33 ms·

"Every one of those systems can fail and leave you dead. Since evolution only «cares» about you to the point where you bear children and raise them, what are th

"Every one of those systems can fail and leave you dead. Since evolution only «cares» about you to the point where you bear children and raise them, what are the chances that it engineered ALL those systems to last FOREVER?" Evolution works in small steps, over long periods of time (given the humans slow grow up process). Mutations in any of those systems may increase or lower the chances of such failure. Evolution takes care of both, albeit by a small margin. Currently, cause of death number one worldwide is the ischemic heart disease¹ (i.e. the famous "coronary"). Now guess what, there are genetic mutations that work on this out there already, one of them being the Gilbert's syndrome². Yes, forever is unattainable, but (humanity scale speaking) I'm glad having lived past twenty four and willing to take any blessing coming after. "I'd even conjecture there's a sexual selection effect going on in the «live hard die young» people, like rock stars, athletes, etc." I hope you're aware of survivor's bias here. Assume a lot more of those to be weeded out. Also, the stars made it not only because they were risk inclined but also because they they have that value they were recognized for. I find the gradual improvement that one may gain having a bit of time to be a very useful edge over the young and inexperienced, in the game of life. Especially for a male (that is not that restricted by an inherent fertility age limit), this edge fits perfectly in the reproductive selection window you mention. ¹ https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-... ² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert%27s_syndrome#Cardiovascular_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert%27s_syndrome#Cardiovas...

chubot 6y ago
Sure, but the point is there would have to be a Gilbert-like mechanism for every subsystem of the body. And Gilbert isn't "free" -- it comes at cost. The body is a machine, and engineering is full of tradeoffs. People with high abilities in one area (geniuses) often have low abilities in others. Optimizing some protein for your heart isn't neutral for the rest of your body, etc. The point about the stars is that evolution has "determined" that it can be optimal to take a ton of risks and die early than to live safely for 200 years (in some cases, of course evolution favors diversity too, which is why you see centenarians). If you could get reward without risk, then it wouldn't work that way -- the "stars" would live forever creating great music and not drink themselves to death. But life is full of tradeoffs and reward involves risk.

chubot 6y ago

Sure, but the point is there would have to be a Gilbert-like mechanism for every subsystem of the body. And Gilbert isn't "free" -- it comes at cost. The body is a machine, and engineering is full of tradeoffs. People with high abilities in one area (geniuses) often have low abilities in others. Optimizing some protein for your heart isn't neutral for the rest of your body, etc. The point about the stars is that evolution has "determined" that it can be optimal to take a ton of risks and die early than to live safely for 200 years (in some cases, of course evolution favors diversity too, which is why you see centenarians). If you could get reward without risk, then it wouldn't work that way -- the "stars" would live forever creating great music and not drink themselves to death. But life is full of tradeoffs and reward involves risk.