Investing in Childhood, Forgetting Old Age? Lessons from a Shipwreck.

Written by Martina Nadal, edited by Jaya Bonelli

At Domestic, we are fortunate enough to work with a very vast array of organisations, entities, and contexts. Over the years, this has exposed us to the variety of ways in which people and industries foster collective beliefs and make decisions that impact others. But for some time now, I’ve been coming back to a certain recurring thought: which is that we have this huge emphasis and desire to invest greatly in childhood - think educational toys, advanced methods, accessories, and all kinds of innovations. And yet, at the same time, I suspect that we are a lot less adamant about investing in the other side of the demographic scale: older people. 

Now, when looking at the data, it’s true that we tend to spend more on the elderly than on children (in the US, in France, for example) - and yet, this is easily seen as a “brokenness” of our economic systems: a “waste”, an expense for which we have not yet found an alternative or solution. This goes together with the whole narrative of “Aging Is the Real Population Bomb”, or, more generally, the idea of seeing the progressively increasing elderly populations in western societies as an upcoming challenge, an issue that will only increase over time. It’s hard to think otherwise, when in the midst of an economic recession, of an uncertain future, where overpopulation and the environmental crisis easily foster our disregard towards public spending that doesn’t seem directly applicable to us. But the moment in which it’s spun as something negative, it reveals itself as a narrative like any other. The data shows that populations are aging, yes - but it’s a lot more complicated than the binaries implied in the “overpopulation rhetoric”. Furthermore, spending on and building opportunities for children, on the other hand, is seen as something absolutely crucial and positive - we’re investing in the future: in education, in better job opportunities, in something which will stimulate our economy in a direct, tangible way - we’re investing “in life”. Which stands in stark contrast to the idea that putting efforts or funds in structures geared for the elderly will be to invest in … for the end of life - almost like investing “in death”.  A bit gloomy. 

Of course, investing in childhood is absolutely crucial - and I have not a single shred of doubt on that. But what concerns me is, in the same way that the data rationalizes more spending in childhood, and we’re okay with that, we have a hard time understanding the intrinsic value of investing in the elderly. Above all, this boils down to a key narrative: spending on the elderly is a “waste of money and resources” - and our collective perception is thus shaped by a notion of “profitability”, but as applied to human beings. That’s the big problem. It genuinely worries me to think that, as a society, we accept to assign such an unequal value to some lives versus others. Everything points to the fact that some lives are seen as “productive” and capable of delivering greater social return, while others-despite having an equally intrinsic human value-are often reduced to a symbolic presence, something we perceive as less essential. Essentially, I think it’s inherently problematic to center this notion of productivity (and beyond that, of “calculation” - helping what lives will “pay off the most?”) at the core of how we perceive and care for members of society. We should care for human lives - not just because it helps in terms of productivity or for our self-preservation, but because there’s an intrinsic value to it. And in the absolute, how we treat older people also shapes us: it influences how we imagine our own future treatment, and it reflects the kind of society we are building.

This makes me think of the story of a shipwreck that occurred on Auckland Island in 1864. History offered us an almost perfect social experiment. Two ships-the Invercauld and the Grafton-wrecked on opposite sides of the island at the same time. Yet, the groups that emerged from these accidents behaved in radically different ways.

On the Invercauld, when the first challenge arose-a crew member was wounded-the group abandoned him, sending a clear message: the sick were a burden to be left behind. They competed fiercely for basic resources, splintering into factions, their numbers quickly diminishing. On the Grafton, however, although they were far fewer in number, the crew carried their sick companion on the very first day. They continued to support one another, recognizing each person as a source of knowledge to be shared. They taught each other their different languages, found ways to play together, and created small rituals of distraction. Despite disagreements, they maintained cohesion and mutual solidarity. They survived radically better than the Invercauld.

The outcome was striking: of the 19 men from the Invercauld, only 3 survived. Of the 5 from the Grafton, all 5 were rescued-two years later. These numbers tell us something profound: care, solidarity, and mutual learning are not just ethical choices; they are keys to survival. Acts of visible altruism ripple outward and strengthen the common good. So,  I wonder: beyond defending the unquestionable rights of investing in childhood, shouldn’t we also strive to balance this with investment in old age? Not only as a matter of human dignity-regardless of whether a person is in a “productive” stage of life-but also as a radical investment in hope? 

This metaphoric proximity of old age and shipwrecks is nothing new, as a matter of fact: “La vieillesse est un naufrage” (“Old age is a sinking”), wrote Charles de Gaulle, in reference to a line often attributed to 19th century French poet Chateaubriand “La vieillesse est un naufrage, les vieux sont des épaves” (“old age is a shipwreck, old people are sunken boats”). This phrase would become a famous French proverb - used in reference to any aging person when on the slow decline of their physical or mental abilities. And yet, as anyone who has ever sat next to an elderly person at a wedding or family gathering can attest, the elderly are anything but “sunken boats”. They are an integral part of our community, beings of wisdom and experience. Caring for our kin is one of the most important things we can do - and it is vital to any form of meaning and happiness we can find in life. In Malcolm Gladwell’s now infamous book Outliers, he talks about the town of Roseto, Pennsylvania, as an outlier town with a remarkably high level of health, in comparison with neighboring locations. What astonished medical experts realized, after looking at the ways in which daily life in Roseto unfolded, was that the key to Rosetan health was in the strength of their community: 

So, does it mean we should care for one another - for the young, for the elderly, for the strong, and for the weak - because it’s what will ensure our own self-preservation? Maybe - and it’s clear that “it helps”. But I also want to push the reflection further - it’s not all about self-preservation, or about the “Golden Rule”: treating the other the same way we want to be treated. We have to take ourselves - and our self-interests - out of the equation too. Real community happens when care is not just a result of game theory or careful calculation, but it is something a lot more intrinsic, essential, and “disinterested” - it’s a pure feeling of openness and love, a principle of life which needs no rationalizing or justifying beyond its mere existence. 

This is the context in which I see our project of Synthetic Memories. For the past two years, we have been exploring how AI can be used as a tool for reminiscence therapy, helping to visualize and preserve the memories of elderly people before they vanish. It’s one way to put these communities at the center when new technological opportunities arise - using innovation not just for efficiency, but to listen, to connect, and to care - representing these memories because they simply must be, not because of some ideological positioning or calculated embedding towards some ulterior motive. These are undocumented memories that deserve and need to be maintained in the world - their contribution to society emerges because of their standalone, individual value, not the other way around. 

Now, let me be clear: I don’t judge the crew of the Invercauld. They must have lived through incredibly difficult times. And life is a lot more complicated than we’d like to be - it’s not always easy, or even possible, to do something for its own sake. But I do believe that today, it is especially important to remind ourselves that part of what defines our humanity - and what has allowed us to survive as societies throughout history - is a sense of cohesion and care that goes far beyond the logics of efficiency and productivity that so often dominate our agendas. Learning from that shipwreck on Auckland Island, we should therefore not forget that one of the things that truly makes us human, and that underpins civilizations across history, is our ability to help one another, regardless of fragility. Let’s move past the heuristic of “productivity” or self-preservation - and act out of our universal, intrinsic desire to care for one another.