X-Message-Number: 33015
References: <>
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 08:40:44 -0700
Subject: Re: CryoNet #33007 - #33013
From: Charles in Arizona <>

I ask David Stodolsky for some evidence, and he points me to a paper
that propounds a theory! Well, I guess I should have expected that, as
we enter the world of social sciences.

Since researchers probably don't go around inserting probes into the
brains of the elderly on a random basis as a means to measure their
happiness, I have to think that they rely on self-assessment by the
subjects. Contrary to David's suggestion that I am closed-minded for
not believing what people say, I think skepticism is the first duty of
anyone asking questions and listening to answers.

Skepticism is certainly my reaction when I find statements such as
this: "Over the years, the older subjects reported having fewer
negative emotions and more positive ones compared with their younger
days. But even with the good outweighing the bad, older people were
inclined to report a mix of positive and negative emotions more often
than younger test subjects."

This seems to suggest the elderly are ambivalent. But they say they're
happy. Well, are they? They are certainly likely to have more money
than younger people, which may help. And they have given up on many of
the unrealistic goals that tend to make some younger people
frustrated. But I don't see how any of this research can compensate
for self-deception. And, incidentally, do any of the happiness
researchers weight their results according to disposable income,
health problems, and similar obvious factors?

How about this for vagueness in the guise of science:

"In measuring immediate well-being - yesterday's emotional state - the
researchers found that stress declines from age 22 onward, reaching
its lowest point at 85. Worry stays fairly steady until 50, then
sharply drops off. Anger decreases steadily from 18 on, and sadness
rises to a peak at 50, declines to 73, then rises slightly again to
85. Enjoyment and happiness have similar curves: they both decrease
gradually until we hit 50, rise steadily for the next 25 years, and
then decline very slightly at the end, but they never again reach the
low point of our early 50s."

Again these conclusions were entirely drawn by asking people to rate
themselves. But this assumes that men and women, old and young, apply
the same meanings to words such as "worry" and "anger."

As for David's suggestion that a "cryonicist" would not have a circle
of friends who are in any way representative of the population at
large, I didn't get interested in cryonics until I was 45, but I still
have many of the same friends now that I had before I was 45. Did
those friends suddenly become unrepresentative of the world at large
when I became a cryonicist? That doesn't make sense. Therefore,
according to David, I must have always been a cryonicist without
realizing it. How many other people are in this interesting state, I
wonder? Does David take steps to filter them out when he is looking
for a representative sample?

--Charles Platt

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=33015