LONGEVITY IS NOT A BAD THING, WORD OF FREDERICK RAMPINI
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Today Ray Kurzweil is 65 years old and is considered "the Thomas Edison of our time": to him the Wall Street Journal wrote a long portrait. At age 17 he became famous for his first invention, a computer can compose music in the style of Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven. Since then he has never stopped churning out inventions, many of which have social utility, such as software that translates any text into Braille for the blind, and some of the now universal use: such as scanners. At 65, Kurzweil was hired for the first time from Google. After a life spent as an inventor-entrepreneur independent, Kurzweil is starting professional experience entirely new. Him mainly affects the optimism is convinced that humanity is on the verge of extraordinary discoveries in biotechnology, which will lead to an increasing lifespan.
The confident attitude of Ray Kurzweil is useful to address one of the key challenges of our time: the increase of our longevity.
These topics are highly debated in America today, because we are on the eve of a historic transition. They approach retirement age several of the baby-boomers. Born between 1945 and 1965, which coincided with the explosion of fertility and the post-war economic boom, have had a destabilizing effect and revolutionary in many fields: politics, economy, costume, sexuality, morality, culture, music. A generation very numerous. After the baby boomers no other generation has been so thick and have a social impact so strong. The baby-boomers are living today the "second adulthood". Some of the symbols of this new way of life in America are under the eyes of everyone ranging from Bill Clinton (senior baby boomers) to Bill Gates to Barack Obama (young baby boomers). But it's not just the rich, the powerful, the privileged and lucky to age better. This phenomenon is becoming the majority, a privilege of mass. And 'the indisputable fact that in addition to living longer, you get older even better. This is partly due to advances in medicine. But not only the generation of baby boomers invented the health consciousness as a common practice, has amassed jogging and yoga, the gym and the Slow Food.
In Italy, however, unfortunately, the issue of increasing longevity is read as a negative. If you have mastered the technical accounting of public finance to explain that this is a catastrophe destined to blow up all the security accounts. In the political debate we are talking about scrapping in a legitimate way invoked when a change at the top of the ruling class, but it is profoundly wrong for the scrapping becomes a slogan directed against an entire generation. In Italy you have created this dangerous illusion, this grotesque distortion of reality, so it would be the fault of those age nor clears the field, when so many young people are unemployed.
Warning: you realize that the country where the baby-pensions were invented, the country where you use the early retirement of the fifties as a shock absorber corporate crisis, the country of esodati, youth unemployment has a double or triple compared to that of countries such as the United States (where you work up to 67-70 years) or Germany (where early retirement are discouraged)?
In the book "For a green old age", a manifesto for the future generations to not give up, we read many examples of companies from California to northern Europe, who are planning the development of "gray panthers" as a resource. To restart a development full of opportunities for young people. The exact opposite of that war generation that is being preached in Italy.
Old age is stretched, there are more elderly people in retirement, but there are people who have health, vitality, enthusiasm, forming an invisible army and not used. In a country such as prolonged length of Italy, this is a predominant issue. You should find a way to exploit the resources of the gray panthers, who are approaching the end of the work, but still have a lot of vitality and creativity. Their contribution to the rebirth of the country is important, the experience could be reinvested in culture, in music, in the landscape. From the countryside to progress, have struggled to change things, thanks to them we have become citizens of the world by breaking down all the walls, were important ideals that have produced positive changes, we can not deny or forget it, and then, think of the redevelopment of this new phase of life. New parameters, a pact of new citizenship. To free ourselves from the negativity we must learn to do mental gymnastics, free ourselves from prejudices, from those related to aging brain, given that recent studies show that the evolution of the brain is not confined to youth. In order to safeguard and supervise the huge deposits of wisdom that our country has to offer.
Frederick Rampini
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