5 ms·

Human reproduction comes at the expense of faster aging and a shorter life

34 points by XzetaU8 2y ago

timetraveller26 2y ago
but what if I am not a Finnish twin woman?
- voxl 2y ago
  the frequentist fallacy at work
  - ravin_gees 2y ago
    Could you expand on this? I feel like I get the gist of what you’re saying — that your conditional probability of observing the same effect in non “Finnish twin women” is quite high — but what’s the exact connection to frequentist statistics? Couldn’t find a classical “frequentist fallacy” in a cursory search
hereme888 2y ago
Having no children was also associated with reduced lifespan. That's the worst one of all. I'd rather die a bit younger but have offspring.
- majkinetor 2y ago
  U misunderstood that. Its correlation.
  - hereme888 2y ago
    "Our findings suggest that early childbearing, numerous pregnancies or nulliparity all contribute to accelerated aging and increased mortality risk." = Nulliparity contributed to accelerated aging and increased mortality risk. Did the author speak inaccurately/different in that statement than the rest of the paper suggests?
    - majkinetor 2y ago
      Read the whole paper. They suggest theat it might be because of the health problems that they are nullparous. So it doesnt follow that intentional nullparity of healthy woman results in shorter life. If their main claim is true that reproduction is taxing to the body than such nillparuty extends life
      - hereme888 2y ago
        Ah. I'll have to read the whole thing then. Thanks.
SubiculumCode 2y ago
Bah. Middle-class and wealthy have fewer children than do the poor, and likewise shorterlifespans, in other news.
keiferski 2y ago
(Apologies for the rambling comment, this is just a thought I’ve had and this link reminded me of it.) One interesting way of thinking about the last few hundred years, specifically the growth of individualism, is that it’s a shift of focus from larger social organisms (the family, the village, the nation, etc.) to the individual person’s organism. Which is an obvious description of individualism, of course, but it has sorts of downwind effects that maybe aren’t as immediately apparent. This occurred to me when I was reading about some life extension organizations trying to make individuals’ lives longer. It’s not about being remembered or honored by society, or about continuing a legacy via a family/business/institution/etc. but about extending your personal experience longer. If we went back to a different civilization like the Romans, the dynamic was very different. There was much less focus on extending the individual life experience and more focus on being honorably remembered by Roman society. A desirable afterlife was one in which you were honored by society, not one in which your personal experience continued forever. What is really interesting though is how these two dynamics (individuals vs. groups) will play out in the future, evolutionarily. I can’t imagine that individualism’s limits are endless; at some point group dynamics would become more competitive, I think. And yet at the same time a lot of resources are going into the extension of individual lifespans. To put this all another way: imagine two opposite societal structures. One is comprised of individuals that live extremely long, focus on their personal experience, and assume they will be largely forgotten after death - partially because of the unpredictability of the future. The other is comprised of people that live shorter lives, are focused more on the social group (and have more kids), and are remembered after their deaths for their contributions to that group. They buy in to this vision because the future is more predictable. It seems like the last few hundred years in the West has been a shift from group 2 to group 1, but it remains to be seen if that will continue.
- vinnyvichy 2y ago
  You can be sure that the unselflimiting nature of individualism will eventually, or maybe soon, come up against the finite resources of the earth. The political impasse in the West is between those who prefer to call evil the lack of self-limitation, and those who prefer to call evil other-limitation. (Stoics were about self-limitation. to stay ontopic. What would they say about life-extension?) The following is written by a cranky guy, but unfortunately I could find on hand no better summary of the core idea. https://www.commentary.org/articles/gary-morson/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-warned-west/ https://www.commentary.org/articles/gary-morson/aleksandr-so...

34 points by XzetaU8 2y ago

timetraveller26 2y ago

but what if I am not a Finnish twin woman?

voxl 2y ago
the frequentist fallacy at work
- ravin_gees 2y ago
  Could you expand on this? I feel like I get the gist of what you’re saying — that your conditional probability of observing the same effect in non “Finnish twin women” is quite high — but what’s the exact connection to frequentist statistics? Couldn’t find a classical “frequentist fallacy” in a cursory search

hereme888 2y ago

Having no children was also associated with reduced lifespan. That's the worst one of all. I'd rather die a bit younger but have offspring.

majkinetor 2y ago
U misunderstood that. Its correlation.
- hereme888 2y ago
  "Our findings suggest that early childbearing, numerous pregnancies or nulliparity all contribute to accelerated aging and increased mortality risk." = Nulliparity contributed to accelerated aging and increased mortality risk. Did the author speak inaccurately/different in that statement than the rest of the paper suggests?
  - majkinetor 2y ago
    Read the whole paper. They suggest theat it might be because of the health problems that they are nullparous. So it doesnt follow that intentional nullparity of healthy woman results in shorter life. If their main claim is true that reproduction is taxing to the body than such nillparuty extends life
    - hereme888 2y ago
      Ah. I'll have to read the whole thing then. Thanks.

SubiculumCode 2y ago

Bah. Middle-class and wealthy have fewer children than do the poor, and likewise shorterlifespans, in other news.

keiferski 2y ago

(Apologies for the rambling comment, this is just a thought I’ve had and this link reminded me of it.) One interesting way of thinking about the last few hundred years, specifically the growth of individualism, is that it’s a shift of focus from larger social organisms (the family, the village, the nation, etc.) to the individual person’s organism. Which is an obvious description of individualism, of course, but it has sorts of downwind effects that maybe aren’t as immediately apparent. This occurred to me when I was reading about some life extension organizations trying to make individuals’ lives longer. It’s not about being remembered or honored by society, or about continuing a legacy via a family/business/institution/etc. but about extending your personal experience longer. If we went back to a different civilization like the Romans, the dynamic was very different. There was much less focus on extending the individual life experience and more focus on being honorably remembered by Roman society. A desirable afterlife was one in which you were honored by society, not one in which your personal experience continued forever. What is really interesting though is how these two dynamics (individuals vs. groups) will play out in the future, evolutionarily. I can’t imagine that individualism’s limits are endless; at some point group dynamics would become more competitive, I think. And yet at the same time a lot of resources are going into the extension of individual lifespans. To put this all another way: imagine two opposite societal structures. One is comprised of individuals that live extremely long, focus on their personal experience, and assume they will be largely forgotten after death - partially because of the unpredictability of the future. The other is comprised of people that live shorter lives, are focused more on the social group (and have more kids), and are remembered after their deaths for their contributions to that group. They buy in to this vision because the future is more predictable. It seems like the last few hundred years in the West has been a shift from group 2 to group 1, but it remains to be seen if that will continue.

vinnyvichy 2y ago
You can be sure that the unselflimiting nature of individualism will eventually, or maybe soon, come up against the finite resources of the earth. The political impasse in the West is between those who prefer to call evil the lack of self-limitation, and those who prefer to call evil other-limitation. (Stoics were about self-limitation. to stay ontopic. What would they say about life-extension?) The following is written by a cranky guy, but unfortunately I could find on hand no better summary of the core idea. https://www.commentary.org/articles/gary-morson/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-warned-west/ https://www.commentary.org/articles/gary-morson/aleksandr-so...