter. You could have several identical twins of yourself as sons. Of course, I believe this would lead to closer more understanding family ties. I guess the proof will be found in the pudding.