Age Simulation Suit
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Aging
Empathy
Accessibility
The Age Simulation Suit is a device designed to simulate the physical limitations of old age, sparking discussions on empathy, aging, and accessibility.
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But you can build a room twice as big. We are straying away from the exosuit idea though.
- Powered exoskeletons aren't quite "there"
- If moving at all is painful, having an exoskeleton move you will also be painful
- Haptics and AR aren't quite there either
- Batteries, it's always batteries
But like the empathy found in this article, it's caused me to be incredibly more patient with anyone struggling to walk in front of me on a crowded or narrow sidewalk.
Aging is rough. Thank you to everyone working on accessibility and aging related tech and science.
One day he had a minor operation that left him needing a wheelchair for what we thought would be just a few weeks. But he never regained his strength and was never to walk again, which led to a steep and sudden decline in his mental condition. It was truly devastating to see one of the sharpest people I knew become an angry and confused simulacrum of the man I so admired.
I wish I had realized two things then: First, as you say, maintaining mobility is the crucial to the well-being of the elderly. Second, immediate physical/occupational therapy after a fall or surgery is essential to people at risk of losing mobility. Sadly it wasn't offered to us and we didn't think to ask.
I live abroad to make more money and feed my ego and I only see him 3–4 times a year. On top of that selfishness, every now and then I catch myself selfishly thinking I don’t want to go through that, which makes me feel like an even worst piece of shit.
Life sucks.
Then the dog died. Instead of walking 10km per day, she lay on the couch staring at the ceiling. About 3 months later she started getting lost on her way to the supermarket. Fifth time she got lost we decided to put her in a home for demented people. We simply couldn't provide the care she needed any other way. Took a few more months and she stopped recognising us.
I think she outlived her dog by about 18 months, iirc.
She stopped walking, and then age came fast for her.
Also lots of empirical evidence that dog owners live longer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocV7Hpj9keM
While the video is very impressive - my main reaction was to think how incredibly cool that type of dog is. So I eventually ended up getting my own Samoyed and it's been a hugely positive impact on my life.
NB I pretty much like all dogs now - but I love Samoyeds.
I was running, but kept getting injured, so it switched to walking, several years ago.
I think keeping my mind occupied is just as important. It's entirely possible that the visual stimulus of her walks was as important as the exercise.
For myself, I make a point of constantly working on shipping software, and constantly learning new stuff. LLMs have been a godsend, for the latter. I had pretty much given up on trying to ask questions, because of the awful, sneering responses that I was getting, more and more.
After the dog died she only talked to people if they came into her home.
I think the social aspect of her walks was very important for her health too. Like you say, it's all about exercising that noggin',as well as the body!
Alas, it can be taken away without choice, hopefully not.
She used to stay absorbed in a little battery powered draw poker game that she had, but by the end of the summer she had gone through a large part of our game collection and could put up a real challenge in Mario Kart 64.
Eventually we gifted it to her and she played it for years after that.
I know it comes for everyone, but the pace of said spiral is frightening.
Wish we were in a timeframe with more alternatives for rapid loss of mobility and muscle.
Yes, we should try and work against this but I am just looking at the silver lining.
I don’t think it’ll be a scenario like the starship troopers book, but having one available to a swat team or whatever, could be useful.
Still, I personally think the army would be one of the last applications, because that’s where you need the absolute lowest possible latency. Latency on a suit for an elderly person would be much more acceptable.
It really is simple: aging is incredibly harmful and undesirable. It strips away your quality of life until there isn't much left and then you die. It doesn't take any more than that for it to be declared a disease.
Whether it's "natural" or whether "everyone has it" is a distraction. If everyone was born with cancer, that wouldn't make cancer any less of a disease.
Doesn't make it a disease. Dying is a normal part of life as well as the decline before that.
> If everyone was born with cancer, that wouldn't make cancer any less of a disease.
No, then the people not having cancer would have the disease.
> I would appreciate if the "norm" was recognized
That's not how a norm works. You get that by doing trials and statistics, not by wanting it to be different.
This is how it was - until humans decided that this sucks and something should be done about that.
I see no reason not to dispose of aging at the earliest opportunity. And this starts by recognizing: aging sucks for everyone, and should be disposed of.
Once we have those breakthroughs, sure folks might start thinking of aging as a disease that's not "normal" or a thing that we can actually avoid, but until then it's a fact of life, same as gravity, the sun, or the tides.
It’s just biology. It can be fixed with enough research. There’s nothing magical or spiritual about aging it’s just another thing for humans to beat.
Lots of people get viscerally up feelings about it though for some reason. Not sure why. I’ve had people spitting purple angry when I say the above.
Compare the amount of funding aging research gets with something like Alzheimer's. Which is also a degenerative disease, and worth fighting against - but nowhere near as prevalent.
I don't doubt that it would be incredibly hard to stop aging altogether. But if the effort was there, we might get a way to reduce the severity of aging within a few decades of research. The sheer benefits of being able to reduce the severity of "aging associated" things in a world with aging population would be immense.
It’s actually very disturbing how people seem not to be worried about the growing potential for immortality. THAT is a disease, if anything.
But don't you dare force that outcome onto everyone.
In my eyes, "decay and rot and the inevitability of a miserable death is a good thing actually" is a fucking insane viewpoint to hold. The only possible reason I see to hold onto it is that it's the socially accepted cope. If you truly believe that nothing can be done about aging, then "death is good acktually" makes for a good coping mechanism.
I'd rather humans cope less and problem-solve more.
But don’t you dare force that on anyone else.
See how unconvincing these platitudes are?
I literally cannot imagine why you would want infinite life. The short timespan is 99% of the reason life is so valuable. We need to do what we can with the time we’re given.
I never said nothing could be done about aging anyways. I think we’ll reach the point where people only die when they choose to.
That’s also a pure dystopia, because it’s beyond naive to think this would be some commonplace technology afforded to everyone and not just the ruling class.
Imagine if King George were still ruling England. No rules can change ever - he’s the king. Hope you like eternal monarchy.
I sometimes wonder if people are so afraid of death because they never talk about it frankly? My wife and I converse about it regularly.
There is plenty of politicians I truly hate. But I don't hate any of them enough to doom billions to an early grave just to get at them.
If you think that Xi Jinping should die, then I can't help but think that a better solution to that would be to actually kill Xi Jinping. Far less collateral damage involved.
>That’s also a pure dystopia, because it’s beyond naive to think this would be some commonplace technology afforded to everyone and not just the ruling class.
There's this tendency for people nowadays to take this kind of shitty Black Mirror logic, and assume that the inevitable outcome is the one that maximizes the grimdark factor.
In reality, there's no reason to expect that anti-aging treatments would work any different from something like Ozempic or laser eye surgery. Sure, those were hideously expensive to develop - but are now affordable to upper middle class, and fully expected to get more available over time.
You earn more by selling a $1000 smartphone to everyone than you could ever earn by selling a billion dollar megayacht to a dozen billionaires looking to buy one. With anti-aging tech, the economic incentive to reduce the costs and reach a wider audience is immense. The demand is going to be there: a lot of what the cosmetics industry does now is fight the mere appearance of aging, and that's an industry worth hundreds of billions by itself.
Death is part of the necessary cycle of biology, and in no way is it bad. It’s certainly SAD, but in no way is it bad. Rotting isn’t this horrible mark on your body, it’s the beauty of nature recycling things so that the new has a chance.
Not only that, but could you imagine the absolutely incredible strain on Earth’s resources if we had 50 billion people instead of 8 billion? Global warming would’ve happened ages ago, and we’d be far, FAR beyond it now. In this scenario, it should be obvious nobody has a yacht, let alone a smartphone. There simply isn’t enough to go around here on earth.
There simply isn’t any positive to immortality, besides “well I won’t be sad about that one particular thing anymore”, which is… really lame when compared against the untold damage this will do.
I’m a little surprised you’re not taking any time to explain the benefits here, because I’m not actually seeing any besides you not having to cope with nature anymore.
Edit: I should also mention that I’m not looking for shitty black mirror outcomes, I’m just looking at the modern world, which continues to stratify massively, and pretty much has (with few exceptions) since time immemorial. Can you explain why things will suddenly become fair and equitable when nobody dies for some reason?
>There simply isn’t any positive to immortality, besides
You mean, besides billions of people not rotting to death in their own bodies? Besides that little incredibly unimportant easy-to-overlook thing?
>Can you explain why things will suddenly become fair and equitable when nobody dies for some reason?
Can you explain why amazing technologies like cars and smartphones and air travel became available to the masses, instead of being hoarded by a dozen uber-rich uber-powerful billionaires?
The short answer is "economics". Do you expect anti-aging technology to be exempt from economics somehow?
It's a bit hard to visualize that kind of world because so many other things would also be different, and if the politicians were chronologically like 500, they would biologically be still much younger so maybe the mind would allow for much more plasticisty and that would allow them to be more open to new ideas.
It would be pretty weird if george washington, Thomas Jefferson, etc were here with us today. We’d probably still be debating if slavery is acceptable or not LOL.
People complain about boomers hoarding all the wealth and “never letting go” so younger folks can take the reins. Imagine how much worse it would be if those boomers lived until 200?
Imagine how much more fossil fuel we’d be burning if we all lived until 200?
You know how old people tend to get stubborn? Not all, but most? Now imagine if the U.S. government was comprised of mostly people age 100+. Imagine how they would do keeping up with changes that affect youngsters in 2025?
Imagine how bad the housing crisis would be in 2025.
Imagine how unmotivated people would be in day to day life if they knew they’d live to 200 years?
In summary…if everyone could easily live forever, that is not a good thing. It would drastically change society as we know it, and not 100% for the better. I’d argue it would actually make things worse.
Death is literally a biological process that affects all living organisms on this planet, and in the galaxy. Sorry if that’s hard to accept? I personally find it beautiful how “energy” is recycled once we die, through the soil, and eventually into other things - like a tree, etc.
Now, if that very politician thought that with the way anti-aging technology is going, he'll probably live to 150, maybe 200 if he's lucky? That might change the equation - for the better.
I don't think that "kill everyone to avoid the risk of the political system getting marginally worse" is an optimal solution. I'd rather deal with aging and the shittiness of politics as two separate problems with a minor overlap.
>I personally find it beautiful how “energy” is recycled once we die, through the soil, and eventually into other things - like a tree, etc.
I think that this is nothing but socially accepted cope. A load of pseudo-profound bullshit that might be easier to accept than the idea that aging and death are really fucking bad and we aren't doing much to stop them. And that even if we did, we and our loved ones may not be the ones to ever benefit from it.
I do agree with you that if politicians lived longer, they’d (hopefully) think long term. That’s an interesting point I hadn’t considered.
Lastly - nobody is suggesting killing anyone here. Feels like i’m being interviewed by a reporter with my words taken completely out of context. This is what being famous must feel like. :) If someone finds a way for humans to live longer I won’t be upset in the slightest. I’m just saying “be careful what you wish for”. That is all. There would be many unintended consequences. Viewing it as strictly a beneficial thing is naive i think.
Modern agriculture has enabled the human population to grow rapidly without people starving to death, which had "unknown unintended consequences" too. As well as the well known consequence of food being affordable and available to most people worldwide.
I'd take "unknown unintended consequences" over the well known consequences of the status quo. The current consequences is that everyone dies a miserable death. It's a very easy choice.
That protective mechanism is reproduction. Your viral infections, bacterial infections, broken bones, bad backs, polluted lungs, corrupted mind, and just general wear and tear, does not get transmitted. It's a clean start in life.
Applying the process to already old people would be the abomination of desolation and turn this planet into a hellish dimension of unimaginable proportions, and it would of course exterminate humanity. You have to remember that when humanity is exterminated, that means forever.
Which does get rid of dementia alright. But I fail to see that as an acceptable solution.
Everybody understands already that slowing down or stopping the aging process is desirable. I don't see the usefulness in lumping it in with muscle atrophy, clogged arteries, or cancer.
We need to understand the aging better still like what is actually going on and what are the main drivers (even here is dispute among scientists)
That said, I don't believe it would work as smoothly if used in AR, as speaking and reading are two different brain things. Plus, if it's aimed at older people, they likely have sight issues too.
To a point this is already possible, just ask people to speak into your phone with e.g. Google Translate or some other text-to-speech engine. But that's awkward, because it's a context switch to a device and the processing time required.
But then again, by the time you're older you might look younger than you do now, e.g. "Ageing changes our genes – epigenetic atlas gives clearest picture yet (nature.com)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45095532 (from the other day, no comments yet)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/m3wljWlAVss
Btw, somebody should mention that Putin/Xi's talk about living to 150 years and the 70 being just a children age today (if you have state resources at your disposal).
Yesterday it was immortality elixirs that lead to mercury poisioning, today it's young blood transfusions and young organ transplants (having multiple major surgeries and living on lifelong immunosuppresants does not bode well for longevity)
Getting older has its benefits too but mostly mental, in physical terms I cannot think of a single benefit.
If you guys are hurting all the time in your 40s, I would really advise you to do a full assessment of what you’re putting in your body and what kind of message you’re sending your body with your exercise routine. It might also be a good idea to get checked for markers of inflammation as well as testosterone levels. You should not have constant nagging pain at your age.
Also if you ever compete in a physical activity at more than just a "with your friends" level, you'll quickly find that whether you're 15 or 50 warming up makes a huge difference.
A lot of the problems of aging that I suspect folks today are facing are the problems of leading a fairly sedentary lifestyle.
"My legs are sore from running yesterday but it means the muscles are getting stronger and I'll be healthy."
And:
"There is this weird twinge in my back. Did I sleep weird and it will be fine tomorrow? Or do I have to start doing more stretches and if I keep up with that forever, I can keep this pain at bay? Or does it mean that one of the vertebrae is starting to crack and if I don't go to the doctor soon enough and get surgery I'm going to end up paralyzed for life?"
Pain is easy. It's not knowing what the pain means that's hard.
I think folks are really focusing on the "psychological" part of my comment in isolation and not the "problems of leading a fairly sedentary lifestyle" which is probably my fault because I don't think I structured my post well.
I think a lot of the problems that are associated with aging, such as minor aches and pains, are consequences of leading mostly sedentary lifestyles. Part of being fairly active (meaning well above most state-recommended guidelines) is the psychological resilience to pain that I mentioned. But also part of it is that because you are constantly pushing your physical abilities, the strain that comes from occasional bad movement as part of everyday life (sleeping badly, holding the faucet tap the wrong way, hitting your wrist on the corner of a table, etc) is usually well within the envelope of pushing yourself compared to your actual sport.
My greater point is that leading a sedentary lifestyle is a whole package of things. This includes the physiological consequences of not developing strength, flexibility, and joint elasticity; this also includes the psychological resistance to risk and pain that comes from being sedentary.
And I think there's something to be said for your point that experiencing pain and seeing yourself recover from it can be helpful for processing pain psychologically. You could look at it as sort of exposure therapy for pain.
But I also think that the kinds of pains you get from exercise are quite different from the psychological experience of pain from a serious injury and the former doesn't really prepare you for the latter.
It's hard to explain unless you've been there. Most of the time, pain is a signal from your past telling you about something you did. It's your body's way of saying "don't do that again". But when a severe injury happens, it can also be an omen for your future. Your body saying "no, you don't get to do that anymore".
Processing that is difficult, especially given how uncertain the signal actually is.
Per day?? Does anyone really do that? I aim for a bit more than 60 minutes a week.
> (meaning well above most state-recommended guidelines)
So yeah some people do. High level amateur and pro athletes put in much, much more. I view it as a cheat code to lead a longer, healthier life. While my less active friends are complaining about lower back pain shuffling into their cars, I'm able to carry large boxes up many flights of stairs with minimal issue.
FWIW I used to have awful digestion issues before I started working out regularly and now have gone back to my teenage baseline of guzzling peppers and chili oil.
Soreness only comes initially once you are getting into the routine, or if you push yourself way beyond limits.
Cracks and pops are another case where constant introspection and following tips on TikTok has made many of them go away. The received wisdom is they're not proven harmful, but in my case they at least represent using muscles in wrong patterns that pull things off center.
I'm not giving up beer or the once a month pizza anytime soon but I have made conscious decisions to reduce my overall gluten intake.
The joint pain is the only thing that makes me feel old right now. And I don't think there's much I can do about it. (although I'll be happy for suggestions.)
The only thing that keeps it at bay is regular exercise, both strength and mobility. I'm careful about running.
The pragmatist in me hopes not, I think it'll be the worst drug we invent, even if it's just a pair of goggles, a glove, and a weird sticker for the temples.
But I expect it. Silver lining?
I would love to see more widespread adoption of these suits in training and employee onboarding in these facilities, mostly because if I'm in that situation or I want to think about a retirement home for my family members, I'd want to see that no one is losing their temper because my mom can't sprint 12km/hr to the elevators for breakfast.
This being said, anecdotally, it seems elder abuse is more the norm, simply because of compassion fatigue, so I suspect that even in however many years time, I'll be punched by a PSW for no good reason.
For instance, these suits might restrict movement but they don't simulate hip or knee pain. They don't simulate shortness of breath, etc. It certainly doesn't induce cognitive impairment or anxiety. A young healthy person might wear one of these and go, "it's not soooooo bad.... I could do it why can't they".
Knee pain simulator simulating knee problems (1 pair of knee wraps with build-in stimulus elements, incl. bag) 200,00
Kyphosis simulator simulating a hunchback (1 hip belt, 1 neck strap and 1 walking stick, incl. bag) 190,00
COPD simulator simulating shortness of breath (1 rib bandage and 1 adjustable nose clip, incl. cleaning set and bag) 170,00
Tremor simulator simulating trembling hands (2 pairs of gloves in 2 sizes and 1 control unit, incl. bag) 160,00
Tinnitus simulator simulating ringing in the ears (8 tinnitus sounds as MP3 files, free download as part of an order) 0,00
Simulation glasses simulating 6 eye diseases (6 different pairs of glasses in a box) 230,00
Hemiparesis simulator simulating a unilateral paralysis (set of 7 matched components, incl. bag) 390,00
Back pain simulator simulating back problems (set of 2 simulators in 2 sizes, incl. bag) 490,00
And my brain hurts just reading this at no extra cost. I'm going out for a walk now, take a deep breath, soak it all in and enjoy it while it lasts...
https://www.age-simulation-suit.com/download/Price_list.pdf
Compared to the suit, this is next level. Limiting your senses and movement can help you design an environment that the elderly find useable, kind of like screen filters that simulate color blindness. But actually causing pain goes beyond these practical considerations.
I also write code daily, read the same things I read when I worked, thus keep my brain going too. You can't ignore body or mind, you have to keep both in tune.
I am still getting older, but I am in better shape than I was before I retired. The last time I felt as fit was when I was still playing basketball 30+ years ago.
Don't wait, it's easier to do a little for decades than wait until it's almost too late.
Thank you for saying this. A depressingly large proportion of people are seemingly resigned to the fact that once you hit 40-50, you'll inevitably turn into an achy tub of lard and it's rapidly and irreversibly downhill from there.
Barring injuries that are truly irreversible (e.g. severe damage to joints/cartilage), with the correct diet and fitness regime, it's entirely possible to remain lean (≤20% bodyfat) and muscular (≥80th percentile in strength standards [0]) well into what most consider "old age." So many people have no idea just how poorly they eat or how inactive and physically weak they are, and consider the result to just be a normal part of life.
>I also write code daily, read the same things I read when I worked, thus keep my brain going too. You can't ignore body or mind, you have to keep both in tune.
Thanks for saying this too. So much cognitive decline is due to inactivity of the mind. My mom was whip smart until she retired in her mid-60s to a life of idle leisure, and her mental faculties noticeably deteriorated within a few months. Thankfully, she noticed this and deliberately re-engaged with more intense intellectual pursuits (including consulting part-time in the professional field that she loved), and the improvement was night-and-day.
[0] https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards
I drive as little as possible; I went on a 1200 mile road trip last weekend and I'm still paying for so much sitting.
My mom and her bf were hard core. Swimming, biking, running, the works.
They served as one of the hosts for BBC's program Are You Fitter Than a Pensioner? [2010] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tyr5n My mom was 70 at the time. Spoiler: The seniors smoked the youths.
Alas, as with so many: falls -> injury -> idleness -> decline.
Some balance stuff can't be helped. Mom's bf got spells of vertigo; apparently the little balancing sensor bone inside the ear gets loose with age.
I've heard of people who lived months or years even before figuring this out.
Probably some good genes too (her brother is 100, her sister just passed at 104)
Even between people, like Queen Elizabeth lived relatively long and her mother I think also, if you look at pictures throughout her life she always looked younger than her age IMO. And when she died it was very quick not like drawn out years that many have to endure, many long lived people actually pass very quickly..
If I wasn't in software dev, I think I would be in this field.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aixnlVbmzE8
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6_2004.html
In 'Exercised', the author goes to great lengths to show how, in some societies, people don't turn into 'vegetables' because they're active and engaged. They just… die eventually, without an awful decay into death.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence
For the other 99.9% of us, the number of studies showing the difference made by exercise, healthy eating, not smoking or drinking alcohol are too numerous to mention.
Ignore the information about exercise at your peril. You can probably use motivated reasoning to convince yourself you are right to remain in your chair and your growing list of ailments have nothing to do with your lack of exercise, and you may even remain convinced until you die. That will not change the opportunity you miss to enjoy decades of better health and life.
To grossly oversimplify it, our bodies literally evolved over billions of years to exercise and rest, eat so we are alternately storing excess energy as fat and removing energy from fat stores, and only eating sugars, alcohols, and inhaling smoke as extremely occasional events. I it stupid to assume switching the routine to sitting most of the time, only storing energy as fat and rarely if ever depleting those stores, and frequently consuming sugar alcohol and smoke would make no difference.
I could regale you with pages of personal experience (fmr intl-class athlete, trained and sedentary for periods of life and observed results) and data, but those are easy enough to find. All I can do is encourage you to change your POV, and start exercising well
You will find the 'built different' is how you build your own body —— weight lifting isn't called "body building" for nothing —— it (along with running and stretching) really does rebuild your body over the course of months.
Good luck and I wish you well on your journey.
And the accompanying multiple of confidence and proven ability to go with it.
Plus a much bigger multiple of both, compared to your younger self at under 30.
You really can do most of the same things after 60, and with maturity it's easy to accept how the big difference is that you wont be doing them as many additional decades into the future.
But as you age your biology will force a choice upon you, one option is you spend progressively more time maintaining your health, in which case it drops off MUCH less than you'd expect. Or you can neglect that maintenance, in which case your quality of life WILL drop off in a big way due to health problems.
That's what it is, it's a choice, one you don't get to opt out of, but there is a path where you're in remarkably good shape for less effort than you would probably assume... for most people even just 2-3 hours a week of moderate exercise at the gym is probably a game changer.
I'm a little worried about the health of younger people today, because I read the statistics about obesity, blood pressure, ED and so on all going up for them. I'm also occasionally taking 20-30 minute walks with people in their 20s, who want to take a car, they're exhausted at the end of it, and they can't keep up with me. I get it, I was like that a couple years ago before I started hitting the gym, but really, at 25, you can't handle under a half hour of brisk walking? Oof, habits sure have changed.
Also I have been taking metformin (daily) and rapamycin (weekly) since like age 24 not sure they have helped but it's easy to buy here so I am giving it a try. I also use sunscreen if I go out during the midday which I rarely do in the tropics..
I can't stress this enough. So many of my peers have complained about back pain and other physical ailments, as if it was an unavoidable part of turning 30.
No, it didn't just suddenly appear the moment you turned 30, it's the symptom of accumulated damage from a sedentary lifestyle.
For what it's worth, I've managed to get a lot of them into fitness, and they're doing much better now
She would constantly bake rich chocolate cakes and thick hot drinking chocolate for herself and grandchildren and when she cooked pasta, she would put ketchup + mayonnaise on top. All the recipes she knows are quick/easy and supposedly unhealthy. She literally doesn't know how to make a salad. I've never seen her eat a salad.
15 years ago, we went for a hike at elevation and he actually kicked my ass despite being around 35 years older than me. Crazy stuff. That alone was enough to kick my ass into gear. Now I do sprints and lifting, and I actually enjoy it now that my goal is just “do something for health” rather than “reach a half-ton total across my big-3” or something like that.
GERT: Bigger than the iPhone.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Moore
Awful idea #2: Just listen to your grandmother when you are young. She will tell you how brutal is to be old. Read the science, not just biology but all the connected sciences, specially mathematics. And then listen to the priests (critically!), and read the writers, and peruse the written record of the human civilization, which almost begins with the Epic of Gilgamesh. It will reveal shadows you didn’t know were in your mind. None of it, of course, prevents you from becoming old, but it puts most things into perspective, and it digs out a certain light that we have lost and which we very much need if we are ever going to do anything about the suffering that aging brings.
Awful idea #3: Take a shortcut and paste everything I wrote before this paragraph into an LLM. Any LLM which is reasonably state of the art. Prompt with “what’s the meaning of this?” It will significantly change the intended meaning of what I said in “awful idea #2”. That’s the bias/zeitgeist in our vast cultural recent corpus, that the LLMs swallowed for training, being regurgitated at you in condensed form. And they said that LLMs aren’t useful! Repeat the experiment, but this time use Simplified Chinese to prompt. Observe the very slight cultural drift. Meditate. Now abandon this shortcut and execute awful idea #2. Borrow somebody else’s grandmother if you must.
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