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Researchers Say Human Lifespans Have Already Hit Their Peak (newsweek.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Newsweek:
We have reached our peak in terms of lifespan, athletic performance and height, according to a new survey of research and historical records... "These traits no longer increase, despite further continuous nutritional, medical, and scientific progress," said Jean-FranÃois Toussaint, a physiologist at Paris Descartes University, France, in a press release... For the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, a team of French scientists, including Toussaint, from a range of fields analyzed 120 years' worth of historical records and previous research to gauge the varying pace of changes seen in human athletic performance, human lifespan and human height. While, as they observe, the 20th century saw a surge in improvements in all three areas that mirrored industrial, medical and scientific advances, the pace of those advances has slowed significantly in recent years.
The team looked at world records in a variety of sports, including running, swimming, skating, cycling and weight-lifting. Olympic athletes in those sports continually toppled records by impressive margins from the early 1900s to the end of the 20th century, according the study. But since then, Olympic records have shown just incremental improvements. We have stopped not only getting faster and stronger, according to the study, but also growing taller... [D]ata from the last three decades suggest that heights have plateaued among high-income countries in North America and Europe... As for our human lifespan, life expectancy in high-income countries rose by about 30 years from 1900 to 2000, according to a National Institutes of Health study cited by the authors, thanks to better nutrition, hygiene, vaccines and other medical improvements. But we may have maxed out our biological limit for longevity. The researchers found that in many human populations, says Toussaint, "it's more and more difficult to show progress in lifespan despite the advances of science."
The team looked at world records in a variety of sports, including running, swimming, skating, cycling and weight-lifting. Olympic athletes in those sports continually toppled records by impressive margins from the early 1900s to the end of the 20th century, according the study. But since then, Olympic records have shown just incremental improvements. We have stopped not only getting faster and stronger, according to the study, but also growing taller... [D]ata from the last three decades suggest that heights have plateaued among high-income countries in North America and Europe... As for our human lifespan, life expectancy in high-income countries rose by about 30 years from 1900 to 2000, according to a National Institutes of Health study cited by the authors, thanks to better nutrition, hygiene, vaccines and other medical improvements. But we may have maxed out our biological limit for longevity. The researchers found that in many human populations, says Toussaint, "it's more and more difficult to show progress in lifespan despite the advances of science."
"These traits no longer increase, despite further continuous nutritional, medical, and scientific progress ..."
Perhaps not as much progress has been made as our scientists say then?
When we reach the limits of our genes, we'll modify our genes.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The patent office will soon be closed due to lack of new inventions
"Human Lifespans Have Already Hit Their Peak Based on Current Methodologies and Technology" should be the title. My thought is that new methodologies and technologies, such as being able to keep cellular information from deteriorating as people age due to replication degradation, should increase lifespan. My understanding is that almost all body cells are replaced every seven years, but each total replacement is less accurate than the previous one. After a few replication cycles, information deteriorates, similar to a photocopy of a photocopy.
We've gotten *very* good at dealing with sick people. But we haven't really made any big progress on making healthy people healthier by slowing the effect of aging. Being in "good health" means entirely different things for a 20yo and an 80yo. I think it's because it's very ethically challenging to experiment on healthy people, like if you got cancer obviously we'll treat that. But if you're "only" getting older, do we really dare mess that up? I'd say the answer is overwhelmingly no, unless there's nothing wrong with you we'll do nothing. Okay eat healthy, exercise but nothing to truly stall the decline.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
For centuries humans had a limited diet and essentially non-existent medicine and medical care.
Once the ability for a varied diet took place and advances in medicine kicked in, there was a sudden growth of humans in both size and virility. We can see these changes in the size of skeletons. Afflictions which would have in the past killed us in droves are now, for all intents and purposes, gone.*
With those limitations removed, evolution was free to do the voodoo that it do. This doesn't even take into consideration the amount of time people now have to pursue sporting events using modern training methods. Despite this, it's quite obvious we've essentially reached our peak size. There may be incremental increases over the coming centuries, but nothing near the pace which happened over the preceding centuries.
* We're leaving the anti-vaccine idiots
Lets just keep funding education so that below average students who might pass a test will pass a test?
More funding and test results will improve next decade?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Here is the chart of peak athletic performance. I didn't realize it had plateaued so much since 1980.
Chart of oldest person, compared with oldest living olympian since olympians tend to live longer.
The paper is basically an argument against Aubrey de Grey, who claims that in the near future, we will figure out specific technologies (and de Grey lists them) that will allow us to live 200 or even 500 years. Unfortunately the argument is weak (as I understand it), because it relies on analysis of aggregate technology improvements (technologies including things like washing hands and antibiotics).
The obvious counter-argument would be, "Of course, sometimes progress goes fast, sometimes slow; sometimes in spurts, sometimes it stalls. Regardless of whether it comes fast or slow, when we figure out the solutions to these problems, we will live a really long time." In that sense, the paper knocks down something of a strawman (by not addressing their opponent's strongest argument).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
A new kidney would have saved him. We need a plan to grow new organs, even if it's in pigs or in brainless human bodies. Of course the Christian fundamentalists will never let this happen.
The fundies object to embryonic research. Kidneys and other organs are grown from somatic cells, ideally taken from the recipient.
A more immediate solution would be a free market in organs, which would increase the donor pool. Ignorant people object, by claiming that selling organs would lead to abuses, without realizing that the hospitals already buy and sell organs. It is only illegal for the donor to receive a portion of the money. So the money incentivizes everyone but the person capable of increasing the supply.
Fucking hypocrites.
You may disagree with them (as do I), but what about their behavior is hypocritical?
"These traits no longer increase, despite further continuous nutritional, medical, and scientific progress,"
They are correct, progress in nutrition isn't increasing our lifespans but the fail to mention it's bad progress resulting in worse nutrition than before. Heart disease the the leading killer of people and we know the cause is entirely dietary for the vast majority of cases.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
A new kidney would have saved him. We need a plan to grow new organs, even if it's in pigs or in brainless human bodies. Of course the Christian fundamentalists will never let this happen. Fucking hypocrites.
My condolences, annon. Regarding organ growth I was thinking something similar. At the turn of the XX Century people thought more or less the same, they believed that humans could never travel at higher than 20Km/hr, or couldn't run faster than some record of the time. Then tech changed and we did. Once they figure out the kinks of individual organ cloning without having to grow a whole being (and hopefully, without having to grow them inside an existing being, such as a pig) then well be in another era of pushing back those limits.
+Raider of the lost BBS
Stress severely limits life expectancy and while nutrition, medicine etc might improve, stress seems to be increasing as well at the same time, possibly removing part of the benefit of the other factors. Also, it is possible that there will be some sudden disruptive discovery in medicine that will have a significant effect to life expectancy.
As for athletic performance & height, well, I guess we can't expect much improvement there without drugs, genetic manipulation etc - you don't exactly get taller by eating better, you just don't grow to your full potential when malnourished...
Not that exciting research IMHO...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
I wonder how the misguided diet advice of low fat/low dietary cholesterol/high carbs in the late 1960s onward is reflected in this study.
I would guess that the general improvement of human metrics extended slightly past the dawn of that dietary advice (ie, the 1990s) and the drop in statistically broad improvement may not be a hard limit but a byproduct of bad nutrition advice which has turned into the obesity epidemic.
I'm also not sure that growing any taller is really of that much utility, either. It may be in a world defined physical combat, but its general utility is kind of limited because it implies greater nutritional demand. Maybe some distant future interstellar anthropologists will say something like:
"It's apparent from their overly large skeletons that these were a people who would not have been capable of organized long distance space flight. Their nutritional demands and excess mass would have consumed too much energy and literally crushed them to death when accelerating to hyperspace. We now understand that only species whose height doesn't exceed 12 Nzsrs and mass doesn't exceed 35 Pmbrs will ever become interstellar."
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Hitler didn't invent eugenics. It was a popular cause long before the 3rd Reich. Plato advocated selective breeding of humans in 400BC (he also advocated plenty of other fascist policies). In the early 1900s, eugenics was popular in America and even the Supreme Court approved sterilization of undesirables. The Nazis drew much of their inspiration from America.
...since natural selection is actually the mechanism for evolution, yet society has totally undermined it with its ongoing mission to remove even the slightest possible risk to humans. It also mandates that even the most unsuitable people banging out kids as fast as they can is supposed to be celebrated by all.
1) It is not true that human life spans, height, and athleticism naturally improve. They assumed this by looking at an unusual period of time, the last century. There was NO natural, gradual improvement.
2) What is true is that in the past hundred years we made three different discoveries, each of which INSTANTLY raised lie expectancy, height, and athleticism to their current values. But it took a long time for that knowledge to spread. There are still people out there smoking cigarettes, drinking to excess, etc. Those three issues were healthy lifestyles (life span), nutrition (height), exercise (athleticism).
3) There are several discoveries that are not advances in healthy lifestyle, nutrition, or exercise that are very promising new ways to improve all three of those statistics. Genetic engineering and cyber-replacements could each individually increase any or all of those three things.
Technically, we can already increase anyone's height that has lost both legs. (https://www.quora.com/When-someone-is-getting-two-artificial-legs-can-they-pick-their-new-height)
The basic question they asked shows their assumptions are silly.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
A few benefits do not outweigh the possible dangers
Perhaps you could list what you perceive as "possible dangers". The artificial scarcity in organs causes suffering and many unnecessary deaths. But it also inflates black market prices, and likely leads to more abuses, not fewer. If it was legal to compensate donors, the supply would go up, and prices would fall, possibly by an order of magnitude, leading to far less incentive for abuse.
A hospital that harvests a human kidney can turn around and sell it for more than $250,000. None of that goes to the donor's family.
"Fucking hypocrites."
The solution would be to stop doing that. Then there might be fewer.
I’m a Christian and I’m looking forward to any and all technological advance that would extend life. Perhaps your overly broad generalizations need some work?
Fucking hypocrites.
You may disagree with them (as do I), but what about their behavior is hypocritical?
I'm not the original poster so he may disagree with my interpretation. These are the same people largely who are against abortion because of the commandment not to kill but who advocate the death penalty and endless wars. They won't even allow the use of embryonic stem cells from miscarriages or from those killed by accidents. They don't want abortion but block practical sex ed to help teens avoid pregnancy and scream about birth control. So yes there is a lot of hypocrisy among them.
The current Roy Moore scandals combined with supporting him and Trump who has his own sex scandals while calling for the downfall of Hollywood powerful men and Democrats with their own scandals is also hypocrisy. It is Fake News when it is bad about their guy and Gospel Truth when it is about the other side. Judge your side the same way you judge the other side.
“Fundies” don’t object to embryonic research. They object to taking new embryos for such research out of fear that such a practice would lead to a market for aborted embryos.
They encourage research on the existing lines.
Doesn't this story come out every 15-20 years or so?
It basically says the same thing, that humans will never get better/taller/faster/more attractive than today. Then they say the same thing in 15-20 years, except that everything got better/faster/taller/more attractive during that time.
Training and equipment allowed significant performance improvements in a relatively short period of time. How high could one of today's pole vaulters reach using a pole from the 1950's? Or put one of today's cyclists on a bike from that era and see whether they break any Tour de France records. Technique and nutrition have also been refined to the point where there will probably be very few more major improvements.
These factors allowed elite athletes (now sorted into various sports by body type) to improve their performance very significantly without changing the basic human body all that much. The next step, though...actually modifying an individual's genetic structure...may produce some pretty spectacular results.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
So yes there is a lot of hypocrisy among them.
But they are not hypocrites about embryonic research, which is what is being discussed ... unless you think fundies are running secret embryonic cell research labs.
In general, sure, they are mostly hypocrites ... as are many progressives.
“Fundies” don’t object to embryonic research.
Do you know any actual fundies? I know plenty because I grew up in the Bible Belt and I am related to them. They object to embryonic research. They may not completely understand what it is, but they object to it.
They encourage research on the existing lines.
No they don't. They are called "Fundamentalists" because they do not engage in ideological compromise.
Your "spirit" is just a combination of chemicals. It ceases to be when you cease to be.
Natural selection has brought us this far, and this is where it stops. It's time for us to start exercising intelligent design. Fire up the CRISPRs!
There is a 1 in 3 chance that you will get cancer. A cancer-riddled society is a profitable society.
Your manufactured food supply is poisoned. We will never clean up our food chain because that would cost too much. An obese society is a profitable society.
Alcohol, tobacco, and other poisons will continue to be legal no matter the impact. An addicted society is a profitable society.
Death is no longer a natural event. Death is now manufactured.
Could we live a longer, healthier life? Yes. But you must find a cure for Greed first. Good fucking luck with that shit. Might as well order that snow-cone maker for Hell.
This, Hitler was the worst thing to ever happen to eugenics - he vilified it in the public mind when acceptance was at the peak in exchange for some power. If the species eventually dies off it will absolutely be traceable directly back to Hitler.
We can't forget that a lot of that 30 year average life expectancy increasing is because almost all kids survive childhood now. It's not like everyone used to keel over at 50, it was that a bunch of childhood diseases prevented a sizeable number of kids from getting past age 5.
I haven't hit my lifespan peak yet.
I mean, I hit my personal best a moment ago, but I just beat it.
And I did again too.
There, I did it again.
Iâ(TM)m a Christian and Iâ(TM)m looking forward to any and all technological advance that would extend life.
Why? A nagging suspicion that there might not be a better afterlife after all?
It has always surprised me how religious people are those who cry the most when people die. You'd think they'd be happy on behalf of the person winning the big prize of eternal joy.
I'm an atheist, and I'm not for extending life past the natural span. The old needs to give room for the new. When you're past the age of reproduction/rearing, there's no benefit to your genes in your survival - you just compete with your offspring for resources.. And if you're suffering from various age related ailments, there's not much benefit to you either. Death is nothing to be feared by an atheist. We know we won't feel a thing, and won't miss life one bit. I'll enjoy life to the fullest while I can, and when I no longer feel I can, or have become a burden, I'll reject any attempts at prolonging it. If suffering, I want an off switch.
And then, you can also just disregard this crap and have a decent life on earth, regardless whether there is an afterlife or not. Incidentally, if there is an afterlife, it will be very likely just you getting reincarnated into a new body, not necessarily in this universe. And yes, that means that for most, life is going to continue to suck.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Unfortunately, it is. Medicine is the scientific field with the biggest egos and smallest skills in the physical sciences. It really is pathetic. Fortunately, some fundamental progress has come from medical statistics, telling all these big egos that no, their pet theories do not work and no, their pet treatment have no or negative effects. But it still will be decades, perhaps centuries, before medicine can be taken seriously as a science.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
We have stopped (...) growing taller...
I fear that we haven’t stopped growing wider, though.
Lifespans have plateaued as a result of generalised improvements in nutrition and medicine. We don't know how much improvement is possible when specifically targeting ageing because very little has been done.
I cease to be every night when I go to sleep. Sometimes I am reborn in a dream only to die again and get reborn in my body.
With gene editing programs you can get humanish bodies that grow without a brain.
There are unexplored paths, such as research into human performance enhancement. These are blocked by the anti-doping organizations that plague athletic organizations. Some competitions should be open to deliberate enhancement.
Bruce Perens.
What makes you say that? I haven't heard of any functionality the brain supplies to the growth process. Just remove everything but the brainstem from the clone fetus, and the body should probably grow okay. The pituitary glad may be important - leaving it intact is probably the most challenging part, might need to resort to chemical manipulation or DNA editing to prevent the cortex from growing instead.
Of course the morality of such a thing is a whole different question.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Sure, why not. They're in every measurable respect an identical twin that bifurcated decades later than usual, but hey, I suppose God only hands out an extra soul if the bifurcation occurs in the womb while he's still paying attention, right?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Did you intend to imply that eugenics is inherently fascist? Seems like a rather extreme claim. Certainly a fascist regime would have a relatively easy time implementing such a thing, but that can be said for a great many social policies.
Eugenics could be implemented in a great many ways, as easily with the carrot as the stick.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The last thing we need is for humans to live longer.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
The artificial scarcity in organs causes suffering and many unnecessary deaths. But it also inflates black market prices, and likely leads to more abuses, not fewer. .
And some foks seem to think that they have a right to other people's organs. You know, unnecessary deaths that can be avoided?
How far does that go - mandatory donation?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I'll enjoy life to the fullest while I can, and when I no longer feel I can, or have become a burden, I'll reject any attempts at prolonging it. If suffering, I want an off switch.
Exactly, The wife and I codified and legalized our advance directive just recently. I have no desire to live a Terry Schiavo, and one of the worst fates I can imagine is being boxed in.
There are several fates that are much worse than death. For me, if the angry desert god is real (and I'm wrong), heaven or hell would be interchangeablely awful. I want to enjoy life as long as I can, but that off switch will actually be pretty nice.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
And then, you can also just disregard this crap and have a decent life on earth, regardless whether there is an afterlife or not. Incidentally, if there is an afterlife, it will be very likely just you getting reincarnated into a new body, not necessarily in this universe. And yes, that means that for most, life is going to continue to suck.
Ain't that the truth! Even the concept of heaven doesn't seem that great. worshipping an angry desert god while on earth, in order to worship him for all eternity. Hell at least has more likeable people. I can't stand tohe folks who tell me they know they'll be in heaven. Nasty mean assholes who are full of hate.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I'll bet you would like the Nazi position on organ donation. They seem like a group who would provide many.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Both of those statements contradict what you have posted in the past. Unless you think the Bible Belt is in southern California and "fundies" mean first gen Chinese immigrants, you are lying once again.
I have never lived in SoCal, other than a few months at Camp Pendleton and a CAX at Twentynine Palms. I have lived (and currently live) in NorCal, specifically San Jose. I grew up in Tennessee. My spouse is a 1st gen Chinese immigrant, but I am white.
If you can show me any of my posts that are inconsistent with these facts, please let me know, and I will patiently explain to you how your reading comprehension failed you.
I'll bet you would like the Nazi position on organ donation. They seem like a group who would provide many.
Nope. Once the cyanide gets into the bloodstream, it messes up the organs, and they are no longer viable for transplant.
Damn, now I wonder which one of the of the cute red head twins in my high school class decades ago was "truly" a "living being" and which one was something else. Although, I'm not sure I would have cared if both of them were interested in doing more detailed research on that question with me as the lead investigator. I'm sure my research completion deadlines would have continuously been moved out as I learned more though. So many tests, so little time...
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
I see no reason why some currently unknown discovery would make an arrogant premise like this any more than a belief system - we know everything now, no need to strive or explore. The Human species has been artificially limited simply as a process of the economic systems we have in place before discussing any of the many flow on effects from that.
Nutrition itself is a massive factor and considering whether athletes have reached peak human performance has little to do with maximum functional longevity for people who have different objectives. The lessons I have *personally* learned from a lifetime of fitness training and martial arts has left me with so many questions about unexplored areas of human potential that tell me that we still have so much to learn and that this article is just wrong.
One such lesson was how do I address the accumulated injury that I carry in my body? So roughly three years ago I started a process of extreme physical therapy to resolve accumulated scar tissue throughout my body. In that time I have resolved 28 physical injuries, I have had joints and bones in my body become jelly like and reform stronger and more flexible than they were before. At this very moment my right elbow is reforming and has maintained a constant temperature of 33C for the last two months as it gradually improves, an extremely painful process, however one that has obliterated scarred muscles and the painful knots associated with it.
This has destroyed many stressors in my life, I sleep better, my body functions better and I am more relaxed. I documented the process and collected data because I was trying to understand it however I had no idea of the profound impact this would have on my well being. Fingers, wrists, elbows shoulders, neck, ribcage, toes, ankles knees hips and even my spine have all been radically repaired and improved, many minor aliments I suffered just disappeared. I have less aches and pains now than I did 30 years ago and I don't groan when I get up or move.
So if I can can uncover that process myself I think that people dedicated to improving human health and performance can uncover a lot more in the years to come.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
People many times predicted that Moore's Law couldn't continue much longer due to physical limitations, and yet somehow it did anyway. A new solution was found to get around each new physical limitation, allowing computers to continue to increase in speed for decades.
Modern medicine has simply reached a physical limitation. For the past couple hundred years, medicine has largely focused on fighting diseases and conditions that shortened people's lives. Antibiotics and vaccines have had dramatic effects on average human lifespans, but didn't really change what "old age" meant. But I'm confident that as scientists learn more about life at the molecular level, it will find ways to get past this "barrier" and surge ahead in its progress towards longer, healthier human lives.
When you're past the age of reproduction/rearing, there's no benefit to your genes in your survival - you just compete with your offspring for resources.
The benefit to the old persons genes is in helping those same genes in their (great)grandchildren live. Babysitting is one obvious way the old folks help their genes. In the past, being a store of knowledge was also very important and is perhaps still important.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Glasses, surgery, steroids, cosmetic surgery, etc.
Not all bad, but not what nature intended when she designed natural selection.
Eugenics could be implemented in a great many ways, as easily with the carrot as the stick.
But in practice the stick was used more often. Adolf didn't give the untermensch any choice, and Oliver Wendell Holmes didn't give Carrie Buck a say either.
There are still isolated individuals who push the limits- but the selective pressure is low.
Say if you couldn't run a 4 minute mile, you were sterilized.
Say if you didn't have red hair, you were sterilized.
Say if your grandparents didn't have long lifespans, you were not allowed to have children.
Extreme selective pressure (over 99%) would get things moving again.
Sure- it's horrific. Just saying that we are only at an end to improvement under the current level of selective pressure (which is really low).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
We already have them - Politicians.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You could say that of a great many social policies as well. Currency for example. Pollution control. The reduction of violence and murder. The list goes on an on - the stick is very often the preferred form of motivation for most types of governments. Probably because it's often cheaper and requires less understanding of the varied motives of the population to offer an effective carrot.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
There you go. That's the attitude that will let you chase immortality on a road made of the corpses of your siblings.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Kind of crazy to think people would seriously think the human body couldn't go above 20 when men can run over 30. A search of the internet brought back a claim that people were concerned that women shouldn't travel on trains going more than 50mph due to their perceived fragility, specifically of their woman specific organs (since I imagine there is no difference between the brain matter or stomach of a woman or man).
Read Robert Heinlein's "Beyond this Horizon." from 1942. Or, at least read the Wikipedia article. Clever method of eugenic selection without direct gene manipulation. (Granted, I'm not sure the method would actually work). Or, "Methuselah's Children" - same period, same author - for a simpler, guaranteed method.
Simple fact is, modern medicine is allowing more, genetically less fit, individuals to survive and breed. Note the current research on Huntington's disease. We have to combat the deterioration somehow...
While as organs cannot be sold, the system can be rigged. Steve Jobs got access to a transplant. He also "bought a house that his doctor was selling" in order to establish residence. At UCLA, a Japanese mobster go access to a transplant. While as it cannot be proved that he bribed people to get access, it certainly raises suspicion. If some Arab pulled the same stunt, it would be an issue.
Babysitting is one obvious way the old folks help their genes.
The total costs of living for an elderly person including all medical costs is on average into six-digit dollar figures per year. You can hire some pretty good babysitters for that. (Not even counting the inheritance.)
In the past, being a store of knowledge was also very important and is perhaps still important.
Also a fount of wrong knowledge. My grandmother was a racist ("I have nothing against negros; I think everyone should have one") who thought colds could spontaneously occur if not dressing well, believed the fumes from a fireplace was good for the lungs, and that there was a man in the sky who would make you burn for eternity if you slept with your hands under the comforter.
I cease to be every night when I go to sleep.
Your consciousness alters when you fall asleep, but doesn't cease. I'd describe being put under for surgery as being closer to death than just sacking out, but even then your consciousness is suspended, not ceased.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
How did the banana know to make carbon atoms turn into 8 year old human cells in one case, but 80 year old human cells in the other?
In both cases, the banana will transform into brand new human cells. How do you create 80yo cells without waiting 80 years?
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
"Big Men???" keep on turning
Carry on like boys of sin
Singing songs about the teen-girls
He rapes 'ole' 'bamy once again and He likes 'em young
Well I heard Mister Moore deny about her
Well I heard ole Roy put her down
Well, I hope Roy Moore will remember
A southern folk don't need him around anyhow
Sweet home Alabama
Where the guys have not a clue (apparently)
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, it's startin' smell like poo
In Ole 'Bamy they love the POTUS, boo-hoo-hoo
Now we all did what we could do
Now Pussy-Gate does not bother 'em
Does your conscience bother you, tell the truth
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies WERE so blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, can not these people be true?
Now GOP has got Deniers
And they've been known to twist the truth
Lord they make nearly vomit
They lie and cheat and steal, now how bout you?
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies CAN BE AGAIN so blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, I promise to make it for YOU!
I.e., you are removed from the simulation, and put into another, or an android body. Pass the plate! : )
...who advocate the death penalty...
If someone did something to deserve it, yeah. You seem to have dropped something: context.
How many serial killers have you heard of that were children or babies or embryos?
...and endless wars.
Yeah, you're right, it's more moral to let dictators rape, steal, and systematically torture and murder their people.
Also, nations have no right to self defense?
Really? There's no such thing as a justified war in your eyes?
They don't want abortion but block practical sex ed to help teens avoid pregnancy and scream about birth control.
That's not hypocrisy. See, it's very simple: just don't have sex outside of marriage.
I know it can be hard in our current culture to restrain oneself when everyone else seems to be "enjoying" themselves. But think of all the children growing up in single-parent households because the value and meaning of marriage has been undermined and all but destroyed today. What about all the people catching life-altering STDs from what they thought would just be a bit of fun?
How is it hypocritical to say that maybe marriage and the permanence of it was a good thing?
Wouldn't marriage and sexual discipline quarantine the population from STDs like HIV? How many millions died from HIV that would have lived if we'd all practiced monogamous sex with and only with our spouses?
How does killing an innocent embryo (human) improve a teenage pregnancy situation? Doesn't it just make it worse?
In chess there's moves that can be made that blunder a piece. Some moves are good and do improve your position but are sub-optimal. Then, of course, there's optimal moves which sometimes require a sacrifice the ramifications of which aren't fully understood 'till much later at which time one is usually very glad to have made the optimal move.
So Keith Richards could buy himself a new liver and set of kidneys just to prolong his life, while poor people with cancer can....drink a bottle of cheap while while running a car in a closed garage to go quietly. Finally, the system will work as intended.
I'm one of those people that are basically past the age of reproduction that you talk about and I spend close to zero on medical care, basically glasses, which I've had to spend money on since I left home. Likewise for my parents while they were alive though towards the end they did have to spend a couple of digits a year on medications, perhaps 10% of their income.
Looking at your user ID #, you're probably one of those old people too, it's a shame if it is costing you that much money for medical care.
And I did mention that in the past that elders were often a source of knowledge. Of course there will be exceptions, but in an age when education was rare, the elders usually had some good practical knowledge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I'm one of those people that are basically past the age of reproduction that you talk about and I spend close to zero on medical care, basically glasses, which I've had to spend money on since I left home. Likewise for my parents while they were alive though towards the end they did have to spend a couple of digits a year on medications, perhaps 10% of their income.
Looking at your user ID #, you're probably one of those old people too, it's a shame if it is costing you that much money for medical care.
It's those older than us that rack up the costs. Once you hit nursing home age or contract a severe age related ailment, the costs go way up. On average, when a person hits late 70s / early 80s, the total medical expenses (including medicare, insurance, out-of-pocket and charitable) exceeds the income the person once had. As aging proceeds, the expenses continue to grow.
Some are less lucky. One person I know contracted memory impairment just a few years into retirement, and now pays around $5k per month for assisted living, plus a huge amount of medical expenses. Just a 10% copay is a killer when you have to pay for things like regular MRIs. And it's only going to get worse.
Your idea of not having sex outside marriage has been shown to be completely unworkable. It's not only difficult to do in the current culture, it's been difficult in every culture I'm aware of. You're advocating something far less realistic than users that understand the Internet and don't get phished.
Any halfway realistic analysis shows that large numbers of people are going to have sex outside marriage, and that blaming them is pointless. They're human. It's stupid to pretend they aren't. Therefore, the best way to avoid STDs and pregnancy is to tell people about sex and how to practice safe sex. It's fine to try to dissuade them from sex when they're still young, but relying on that is the act of a sanctimonious idiot.
As far as a teenage pregnancy being aborted, what happens is that the teenager is no longer pregnant, and that can be a very good thing. The only reason you'd think necessarily it made it worse is rigid ideology and not paying attention to real people.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You mean there's someone for mass murder of infants?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Where do you think stem cells comes from? From the butchery of unborn infants.
My karma was manually wiped by site staff https://slashdot.org/~slshdtisctrldbysjws 18 mod up, 10 mod down = bad karma
Seems to me that this "slowing" of improvements could only be just a plateau.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.