Cortese's Corner - formerly Beefy's Corner, the off topic chat thread

If people live for ever, where will be the room for the next generation. Improving the life of everyone in the world with a normal life span should be the target. The important thing would be if they could extend your healthy life...living to a 100 would be ok if you were fit for 95 of those years. However, ill health sets in so early...in your early sixties in my case and in quite a few of my friends. Improving the quality of later life (and sadly extending your working life ) and getting rid of the dread of dementia would be the real achievement.

 

I read something on BBC saying they expect dementia to be cured within the next ten years. Let's hope so.

 

TSS, that is part of the reason I disappeared. It was taking over. Look what happened. I'm back.

 

If you read Dan Brown's latest "Robert Langdon chases symbols across some really interesting cities" novel, it touches on this subject ... too many people for too little resource. We are doomed I tell you, we are doomed. It does make you think though, even though I won't be here when the problem hits, if it hits.

 

Not only has Hell frozen over , Niagara has as well !!!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25679545

Well parts of it have .

 

I did those hours when I worked for STC [Southampton] in the manufacture of deep sea fibre optic cables. 12 on, 12 off for 4 days or 4 nights alternately, with a gap of 4 days in between [notice an 8 day week there]. It took a wee bit of getting used to, but I loved it. We were paid a mint, because it was state-of-the-art stuff, and not many people could fly off for an extended weekend getaway and not eat into their holidays one little bit.

 

Interesting seeing a bit of book chat. What do people here like reading/favourite books?

I've just finished Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, which I thought was utterly brilliant, now on to A Long Walk Home, which is the story of the lady who got kidnapped by the Somalian pirates whilst on holiday in Kenya with her husband. I try and intersperse fiction and non-fiction alternately as a rule.

 

Yeah sounds like they're pretty close. I've read things about them successfully reversing the process in rats. Shame it's probably too late for poor old Terry Pratchett.

 

Seems like he's pretty accepting of his fate though, with all his talk of Dignitas.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/...video_n_4556771.html?utm_hp_ref=entertainment

Macaulay Culkin has set up a band called Pizza Underground. I wouldn't actually say they could sing tho. I think the guy needs help as he clearly is a lil insane.

 

Having a bit of trouble at the moment, when it comes to books. I'm halfway through the chronological last Hornblower novel, Hornblower in the West Indies, and I've had it with Hornblower. I don't like him as a character anymore, and I don't like the story. Which is a bit of a bummer, because, apart from the second half of the last one and this one so far, I've loved every single plot twist of every book. They're all page turners. But I can't move on because it's all unfinished..!

Then I have the Aubrey-Saturin novels to come, which is around 20+ books. In readiness, I bought half of them new, off ebay, last year, for next to nothing, so I've got so much reading in front of me. But Hornblower has another 150 pages to go and it is like walking through treacle. I might just have to do the awful thing and read a synopsis somewhere so that I can sign off the canon, for now and come back in a few years.

I'm always reading non-fiction, so that never enters the equation.

 

I wonder how he makes his money these days...

 

Advertising pizza? I went to Pizza Underground's YouTube and one vid just has Culkin eating a Pizza as he stares at the cam.

 

If it's only 150 to go TSS, it's worth the pain. You'll feel a bit empty if you let it go like that!

 

Indeed, that's exactly the dilemma. I said about reading a synopsis, but you're right, I'll probably wade through it, even if it takes 6 months. But I'm getting no pleasure at all, and I have plenty of distractions.

 

I usually like a fairly easy reading novel, either thriller or Alpha male type. Michael Connolly is probably my favourite author of the last few years, especially the Harry Bosch series. For a bit of light stuff, Lee Childs' Jack Reacher stories have been easy and I've read those for years... slightly tarnished now by Tom Cruise destroying them by playing the lead in the movie as a 6'5" muscle man.

One of my favourites was "The Road" which then became a half decent movie actually.

The two Gabriel Garcia Marquez books I read on holiday were good, following Godders' recommendation.

 

Ah, I'm really bad at reading books. Been juggling the latter stages of Game of Thrones with Simpsons and their mathematical secrets (S.Singh) and some others for the last few months, not really made much progress on any. Oh and a bit of Advanced Engineering Mathematics. I'm not very well read at all.

 

That is my point because those who live forever dare not have any children and therefore will have lost one of life's greatest riches.

Of course my important point about evolution and diversity is the crucial one.

 

Two easy solutions which in no way would be difficult to achieve.

1) Mars
2) Cyborgs

Just make me emperor of the human race now, I've got all the solutions.

 

Regarding World population, in the future there will be hard decisions to be made. If they are bungled or fudged then being young or newly born isn't going to be any fun at all. Already in the 1st World, those of us of the baby boomer generations have placed a huge burden on those that have come after us, in simply getting old. In the 2nd and 3rd World scenarios, the situations are similar to what the 1st World countries experienced in the past. They need not have to go through them, but cultures are slow to change.

Put simply, in order for there to be a stable World population, partners must be encouraged to replace themselves and no more. It is the scenario with the least nightmare side effects. Once the hump of excessive population age groups pass through the system, the population can stabilise, and the burdens of responsibility on younger generations won't have to be so heavy.

But the truth is that we've sold the present younger people's futures off already, by trying to live longer. One or two of us aren't going to be a burden, because we can pay our way through to our dying days, but for 99% of us we'll end up compromising the kids futures. I'm talking about people like Dan, Beefy, Joe, GPS, Qwerty and other 20-30 year olds on here, not to mention those to come. We're already doing it by asking them to foot their further education bill, when many of us had it for free. We're taking their state pensions away right now, and any private pensions they try to start won't be worth a bean by the time they come to cash up. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's chapters that could be written about resources, territories, demographies, social inequalities, you name it. It doesn't boggle me, but I have little faith in politicians who think about solving the problems by protecting their small sector of people only, by thinking about it with their political ideologies only, and continue to think about out-competing those from afar, as if making someone else the loser is going to make the World equal, stable and all right.