15 ms·

Over the years, I have become convinced that much of the observed age-correlated cognitive decline in people younger than ~70 results from voluntary life choice

Over the years, I have become convinced that much of the observed age-correlated cognitive decline in people younger than ~70 results from voluntary life choices, such as settling into fixed behavioural patterns (e.g. doing the same thing over and over for decades) and lack of exposure to new stimuli. It's the case for some physical activities as well: almost all people's actual performance degrades way, way faster, than their potential peak performance.

foldr 5y ago
>It's the case for some physical activities as well: almost all people's actual performance degrades way, way faster, than their potential peak performance. It's pretty telling that these days people remain competitive up to their mid 30s even in pure athletics. For anyone under 60 who's not an elite athlete, age-related decline is probably noise compared to the difference that an hour or two of extra training per week would make. (That's not to deny that injuries etc. become more of a problem as you get older.)
- moonchrome 5y ago
  I think there's been a lot of advancement in nutrition, recovery and medicine to get to this stage. Unfortunately mental performance boosting seems taboo (eg. Modafinil) almost like steroids.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    I’ve not seen anyone taboo mental stimulant drugs, the closest I’ve seen to that is (1) people don’t like things associated with treating mental illnesses and (2) that it’s hard to tell the difference between real medicine and quackery. Outside those two categories, caffeine is one of the most used mental stimulants in the world, and sold in forms emphasising this use.
    - moonchrome 5y ago
      You can't buy or request modafinil for performance enhancement, even with doctor supervision, despite known side effects being very benign.
      - ben_w 5y ago
        I can say that about a very large number of substances with no mental stimulation effect — There’s a reason pharmacology is a degree all by itself, but that’s still not “$category is taboo”.
        moonchrome 5y ago
        I don't get your argument ? What would be the benefit of giving such drugs in comparison to risks and how does that relate to modafinil ? Walk in to your doctors office and ask getting modafinil prescribed for improved work performance. What's the argument against it ? The ones I've heard are about them being there to treat conditions, etc. and giving stuff like this to boost performance of healthy individuals is very much a taboo.
        ben_w 5y ago
        A quick search for modafinil contraindications tells me it should not be taken with alcohol and it makes certain kinds of birth control less effective. I’m not even remotely qualified to so much as read and understand medical jargon, but even I can recognise that several items on this ([0]) long list of stuff that interferes with (or is interfered by) mondafil includes both food and stuff you can get without prescription from the new-age-hippie section of a supermarket. Given the dumb things my hippie mum gave me as a teenager (and my dad without telling him [1]), all I can say is that this seems to me to be unwise to make trivially available. Perhaps I’m wrong. After all, the fact a random person like me can’t read and interpret the warnings like a professional would is as much a limit on how seriously to take my concern as it is a reason to be concerned. [0] https://www.drugs.com/drug-interactions/modafinil-index.html https://www.drugs.com/drug-interactions/modafinil-index.html [1] at the very least Bach flower “remedies”, which would probably be harmless except for all the alcohol. She thought she was doing all of us a favour.
  - nottorp 5y ago
    > Unfortunately mental performance boosting seems taboo (eg. Modafinil) almost like steroids. Well both have effects only as long as you keep taking them. If i recall correctly there's a whole lot of mind altering substances that are illegal because of that...
    - moonchrome 5y ago
      But it's not like you have reduced mental capacity once you stop taking it (after you get some sleep) or I haven't seen any evidence of it. It's also not addictive. And available as a cheap generic drug. So what would be the problem ?
      - nottorp 5y ago
        It's addictive as in you'll miss the effects and you'll continue taking it. Doesn't seem safe.
        wtetzner 5y ago
        Sounds less addictive than caffeine.
        moonchrome 5y ago
        Did this happen to you ? Because frankly that hasn't been my experience at all. I've probably went through 40 pills in 5 years and it was always a great way to get through crunch time, prep for big days, wave off bad sleep days, etc. But I never felt the need to use it day-to-day - it would probably mess with my sleep and I would likely develop a tolerance. For me - there is no effect other than not feeling tired and being able to focus really well. It's not even feeling rested because physical aspects of fatigue still kick in (eg. back pain from sitting long, eye strain, etc.) Caffeine is probably worse because I get hard withdrawals symptoms after I get off (light migraines first couple of days and generally tired) - I don't really notice anything different after taking modafinil and getting proper rest.
        nottorp 5y ago
- greedo 5y ago
  I think this is skewed by a few highly visible players in the NFL. Tom Brady may be performing at a high level as a quarterback, but he definitely isn't as athletic as a 23 year old coming out of the draft. His performance is due to his understanding of the game, not some visits by Ponce De Leon. The average age in the NBA and NFL is 26 years old. Sure there are outliers, but again, much of the success of these outliers isn't due to pure athleticism, but to understanding the game. For every Brady, or Manning, there's a running back who lost a step and is no longer effective.
  - foldr 5y ago
    I was talking more about regular people. Any normal person is likely to be so far away from their peak athletic performance that even with age-related decline, it is probably possible for them to continue to increase their level of fitness into their 60s. Of course, it is hard work to do this. The point is just that as a regular person who’s lucky enough to maintain good health, you don’t have to accept your fitness declining precipitously with age. I have no idea what the NFL is by the way :) So I doubt that my comment was influenced by it.
    - leaflets2 5y ago
      (National (American) Football League) At the running group, someone aged 55 ran a marathon at 2:55 or sth like that (it's really fast. I don't remember exactly but I was surprised)
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
> doing the same thing over and over for decades) and lack of exposure to new stimuli So basically having a job in modern society?
- urthor 5y ago
  Our conception of a job as doing repetitive, boring, pointless work, is very much not the nature of actual work. I feel there is a huge underclass in society who do dead end jobs and feel terrible inside. But that's not the nature of work itself. My experience is that there is plenty of high paying, high status, highly stimulating work. But there's competition for those jobs, then employers deliberately discriminate against those who don't have experience in those lines of work. And over time the job market bifurcates.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Well if there are 20% of jobs that are interesting, the leaves 89% of us stuck no matter who discriminates against who and how we distribute them
    - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
      Not to mention the fact that many interesting jobs that are not highly paid restricting the choices you aim for even further.
      - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
        You don’t have to aim for a high paying job. It’s not a goal in itself. Plenty of people are happy doing jobs which don’t pay that well but interest them.
        mmcgaha 5y ago
        My whole career I had the attitude that the job was more important than the money. I have budgeted and planned so I could retire well even though I have not made a lot of money. The problem is that I did not foresee that a divorce would end up halving my retirement. I think we would all do well to destroy the idea that enjoying work is more important than making money. We have a limited amount of time and effort that we can invest so we need to maximize our earnings.
naoqj 5y ago
I know many people who are 40+ and simply refuse to learn new things. When they need to read a bill, fill out a form or figure out a basic UI, they refuse to even try and give it to their children or grandchidren. I assume (without proof) that the brain loses elasticity when you stop using it for decades.
- sva_ 5y ago
  People seem to be prone to settling on a set of beliefs because they give them predefined answers and relieves them of some cognitive load.
  - leaflets2 5y ago
    Yes, it seems as if to some people, thinking, is really unpleasant
- FpUser 5y ago
  I am 61 and due to a nature of my job (creating products for clients and my own company) do nothing but constantly learn and invent things. I see no signs of slowing down and my clients seem to be happy with my solutions. I am however lazy for example to learn some things that are valued by many people but what I consider useless. But I was like that as long as I can remember myself.
  - chubs 5y ago
    I am much the same, I can't muster the energy to learn things I think to be useless. Life is too short to learn/do useless things! I think you prioritise healthily :)
    - leaflets2 5y ago
      Aren't some presidents around 80 sometimes :-)
- sandworm101 5y ago
  Refusal to learn doesnt suggest inability so to do. Once you have seen dozens of fads come and go you may well decide to focus on core skills rather than learn something that you know will be useless in a couple years. With age comes perspecive. With perspective comes the ability to think in longer terms. Choosing to ignore something doesnt mean you wouldnt be able to master it if you wanted to.
Retric 5y ago
That’s not completely false, but it’s misunderstanding aging. Lack of energy is one of the signs of aging. Staying up to 3 AM to party and going to work the next day is one end, but the other is trying to convince yourself to do more than sit in a chair all day. It’s not that people get lazy it’s that everyone slows down and learning new things or doing anything difficult just takes more out of you every single year. Age related decline is biological and not everyone has identical DNA. The need for reading glasses varies quite a bit and is probably a good yardstick. Some people get their first reading glasses at 40 other’s 60, that’s a huge range. As such just because some people are running marathons at 90 doesn’t mean most people could do that, it’s self selecting for people with minimal declines. The other half of this is injury/disease/height etc can make a huge difference.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  > Some people get their first reading glasses at 40 other’s 60, that’s a huge range. It's a lot wider than that. I'm 66 and don't need glasses yet, neither for reading nor driving, but one of my children, aged thirty, does.
  - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
    I think the comment you are replying to specifically meant age related far-sightedness when speaking about glasses. Plenty of people need them for issues which have nothing to do with age.
    - sandworm101 5y ago
      Age-related decline is happening at much younger ages these days. There is a growing belief that the way we prescribe and use glasses is leading to atrophy in young people that previosly was only seen in the old. Lenses get firmer eith age, but atrophied muscles from inactivity mean even soft/young lenses are unable to focus properly.
      - euroderf 5y ago
agumonkey 5y ago
I think most adult lives require a sclerotic mindset to develop. You have to be the same, potentially stupid, cog whether you like it or not. I personally tried to stretch my brain but time is lacking or the context is too chaotic (even at the human/political level, it's hard to find people to discuss) to really enjoy deep stimulation.
gitfan86 5y ago
I'm 40 and my oldest daughter is 10. We both are very engineering oriented. It is amazing seeing the difference between age. Some math problems are intuitive to me because I have 30 years of experience and neurological pathways that mean I don't even have to think about them, and she gets stuck on the same problems. On the other hand, sometimes she will solve problems with a broken toy after I had given up on fixing it. Intelligent and cognitive ability are not scalars, they are vector spaces. Some dimensions start dropping off in your 20s and some not until your 80s. I feel like my emotional intelligence could peak in my 50s or 60s.
- danielvaughn 5y ago
  I’m 37 and I feel the same. Learning a brand new subject is difficult for me, mostly because I just feel too tired to push myself to do it. On the other hand, my brain feels like it has marinated in 37 years of general experience, such that I can take on projects of significant complexity and not think too hard about it.
  - djtriptych 5y ago
    I think if you're in this position (which I am at 41), you've mostly used your prime brain time well. Turning high-effort, high-value brain pathways and operations into basically no-ops is the point.
  - lostcolony 5y ago
    That rings true for me as well. I think it's -because- there are areas that have had so much experience and focus and come so easily, that everything else feels hard by comparison. While I can identify with feeling too tired, I don't know if that's really different than when I was younger, it's just when I was younger I had nothing easier to fall back on to feel valuable.
  - Swizec 5y ago
    > mostly because I just feel too tired to push myself to do it As a 34 year old this scares me the most. I don’t want real life to accumulate and accrue around me so I don’t have the energy for curiosity and intellectual pursuits. But the harder I fight, the more cruft there is to think about.
cjbgkagh 5y ago
I think it’s far more likely that certain physical ailments show up and a decreased desire for physical activity and novel experiences. Undiagnosed CFS/ME being an obvious case. I also think a lot of drug taking is self medicating for things like serotonin and dopamine dysregulation. People are trying to fill a hole, but there is a hole there.
21723 5y ago
This. Corporate work in particular tends to make people stupid. The 98% who don't climb the ladder end up associating what they are (or used to be) good at with subordination and failure, while the other 2% have optimized themsleves to appeal to stupid people and end up just like the set of people (executive blockheads) they're trying to join. People who protect their intelligence and creativity, damn the consequences, tend to keep them for a long time. People who buy in to the corporate system turn into morons. The problem is that they don't notice it happening, and that, as one gets older, it gets harder to recover.
- 300bps 5y ago
  I’ve been working for very large corporations for 24 years. In that time I’ve gotten over 30 certifications including three AWS certifications last year. Your take on corporate jobs is completely foreign to me. I’m sure it exists somewhere but I’m wondering - how long have you been doing corporate work?
  - herval 5y ago
    What do certifications have to do with creativity?
    - dchftcs 5y ago
      The person probably meant they didn't really get to coast and just do the same thing over and over again. Many kinds of mundane-looking corporate work are often hard work.
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    I've worked for startups that have done projects for big companies like: * a "big five" accounting firm * a major aircraft manufacturer that isn't Boeing * a leading ISP that isn't Comcast The people I worked with on these projects were smart AND nice, at least to us.
  - erdos4d 5y ago
    You think getting certificates is improving your mind? My experience in corporate work is exactly as the comment you replied to. Endless drone work doing much the same things day after day. I did it for 3 years, learned basically nothing beyond what I came in the job with, then went out on my own. In the time since I have learned so much more than what I did in that corporate job, there is just no comparison. Also, I strongly suspect they literally try to keep you stuck in one spot and too dumb to move out of it on purpose; you are less likely to leave or ask for a raise. They want predictable drones in corporate work, and yes, getting certificates is one way you make drones feel like they are doing something.
johnaspden 5y ago
Indeed! If only people would eat their vegetables, they'd be immortal.
Timpy 5y ago
I decided a while ago that I'm going to live my life as if this were true despite not having scientific evidence to support it. When people retire they're in danger of rapid decline if they stop living a rich and active life, exactly as you said. You need physical, mental, and social stimulation. My grandmother is in her 90s and doing really well considering her age, and I can see that she walks, read books, and meets friends all the time. I pursue physical and mental stimulation constantly; running, yoga, lifting weights, practice music, learn new languages, programming, reading books, etc. (I admit I have a bad habit of neglecting social needs.) If I am lucky enough to "retire young" from software I plan on pursuing a new career in some passion field. I've chosen to believe that slowing down is my choice and right now I plan to choose not to. I know all of this is anecdotal, you can go ahead and preface every sentence I wrote with "I think/In my opinion..." but in this case n really does equal 1, I only have 1 life to live. Even if there is absolutely no correlation between my observations and reality, with this strategy I'm only at risk of a life well lived.
- telesilla 5y ago
  >I have a bad habit of neglecting social needs I understand that social contact is a part of healthy aging. If you are feeling alone, make time for people! Though it sounds like you are enjoying yourself thoroughly.
411111111111111 5y ago
correlation is not causation, and you've merely observed a correlation there. its way more likely that the people with declining mental acuity just couldn't learn anymore, making it a self fulfilling prophecy.
logicchains 5y ago
This is the problem with cohort studies. If you just picked 100 people at random and followed them from age 40 to age 60, on average they'd all get physically weaker. But this is an observation, not an unavoidable trend; if you took any one of them and put them on an effective weightlifting and diet program (and they followed it), they could at least double their strength assuming they previously never lifted weights.
- Tepix 5y ago
  Here's the thing. An average 30 year old who is not doing sports will not lose muscle mass by itself. An average 50 year old will lose 1% per year or so. If you get older you have to work just to keep the status quo.
  - logicchains 5y ago
    >An average 30 year old who is not doing sports will not lose muscle mass by itself. >An average 50 year old will lose 1% per year or so. Sure, but the average is what it is because most people barely exercise, especially when they're older. If everyone lived a much more active life with more strenuous exercise, the average would look completely different.
- walnutclosefarm 5y ago
  Actually, if you put them all on an effective weightlifting and diet program, they'd still decline. More slowly to be sure, but no amount of exercise and diet will eliminate the effects of age. Same is true of mental exercise. Animals, and mammals in particular, lack the cellular and metabolic level repair mechanisms that would make it possible for us to keep running at peak ability indefinitely. We have no organ level repair mechanisms at all, outside of, arguably, our livers. Time is coming for you.
  - wtetzner 5y ago
    > Animals, and mammals in particular, lack the cellular and metabolic level repair mechanisms that would make it possible for us to keep running at peak ability indefinitely. Given some of the research on anti-aging, it's not clear that this is the case.
jollybean 5y ago
Also: too much information. The 'hubris of 20 something' is mostly just ignorance. When you have the experience to have witnesses all sorts of outcomes, you think of things in different ways. I find myself far more 'unsure' of things because of 'all the angles' - and 'trying to thin of the unseen one's. It's like C++: You start by writing code. And think it's good, but it's not. Then idiomatic code, because you realize the mess of your earlier code. And then start to see 'all the things that could go wrong' in the horror of the code you wrote before. Then you spend the rest of your career worrying about every few lines of code, about all the things that could go wrong, with obvious diminishing marginal returns on that. So if you're 20 and making a dating app, it doesn't mater that much, you can thrash and burn through code. For many things, that doesn't work and many of those projects do not fit the pattern of 'high growth VC' so they have to get done another way, hopefully at companies with surplus budget and a bit of vision and people willing to still do stuff instead of collecting a paycheque.
CTDOCodebases 5y ago
In other words your life is a cast.
walnutclosefarm 5y ago
The "decline after 60" conclusion of the article rings true to me. I switched intellectual focus and mastered entirely new fields regularly throughout the 40 years between when I left college at age 20, and my early 60s. That switching and new learning kept me fresh, and my ability to do productive intellectual work - the mental speed measured in the Nature article - held up very well. But it began to noticeably decline in my early 60s. This was not due to life choices, as you suggest - I had an active interest and incentives, and put effort into, maintaining my abilities, and probably had more time and opportunity than ever. Rather, it just became noticeably harder to learn, and to use learning to solve problems or do creative work. A data point of one proves nothing, of course. But my experience at the very least provides no counterexample to the article's hypothesis. As for the physical - sure, you can maintain a greater peak performance than what most people do, as you age. But regardless of the effort, it's pretty much going to go down hill - strength, reaction time, coordination - after you're 30. You can slow it down, maybe dramatically if you're on the tail of the curve and put enough effort in (c.f. Tom Brady), but you can't stop it. And the effort required per "retained ability" just goes up.
djtriptych 5y ago
Another way to say this is that, well past 60, life choices outweigh senescence. I also like to remember that at no time are we really using what capacity we have to the fullest. An activity like chess for instance requires 100% focus over the course of the game to really do well - that kind of workout has got to good for brain health, but it's extremely rare in modern life. Compare with everyday survival say 10,000 years ago, which might have required 100% focus for much of the day.
silicon2401 5y ago
I agree, and I think you also see the same with physical health. Our metabolism doesn't actually decline until we're in middle age (nor do you need to ramp up your calories during pregnancy) [1]. The only reason people get fatter over time is because they just keep overeating, and probably get more sedentary over time to boot. Knowing this has really motivated me to build a lifestyle that demands consistent and significant effort that I can sustain throughout my entire life: challenging and diverse mental stimulation, diverse and frequent but low-impact exercise, and lastly, a satisfying and nutritious diet that doesn't cause me to gain weight. It's amazing to learn how strong and durable our bodies are, and inspirational to see how much potential we actually have. 1: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017 > [energy expenditure] remains stable in adulthood (20 to 60 years), even during pregnancy; then declines in older adults.
greyhair 5y ago
They are not talking about cognitive decline, they are talking about speed of processing. I am mid 60s, engineering for the last 38 years, and the depth of work is not a problem, but I definitely don't make the same snap judgements that I made even just ten years ago. It also pertains to physical reaction time. Meaning, after 60 you best leave a little more gap between you and the car ahead. You may doubt this now, but you will see how life changes for you after age 50, and again how life changes for you after age 60. It is all fine, it really is, but you will find yourself saying "that didn't used to hurt", and you will also find yourself shoving people away from your mouse because they want to click on something that you haven't decided to click on yet. It's just nature. Yes, some people abuse their bodies and their minds, but even the most careful are going to see changes. Just life, just how it goes.

foldr 5y ago

>It's the case for some physical activities as well: almost all people's actual performance degrades way, way faster, than their potential peak performance. It's pretty telling that these days people remain competitive up to their mid 30s even in pure athletics. For anyone under 60 who's not an elite athlete, age-related decline is probably noise compared to the difference that an hour or two of extra training per week would make. (That's not to deny that injuries etc. become more of a problem as you get older.)

moonchrome 5y ago
I think there's been a lot of advancement in nutrition, recovery and medicine to get to this stage. Unfortunately mental performance boosting seems taboo (eg. Modafinil) almost like steroids.
- ben_w 5y ago
  I’ve not seen anyone taboo mental stimulant drugs, the closest I’ve seen to that is (1) people don’t like things associated with treating mental illnesses and (2) that it’s hard to tell the difference between real medicine and quackery. Outside those two categories, caffeine is one of the most used mental stimulants in the world, and sold in forms emphasising this use.
  - moonchrome 5y ago
    You can't buy or request modafinil for performance enhancement, even with doctor supervision, despite known side effects being very benign.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      I can say that about a very large number of substances with no mental stimulation effect — There’s a reason pharmacology is a degree all by itself, but that’s still not “$category is taboo”.
      - moonchrome 5y ago
        I don't get your argument ? What would be the benefit of giving such drugs in comparison to risks and how does that relate to modafinil ? Walk in to your doctors office and ask getting modafinil prescribed for improved work performance. What's the argument against it ? The ones I've heard are about them being there to treat conditions, etc. and giving stuff like this to boost performance of healthy individuals is very much a taboo.
        ben_w 5y ago
        A quick search for modafinil contraindications tells me it should not be taken with alcohol and it makes certain kinds of birth control less effective. I’m not even remotely qualified to so much as read and understand medical jargon, but even I can recognise that several items on this ([0]) long list of stuff that interferes with (or is interfered by) mondafil includes both food and stuff you can get without prescription from the new-age-hippie section of a supermarket. Given the dumb things my hippie mum gave me as a teenager (and my dad without telling him [1]), all I can say is that this seems to me to be unwise to make trivially available. Perhaps I’m wrong. After all, the fact a random person like me can’t read and interpret the warnings like a professional would is as much a limit on how seriously to take my concern as it is a reason to be concerned. [0] https://www.drugs.com/drug-interactions/modafinil-index.html https://www.drugs.com/drug-interactions/modafinil-index.html [1] at the very least Bach flower “remedies”, which would probably be harmless except for all the alcohol. She thought she was doing all of us a favour.
- nottorp 5y ago
  > Unfortunately mental performance boosting seems taboo (eg. Modafinil) almost like steroids. Well both have effects only as long as you keep taking them. If i recall correctly there's a whole lot of mind altering substances that are illegal because of that...
  - moonchrome 5y ago
    But it's not like you have reduced mental capacity once you stop taking it (after you get some sleep) or I haven't seen any evidence of it. It's also not addictive. And available as a cheap generic drug. So what would be the problem ?
    - nottorp 5y ago
      It's addictive as in you'll miss the effects and you'll continue taking it. Doesn't seem safe.
      - wtetzner 5y ago
        Sounds less addictive than caffeine.
      - moonchrome 5y ago
        Did this happen to you ? Because frankly that hasn't been my experience at all. I've probably went through 40 pills in 5 years and it was always a great way to get through crunch time, prep for big days, wave off bad sleep days, etc. But I never felt the need to use it day-to-day - it would probably mess with my sleep and I would likely develop a tolerance. For me - there is no effect other than not feeling tired and being able to focus really well. It's not even feeling rested because physical aspects of fatigue still kick in (eg. back pain from sitting long, eye strain, etc.) Caffeine is probably worse because I get hard withdrawals symptoms after I get off (light migraines first couple of days and generally tired) - I don't really notice anything different after taking modafinil and getting proper rest.
        nottorp 5y ago
greedo 5y ago
I think this is skewed by a few highly visible players in the NFL. Tom Brady may be performing at a high level as a quarterback, but he definitely isn't as athletic as a 23 year old coming out of the draft. His performance is due to his understanding of the game, not some visits by Ponce De Leon. The average age in the NBA and NFL is 26 years old. Sure there are outliers, but again, much of the success of these outliers isn't due to pure athleticism, but to understanding the game. For every Brady, or Manning, there's a running back who lost a step and is no longer effective.
- foldr 5y ago
  I was talking more about regular people. Any normal person is likely to be so far away from their peak athletic performance that even with age-related decline, it is probably possible for them to continue to increase their level of fitness into their 60s. Of course, it is hard work to do this. The point is just that as a regular person who’s lucky enough to maintain good health, you don’t have to accept your fitness declining precipitously with age. I have no idea what the NFL is by the way :) So I doubt that my comment was influenced by it.
  - leaflets2 5y ago
    (National (American) Football League) At the running group, someone aged 55 ran a marathon at 2:55 or sth like that (it's really fast. I don't remember exactly but I was surprised)

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

> doing the same thing over and over for decades) and lack of exposure to new stimuli So basically having a job in modern society?

urthor 5y ago
Our conception of a job as doing repetitive, boring, pointless work, is very much not the nature of actual work. I feel there is a huge underclass in society who do dead end jobs and feel terrible inside. But that's not the nature of work itself. My experience is that there is plenty of high paying, high status, highly stimulating work. But there's competition for those jobs, then employers deliberately discriminate against those who don't have experience in those lines of work. And over time the job market bifurcates.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Well if there are 20% of jobs that are interesting, the leaves 89% of us stuck no matter who discriminates against who and how we distribute them
  - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    Not to mention the fact that many interesting jobs that are not highly paid restricting the choices you aim for even further.
    - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
      You don’t have to aim for a high paying job. It’s not a goal in itself. Plenty of people are happy doing jobs which don’t pay that well but interest them.
      - mmcgaha 5y ago
        My whole career I had the attitude that the job was more important than the money. I have budgeted and planned so I could retire well even though I have not made a lot of money. The problem is that I did not foresee that a divorce would end up halving my retirement. I think we would all do well to destroy the idea that enjoying work is more important than making money. We have a limited amount of time and effort that we can invest so we need to maximize our earnings.

naoqj 5y ago

I know many people who are 40+ and simply refuse to learn new things. When they need to read a bill, fill out a form or figure out a basic UI, they refuse to even try and give it to their children or grandchidren. I assume (without proof) that the brain loses elasticity when you stop using it for decades.

sva_ 5y ago
People seem to be prone to settling on a set of beliefs because they give them predefined answers and relieves them of some cognitive load.
- leaflets2 5y ago
  Yes, it seems as if to some people, thinking, is really unpleasant
FpUser 5y ago
I am 61 and due to a nature of my job (creating products for clients and my own company) do nothing but constantly learn and invent things. I see no signs of slowing down and my clients seem to be happy with my solutions. I am however lazy for example to learn some things that are valued by many people but what I consider useless. But I was like that as long as I can remember myself.
- chubs 5y ago
  I am much the same, I can't muster the energy to learn things I think to be useless. Life is too short to learn/do useless things! I think you prioritise healthily :)
  - leaflets2 5y ago
    Aren't some presidents around 80 sometimes :-)
sandworm101 5y ago
Refusal to learn doesnt suggest inability so to do. Once you have seen dozens of fads come and go you may well decide to focus on core skills rather than learn something that you know will be useless in a couple years. With age comes perspecive. With perspective comes the ability to think in longer terms. Choosing to ignore something doesnt mean you wouldnt be able to master it if you wanted to.

Retric 5y ago

That’s not completely false, but it’s misunderstanding aging. Lack of energy is one of the signs of aging. Staying up to 3 AM to party and going to work the next day is one end, but the other is trying to convince yourself to do more than sit in a chair all day. It’s not that people get lazy it’s that everyone slows down and learning new things or doing anything difficult just takes more out of you every single year. Age related decline is biological and not everyone has identical DNA. The need for reading glasses varies quite a bit and is probably a good yardstick. Some people get their first reading glasses at 40 other’s 60, that’s a huge range. As such just because some people are running marathons at 90 doesn’t mean most people could do that, it’s self selecting for people with minimal declines. The other half of this is injury/disease/height etc can make a huge difference.

kwhitefoot 5y ago
> Some people get their first reading glasses at 40 other’s 60, that’s a huge range. It's a lot wider than that. I'm 66 and don't need glasses yet, neither for reading nor driving, but one of my children, aged thirty, does.
- WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  I think the comment you are replying to specifically meant age related far-sightedness when speaking about glasses. Plenty of people need them for issues which have nothing to do with age.
  - sandworm101 5y ago
    Age-related decline is happening at much younger ages these days. There is a growing belief that the way we prescribe and use glasses is leading to atrophy in young people that previosly was only seen in the old. Lenses get firmer eith age, but atrophied muscles from inactivity mean even soft/young lenses are unable to focus properly.
    - euroderf 5y ago

agumonkey 5y ago

I think most adult lives require a sclerotic mindset to develop. You have to be the same, potentially stupid, cog whether you like it or not. I personally tried to stretch my brain but time is lacking or the context is too chaotic (even at the human/political level, it's hard to find people to discuss) to really enjoy deep stimulation.

gitfan86 5y ago

I'm 40 and my oldest daughter is 10. We both are very engineering oriented. It is amazing seeing the difference between age. Some math problems are intuitive to me because I have 30 years of experience and neurological pathways that mean I don't even have to think about them, and she gets stuck on the same problems. On the other hand, sometimes she will solve problems with a broken toy after I had given up on fixing it. Intelligent and cognitive ability are not scalars, they are vector spaces. Some dimensions start dropping off in your 20s and some not until your 80s. I feel like my emotional intelligence could peak in my 50s or 60s.

danielvaughn 5y ago
I’m 37 and I feel the same. Learning a brand new subject is difficult for me, mostly because I just feel too tired to push myself to do it. On the other hand, my brain feels like it has marinated in 37 years of general experience, such that I can take on projects of significant complexity and not think too hard about it.
- djtriptych 5y ago
  I think if you're in this position (which I am at 41), you've mostly used your prime brain time well. Turning high-effort, high-value brain pathways and operations into basically no-ops is the point.
- lostcolony 5y ago
  That rings true for me as well. I think it's -because- there are areas that have had so much experience and focus and come so easily, that everything else feels hard by comparison. While I can identify with feeling too tired, I don't know if that's really different than when I was younger, it's just when I was younger I had nothing easier to fall back on to feel valuable.
- Swizec 5y ago
  > mostly because I just feel too tired to push myself to do it As a 34 year old this scares me the most. I don’t want real life to accumulate and accrue around me so I don’t have the energy for curiosity and intellectual pursuits. But the harder I fight, the more cruft there is to think about.

cjbgkagh 5y ago

I think it’s far more likely that certain physical ailments show up and a decreased desire for physical activity and novel experiences. Undiagnosed CFS/ME being an obvious case. I also think a lot of drug taking is self medicating for things like serotonin and dopamine dysregulation. People are trying to fill a hole, but there is a hole there.

21723 5y ago

This. Corporate work in particular tends to make people stupid. The 98% who don't climb the ladder end up associating what they are (or used to be) good at with subordination and failure, while the other 2% have optimized themsleves to appeal to stupid people and end up just like the set of people (executive blockheads) they're trying to join. People who protect their intelligence and creativity, damn the consequences, tend to keep them for a long time. People who buy in to the corporate system turn into morons. The problem is that they don't notice it happening, and that, as one gets older, it gets harder to recover.

300bps 5y ago
I’ve been working for very large corporations for 24 years. In that time I’ve gotten over 30 certifications including three AWS certifications last year. Your take on corporate jobs is completely foreign to me. I’m sure it exists somewhere but I’m wondering - how long have you been doing corporate work?
- herval 5y ago
  What do certifications have to do with creativity?
  - dchftcs 5y ago
    The person probably meant they didn't really get to coast and just do the same thing over and over again. Many kinds of mundane-looking corporate work are often hard work.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  I've worked for startups that have done projects for big companies like: * a "big five" accounting firm * a major aircraft manufacturer that isn't Boeing * a leading ISP that isn't Comcast The people I worked with on these projects were smart AND nice, at least to us.
- erdos4d 5y ago
  You think getting certificates is improving your mind? My experience in corporate work is exactly as the comment you replied to. Endless drone work doing much the same things day after day. I did it for 3 years, learned basically nothing beyond what I came in the job with, then went out on my own. In the time since I have learned so much more than what I did in that corporate job, there is just no comparison. Also, I strongly suspect they literally try to keep you stuck in one spot and too dumb to move out of it on purpose; you are less likely to leave or ask for a raise. They want predictable drones in corporate work, and yes, getting certificates is one way you make drones feel like they are doing something.

johnaspden 5y ago

Indeed! If only people would eat their vegetables, they'd be immortal.

Timpy 5y ago

I decided a while ago that I'm going to live my life as if this were true despite not having scientific evidence to support it. When people retire they're in danger of rapid decline if they stop living a rich and active life, exactly as you said. You need physical, mental, and social stimulation. My grandmother is in her 90s and doing really well considering her age, and I can see that she walks, read books, and meets friends all the time. I pursue physical and mental stimulation constantly; running, yoga, lifting weights, practice music, learn new languages, programming, reading books, etc. (I admit I have a bad habit of neglecting social needs.) If I am lucky enough to "retire young" from software I plan on pursuing a new career in some passion field. I've chosen to believe that slowing down is my choice and right now I plan to choose not to. I know all of this is anecdotal, you can go ahead and preface every sentence I wrote with "I think/In my opinion..." but in this case n really does equal 1, I only have 1 life to live. Even if there is absolutely no correlation between my observations and reality, with this strategy I'm only at risk of a life well lived.

telesilla 5y ago
>I have a bad habit of neglecting social needs I understand that social contact is a part of healthy aging. If you are feeling alone, make time for people! Though it sounds like you are enjoying yourself thoroughly.

411111111111111 5y ago

correlation is not causation, and you've merely observed a correlation there. its way more likely that the people with declining mental acuity just couldn't learn anymore, making it a self fulfilling prophecy.

logicchains 5y ago

This is the problem with cohort studies. If you just picked 100 people at random and followed them from age 40 to age 60, on average they'd all get physically weaker. But this is an observation, not an unavoidable trend; if you took any one of them and put them on an effective weightlifting and diet program (and they followed it), they could at least double their strength assuming they previously never lifted weights.

Tepix 5y ago
Here's the thing. An average 30 year old who is not doing sports will not lose muscle mass by itself. An average 50 year old will lose 1% per year or so. If you get older you have to work just to keep the status quo.
- logicchains 5y ago
  >An average 30 year old who is not doing sports will not lose muscle mass by itself. >An average 50 year old will lose 1% per year or so. Sure, but the average is what it is because most people barely exercise, especially when they're older. If everyone lived a much more active life with more strenuous exercise, the average would look completely different.
walnutclosefarm 5y ago
Actually, if you put them all on an effective weightlifting and diet program, they'd still decline. More slowly to be sure, but no amount of exercise and diet will eliminate the effects of age. Same is true of mental exercise. Animals, and mammals in particular, lack the cellular and metabolic level repair mechanisms that would make it possible for us to keep running at peak ability indefinitely. We have no organ level repair mechanisms at all, outside of, arguably, our livers. Time is coming for you.
- wtetzner 5y ago
  > Animals, and mammals in particular, lack the cellular and metabolic level repair mechanisms that would make it possible for us to keep running at peak ability indefinitely. Given some of the research on anti-aging, it's not clear that this is the case.

jollybean 5y ago

Also: too much information. The 'hubris of 20 something' is mostly just ignorance. When you have the experience to have witnesses all sorts of outcomes, you think of things in different ways. I find myself far more 'unsure' of things because of 'all the angles' - and 'trying to thin of the unseen one's. It's like C++: You start by writing code. And think it's good, but it's not. Then idiomatic code, because you realize the mess of your earlier code. And then start to see 'all the things that could go wrong' in the horror of the code you wrote before. Then you spend the rest of your career worrying about every few lines of code, about all the things that could go wrong, with obvious diminishing marginal returns on that. So if you're 20 and making a dating app, it doesn't mater that much, you can thrash and burn through code. For many things, that doesn't work and many of those projects do not fit the pattern of 'high growth VC' so they have to get done another way, hopefully at companies with surplus budget and a bit of vision and people willing to still do stuff instead of collecting a paycheque.

CTDOCodebases 5y ago

In other words your life is a cast.

walnutclosefarm 5y ago

The "decline after 60" conclusion of the article rings true to me. I switched intellectual focus and mastered entirely new fields regularly throughout the 40 years between when I left college at age 20, and my early 60s. That switching and new learning kept me fresh, and my ability to do productive intellectual work - the mental speed measured in the Nature article - held up very well. But it began to noticeably decline in my early 60s. This was not due to life choices, as you suggest - I had an active interest and incentives, and put effort into, maintaining my abilities, and probably had more time and opportunity than ever. Rather, it just became noticeably harder to learn, and to use learning to solve problems or do creative work. A data point of one proves nothing, of course. But my experience at the very least provides no counterexample to the article's hypothesis. As for the physical - sure, you can maintain a greater peak performance than what most people do, as you age. But regardless of the effort, it's pretty much going to go down hill - strength, reaction time, coordination - after you're 30. You can slow it down, maybe dramatically if you're on the tail of the curve and put enough effort in (c.f. Tom Brady), but you can't stop it. And the effort required per "retained ability" just goes up.

djtriptych 5y ago

Another way to say this is that, well past 60, life choices outweigh senescence. I also like to remember that at no time are we really using what capacity we have to the fullest. An activity like chess for instance requires 100% focus over the course of the game to really do well - that kind of workout has got to good for brain health, but it's extremely rare in modern life. Compare with everyday survival say 10,000 years ago, which might have required 100% focus for much of the day.

silicon2401 5y ago

I agree, and I think you also see the same with physical health. Our metabolism doesn't actually decline until we're in middle age (nor do you need to ramp up your calories during pregnancy) [1]. The only reason people get fatter over time is because they just keep overeating, and probably get more sedentary over time to boot. Knowing this has really motivated me to build a lifestyle that demands consistent and significant effort that I can sustain throughout my entire life: challenging and diverse mental stimulation, diverse and frequent but low-impact exercise, and lastly, a satisfying and nutritious diet that doesn't cause me to gain weight. It's amazing to learn how strong and durable our bodies are, and inspirational to see how much potential we actually have. 1: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017 > [energy expenditure] remains stable in adulthood (20 to 60 years), even during pregnancy; then declines in older adults.

greyhair 5y ago

They are not talking about cognitive decline, they are talking about speed of processing. I am mid 60s, engineering for the last 38 years, and the depth of work is not a problem, but I definitely don't make the same snap judgements that I made even just ten years ago. It also pertains to physical reaction time. Meaning, after 60 you best leave a little more gap between you and the car ahead. You may doubt this now, but you will see how life changes for you after age 50, and again how life changes for you after age 60. It is all fine, it really is, but you will find yourself saying "that didn't used to hurt", and you will also find yourself shoving people away from your mouse because they want to click on something that you haven't decided to click on yet. It's just nature. Yes, some people abuse their bodies and their minds, but even the most careful are going to see changes. Just life, just how it goes.