Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

nationalgeographic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 173 posts

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#161

Post by bradlys »

arkh wrote: post #140
R0b0t1 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moles don't stop growing primarily because of telomere length but because the human genome has effective methods of controlling cancer. You get cancer something like 4 times a day but the cells are terminated. (It is possible telomeres play some part in this, but I have never seen it proposed.) What you are likely trying to broach is the question "do organisms evolve to die?" the answer to which is "yes." This was or…

Imagine humans who can't die from old age: how many would choose to do anything dangerous? Would you risk your life crossing a road? Working on a construction site?

I’d imagine people would do many dangerous things, just things that wouldn’t involve death or irreparable damage. And I think if we suddenly were able to live for 1000+ years with 20 year old bodies, we’d figure out how to repair most maladies. After all, we don’t have to worry about all the medical effort we put into end of life and cancer treatment and so forth. Whole swaths of industry would be gone and likely replaced with how to grow you a new arm when it gets chopped off. (I’m sure it could be figured out, you got 1000+ years now to do it)

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#162

Post by slver »

KronisLV wrote: post #160
slver wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of thinking makes a nice sci-fi flick but not a good predictor of reality. Just the pandemic should've given you a hint that people at large don't like being confined to their homes and living in a virtual world. You'd have to override millions of years of evolution to do that, and I'd argue a society like this would collapse due to its general non-viability, even before our psychological health ruins us. A…

I'm not entirely sure about thinking in absolutes. > Just the pandemic should've given you a hint that people at large don't like being confined to their homes and living in a virtual world. This might be true for the majority of the society, but not everyone. Personally, i enjoy isolation from others for the most part due to my personality being rather introverted. This is also why i'm okay with remote work and pref…

What's true about the majority of society... shapes society. I also think it's ridiculous spectator sports exist, and right next to so-called next we get sports news.

Is anyone asking me? No. I'm in the minority.

Sorry to be direct, but for most people who enjoy VR environments, but not actual environment, the issue is often in self-perception, confidence and so on. The VR is an artificial SUBSTITUTE for social engagement. But it's to actual engagement like porn is to having an actual relationship (i.e. not good at all).

There's place for VR and so on, but it'll never become the dominant form of existence, unless we hook our brains to the network at a very very low level the kind which is not on the horizon yet (and no, Neuralink isn't it).

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#163

Post by p2detar »

slver wrote: post #153
est31 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crossing a road might become way safer in the future with self driving cars, or at least safety systems like automated break assistants becoming more commonplace. As for construction sites, robotics might replace many jobs in construction in the future. As for the far future, maybe we will lie in a tank somewhere, have a cord attached to our brain and control robots that are in the dangerous environments for us. At l…

This kind of thinking makes a nice sci-fi flick but not a good predictor of reality. Just the pandemic should've given you a hint that people at large don't like being confined to their homes and living in a virtual world. You'd have to override millions of years of evolution to do that, and I'd argue a society like this would collapse due to its general non-viability, even before our psychological health ruins us. A…

> This kind of thinking makes a nice sci-fi flick but not a good predictor of reality. Just the pandemic should've given you a hint that people at large don't like being confined to their homes and living in a virtual world.

So you claim to know what future generations will be like? Not a good idea. OP is quite right that many kids today spend a great deal of time in front of screens. This is even more noticeable in Asia, the most populated continent on Earth, where online gaming is huge.

I would not be so fast to waive this as a sci-fi flick. It's the classic misalignment of generation's values mistake. We should not assume that we'll be able to understand what our children and grandchildren's values will be.

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#164

Post by PicassoCTs »

newsclues wrote: post #103
agumonkey wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But did they die of cancer ?

Most didn’t live long enough to die of cancer. I think infant mortality was high, and the likelihood of simple infection killing you was high.

One rusty nail - one splinter of wood could be your end. I tried to visualize once what can kill you, without anti-biotics - its incredible how many death traps are everywhere.Just one tool splintering into your hand with dirt on it and you were done for.

Which explains why manual labour was so feverishly avoided by anyone "upper class". Death roulette is not for the important people.

Those shovelling peasants were every day risking their life and were thus "expendable".

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#165

Post by inglor_cz »

bernawil wrote: post #146
arkh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine humans who can't die from old age: how many would choose to do anything dangerous? Would you risk your life crossing a road? Working on a construction site?

I had the same question reading Tolkien. The Elves don't age. They live amogst deities and have first hand knowledge of the creator of the universe. More so, they even know beyond doubt the fate that awaits those who die from other means: awaiting the end of the world in the comparatively boresome Halls of Mandos. Why would any Elf go to war as often as they do in Tolkien's universe seemed unexplicable.

Elves can get reincarnated from the Halls of Mandos and it is not entirely clear how often that happened, but it definitely did happen. Glorfindel of LOTR was a reincarnation of a First Age Noldo.

To cite Tolkien: Elves were destined to be 'immortal', that is not to die within the unknown limits decreed by the One, which at the most could be until the end of the life of the Earth as a habitable realm. Their death - by any injury to their bodies so severe that it could not be healed - and the disembodiment of their spirits was an 'unnatural' and grievous matter. It was therefore the duty of the Valar, by command of the One, to restore them to incarnate life, if they desired it. But this 'restoration' could be delayed by Manwe, if the fea while alive had done evil deeds and refused to repent of them, or still harboured any malice against any other person among the living. [0]

Of course, most of the reincarnated Elves probably stayed in Aman, so they had little influence on the development of Middle-earth. But that is not a bad consequence of getting killed in a war.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/90vqkq/why_exa...

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#166

Post by KronisLV »

slver wrote: post #162
KronisLV wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not entirely sure about thinking in absolutes. > Just the pandemic should've given you a hint that people at large don't like being confined to their homes and living in a virtual world. This might be true for the majority of the society, but not everyone. Personally, i enjoy isolation from others for the most part due to my personality being rather introverted. This is also why i'm okay with remote work and pref…

What's true about the majority of society... shapes society. I also think it's ridiculous spectator sports exist, and right next to so-called next we get sports news. Is anyone asking me? No. I'm in the minority. Sorry to be direct, but for most people who enjoy VR environments, but not actual environment, the issue is often in self-perception, confidence and so on. The VR is an artificial SUBSTITUTE for social engag…

I definitely agree, that these things can't replace those experiences in their full fidelity and therefore are to be considered substitutes.

Yet the technology existing in of itself and these methods of communication and self expression existing expand the options that are available to people, which can be useful! Would the ICT industry be able to adapt to the challenges posed by the current pandemic and remote working conditions, if progress hadn't been made in regards to asynchronous communication methods previously (Slack, Teams, Mattermost, Rocket.Chat, Zulip etc.)? Probably, but the end result could be less enjoyable than it is now.

That's not to say that anyone should be forced to replace their preferred means of communication in the long term (except for maybe temporarily in the face of situations like the current one in the world), or be forced to live to 150 years of age, or even be a brain in a jar if we're discussing sci-fi.

Yet, in my mind, having a bit of diversity in our approaches to seeing what's possible is definitely a good thing!

So, let people enjoy spectator sports, let them enjoy their sports news and enjoy all of the interesting things that result from the industry needing to achieve everything to support them, from high framerate cameras for slow motion replay, streaming games to large audiences in real time, technologies for cameras that track balls going across the field quickly, motion stabilization and any of the other thousands of neat things you wouldn't think about twice, but could find use in other industries.

To sum up:

> You'd have to override millions of years of evolution to do that, and I'd argue a society like this would collapse due to its general non-viability, even before our psychological health ruins us.

I think you're right here that all of society will not change, but that's not to say that it hurts to be optimistic about new possibilities.

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#167

Post by mjul »

PicassoCTs wrote: post #164
newsclues wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most didn’t live long enough to die of cancer. I think infant mortality was high, and the likelihood of simple infection killing you was high.

One rusty nail - one splinter of wood could be your end. I tried to visualize once what can kill you, without anti-biotics - its incredible how many death traps are everywhere.Just one tool splintering into your hand with dirt on it and you were done for. Which explains why manual labour was so feverishly avoided by anyone "upper class". Death roulette is not for the important people. Those shovelling peasants were e…

Even sports could kill you: US President Coolidge’s son died of an infection from a blister after playing tennis in the White House garden in 1924.

Medical info, including infection deaths for former presidents and their families:

https://coolidgefoundation.org/blog/the-medical-context-of-c...

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#168

Post by imtringued »

bernawil wrote: post #146
arkh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine humans who can't die from old age: how many would choose to do anything dangerous? Would you risk your life crossing a road? Working on a construction site?

I had the same question reading Tolkien. The Elves don't age. They live amogst deities and have first hand knowledge of the creator of the universe. More so, they even know beyond doubt the fate that awaits those who die from other means: awaiting the end of the world in the comparatively boresome Halls of Mandos. Why would any Elf go to war as often as they do in Tolkien's universe seemed unexplicable.

>Why would any Elf go to war as often as they do in Tolkien's universe seemed unexplicable.

Presumably because the loss of a 1000 year old friend hurts a lot.

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#169

Post by slver »

slver wrote: post #155
arkh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine humans who can't die from old age: how many would choose to do anything dangerous? Would you risk your life crossing a road? Working on a construction site?

Technically no one dies of old age. Old age is a contributive factor, and a significant one, but not a cause. Rather, we as a society, just give up on them at a certain age, and decide reasons don't matter.

Also, notice that famous and/or rich people never die of "old age". They got proper healthcare, an issue was identified, there was at least an attempt to treat it.

But your average folks... eh, died of old age.

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#170

Post by agumonkey »

PicassoCTs wrote: post #164
newsclues wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most didn’t live long enough to die of cancer. I think infant mortality was high, and the likelihood of simple infection killing you was high.

One rusty nail - one splinter of wood could be your end. I tried to visualize once what can kill you, without anti-biotics - its incredible how many death traps are everywhere.Just one tool splintering into your hand with dirt on it and you were done for. Which explains why manual labour was so feverishly avoided by anyone "upper class". Death roulette is not for the important people. Those shovelling peasants were e…

A few things, I assume that growing up in a tough manual labour world people would be 1) thicker 2) smarter at handling tools to avoid injuries[0].

That said it's impressive how easy it is to pierce your body with just about anything when just enough effort is involved and I doubt they had ergonomic tools and safety equipment too. Even gloves are a luxury.

Post reply on HN