4 ms·

I should note this is somewhat outside my normal range, so actual experts may disagree. There may be a few reasons. First, as another commenter has noted many

I should note this is somewhat outside my normal range, so actual experts may disagree. There may be a few reasons. First, as another commenter has noted many cancers manifest late in life, after typical reproductive age. This is decent evidence that our immune system is in fact quite effective at killing cancer already. A rough estimate is that a human body experiences 10^16 cell divisions in a lifetime. Each division is a mutation and therefore cancer opportunity; not to mention the constant barrage of DNA damaging chemicals, radiation, and viruses. The numbers for precancerous mutations repaired (or cells destroyed) over a lifetime would be totally staggering. The flipside of this is that a death from cancer after having kids doesn't reduce the prevalence of your genes in future generations by too much. You already have progeny after all. Humans are social animals and so there's maybe some benefit to having grandma or grandpa around. All that to say that (from an evolutionary perspective) there's not a huge, obvious benefit to having a super good immune system later in life. There's also probably a balance between having an aggressive immune system and auto-immune disease. An over-eager immune system could attack normal cells as well as cancer cells.

SoftTalker 3y ago
Yes, also the parent generation eventually dying off confers survival advantages to the younger generation: fewer old folks consuming resources and providing little value in return.
- hughesjj 3y ago
  Death isn't just a critical part of the individual life -- rather, it seems key to evolution itself, biological or otherwise. clearing the slate/setting a timeout on any given system seems to be a good way to evict the accumulation of fixed points/cycles and other non-global-maxima that accumulate. I'm completely talking out of my ass here, but I suspect systems will tend towards rent seeking/"cheating"/maintaining a status quo/really, just "overfitting" to the environment by making the ecosystem around them dependent on them. Death ensures resiliency and progress. If we ever actually achieve some form of (pseudo-)immortality, i'd hope that we introduce an "afterlife" which removes the post-mortal from "living" society/ecosystems after s certain point. at most, living society should be able to inspect & affect the post-living system (afterlife), but the post living system should be airgapped from being able to (at least, directly) affect the living one at all. that said, i'd be wary about indirect affects. to die is to not influence. i'm still influenced by the memory/simulacrum of my grand mother who raised me until middle school. thats some degree of affect on my ecosystem, but it isnt what i would call direct. i suppose there need not be a singular timeout or ecosystem a system is depolyed to, so long as it converges to zero. Heck, not even monotonically nor with a consistent cohort of systems.
  - practice9 3y ago
    > "afterlife" which removes the post-mortal from "living" society/ecosystems after s certain point. at most, living society should be able to inspect & affect the post-living system (afterlife), but the post living system should be airgapped from being able to (at least, directly) affect the living one at all Like the Undying Lands in LOTR?
  - indigochill 3y ago
    > at most, living society should be able to inspect & affect the post-living system (afterlife), but the post living system should be airgapped from being able to (at least, directly) affect the living one at all. I feel like this hypothetical scenario is contradictory (and, supposing there was engineering behind both this life and an afterlife, is an argument for keeping the two isolated). Data is code, so data collected from the afterlife is potential for "remote execution from the afterlife" (not that humans are computers, but for example traditionalists who were able to directly study the long-dead would act differently than if they had to piece tradition together from scraps of documents - particularly, it would freeze traditions/memes rather than letting them evolve) and therefore death losing its role as the cessation of influence.
  - lordnacho 3y ago
    > I'm completely talking out of my ass here, but I suspect systems will tend towards rent seeking/"cheating"/maintaining a status quo/really, just "overfitting" to the environment by making the ecosystem around them dependent on them. This is also why institutions should have a lifetime. Corporations, government entities, all the things that don't have a natural life length really ought to.
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      Interesting idea. Like the idea of prohibiting perpetual owership of real property, which I think is a thing in some jurisdictions.
      - lordnacho 3y ago
- elif 3y ago
  The schrodinger's box of future parent cancer death does not impact the reproductive decision at time of conception. Time doesn't work that way.
- sudobash1 3y ago
  > fewer old folks consuming resources and providing little value in return. As a parent living by my in-laws, I can assure you that, far from providing "little value", raising children without support from grandparents would be severely more difficult. Personally, I see generations trying to be independent of one another as a large factor in making modern childrearing increasing difficult. And this is aside from the knowledge, and labor that would have been so vital in former times. The old woman spinning and knitting is a historical trope, but when you have to hand make all of your textiles, she becomes quite useful indeed.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    Sure, but eventually your in-laws will become unable to care for children, maybe even unable to care for themselves. At that point, from a strictly utilitarian standpoint, they become a burden (I'm not making an ethical claim here, because ethics is not part of how nature/natural selection works).
jorvi 3y ago
> There's also probably a balance between having an aggressive immune system and auto-immune disease. This is the key. I’ve had an immunologist explain to me (over a bottle of wine, so my recollection is hazy) that our immune system is actually very very aggressive already and tuned within a few percentage points of being problematic.
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  And I suppose this aligns with the prevalence of autoimmune diseases?
  - IIsi50MHz 3y ago
    Some autoimmune diseases appear to be due pathological differences in the intestinal microbiome, typically when its flora diversity is drastically reduced. The latter is more common in first world countries, and especially among highly sanitised environments, such as overuse (unnecessary use) of antimicrobial agents and consumption of too much food which has been processed such that all microbes have been destroyed. Allergies are also a class of immune disorder, more prevalent among those who have little gut flora diversity. Unfortunately, while high diversity reduces the likelihood of developing allergies, increasing intestinal flora diversity does not seem to reduce existing allergies.

SoftTalker 3y ago

Yes, also the parent generation eventually dying off confers survival advantages to the younger generation: fewer old folks consuming resources and providing little value in return.

hughesjj 3y ago
Death isn't just a critical part of the individual life -- rather, it seems key to evolution itself, biological or otherwise. clearing the slate/setting a timeout on any given system seems to be a good way to evict the accumulation of fixed points/cycles and other non-global-maxima that accumulate. I'm completely talking out of my ass here, but I suspect systems will tend towards rent seeking/"cheating"/maintaining a status quo/really, just "overfitting" to the environment by making the ecosystem around them dependent on them. Death ensures resiliency and progress. If we ever actually achieve some form of (pseudo-)immortality, i'd hope that we introduce an "afterlife" which removes the post-mortal from "living" society/ecosystems after s certain point. at most, living society should be able to inspect & affect the post-living system (afterlife), but the post living system should be airgapped from being able to (at least, directly) affect the living one at all. that said, i'd be wary about indirect affects. to die is to not influence. i'm still influenced by the memory/simulacrum of my grand mother who raised me until middle school. thats some degree of affect on my ecosystem, but it isnt what i would call direct. i suppose there need not be a singular timeout or ecosystem a system is depolyed to, so long as it converges to zero. Heck, not even monotonically nor with a consistent cohort of systems.
- practice9 3y ago
  > "afterlife" which removes the post-mortal from "living" society/ecosystems after s certain point. at most, living society should be able to inspect & affect the post-living system (afterlife), but the post living system should be airgapped from being able to (at least, directly) affect the living one at all Like the Undying Lands in LOTR?
- indigochill 3y ago
  > at most, living society should be able to inspect & affect the post-living system (afterlife), but the post living system should be airgapped from being able to (at least, directly) affect the living one at all. I feel like this hypothetical scenario is contradictory (and, supposing there was engineering behind both this life and an afterlife, is an argument for keeping the two isolated). Data is code, so data collected from the afterlife is potential for "remote execution from the afterlife" (not that humans are computers, but for example traditionalists who were able to directly study the long-dead would act differently than if they had to piece tradition together from scraps of documents - particularly, it would freeze traditions/memes rather than letting them evolve) and therefore death losing its role as the cessation of influence.
- lordnacho 3y ago
  > I'm completely talking out of my ass here, but I suspect systems will tend towards rent seeking/"cheating"/maintaining a status quo/really, just "overfitting" to the environment by making the ecosystem around them dependent on them. This is also why institutions should have a lifetime. Corporations, government entities, all the things that don't have a natural life length really ought to.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    Interesting idea. Like the idea of prohibiting perpetual owership of real property, which I think is a thing in some jurisdictions.
    - lordnacho 3y ago
elif 3y ago
The schrodinger's box of future parent cancer death does not impact the reproductive decision at time of conception. Time doesn't work that way.
sudobash1 3y ago
> fewer old folks consuming resources and providing little value in return. As a parent living by my in-laws, I can assure you that, far from providing "little value", raising children without support from grandparents would be severely more difficult. Personally, I see generations trying to be independent of one another as a large factor in making modern childrearing increasing difficult. And this is aside from the knowledge, and labor that would have been so vital in former times. The old woman spinning and knitting is a historical trope, but when you have to hand make all of your textiles, she becomes quite useful indeed.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Sure, but eventually your in-laws will become unable to care for children, maybe even unable to care for themselves. At that point, from a strictly utilitarian standpoint, they become a burden (I'm not making an ethical claim here, because ethics is not part of how nature/natural selection works).

jorvi 3y ago

> There's also probably a balance between having an aggressive immune system and auto-immune disease. This is the key. I’ve had an immunologist explain to me (over a bottle of wine, so my recollection is hazy) that our immune system is actually very very aggressive already and tuned within a few percentage points of being problematic.

pfannkuchen 3y ago
And I suppose this aligns with the prevalence of autoimmune diseases?
- IIsi50MHz 3y ago
  Some autoimmune diseases appear to be due pathological differences in the intestinal microbiome, typically when its flora diversity is drastically reduced. The latter is more common in first world countries, and especially among highly sanitised environments, such as overuse (unnecessary use) of antimicrobial agents and consumption of too much food which has been processed such that all microbes have been destroyed. Allergies are also a class of immune disorder, more prevalent among those who have little gut flora diversity. Unfortunately, while high diversity reduces the likelihood of developing allergies, increasing intestinal flora diversity does not seem to reduce existing allergies.