The Mythology of Dog Years
priceonomics.com
priceonomics.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_ageing
The biological mechanisms which regulate lifespan evolved several hundred million years ago.
edit: Regarding dogs: http://www.insidescience.org/content/large-dogs-age-faster-d...
A more interesting question is how do humans manage to age so much slower than chimps. This has occurred so recently in evolutionary history that it must involve only a few genes. Any process that is controlled by a few genes can, in theory at least, be a pharmaceutical target.
The problem with average life expectancy is that most dogs don't die of natural causes, they get put down. We would have a shorter average life span if we allowed people assisted suicide for those with terminal conditions, especially ones that drag on for years or decades. Think ALS, Alzheimers and Parkinson's, they can last twenty or thirty years. Often long past when a person would want to die for the benefit of themselves but also everyone around them.
We make that choice for our dogs. My in-laws put their dog down, he likely could have got another year but he was suffering and you don't torture things you love with forcing them to stay alive.
I think 7 came because at the end of the dog's natural life you could get a rough estimate using the rule of 7 because it averaged out.
At first I was offended and then I was 'Oohh...'
A dog probably gets around eight active years or more, but we humans only have like three. When we are mature, fertile, energetic, without building up health problems.
And then we have six more dog years of being old.
The core message is that animal years map very badly to human years.
During the first twenty years, we are busy with development. The fertility part is gender specific, and lasts about 25 to 30 years in women and much longer in men. Conflating active years with fertility is a problematic idea. Maturity is a very fuzzy concept, but cortical development is commonly not considered complete until the mid-twenties. The variance in energy is probably higher compared across different individuals than across different age groups. Health problems also vary greatly from person to person, but it's fair to say that crossing 40 risk factors for everything go up dramatically.
How many active years humans get out of their life is subject to great individual variation. Some get zero. Others are highly productive for 60+ years. But I agree it's not enough - that's why we need transhuman advances in science. Less than a Guard of Terra, maybe more like a Space Marine ;)
The idea that I have to make all the important choices in the first half (second quarter even) of my life which is almost over saddens me.
Short fertility in women (which we cut in half with our clumsy society) is THE problem. With the exclusion of mismatches, which I shun, male fertility is effectively limited to the same age range too.
I don't agree that all the important choices happen during the first half though. Consider that for the first 1.5 decades you hardly make any of your own choices at all. So while the procreation thing is about halfway over at your age, in a lot of other ways you're just getting started.
As I've added, it's actually a quarter. For women in modern society it's even less, close to 1/8 of their life.
After "the ship has sailed", no choices matter anymore. Surely, you may decompose faster or slower, rot for quite some time or go out with the bang. But it's confined to your own body now, which is definitely mortal.
You're assuming the only way to influence the world is by spreading your genes. That's completely false.
And the age constaint is a huge problem here because it can ruin the whole thing even if I figure out everything else later on. You can fix many things later but not this. That's scary.
We get that, but it's an assumption that depends on your personal value system and on what you personally consider satisfying. That's hardly something you can just project onto the general population.
A lot of people will agree with your basic assessment, however in this extreme form I'm afraid you're rapidly coming to a point where you don't see any value in humans once they have spawned their genes. And that's not how we as a civilization see things any more, and the understanding that we have value based on who we are (instead of how many offspring we have) has been part of the general social contract since at least the enlightenment era.
I didn't. However I think it is true for a big part of general population and they'll face a reality check soon enough. But I talk about myself mostly.
"I'm afraid you're rapidly coming to a point where you don't see any value in humans once they have spawned their genes"
It's a bit different. People who are still able to spawn their genes are unconditionally valuable. But people who can no longer spawn their genes are only conditionally valuable. They may be very valuable (take nobel laureates), but it's not given. Maybe not.
The problem is, people are only really fertile for a tiny part of their life. Increasingly tiny. That's a problem for us. That's my opinion.
And that value is assigned conditionally by... you? It's your belief that the value of human life is restricted to its immediate usefulness?
> The problem is, people are only really fertile for a tiny part of their life. Increasingly tiny. That's a problem for us.
Again, I was not aware that we had a population crisis.
If you don't see this as a problem, you may just move along.
That's why I asked about your views "over and over", because I wanted to find out how your value system works. There is no need to get testy. It's true that I disagree, but this discussion happened mostly because I wanted to find out more, not because I wanted to display your views in a misleading light. Peace.
The opposite will be actually weird.
For your sake, I hope you'll change your view on this eventually. But I appreciate your honesty in expressing your belief that I should just kill myself right now.
It depends hugely on what value you assign to the human mind. If you believe that humans are "just" wildlife and mere existence is the highest achievable goal, you're likely to come to the conclusion that nothing matters but procreation.
But I highly doubt that you really believe this, because you're here, on HN, thinking about and debating matters that are far removed from the static archaic society whose values you ostensibly subscribe to.
There are a lot of people who think that human life is more than a mere bacteria-like existence, and that its value extends beyond our biological goals and limitations. Whether you like it or not, we have long since started to explore problem spaces that could simply never be addressed with mindless biological evolution. For a few thousand years now we are in the process of out-growing our original substrate. As a civilization we're engaged in a complex struggle to eventually grow beyond an existence that is defined only by the most basic biological needs.
If you can find it within yourself to identify with that struggle in some way, you may find that defining procreation as the ultimate end-all-be-all was the most bleak and unproductive premise you could possibly come up with.
My belief is that you don't have do anything, because it doesn't matter anymore. Might as well stay technically alive.
"For a few thousand years now we are in the process of out-growing our original substrate"
We're still not there. If we had uterine replicators, the problem we're discussing would be a non-issue.
But, we don't. So it's a huge issue. We have to stay alive, and we're all dead in less than 100 years. Therefore, we have to reproduce. Surely we also have other goals, but reproduction is a sanity check on those.
Maybe we can tear this chain apart one day, but we didn't yet.
How can you look at this world and come to the conclusion that it's essential - and indeed the sole reason for being here - for everyone to spawn offspring? Is there an underpopulation problem I'm not aware of? Is the human race in danger of dying out?
> My belief is that you don't have do anything, because it doesn't matter anymore. Might as well stay technically alive.
In the light of your answer above I can't square this logically. You're asserting that my life would suddenly become meaningful again if we had "uterine replicators"?
Actually there is. A lot of developed societies face shrinking population. And the population of young people capable of spawning offspring will decrease much faster.
And I'm not sure that undeveloped societies are capable of both "carrying the flag" and not falling into the same trap. They don't have a good record if you ask me.
"You're asserting that my life would suddenly become meaningful again if we had "uterine replicators"?"
Yes, because now you (or I) have choice to procreate. You may for some reason refuse to do it, but you can. Now, when you no longer have this choice, you're a "human minus procreation" which is less than "human".
This is bizarre, because we're talking about the same mind, doing the same things for society (or not) - it's just that in one case testicles have a function and in the other they don't. So depending on the overall state of gonads in our civilization I'm worthless now - but if we didn't need gonads, my mind would suddenly start having a value?
That is truly and epically twisted.
> Now, when you no longer have this choice, you're a "human minus procreation" which is less than "human".
Well, to be labeled subhuman by you in this context feels almost like a compliment.
So now you think that I've "labeled" 1000 - 1 to be less than 1000? So much for math.
1) help make sure those copies of your genes in others survive (help out relatives who did reproduce) - evolutionarily, this is equivalent to reproducing, if slightly attenuated;
and 2) have a lasting memetic impact.
And that's if you're focused only on the long term, which you seem to be - there's plenty more shorter term reasons to be alive.
Or how about a gene that drives non-reproductive young males to be restless, jump on a horse and ride over the horizon on a whim. Sometimes they come back, say "There's buffalo over there!" and the whole tribe benefits. That's selected for too.
That's why nuclear family is called nuclear. And today we often have "subnuclear" people without any strong bonds.
If I had a kind of clan, the situatiou would be different.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection#Hamilton.27s_rule
What if I don't feel that my "closest relative with progeny" is in any way related to me?
I don't care about inclusive fitness. Let the nature do that trick. I care about reproducing something resembling of myself. If my nearest genetic relatives don't resemble myself in any way, I don't care if they reproduce.
Certainly. But then I'd say that a huge portion of what makes you you is not genetic at all, and like I said much earlier you can always pass on memes.
I can give memes to other unrelated people but I don't know whether they use those for good.
Children are safe bet in that regards (if you failed - means you just passed your failureness to them, good)
I don't see why that doesn't mean you should work harder at it. Maybe the marginal benefit is minimal, but if the marginal benefit of everything else is zero then it might still be the best option.
You might want to develop a different ideology to help you cope in that event.
The CD suggests that male fertility problems are not rare.
> Many couples struggle with infertility and seek help to become pregnant; however, it is often thought of as only a women’s condition. A CDC study analyzed data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth and found that 7.5% of all sexually experienced men younger than age 45 reported seeing a fertility doctor during their lifetime—this equals 3.3–4.7 million men. Of men who sought help, 18% were diagnosed with a male-related infertility problem, including sperm or semen problems (14%) and varicocele (6%).
You're discounting the value of information that people can leave, separate to their DNA chain. A great many scientists, artists, philosophers, etc. bore no children. They still expressed a change in the behaviors, ideas, and lives of a great many people after them.
Actually, one might argue they are, by and large, more effective at continuity of their own goals. How many children have you seen carry on the worldviews and goals of their parents? Even throughout history?
Yes, we need SOMEONE to reproduce or there won't be anyone to read the damned work. But, the work is still there, unto itself, after it's author has passed away.
tl;dr: The production of children is not the only way affect the Universe after your death as a human.
And I can't associate with them and their offspring.
Still, your point doesn't take away from those non-SOMEONE's that do not bear children, and the net impact they have left on humanity and the Universe. I can't believe that Leonardo DaVinci, Michelangelo, and so many other contributors to the works of humanity that had no children were "lives wasted" for their lack of reproduction.
> But I highly doubt that you really believe this, because you're here, on HN, thinking about and debating matters that are far removed from the static archaic society whose values you ostensibly subscribe to.
You didn't reply to it initially; I was hoping to see your thoughts on that point.
But I think we haven't got a new stable set of values either. We're literally doing the same thing to demographics as we do with oil - eating away future generations' prospects. But the same people who shun oil overusage and pollution praise demographic "overmining" and "waste".
However I really believe that I would feel dead when I strike 50 without descendants. And that's a pretty likely outcome.
This is very well put. The 'process of out-growing our original substrate' is an interesting way to phrase advanced human growth, and one that resonates with me. I don't think we're alone in doing so (as far as life is concerned), and think we are more like our bacterial forebearers than our collective egos would care to admit, but I couldn't agree more that this is what we are doing.
But they have 'left their substrate' too. Yet there's no common ground with us. That means, most of what we do 'beyond our biological goals' is in fact still rooted in our biology.
I agree that goals 'beyond our biology' are, quite basically, rooted IN THAT biology. We can never trust our perception to be anything other than a reflection of that biology, so I see your point.
>Would they have trade or commerce or families or anything we would recognize? using different language, maybe. They WOULD have resource transmission and interactions, methods of managing scarcity, and methods of categorizing and identifying individual nodes in their system.