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Our muscles will atrophy as we climb the Kardashev Scale

187 points by hosolmaz 2y ago

mr_mitm 2y ago
> My father grew up while working as a farmer on the side, then studied engineering. He never did proper strength training in his life. I grew up studying full-time, have been working out on and off, more so in the last couple of years. And I still have a hard time beating him in arm wrestling despite the 40 years of age gap. Arm wrestling is a poor indicator of strength. Technique and experience account for much more than most people would think. Compare bench press, squat, deadlift numbers instead.
inglor_cz 2y ago
This is a somewhat simplistic take. Yes, people worked with their hands, but there were also other factors in the mix: * frequent starvation or food insecurity among anyone but the high class, not good for overall physique, * high parasite load sucking you dry from within - read up something on how massive infestation with hookworm can sap big, adult men of power, * infections like tuberculosis. I would be surprised if a 16th century peasant had more muscle than a 21th century student who does at least some sports. They would be a lot more used to physical work, yes, but that is not the same as "our muscles have atrophied". If anything, we might have weaker sinews, but not muscle per se, and our bones are almost certainly stronger, as we lack neither calcium nor important vitamins.
hoseja 2y ago
Muscle mass adaptiveness is an optimization for regular famine conditions. We could choose to let go of it, like we recently chose to let go of ravenous hunger with GLP drugs.
zesterer 2y ago
> Interesting blog post No, no it's not. There is nothing redeeming to be found here, it's nonsense. It's historially ignorant trad-pilled vibes about the past combined with bizarre techbro mumbo jumbo about the future. Neither have any meaningful grounding in reality, nor anything interesting to say about the world.
debesyla 2y ago
Side-topic, but for Biomechanical Stages (BMS) author skipped from pure muscle to industry ignoring the part where humanity started using animals for heavy/hard tasks of pulling, carrying, pushing.
wcoenen 2y ago
Entanglement does not allow for "Zero-Latency Control". This is a common misconception. See "No-communication theorem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem
Havoc 2y ago
I worry less about the physical muscles and more about the mental. Bit like calculators reduced people’s ability to do basic maths in their head - think similar will happen with AI. I already find myself instinctively throwing any errors I can’t immediately figure out myself into a chatbot
_yb2s 2y ago
Modern technology and a sedentary job are what make it possible for me to do hard strength training 4x/week and eat a high protein diet. As an amateur strength athlete, I am almost certainly much physically stronger than any of my ancestors that didn’t have the luxury of eating like I do, or exercising specifically for strength. We have good ways to quantify this even because we have ancient stone lifting traditions- we know how strong the strongest ancient people were, and modern people that train for strength are much much stronger- we now have small women like Chloe Brennan that are as strong as word famous strongmen were a century ago. Sometimes I hear people say strength is useless nowadays but I couldn’t disagree more. In emergency situations I have been able to push stranded cars uphill to a safer spot, carry injured people and animals to safety, move large furniture and car parts myself, etc. Being more attractive to romantic partners is no downside either, nor is being able to eat a lot and not get fat. Strength makes modern life easier and more fun.
mol0cule 2y ago
This makes me think that AI will never really take away our “purpose”. Machines have made most of our bodies obsolete long ago, yet we still find value and fulfillment in body building, going to the gym, strenuous physical labor. I believe this extends to intellectual effort and training as well. Even if memorization and most thinking becomes “obsolete” or subsidized, it will still have inherent value.
Avlin67 2y ago
muscle size is to heat the body, more than giving strengh. human muscles are inefficient on purpose
RecycledEle 2y ago
Why not build a user interface that keeps us at peak health by demanding physical activity?
tonetegeatinst 2y ago
Interesting blog post. I think the majority of what you see is that due to how rapidly technology and other fields have bloomed via human involment, and due to how we have become an interconnected society due to the industrial revolution. I think that the major way humans cope/tackle this is via specialisation. While not for everyone, most people seem to find a job in a field, and the work in that field helps us support a more complicated society than we can fathom. Most people can't memorize all the stuff from multiple domains, or they would burn out. Most people don't understand how truly complex a semiconductor is, or how electricity and power is generated, or how to design a car. These are just basic examples but I'd argue a really good example of how humans have chosen a specific domain or thing and over time developed better understandings of the field and topic. The average person could do any job I'd argue. We are not as physical as we used to be, we have "engineered" ourselves replacements. The tractor, the car; both replaced horses but at the cost of needing someone who understood the principal of the new technology. Be it robot workers replacing amazon warehouse employees, or the tractor that improved the farmers ability to harvest or plant crops; both required smart people to not only develop them but to maintain them. I'd argue while we really are less physically active, due to technology and general advancements we have made over the years; this comes at the cost of mental strain. We mentally must process and think more than ever before, pushing our brains to keep up so we can stay relevant.
DevX101 2y ago
Bold take to proclaim we'll figure out interstellar travel before we figure out how to prevent muscle atrophy.
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  We already know how to prevent it, it’s called anabolic steroids or testosterone. Once I read a study that showed sedentary people on testosterone gained more muscle mass than people actually working out.
  - mr_mitm 2y ago
    Shouldn't that be obvious? A lot of untrained men are stronger than a lot of trained women, the deciding difference being their natural testosterone levels, presumably.
  - automatic6131 2y ago
    Bhasin et. al 2001. If you get in many internet fights about bodybuilding, it's an important part of your repertoire :-)
    - schmidtleonard 2y ago
      If you don't get in many internet fights about bodybuilding, testosterone can fix that too.
  - dyauspitr 2y ago
    Yes that’s how you get an enlarged heart and die by 35.
    - GenerWork 2y ago
      I take it you're talking about people like Dallas McCarver, whose autopsy found his testosterone levels to be extremely elevated [0] because of the number and volume of substances he was taking. If you're just taking base TRT and actually do cardio alongside weightlifting, you'll probably be fine. [0] https://drmirkin.com/histories-and-mysteries/dallas-mccarver-bodybuilder-dead-at-age-26.html https://drmirkin.com/histories-and-mysteries/dallas-mccarver...
cyberax 2y ago
Stupid premise. We already have exercise mimetics in pre-clinical trials. If you can keep yourself fit with zero expenditure of time, why wouldn't you?
- delichon 2y ago
  The joy of motion and physical effort.
  - happytoexplain 2y ago
    The parent means "why wouldn't you stay fit (either manually or with drugs)" rather than "why wouldn't you do it with drugs".
    - brodouevencode 2y ago
      Because some of us have high levels of skepticism with that stuff. Even the GLP-1 inhibitors are too new to really get a handle on. The only proven methods to health are those that have existed before we ever came along: a clean diet and (good) exercise. History shows time and time again that there are no free lunches in nature.
      - shadowerm 2y ago
        Not to mention, I love working out. If anything, I need more reasons to leave the house. Not more reasons to stay inside and be on the computer even more. I do agree that GLP-1s can't be a free lunch. It can't be that powerful for free. Even beyond that, we might not know what we are doing with them. It use to be standard for testosterone replacement to get a shot from a doctor every two weeks. This is an unbelievably stupid way to take testosterone. Blasting a super physiologic level of testosterone and then crashing over a two week period would be a good way to amplify side effects if that were the goal but we didn't know what we were doing then. It is very unlikely we would have just randomly stumbled on the best way to take GLP-1s out of the gate.
ecshafer 2y ago
This post vastly under-estimates the amount of malnutrition in most societies pre-modern times. Even with heavy physical labor, I would be willing to bet that the average physical laborer in say 1800, who we know was significantly smaller, would be weaker as well. Farmers and people who do physical labor do build muscles, but they also have modern high nutrition diets and medicine.
snozolli 2y ago
In another vein, technology could also help us perfectly fit bodies by altering our cells at a molecular level. But if there is no need to move to contribute to the economy, why would anyone do such an expensive thing? Because it's nice to have the strength when you need it. Also, it protects your body. I developed a bulged disc in my neck from decades of spending too much time at a computer. Muscular balance and variety of movement is critical to maintaining a healthy body. Not to mention benefits like lessening injuries from accidents.
- shermantanktop 2y ago
  Also because physical attributes are a key component of attractiveness, regardless of their actual utility. We're not just economic units. We eat, we love, we breathe fresh air, we sleep. Even in a far-flung future, if we are still human, we are still animals.
- GuB-42 2y ago
  And it is not even expensive to a full type 1 civilization on the Kardashev scale. We just need to hack some genes to not require exercise to develop muscle mass. We already can do it with drugs, and we probably could do it genetically if it wasn't for safety and ethical concerns. As for the cost, I expect a Type 1 civilization to be able to fix genetic diseases as a routine operation, and they could fix muscle atrophy at the same time, if desired. Muscle mass requires more energy, but by definition, a Type 1 civilization has no shortage of it. And I expect making food out of thin air (like plants do) would be the kind of technology such a civilization would have.
oldpersonintx 2y ago
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ANewFormation 2y ago
If society ever developed along the lines proposed, which is highly improbable to begin with, then speaking of humanity as a whole is a complete nonstarter. We'd naturally fork, because that future sounds like a dystopic hellscape to many (if not the overwhelming majority). And indeed once we reach the point of being able to reliably colonize other planets, large scale splintering (both physical and cultural) will begin near immediately. You'll have libertarian planet, Islamic planet, even the Mormons will finally have their planets! And so on. And the people who want to sacrifice their bodies to go enter the machine will certainly have their own little slice of the universe as well.
- 383toast 2y ago
  getting splintered metaverses seem way more feasible than splintered physical planets
  - elzbardico 2y ago
    Then you get a Chicxulub and it is all over.
  - jerf 2y ago
    You have to have everyone go into the splintered metaverses to avoid physical expansion. Everyone. Every biological body. Every AI. Every AI written for the specific purpose of having a long enough time horizon to settle new locations physically. Even the AIs written specifically to marshal together the physical resources to build more metaverse computing power. Even the AIs and fiesty biological bodies who one way or another end up with a 100% bias towards physical reality. Even the many, many beings who will quite accurately observe that no matter how short-term appealing this is a long-term loss. Even the beings who specifically want to be the ones in charge of the physical machinery and see an advantage to continuing to expand it. Every. Last. Being. I don't think this degree of uniformity is plausible. I reject this as an explanation for the Fermi paradox for similar reasons, except they're even more relevant across all of the putatively common alien civilizations. I don't even find it plausible that all of human civilization would do this, let alone all of every civilization ever.
SubiculumCode 2y ago
While its fun to explore ideas, this post commits the intellectual sin of simple extrapolation-ism when everything is just oh so much more complicated than that. As others are pointing out here in the threads, biological interventions for physical strength are inevitable. This stands to reason once you mentally discard exercise as a pre-requisite of strength. An elephant is strong, not because it exercises, but because of the biological mechanisms e.g. genetics that says: grow big, grow strong, and the effect size of those mechanisms are much much larger than individual differences due to exercise. It is clear, at least to me, that the need for exercise for adjusting strength has more to do with not spending extra energy building a body that has high upkeep if it isn't needed for survival.
keiferski 2y ago
I don't know, to me it seems like biomedical engineering and manipulation will take off and develop a lot sooner than people willingly "upload" their minds to a machine – itself a dubious idea full of problems. I think it's far more likely that current-state humans won't be exploring the stars, but a genetically modified version of them will be. I think there is much less angst regarding the idea of upgrading humanity piecemeal, a la the Ship of Theseus, than there is to fully discarding one's body for a digital existence. This has already sort of happened over the last few hundred years with the concept of transplantable organs. Prior to the widespread acceptable of the interchangeability of organs, it was not uncommon to think that your self and body are unified and linked in a way that implied organ transplation was problematic or undesirable. And on that note - is it just me, or are biological visions of humanity's future fairly scarce in sci-fi and in futurism (another name for sci-fi)? My guess is because such topics seem dominated by software engineers, physicists, etc. that are less interested in biology.
PaulHoule 2y ago
I recently re-read Frederick Pohl's Plague Of Pythons which I will try hard not to spoil for you. In it there is not only the most evil set of villains that I've ever seen in science fiction based on dear Tellus, but they suffer muscular atrophy too.
- GlacierFox 2y ago
  Sounds like an interesting book, added it to my reading list.
  - optimalsolver 2y ago
    "Gateway" by the same author definitely worth a read, too.
    - PaulHoule 2y ago
      Oh yeah, Gateway one of those sci-fi books that reads like literature.
- RunningDroid 2y ago
  "Plague of Pythons" is available (for free) on Standard Ebooks for anyone else interested in reading it: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/frederik-pohl/plague-of-pythons https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/frederik-pohl/plague-of-py...
visarga 2y ago
When we get to that point we will have the right methods to sculpt our bodies as we like. It's a matter of hormones or some other biological hack.
- derektank 2y ago
  There's no guarantee of this. It's quite possible that muscle and bone cells require the stress of weight loading to develop properly and that there's no simple hack to make them do it without that response.
  - 0_____0 2y ago
    Even beyond that, there's a bunch of neuromuscular training needed to deploy the muscle properly! When you first start lifting, your 1 rep max is limited by your ability to recruit muscular functional units simultaneously (and in the correct order) to complete the movement. I forget the real number but an untrained person will be able to recruit maybe 1/3rd of the muscle they have for a 1RM movement. Keyboard ticklers - get out there and use that meat! I mean it!
photochemsyn 2y ago
Maintenance of one's muscular-skeletal system is a Goldilocks problem. Too little exercise leads to atrophy, but too much also leads to degeneration. Eg the productive lifetime of slaves in the labor-intensive Caribbean sugar plantation system was only about 10 years. Breakdown of joints, ligaments and tendons was a common problem related to overwork (and is commonly seen in athletic training today). Similarly, my understanding of the history of yoga in India is that it was introduced because of the sedentary lifestyle of the Brahmin caste, and much like with office workers today in the USA, it served to keep them in decent physical shape.
usixk 2y ago
Physical health is directly correlated to mental health, if anything we'd all be jacked to the teets
caycep 2y ago
everyone knows our future is predicted by Wall-E
justinator 2y ago
I don't think I actually agree with this guy. As anyone who is trying to grow their body knows, rest is important -- just as important as working out and workouts aren't all-day affairs either. You can get very strong with only a few hours/week in the gym. That's different than subsistence farming, where you're doing a lot of work at sub max levels most every day. You may get strongish, but you won't get large. Consider a modern day elite marathon runner, who works out >10 hours/week. They can only do so at sub max levels of effort. The top end are prone to injury (overtraining), and the training itself limits muscle development. The majority of us are getting weaker and fatter. A few of us are still testing the limits of human physiology. The difference is you have a choice to be whatever part of the spectrum you want to be. Most choose "weak and fat". Much of this is tied to nutrition, which I don't think is talked about in the fine article. Same story, we have a choice to eat the best for us food, or to eat crap. That wasn't always the case for the subsistence farmer.
- ffsm8 2y ago
  You can get large with decently defined muscles with medium time investment. But real strength, like farmers traditionally had, is hardly visible and needs an insane amount of time just handling heavy weights. These people look completely average but can easily handle way more weight than the totally jacked body builder can. But if the goal is mainly the physic and not strength... Then yes: a few hours a week is plenty
  - jajko 2y ago
    I wouldn't claim they can handle more weight (since top bodybuilders are lifting insane weights to get those muscles), but they can certainly do it for much longer than bodybuilder who trains for short bursts of maximum efforts. Our body literally builds only around the effort it experiences, and 0 more, running in absolute minimalist mode. If you ever ie been running, say at 10km consistently, try to move that one day to 20km while maintaining the intensity. Significantly harder, you may experience various connective tissue issues too and not just muscle and energy management. Or break a leg or two like I managed with recent paragliding accident, don't move one of them for 3 months and you will find that body, in its quest for lowest energy spending at all costs literally consumed all connective tissue to barest minimum, so stuff just doesn't move at all. I guess other mode didn't develop since in our distant past, like in rest of animal kingdom, broken leg meant certain death.
hwillis 2y ago
Silly. 1. Myostatin inhibitors are already in development. We're already using a drug that stops us from getting fat, why would we not use a drug that prevents atrophy? 2. This is entirely focused on what would be efficient at a global scale, while decisions are made on individual's desires. People (in general) want to look muscular and fit; it's as hardcoded into our reproductive desires as anything else is. Given increasing resources, is it reasonable to assert that people will choose to totally forgo their biological body? Why is it impossible for them to have the same productive advantages while retaining a physical body for when they want it? Human desire trumps production, even in the long term, or at least medium term. I could eat monkey chow every day and never have to do dishes or cook ever again, and save an extra 10 hours a day. I could wear the same thing every day so a machine can fold it. I can put my brain in a jar to avoid commuting. But no matter how much technology advances, if I still spend 8 hours working with my brain implant or whatever then I'm still doing at worst 24% as good as the guy working 24/7. Why would it ever be worth giving up such basic human pleasures as eating or sex just for 4x the salary?
- mywittyname 2y ago
  > Given increasing resources, is it reasonable to assert that people will choose to totally forgo their biological body? Maybe sexual selection will be altered by further technological changes. If we manage to technologically replicate the feeling of amazing sex with super hot individuals on demand, there would be little point in expending the effort it takes to have a great body for that purpose. There are plenty of other reasons great to exercise regularly. For one, it helps stave off the negative effects of aging in a way that I doubt a pill will ever manage. But that's also an argument for ridding us of these pesky bodies that we have to be carried around in.
  - swayvil 2y ago
    If paying the rent is our aim, who knows what unnecessary limbs may be disposed of. What need has a programmer for legs? Or arms even, if neuralink happens.
  - Gud 2y ago
frankhhhhhhhhh 2y ago
Sounds a lot like slavery.
up2isomorphism 2y ago
He probably should worry about our brain atrophy sooner than our muscles.
dang 2y ago
Related. Others? Kardashev Scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40327782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40327782 - May 2024 (28 comments) Kardashev Scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067895 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067895 - May 2021 (5 comments) Classifying Civilisations: An Introduction to the Kardashev Scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26108947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26108947 - Feb 2021 (1 comment) The Kardashev Scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24084021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24084021 - Aug 2020 (1 comment) Nikolai Kardashev (of Kardashev scale fame) died - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20619494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20619494 - Aug 2019 (1 comment) Kardashev Scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20603386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20603386 - Aug 2019 (31 comments) Kardashev scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2183106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2183106 - Feb 2011 (15 comments)
archagon 2y ago
I’ve been wondering if a similar phenomenon will be observed with our mental muscles. Will future generations know how to write a coherent e-mail or essay? Will they know how to approach solving a complex problem without AI assistance? Will doodling in class be supplanted by Midjourney prompting? Why bother thinking too hard when the machine can do it for you? When we are all immersed in the substrate of AI, will there be a gym equivalent for the intellectual?
rekabis 2y ago
Bold of them to assume we’ll survive the century at any level above the Iron Age, and with any population above the high millions to low billions. Capitalism is keeping us locked into the “Business As Usual” model that will bring us to civilization-destroying climate change by the middle of the century, and with tropics-denying lethally high wet bulb temperatures that will get well into the temperate zone by the end of the century. Think most of CONUS being uninhabitable for multiple days to weeks every year, with or without AC.
swayvil 2y ago
The ideal towards which we all strive is, of course, the Dalek.
asdasdsddd 2y ago
Why do we use weird arbitrary milestones like the (logarithmic) Kardashev scale. It adds literally nothing useful to otherwise fun conversations like this.
- throwup238 2y ago
  Jargon is often used for in-group signaling.
  - wy35 2y ago
    Yes. "Kardashev Scale" has now become a slop indicator.
m3kw9 2y ago
Tech can surely overcome muscle atrophy if it was a real issue. Do we even need muscle if we add more powerful add on to walk for example? I would argue we want to keep muscle because we can have very precise control and feeling, unless the new stuff can make it even better.
bradarner 2y ago
A castle built on sand. The only way to take the premise of this claim seriously is to ignore data for the past 100 years. When I was in the US military, we all complained about the Body Mass Index standards. They were based on the WWII era "normal". Men were smaller. Less muscle mass. Shorter. If the average fit American young man tried to fit into a pilot's cockpit from the 1950's, it would feel quite cramped. Like it was built for much small people. It was. We have certainly climbed the Kardashev scale since the 1950's. To what degree is a matter of contention. But, all would agree that we have moved up the scale. Muscle atrophy has not been correlated with the growth. The opposite seems true. The average American, both male and female, has more muscle mass than in 1924. A 2024 person spends significantly more time on average in a gym pushing their muscles to hypertrophy than in 1924. In addition, it is likely that the romantic picture of the average laborer "bodybuilding" is fictive and ignores how muscle atrophy and hypertrophy works. Most laborers are NOT doing activity that leads to hypertrophy. They are staying well within cardiovascular zones of muscle activation. Hence, bodybuilders as we know them are largely a modern phenomenon. And they are certainly WAY more muscular. Seems the model that underlies this claim is built on seemingly demonstrably false premises.
- datadeft 2y ago
  Having growth hormones in your ultra processed food helps
- begueradj 2y ago
  Well, a popular French army soldier who trains the soldiers of the Foreign Legion said multiple times on his YouTube channel that a good soldier is "un chat soldat" (cat soldier): his weight must be between 60 and 70 kg only. A cat soldier is the only one who can overcome all type of obstacles and is operational under all circumstances with high efficiency. Spartan soldiers were too efficient are were known for eating little (not until they felt full).
  - portaouflop 2y ago
    The efficiency of the Spartan army is a myth, in fact there were quite insignificant; they basically won a battle once and after that were wiped out
whatever1 2y ago
I need three hands so that I can hold my smartphone at alll times
kibwen 2y ago
Not that our muscles aren't important, but I'm less worried about our muscles atrophying as a result of technology and more worried about our brains atrophying as a result of technology.
- sneak 2y ago
  More people read more things off of more screens than ever before in history. This fear is unfounded. It isn't the proliferation of technology that is making people dumber; it's the American cultural deemphasis of education, entirely independent of technology.
  - knowitnone 2y ago
    Yes, with the internet, I've read more, learned more than it would have ever been possible without the internet. But with LLMs, I fear the part of our brain that performs reasoning/critical thinking will diminish. Just look at all those who fell for flat-earth, alien cow abductions, anti-vax, etc.
    - distortionfield 2y ago
      They were falling for those conspiracies before LLMs and arguably even before the internet. They're just able to be much louder now.
    - sneak 2y ago
      Look at all of those that fell for monotheism. The situation is improving vastly.
      - h0l0cube 2y ago
        > According to global Win-Gallup International studies, 13% of respondents were "convinced atheists" in 2012, 11% were "convinced atheists" in 2015, and in 2017, 9% were "convinced atheists". However, other earlier global studies have indicated that global atheism may be in decline due to irreligious countries having the lowest birth rates in the world and religious countries having higher birth rates in general. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#:~:text=Sociologist%20Phil%20Zuckerman's%20global,higher%20birth%20rates%20in%20general https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#:~:t....
ganzuul 2y ago
...So I'm advanced? This means I'm advanced.
jonnycoder 2y ago
He says he has a hard time beating his feather in arm wrestling despite him working out. Anecdotally blue collar people have much strong wrist flexion (cupping) than us white collar people, but pronation and technique can help negate that. My experience shows that power cleans can help with arm wrestling but not many people do those.
- loeg 2y ago
  Yeah, arm-wrestling is kind of a specific skill that isn't covered by most "exercise" (including strength training) unless you are specifically focused on it. It's like notorious for skinny-looking specialists being able to best jacked non-specialists.
nunez 2y ago
Absolutely correct. Traditional office culture makes it very difficult to get a proper workout in while, at the same time, confining you mostly to your chair, hunched over a desk (and/or craning over a small screen), to view things on a screen that eats away at your eyes by default. WFH made this worse. I've worked with so many people that start work at 0700 and end at 1700 or later. Add shitty, cheap food, 2.5 kids and a partner in there, and you're basically on an express train to bad hips, bad knees, poor health markersa and immobility at (not so) old age. "Work out during your lunch hour," you say. The author spends a lot of time on muscle use. Powerlifting workouts require lots of rest between sets, especially as you get stronger. Spending 2h on a workout is normal in powerlifting. Not happening during lunch hour, not like this matters because someone will just schedule a meeting over it anyway. "But I wake up at 0400..." No. Just no. (A) A parent with two and a half kids is not getting up at ass o clock in the morning to chase that pump (or work out to stay healthy) when their kids are gonna wake them at 0640, and (b) this is an awesome way to either sleep like shit forever or incinerate the last fledglings of your social life. All this aside, the farmer life is a super hard way to live, . Overuse injuries are very common. However, we went the complete opposite direction in building today's office culture, and it's a real shame.
maxglute 2y ago
Be hipster type II civilization brain in a jar. Wonder what it's like to have muscle / strength train. Incubate a body, start lifting.
rbanffy 2y ago
The timescales involved in us becoming even a K1 species are probably enough to say we won't be anything resembling current humans, neither physically nor socially.
rbanffy 2y ago
> why would anyone do such an expensive thing? I find it amusing that somehow resources would still be constrained as we go closer to be a Kardashev I civilization.
bangaloredud 2y ago
[flagged]
csense 2y ago
"The muscles are severely atrophied and the internal organs appear to be under-developed. The sensory organs, including the eyes, do not appear to function at all. The brain, however, is well developed and draws on a high proportion of the body's blood supply. It is a mystery as to how this creature can sustain itself without external support." The above quote is information you get from studying deceased bodies of a particularly advanced alien race in the original X-COM game, released in 1994. (The X-COM in-universe explanation for the aliens' physiology is more psionic than cybernetic, as OP suggests. This makes OP a bit more credible than the Microprose writers, at least if your object is a discussion about plausible aliens or far-future humans in the real world within the known laws of physics. The aliens' psionic powers are kinda terrifying AF, so the Microprose prose does just fine for its intended purpose: Good storytelling for a computer game that makes no attempt to be fully real-world plausible / "hard" SF.)
comfortabledoug 2y ago
Physical fitness is a chemical process that we trigger with exercise; we will find a way to short-circuit/mimic it with pills or injections. There are already "exercise in a pill" compounds in the works.
- chimpanzee 2y ago
  > Physical fitness is a chemical process that we trigger with exercise Physical fitness is not just chemistry. The body is responding to actual physical forces and the response is tightly coupled to how, when and where those forces are applied. Bone density and structure for instance is not just a matter of increasing production of bone cell production. It instead responds to the forces of gravity and other forces on the body as it moves through space. These forces do trigger electrochemical signals in the body, but it wouldn’t be trivial to recreate these signals in such a way that the body is fooled into responding just as it would if the signals were triggered by gravity and other physical forces. It seems like it could be a more difficult but similar problem to the one experienced by lab-grown meat producers. The meat texture still isn’t right. And these meat “muscles” only require proper taste and texture. They wouldn’t have to actually support a living organism. Edit: On reread I realize your comment allowed for assisting rather than totally replacing the required physical aspects. I agree with that. Use of chemicals could make it easier to trigger the necessary reactions, lowering thresholds, increasing outputs, etc. This could be applied broadly and the physical forces of everyday life might do the rest.
cadamsau 2y ago
My non physical desk job leaves me with a fresh body after my very much non 12 hour workday. Because I have the physical energy to, I take that body to the ocean for a swim, to the park for a cycle, and to anywhere with a nice view for a run. Depending on the day. Oh and the gym is a pleasant 12 minute walk from home, so I do that a few times a week as well. Sorry to burst your bubble OP.
avidphantasm 2y ago
I remember being struck a few years back when shaking the hand of a friend’s farmer father. He was about six-inches shorter than I am (6’1”) but his hands were MASSIVE.
xyst 2y ago
Uploaded intelligence will pave the way for BMS-III. Climate change resolved (no more need for ag, transportation of any kind, housing). Human brain uploaded to quantum servers cooled in Antartica. Skeleton crew or robots to maintain physical world while a majority of humanity living in the matrix. Controlling machines from far away lands (or galaxies).
pshirshov 2y ago
> I think that by the time we reach other stars Isn't that the ultimate hubris?
tw04 2y ago
All you need to do is look at the NFL to know how silly this claim is. At every level of sport, athletes have gotten bigger, stronger, and faster over the generations. You can write some of it off as hyper-specialization at the professional level, but that says nothing about small school single-a level competitors continuing to set new records in their respective sports.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throw4847285 2y ago
The Kardashev Scale isn't pseudoscience, but it is pseudo-psychohistory.
overgard 2y ago
I think the error here is assuming mind and body are separate things. In reality our body, even our gut bacteria, has a huge effect on how we think and feel. There's a reason why sensory deprivation or dissociative anesthetics like ketamine have such a huge effect on cognition. I just don't think the human mind is designed to be a brain in a jar through virtual reality or whatever. I think whatever attempts we make at doing that would probably drive a person insane.
- skandinaff 2y ago
  To that I can add from personal experience, that indeed cognitive capacity and muscular health are tightly linked. I remember that on the peak of my form in a gym, I was able to code better, longer, and keep larger mental models in my head while doing it. Compared that to the period after back injury, where I was unable to do any physically challenging activities, I noticed a slump in cognitive abilities as well. So I can't see, how evolutionary, population with weaker and weaker bodies can keep producing highly capable individuals. And yes, of course there are plenty of cases such as Stephen Hawking and alike, but these probably are exceptions that prove the rule.
naasking 2y ago
Nah, moving up the Kardashev scale means more control over biology. "Workout in a pill" is not far off. Genetic engineering to retain high levels of fitness with little effort is in the realm of feasible too.
- dpc050505 2y ago
  Anabolic steroids already exist.
  - naasking 2y ago
    Steroids don't really help if you don't actually train. You'll also die a lot younger. Hardly the kind of thing I'm talking about.
m463 2y ago
The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is capable of harnessing and using.

187 points by hosolmaz 2y ago

> My father grew up while working as a farmer on the side, then studied engineering. He never did proper strength training in his life. I grew up studying full-time, have been working out on and off, more so in the last couple of years. And I still have a hard time beating him in arm wrestling despite the 40 years of age gap. Arm wrestling is a poor indicator of strength. Technique and experience account for much more than most people would think. Compare bench press, squat, deadlift numbers instead.

inglor_cz 2y ago

This is a somewhat simplistic take. Yes, people worked with their hands, but there were also other factors in the mix: * frequent starvation or food insecurity among anyone but the high class, not good for overall physique, * high parasite load sucking you dry from within - read up something on how massive infestation with hookworm can sap big, adult men of power, * infections like tuberculosis. I would be surprised if a 16th century peasant had more muscle than a 21th century student who does at least some sports. They would be a lot more used to physical work, yes, but that is not the same as "our muscles have atrophied". If anything, we might have weaker sinews, but not muscle per se, and our bones are almost certainly stronger, as we lack neither calcium nor important vitamins.

hoseja 2y ago

Muscle mass adaptiveness is an optimization for regular famine conditions. We could choose to let go of it, like we recently chose to let go of ravenous hunger with GLP drugs.

zesterer 2y ago

> Interesting blog post No, no it's not. There is nothing redeeming to be found here, it's nonsense. It's historially ignorant trad-pilled vibes about the past combined with bizarre techbro mumbo jumbo about the future. Neither have any meaningful grounding in reality, nor anything interesting to say about the world.

debesyla 2y ago

Side-topic, but for Biomechanical Stages (BMS) author skipped from pure muscle to industry ignoring the part where humanity started using animals for heavy/hard tasks of pulling, carrying, pushing.

wcoenen 2y ago

Entanglement does not allow for "Zero-Latency Control". This is a common misconception. See "No-communication theorem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem

Havoc 2y ago

I worry less about the physical muscles and more about the mental. Bit like calculators reduced people’s ability to do basic maths in their head - think similar will happen with AI. I already find myself instinctively throwing any errors I can’t immediately figure out myself into a chatbot

_yb2s 2y ago

Modern technology and a sedentary job are what make it possible for me to do hard strength training 4x/week and eat a high protein diet. As an amateur strength athlete, I am almost certainly much physically stronger than any of my ancestors that didn’t have the luxury of eating like I do, or exercising specifically for strength. We have good ways to quantify this even because we have ancient stone lifting traditions- we know how strong the strongest ancient people were, and modern people that train for strength are much much stronger- we now have small women like Chloe Brennan that are as strong as word famous strongmen were a century ago. Sometimes I hear people say strength is useless nowadays but I couldn’t disagree more. In emergency situations I have been able to push stranded cars uphill to a safer spot, carry injured people and animals to safety, move large furniture and car parts myself, etc. Being more attractive to romantic partners is no downside either, nor is being able to eat a lot and not get fat. Strength makes modern life easier and more fun.

mol0cule 2y ago

This makes me think that AI will never really take away our “purpose”. Machines have made most of our bodies obsolete long ago, yet we still find value and fulfillment in body building, going to the gym, strenuous physical labor. I believe this extends to intellectual effort and training as well. Even if memorization and most thinking becomes “obsolete” or subsidized, it will still have inherent value.

Avlin67 2y ago

muscle size is to heat the body, more than giving strengh. human muscles are inefficient on purpose

RecycledEle 2y ago

Why not build a user interface that keeps us at peak health by demanding physical activity?

tonetegeatinst 2y ago

Interesting blog post. I think the majority of what you see is that due to how rapidly technology and other fields have bloomed via human involment, and due to how we have become an interconnected society due to the industrial revolution. I think that the major way humans cope/tackle this is via specialisation. While not for everyone, most people seem to find a job in a field, and the work in that field helps us support a more complicated society than we can fathom. Most people can't memorize all the stuff from multiple domains, or they would burn out. Most people don't understand how truly complex a semiconductor is, or how electricity and power is generated, or how to design a car. These are just basic examples but I'd argue a really good example of how humans have chosen a specific domain or thing and over time developed better understandings of the field and topic. The average person could do any job I'd argue. We are not as physical as we used to be, we have "engineered" ourselves replacements. The tractor, the car; both replaced horses but at the cost of needing someone who understood the principal of the new technology. Be it robot workers replacing amazon warehouse employees, or the tractor that improved the farmers ability to harvest or plant crops; both required smart people to not only develop them but to maintain them. I'd argue while we really are less physically active, due to technology and general advancements we have made over the years; this comes at the cost of mental strain. We mentally must process and think more than ever before, pushing our brains to keep up so we can stay relevant.

DevX101 2y ago

Bold take to proclaim we'll figure out interstellar travel before we figure out how to prevent muscle atrophy.

Mistletoe 2y ago
We already know how to prevent it, it’s called anabolic steroids or testosterone. Once I read a study that showed sedentary people on testosterone gained more muscle mass than people actually working out.
- mr_mitm 2y ago
  Shouldn't that be obvious? A lot of untrained men are stronger than a lot of trained women, the deciding difference being their natural testosterone levels, presumably.
- automatic6131 2y ago
  Bhasin et. al 2001. If you get in many internet fights about bodybuilding, it's an important part of your repertoire :-)
  - schmidtleonard 2y ago
    If you don't get in many internet fights about bodybuilding, testosterone can fix that too.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  Yes that’s how you get an enlarged heart and die by 35.
  - GenerWork 2y ago
    I take it you're talking about people like Dallas McCarver, whose autopsy found his testosterone levels to be extremely elevated [0] because of the number and volume of substances he was taking. If you're just taking base TRT and actually do cardio alongside weightlifting, you'll probably be fine. [0] https://drmirkin.com/histories-and-mysteries/dallas-mccarver-bodybuilder-dead-at-age-26.html https://drmirkin.com/histories-and-mysteries/dallas-mccarver...

cyberax 2y ago

Stupid premise. We already have exercise mimetics in pre-clinical trials. If you can keep yourself fit with zero expenditure of time, why wouldn't you?

delichon 2y ago
The joy of motion and physical effort.
- happytoexplain 2y ago
  The parent means "why wouldn't you stay fit (either manually or with drugs)" rather than "why wouldn't you do it with drugs".
  - brodouevencode 2y ago
    Because some of us have high levels of skepticism with that stuff. Even the GLP-1 inhibitors are too new to really get a handle on. The only proven methods to health are those that have existed before we ever came along: a clean diet and (good) exercise. History shows time and time again that there are no free lunches in nature.
    - shadowerm 2y ago
      Not to mention, I love working out. If anything, I need more reasons to leave the house. Not more reasons to stay inside and be on the computer even more. I do agree that GLP-1s can't be a free lunch. It can't be that powerful for free. Even beyond that, we might not know what we are doing with them. It use to be standard for testosterone replacement to get a shot from a doctor every two weeks. This is an unbelievably stupid way to take testosterone. Blasting a super physiologic level of testosterone and then crashing over a two week period would be a good way to amplify side effects if that were the goal but we didn't know what we were doing then. It is very unlikely we would have just randomly stumbled on the best way to take GLP-1s out of the gate.

ecshafer 2y ago

This post vastly under-estimates the amount of malnutrition in most societies pre-modern times. Even with heavy physical labor, I would be willing to bet that the average physical laborer in say 1800, who we know was significantly smaller, would be weaker as well. Farmers and people who do physical labor do build muscles, but they also have modern high nutrition diets and medicine.

snozolli 2y ago

In another vein, technology could also help us perfectly fit bodies by altering our cells at a molecular level. But if there is no need to move to contribute to the economy, why would anyone do such an expensive thing? Because it's nice to have the strength when you need it. Also, it protects your body. I developed a bulged disc in my neck from decades of spending too much time at a computer. Muscular balance and variety of movement is critical to maintaining a healthy body. Not to mention benefits like lessening injuries from accidents.

shermantanktop 2y ago
Also because physical attributes are a key component of attractiveness, regardless of their actual utility. We're not just economic units. We eat, we love, we breathe fresh air, we sleep. Even in a far-flung future, if we are still human, we are still animals.
GuB-42 2y ago
And it is not even expensive to a full type 1 civilization on the Kardashev scale. We just need to hack some genes to not require exercise to develop muscle mass. We already can do it with drugs, and we probably could do it genetically if it wasn't for safety and ethical concerns. As for the cost, I expect a Type 1 civilization to be able to fix genetic diseases as a routine operation, and they could fix muscle atrophy at the same time, if desired. Muscle mass requires more energy, but by definition, a Type 1 civilization has no shortage of it. And I expect making food out of thin air (like plants do) would be the kind of technology such a civilization would have.

oldpersonintx 2y ago

[dead]

ANewFormation 2y ago

If society ever developed along the lines proposed, which is highly improbable to begin with, then speaking of humanity as a whole is a complete nonstarter. We'd naturally fork, because that future sounds like a dystopic hellscape to many (if not the overwhelming majority). And indeed once we reach the point of being able to reliably colonize other planets, large scale splintering (both physical and cultural) will begin near immediately. You'll have libertarian planet, Islamic planet, even the Mormons will finally have their planets! And so on. And the people who want to sacrifice their bodies to go enter the machine will certainly have their own little slice of the universe as well.

383toast 2y ago
getting splintered metaverses seem way more feasible than splintered physical planets
- elzbardico 2y ago
  Then you get a Chicxulub and it is all over.
- jerf 2y ago
  You have to have everyone go into the splintered metaverses to avoid physical expansion. Everyone. Every biological body. Every AI. Every AI written for the specific purpose of having a long enough time horizon to settle new locations physically. Even the AIs written specifically to marshal together the physical resources to build more metaverse computing power. Even the AIs and fiesty biological bodies who one way or another end up with a 100% bias towards physical reality. Even the many, many beings who will quite accurately observe that no matter how short-term appealing this is a long-term loss. Even the beings who specifically want to be the ones in charge of the physical machinery and see an advantage to continuing to expand it. Every. Last. Being. I don't think this degree of uniformity is plausible. I reject this as an explanation for the Fermi paradox for similar reasons, except they're even more relevant across all of the putatively common alien civilizations. I don't even find it plausible that all of human civilization would do this, let alone all of every civilization ever.

SubiculumCode 2y ago

While its fun to explore ideas, this post commits the intellectual sin of simple extrapolation-ism when everything is just oh so much more complicated than that. As others are pointing out here in the threads, biological interventions for physical strength are inevitable. This stands to reason once you mentally discard exercise as a pre-requisite of strength. An elephant is strong, not because it exercises, but because of the biological mechanisms e.g. genetics that says: grow big, grow strong, and the effect size of those mechanisms are much much larger than individual differences due to exercise. It is clear, at least to me, that the need for exercise for adjusting strength has more to do with not spending extra energy building a body that has high upkeep if it isn't needed for survival.

keiferski 2y ago

I don't know, to me it seems like biomedical engineering and manipulation will take off and develop a lot sooner than people willingly "upload" their minds to a machine – itself a dubious idea full of problems. I think it's far more likely that current-state humans won't be exploring the stars, but a genetically modified version of them will be. I think there is much less angst regarding the idea of upgrading humanity piecemeal, a la the Ship of Theseus, than there is to fully discarding one's body for a digital existence. This has already sort of happened over the last few hundred years with the concept of transplantable organs. Prior to the widespread acceptable of the interchangeability of organs, it was not uncommon to think that your self and body are unified and linked in a way that implied organ transplation was problematic or undesirable. And on that note - is it just me, or are biological visions of humanity's future fairly scarce in sci-fi and in futurism (another name for sci-fi)? My guess is because such topics seem dominated by software engineers, physicists, etc. that are less interested in biology.

PaulHoule 2y ago

I recently re-read Frederick Pohl's Plague Of Pythons which I will try hard not to spoil for you. In it there is not only the most evil set of villains that I've ever seen in science fiction based on dear Tellus, but they suffer muscular atrophy too.

GlacierFox 2y ago
Sounds like an interesting book, added it to my reading list.
- optimalsolver 2y ago
  "Gateway" by the same author definitely worth a read, too.
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    Oh yeah, Gateway one of those sci-fi books that reads like literature.
RunningDroid 2y ago
"Plague of Pythons" is available (for free) on Standard Ebooks for anyone else interested in reading it: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/frederik-pohl/plague-of-pythons https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/frederik-pohl/plague-of-py...

visarga 2y ago

When we get to that point we will have the right methods to sculpt our bodies as we like. It's a matter of hormones or some other biological hack.

derektank 2y ago
There's no guarantee of this. It's quite possible that muscle and bone cells require the stress of weight loading to develop properly and that there's no simple hack to make them do it without that response.
- 0_____0 2y ago
  Even beyond that, there's a bunch of neuromuscular training needed to deploy the muscle properly! When you first start lifting, your 1 rep max is limited by your ability to recruit muscular functional units simultaneously (and in the correct order) to complete the movement. I forget the real number but an untrained person will be able to recruit maybe 1/3rd of the muscle they have for a 1RM movement. Keyboard ticklers - get out there and use that meat! I mean it!

photochemsyn 2y ago

Maintenance of one's muscular-skeletal system is a Goldilocks problem. Too little exercise leads to atrophy, but too much also leads to degeneration. Eg the productive lifetime of slaves in the labor-intensive Caribbean sugar plantation system was only about 10 years. Breakdown of joints, ligaments and tendons was a common problem related to overwork (and is commonly seen in athletic training today). Similarly, my understanding of the history of yoga in India is that it was introduced because of the sedentary lifestyle of the Brahmin caste, and much like with office workers today in the USA, it served to keep them in decent physical shape.

usixk 2y ago

Physical health is directly correlated to mental health, if anything we'd all be jacked to the teets

caycep 2y ago

everyone knows our future is predicted by Wall-E

justinator 2y ago

I don't think I actually agree with this guy. As anyone who is trying to grow their body knows, rest is important -- just as important as working out and workouts aren't all-day affairs either. You can get very strong with only a few hours/week in the gym. That's different than subsistence farming, where you're doing a lot of work at sub max levels most every day. You may get strongish, but you won't get large. Consider a modern day elite marathon runner, who works out >10 hours/week. They can only do so at sub max levels of effort. The top end are prone to injury (overtraining), and the training itself limits muscle development. The majority of us are getting weaker and fatter. A few of us are still testing the limits of human physiology. The difference is you have a choice to be whatever part of the spectrum you want to be. Most choose "weak and fat". Much of this is tied to nutrition, which I don't think is talked about in the fine article. Same story, we have a choice to eat the best for us food, or to eat crap. That wasn't always the case for the subsistence farmer.

ffsm8 2y ago
You can get large with decently defined muscles with medium time investment. But real strength, like farmers traditionally had, is hardly visible and needs an insane amount of time just handling heavy weights. These people look completely average but can easily handle way more weight than the totally jacked body builder can. But if the goal is mainly the physic and not strength... Then yes: a few hours a week is plenty
- jajko 2y ago
  I wouldn't claim they can handle more weight (since top bodybuilders are lifting insane weights to get those muscles), but they can certainly do it for much longer than bodybuilder who trains for short bursts of maximum efforts. Our body literally builds only around the effort it experiences, and 0 more, running in absolute minimalist mode. If you ever ie been running, say at 10km consistently, try to move that one day to 20km while maintaining the intensity. Significantly harder, you may experience various connective tissue issues too and not just muscle and energy management. Or break a leg or two like I managed with recent paragliding accident, don't move one of them for 3 months and you will find that body, in its quest for lowest energy spending at all costs literally consumed all connective tissue to barest minimum, so stuff just doesn't move at all. I guess other mode didn't develop since in our distant past, like in rest of animal kingdom, broken leg meant certain death.

hwillis 2y ago

Silly. 1. Myostatin inhibitors are already in development. We're already using a drug that stops us from getting fat, why would we not use a drug that prevents atrophy? 2. This is entirely focused on what would be efficient at a global scale, while decisions are made on individual's desires. People (in general) want to look muscular and fit; it's as hardcoded into our reproductive desires as anything else is. Given increasing resources, is it reasonable to assert that people will choose to totally forgo their biological body? Why is it impossible for them to have the same productive advantages while retaining a physical body for when they want it? Human desire trumps production, even in the long term, or at least medium term. I could eat monkey chow every day and never have to do dishes or cook ever again, and save an extra 10 hours a day. I could wear the same thing every day so a machine can fold it. I can put my brain in a jar to avoid commuting. But no matter how much technology advances, if I still spend 8 hours working with my brain implant or whatever then I'm still doing at worst 24% as good as the guy working 24/7. Why would it ever be worth giving up such basic human pleasures as eating or sex just for 4x the salary?

mywittyname 2y ago
> Given increasing resources, is it reasonable to assert that people will choose to totally forgo their biological body? Maybe sexual selection will be altered by further technological changes. If we manage to technologically replicate the feeling of amazing sex with super hot individuals on demand, there would be little point in expending the effort it takes to have a great body for that purpose. There are plenty of other reasons great to exercise regularly. For one, it helps stave off the negative effects of aging in a way that I doubt a pill will ever manage. But that's also an argument for ridding us of these pesky bodies that we have to be carried around in.
- swayvil 2y ago
  If paying the rent is our aim, who knows what unnecessary limbs may be disposed of. What need has a programmer for legs? Or arms even, if neuralink happens.
- Gud 2y ago

frankhhhhhhhhh 2y ago

Sounds a lot like slavery.

up2isomorphism 2y ago

He probably should worry about our brain atrophy sooner than our muscles.

dang 2y ago

Related. Others? Kardashev Scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40327782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40327782 - May 2024 (28 comments) Kardashev Scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067895 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067895 - May 2021 (5 comments) Classifying Civilisations: An Introduction to the Kardashev Scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26108947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26108947 - Feb 2021 (1 comment) The Kardashev Scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24084021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24084021 - Aug 2020 (1 comment) Nikolai Kardashev (of Kardashev scale fame) died - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20619494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20619494 - Aug 2019 (1 comment) Kardashev Scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20603386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20603386 - Aug 2019 (31 comments) Kardashev scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2183106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2183106 - Feb 2011 (15 comments)

archagon 2y ago

I’ve been wondering if a similar phenomenon will be observed with our mental muscles. Will future generations know how to write a coherent e-mail or essay? Will they know how to approach solving a complex problem without AI assistance? Will doodling in class be supplanted by Midjourney prompting? Why bother thinking too hard when the machine can do it for you? When we are all immersed in the substrate of AI, will there be a gym equivalent for the intellectual?

rekabis 2y ago

Bold of them to assume we’ll survive the century at any level above the Iron Age, and with any population above the high millions to low billions. Capitalism is keeping us locked into the “Business As Usual” model that will bring us to civilization-destroying climate change by the middle of the century, and with tropics-denying lethally high wet bulb temperatures that will get well into the temperate zone by the end of the century. Think most of CONUS being uninhabitable for multiple days to weeks every year, with or without AC.

swayvil 2y ago

The ideal towards which we all strive is, of course, the Dalek.

asdasdsddd 2y ago

Why do we use weird arbitrary milestones like the (logarithmic) Kardashev scale. It adds literally nothing useful to otherwise fun conversations like this.

throwup238 2y ago
Jargon is often used for in-group signaling.
- wy35 2y ago
  Yes. "Kardashev Scale" has now become a slop indicator.

m3kw9 2y ago

Tech can surely overcome muscle atrophy if it was a real issue. Do we even need muscle if we add more powerful add on to walk for example? I would argue we want to keep muscle because we can have very precise control and feeling, unless the new stuff can make it even better.

bradarner 2y ago

A castle built on sand. The only way to take the premise of this claim seriously is to ignore data for the past 100 years. When I was in the US military, we all complained about the Body Mass Index standards. They were based on the WWII era "normal". Men were smaller. Less muscle mass. Shorter. If the average fit American young man tried to fit into a pilot's cockpit from the 1950's, it would feel quite cramped. Like it was built for much small people. It was. We have certainly climbed the Kardashev scale since the 1950's. To what degree is a matter of contention. But, all would agree that we have moved up the scale. Muscle atrophy has not been correlated with the growth. The opposite seems true. The average American, both male and female, has more muscle mass than in 1924. A 2024 person spends significantly more time on average in a gym pushing their muscles to hypertrophy than in 1924. In addition, it is likely that the romantic picture of the average laborer "bodybuilding" is fictive and ignores how muscle atrophy and hypertrophy works. Most laborers are NOT doing activity that leads to hypertrophy. They are staying well within cardiovascular zones of muscle activation. Hence, bodybuilders as we know them are largely a modern phenomenon. And they are certainly WAY more muscular. Seems the model that underlies this claim is built on seemingly demonstrably false premises.

datadeft 2y ago
Having growth hormones in your ultra processed food helps
begueradj 2y ago
Well, a popular French army soldier who trains the soldiers of the Foreign Legion said multiple times on his YouTube channel that a good soldier is "un chat soldat" (cat soldier): his weight must be between 60 and 70 kg only. A cat soldier is the only one who can overcome all type of obstacles and is operational under all circumstances with high efficiency. Spartan soldiers were too efficient are were known for eating little (not until they felt full).
- portaouflop 2y ago
  The efficiency of the Spartan army is a myth, in fact there were quite insignificant; they basically won a battle once and after that were wiped out

whatever1 2y ago

I need three hands so that I can hold my smartphone at alll times

kibwen 2y ago

Not that our muscles aren't important, but I'm less worried about our muscles atrophying as a result of technology and more worried about our brains atrophying as a result of technology.

sneak 2y ago
More people read more things off of more screens than ever before in history. This fear is unfounded. It isn't the proliferation of technology that is making people dumber; it's the American cultural deemphasis of education, entirely independent of technology.
- knowitnone 2y ago
  Yes, with the internet, I've read more, learned more than it would have ever been possible without the internet. But with LLMs, I fear the part of our brain that performs reasoning/critical thinking will diminish. Just look at all those who fell for flat-earth, alien cow abductions, anti-vax, etc.
  - distortionfield 2y ago
    They were falling for those conspiracies before LLMs and arguably even before the internet. They're just able to be much louder now.
  - sneak 2y ago
    Look at all of those that fell for monotheism. The situation is improving vastly.
    - h0l0cube 2y ago
      > According to global Win-Gallup International studies, 13% of respondents were "convinced atheists" in 2012, 11% were "convinced atheists" in 2015, and in 2017, 9% were "convinced atheists". However, other earlier global studies have indicated that global atheism may be in decline due to irreligious countries having the lowest birth rates in the world and religious countries having higher birth rates in general. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#:~:text=Sociologist%20Phil%20Zuckerman's%20global,higher%20birth%20rates%20in%20general https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#:~:t....

ganzuul 2y ago

...So I'm advanced? This means I'm advanced.

jonnycoder 2y ago

He says he has a hard time beating his feather in arm wrestling despite him working out. Anecdotally blue collar people have much strong wrist flexion (cupping) than us white collar people, but pronation and technique can help negate that. My experience shows that power cleans can help with arm wrestling but not many people do those.

loeg 2y ago
Yeah, arm-wrestling is kind of a specific skill that isn't covered by most "exercise" (including strength training) unless you are specifically focused on it. It's like notorious for skinny-looking specialists being able to best jacked non-specialists.

nunez 2y ago

Absolutely correct. Traditional office culture makes it very difficult to get a proper workout in while, at the same time, confining you mostly to your chair, hunched over a desk (and/or craning over a small screen), to view things on a screen that eats away at your eyes by default. WFH made this worse. I've worked with so many people that start work at 0700 and end at 1700 or later. Add shitty, cheap food, 2.5 kids and a partner in there, and you're basically on an express train to bad hips, bad knees, poor health markersa and immobility at (not so) old age. "Work out during your lunch hour," you say. The author spends a lot of time on muscle use. Powerlifting workouts require lots of rest between sets, especially as you get stronger. Spending 2h on a workout is normal in powerlifting. Not happening during lunch hour, not like this matters because someone will just schedule a meeting over it anyway. "But I wake up at 0400..." No. Just no. (A) A parent with two and a half kids is not getting up at ass o clock in the morning to chase that pump (or work out to stay healthy) when their kids are gonna wake them at 0640, and (b) this is an awesome way to either sleep like shit forever or incinerate the last fledglings of your social life. All this aside, the farmer life is a super hard way to live, . Overuse injuries are very common. However, we went the complete opposite direction in building today's office culture, and it's a real shame.

maxglute 2y ago

Be hipster type II civilization brain in a jar. Wonder what it's like to have muscle / strength train. Incubate a body, start lifting.

rbanffy 2y ago

The timescales involved in us becoming even a K1 species are probably enough to say we won't be anything resembling current humans, neither physically nor socially.

rbanffy 2y ago

> why would anyone do such an expensive thing? I find it amusing that somehow resources would still be constrained as we go closer to be a Kardashev I civilization.

bangaloredud 2y ago

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csense 2y ago

"The muscles are severely atrophied and the internal organs appear to be under-developed. The sensory organs, including the eyes, do not appear to function at all. The brain, however, is well developed and draws on a high proportion of the body's blood supply. It is a mystery as to how this creature can sustain itself without external support." The above quote is information you get from studying deceased bodies of a particularly advanced alien race in the original X-COM game, released in 1994. (The X-COM in-universe explanation for the aliens' physiology is more psionic than cybernetic, as OP suggests. This makes OP a bit more credible than the Microprose writers, at least if your object is a discussion about plausible aliens or far-future humans in the real world within the known laws of physics. The aliens' psionic powers are kinda terrifying AF, so the Microprose prose does just fine for its intended purpose: Good storytelling for a computer game that makes no attempt to be fully real-world plausible / "hard" SF.)

comfortabledoug 2y ago

Physical fitness is a chemical process that we trigger with exercise; we will find a way to short-circuit/mimic it with pills or injections. There are already "exercise in a pill" compounds in the works.

chimpanzee 2y ago
> Physical fitness is a chemical process that we trigger with exercise Physical fitness is not just chemistry. The body is responding to actual physical forces and the response is tightly coupled to how, when and where those forces are applied. Bone density and structure for instance is not just a matter of increasing production of bone cell production. It instead responds to the forces of gravity and other forces on the body as it moves through space. These forces do trigger electrochemical signals in the body, but it wouldn’t be trivial to recreate these signals in such a way that the body is fooled into responding just as it would if the signals were triggered by gravity and other physical forces. It seems like it could be a more difficult but similar problem to the one experienced by lab-grown meat producers. The meat texture still isn’t right. And these meat “muscles” only require proper taste and texture. They wouldn’t have to actually support a living organism. Edit: On reread I realize your comment allowed for assisting rather than totally replacing the required physical aspects. I agree with that. Use of chemicals could make it easier to trigger the necessary reactions, lowering thresholds, increasing outputs, etc. This could be applied broadly and the physical forces of everyday life might do the rest.

cadamsau 2y ago

My non physical desk job leaves me with a fresh body after my very much non 12 hour workday. Because I have the physical energy to, I take that body to the ocean for a swim, to the park for a cycle, and to anywhere with a nice view for a run. Depending on the day. Oh and the gym is a pleasant 12 minute walk from home, so I do that a few times a week as well. Sorry to burst your bubble OP.

avidphantasm 2y ago

I remember being struck a few years back when shaking the hand of a friend’s farmer father. He was about six-inches shorter than I am (6’1”) but his hands were MASSIVE.

xyst 2y ago

Uploaded intelligence will pave the way for BMS-III. Climate change resolved (no more need for ag, transportation of any kind, housing). Human brain uploaded to quantum servers cooled in Antartica. Skeleton crew or robots to maintain physical world while a majority of humanity living in the matrix. Controlling machines from far away lands (or galaxies).

pshirshov 2y ago

> I think that by the time we reach other stars Isn't that the ultimate hubris?

tw04 2y ago

All you need to do is look at the NFL to know how silly this claim is. At every level of sport, athletes have gotten bigger, stronger, and faster over the generations. You can write some of it off as hyper-specialization at the professional level, but that says nothing about small school single-a level competitors continuing to set new records in their respective sports.

deleted 2y ago

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throw4847285 2y ago

The Kardashev Scale isn't pseudoscience, but it is pseudo-psychohistory.

overgard 2y ago

I think the error here is assuming mind and body are separate things. In reality our body, even our gut bacteria, has a huge effect on how we think and feel. There's a reason why sensory deprivation or dissociative anesthetics like ketamine have such a huge effect on cognition. I just don't think the human mind is designed to be a brain in a jar through virtual reality or whatever. I think whatever attempts we make at doing that would probably drive a person insane.

skandinaff 2y ago
To that I can add from personal experience, that indeed cognitive capacity and muscular health are tightly linked. I remember that on the peak of my form in a gym, I was able to code better, longer, and keep larger mental models in my head while doing it. Compared that to the period after back injury, where I was unable to do any physically challenging activities, I noticed a slump in cognitive abilities as well. So I can't see, how evolutionary, population with weaker and weaker bodies can keep producing highly capable individuals. And yes, of course there are plenty of cases such as Stephen Hawking and alike, but these probably are exceptions that prove the rule.

naasking 2y ago

Nah, moving up the Kardashev scale means more control over biology. "Workout in a pill" is not far off. Genetic engineering to retain high levels of fitness with little effort is in the realm of feasible too.

dpc050505 2y ago
Anabolic steroids already exist.
- naasking 2y ago
  Steroids don't really help if you don't actually train. You'll also die a lot younger. Hardly the kind of thing I'm talking about.

m463 2y ago

The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is capable of harnessing and using.