Survey of older folks as data about one's future values and preferences?

I've looked because it's an interesting modesty argument: if older people reliably are more conservative and have more information, on what grounds do you not immediately become conservative yourself? (And variations thereof.)

Has anyone looked systematically at what projected older versions of themselves would think, based on what relevant groups of existing older folks think?...My dim recollection of studies is that on the whole as people age they tend to be less idealistic, more resigned to society the way it is rather than how it might be, and more constrained by realities of politics and economics (for starters).

There's an obvious confound: the aging itself induces negative changes. 'resigned' can just be a synonym for 'tired' or 'lacking in energy'. Aging also introduces many other negatives - your intelligence takes massive hits: http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ#aging I'm 24, so compared to my 60 year old, I'm something like 1.5-2 standard deviations smarter (disclaimers: average, z-scores over general population, I hope to do better, etc.).

My IQ is somewhere in the 130s, and a standard deviation is usually something like 12-15 points, so taking advice from my future self would be like taking advice from a normal 100 IQ person now! I don't pay terribly much attention to what such people say... I'd still pay a lot of attention to any message from the future because my future dim elderly self has all the fruits of my higher IQ periods to draw on, but this observation is enough to largely eliminate the interest of contemporary averages.

Also interesting is politics; here the confound is simply that the 19th-20th centuries have seen widespread partisan shifts in particular directions, which means age will correlate strongly with politics unless people are completely spineless. Here the evidence favors me not shifting my liberal libertarian beliefs, because that's the tendency of old people in general - to shift to be more liberal than their cohort began as: http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ#fn85

(This could just reflect pressure to conform by all the younger cohorts - but if you're willing to make excuses like that, the majoritarian/modesty argument goes right out the window in general!)

Back in 2010 I was looking for data about how my "life in general" was likely to go using base rates from other people. The post was Seeking book about baseline life planning and expectations. Not precisely on target, but related.

For years before I had a crazy plan to use a system of digital watches, notes with time stamps, and a Polaroid camera if I ever discover a tattoo on my body indicating I have anterograde amnesia... but senile dementia seems like a much less crazy thing to make plans for because it is predicted to afflict a relatively large percent of the population in the future.

Based on thoughts and conversations around this topic in 2010/2011, it occurred to me that it might be valuable to lay some memories down in my relative youth to help in my declining years. From people who have experience with the elderly in their declining years, I heard that a major problem is that old people can become bitter and untrusting of caregivers and therefore become harder to care for than otherwise. Also they tend to feel like they aren't in the right place and wander off. So my tentative conclusion is that if and when I "practice having a memory disorder" in advance, I should actively trust seeming strangers who help me, and try not to move around too much if my surroundings aren't recognizable. But should also probably disable or massively filter my cell phone and email and whatnot, because I'll probably be easy to scam.

Somehow, this seems all like a failure mode I should plan to avoid if I can, rather than updating in that direction now.

Cryonics as it is right now is expensive, but not ridiculously so ($28,000 at CI ). If everyone was cryo-persevered at death the cost per person would drop dramatically. Meanwhile medical costs during the last year of life are already high: "Studies have shown that the 5% of Medicare patients who die each year account for 30% of Medicare's costs, with 78% of last-year-of-life expenses occurring in the month before death." here.

Dying costs, on average, $10k-$35k depending on where you live your last few months.

These costs are more likely to increase than to decrease. And they buy very few QALY (or even just plain non-adjusted years). Calling it quits a few months early and getting cryo-preserved could very well be a net savings once it's a widely available option. And, if it ends up working, would have a much greater return in QALY.

Even so, the "health care is a right, not a privilege" sentiment will mean that if it was shown to work, everyone would want it

Once it's shown conclusively to work no one will want it anymore :)

My impression is that cryonics advocates actually get pretty excited thinking about universal cryonics. See http://lesswrong.com/lw/2fd/a_proposal_for_a_cryogenic_grave_for_cryonics/

At age 36 I already feel too old at LW meetups.

My dim recollection of studies is that on the whole as people age they tend to be less idealistic, more resigned to society the way it is rather than how it might be, and more constrained by realities of politics and economics (for starters).

There is a moment in one's life where their quality of life starts depending on money they make. I'm not talking about having your first job -- if you live at your parents' home, they give you food and bed, and you are free to spend your money as you wish, you are not there yet. Even if you pay all your expenses at market rate (though you probably get a huge discount), you are only halfway there if your parents provide you safety; if they would be willing to pay your checks for some period if you'd happen to lose a job etc. I am speaking about a moment where if your income disappears, your quality of life would drop dramatically. This moment is IMHO what makes the large part of the difference.

I have seen this at the university -- some people went there directly from a high school; some of them failed, had a job one year, and the next year succeeded to get at the university, keeping a part-time job. Despite the same biological age, the attitude difference between these two groups was huge. The first group was always interested in talking and having fun, the second group was focused on problem solving.

Having a metaphorical sword hanging above one's head changes things. A rather big part of my time has to be spent making money, otherwise I lose my home. I don't have enough time for my hobbies; and even when I have the time, I often feel too tired to do anything meaningful. Because I can't do the things I want, I care even less about other people, except for very close friends. A lot of this would probably change if I had more free time (I feel my priorities shifting on weekends and vacations), but I can't manage to have more free time for a longer period. And I don't have children yet, so I suppose I will have even less free time in the future.

Other part of the story is that age brings experience -- this is not automatic, but if you have tried a lot of things, then you statistically have more data about things. When I speak with younger people about their idealistic ideas, seems to me that they are missing the data, and they don't even realize they are missing something important. (If saving the world is that simple, do you think you are the first smart and altruistic person to ever think about it?) Maybe it is not about idealism, but about expecting simple solutions to complex problems. If you would measure idealism not just by words, but by long-term persistence in face of obstacles, then maybe the difference in idealism would disappear.

Our bodies need to perform different roles as we age and mature. We'd also need different sets of skills depending on our current developmental phase. It would make sense for our brains to change too, that the developmental path of our brain is planned to make it undergo changes that'd make it more adapted to the tasks it'll have to tackle over different developmental phases.

It'd make sense for our brain to be more fine tuned for grabbing resources from family when we're a kid, to grow as fast as possible, then better tuned to search for sexual partners once we're getting mature, and lastly, more fine tuned to take care of our kids once we got them.

And if there's a mechanism which makes our brain undergo developmental changes along a pre-planned path, then we might also expect that past the age at which we reproduce, there'd be less and less evolutionary pressure to shape that developmental trajectory.

I don't think either that evolution would have much of a reason to cleanly engineer a stable end-state after which development just entirely stops, and leaves you with a well-adjusted, perfectly functional body or brain. That may not be a trivial task after all.

It's expensive due to economies of scale and regulatory burdens. If it became popular much of the cost would presumably be stripped away. Vitrification and storage aren't inherently expensive.