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The Modern World Is Aging Your Brain

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Re: The Modern World Is Aging Your Brain

#51

Post by robwwilliams »

JohnFen wrote: post #23
wyldberry wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet we clearly prioritized certain foods and the human body adapted around those foods. Over time tribes converged on what plants were safe to eat (and which had defense chemicals that didn't make them suitable to eat), and prioritized certain animals for hunting. One thing I find interesting with that is how tightly coupled mongol armies were to an animal based diet, and how they reportedly looked down on farming an…

> they reportedly looked down on farming and agrarian societies. I think a really solid case can be made that agriculture was the biggest mistake humans have made.

It beats starvation. The Nuer had three modes in this order of preference:

1. Cattle grazing when all was good (migration = transhumant)

2. Fishing when possible, but more work and hard to synch with migrations of cattle

3. Farming only when really necessary

See: E. E. Evans-Pritchard classics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nuer

Re: The Modern World Is Aging Your Brain

#52

Post by kelipso »

namaria wrote: post #32
JohnFen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority, or reasonably close to it, I imagine. The average American walks about 2 miles per day (about half what is considered the minimum recommended amount -- and half of what the average American child walks), and I rather suspect that most of the world walks more than the average american.

You do realize 2 is much less then 10?

It's about 2-3 hours walking, 20k-30k steps, it's significant but not that much.

Re: The Modern World Is Aging Your Brain

#53

Post by JumpCrisscross »

wyldberry wrote: post #15
ben_w wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't know anything about diet thousands of years ago beyond "this tastes nice" and "I'm hungry", we merely endured starvation, prions, and scurvy… or died because we couldn't endure it. Sometimes we just got lucky with good fishing or fertile farmland, but we were never in control. I'm not confident enough about the history of exercise to make an equivalent claim for that.

Yet we clearly prioritized certain foods and the human body adapted around those foods. Over time tribes converged on what plants were safe to eat (and which had defense chemicals that didn't make them suitable to eat), and prioritized certain animals for hunting. One thing I find interesting with that is how tightly coupled mongol armies were to an animal based diet, and how they reportedly looked down on farming an…

> we clearly prioritized certain foods and the human body adapted around those foods

Most traditional cuisines have their fair share of nonsense medicines and performative poisons. They had more time to test, so I’d absolutely pick it over our processed food. But it’s far from panacea.

Re: The Modern World Is Aging Your Brain

#54

Post by JumpCrisscross »

shane_b wrote: post #35
ben_w wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't know anything about diet thousands of years ago beyond "this tastes nice" and "I'm hungry", we merely endured starvation, prions, and scurvy… or died because we couldn't endure it. Sometimes we just got lucky with good fishing or fertile farmland, but we were never in control. I'm not confident enough about the history of exercise to make an equivalent claim for that.

the history of exercise is just living. not that long ago, just living required constant movement. in my own childhood i had to do a ton of labor that was just living, not a job.

> history of exercise is just living

The Greeks and Romans intentionally exercised outside daily toils.

Re: The Modern World Is Aging Your Brain

#55

Post by hn_throawlles »

namaria wrote: post #6
hn_throawlles wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the "mystery" is part of it it creates a curiosity, which has a softkind of drawing gravitational pull. I know I'm vulnerable to this. The mystery drives motivation, hence the connection to energy (the capacity to do work). the curiosity propels my own motivation (willingness to spend my energy) to investigate these things, and others like it. edit: I am sorry that what I have had to think to make my own sense of thi…

This kind of nonsense drivel detracts from fact based critiques of current realities. Do you at least propose something to be done or is it all just mumbo-jumbo?

to be fair, in my edit above i mean a sorry but not sorry kind of sorry.

mumbo jumbo for one person is another's deep insightful explanation... what's more curious is that i understand your perspective and you don't understand mine (not yet)

as for a proposal? dunno, I propose we all master the mysteries is the only think that comes to mind

Re: The Modern World Is Aging Your Brain

#56

Post by throw74774 »

ben_w wrote: post #8
wyldberry wrote: post #7

It's been interesting to watch the health and fitness space around brain health and correlations with diet and exercise. People seem to finally be converging around some common truths that have been known for thousands of years. I All roads seem to be pointing towards finding a balance between what we are evolved for as a species and modern life.

We didn't know anything about diet thousands of years ago beyond "this tastes nice" and "I'm hungry", we merely endured starvation, prions, and scurvy… or died because we couldn't endure it. Sometimes we just got lucky with good fishing or fertile farmland, but we were never in control. I'm not confident enough about the history of exercise to make an equivalent claim for that.

If this were true, people would have died of scurvy at random as opposed to only when forced into a restricted diet at sea.

Re: The Modern World Is Aging Your Brain

#57

Post by throw74774 »

xeromal wrote: post #11
ben_w wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't know anything about diet thousands of years ago beyond "this tastes nice" and "I'm hungry", we merely endured starvation, prions, and scurvy… or died because we couldn't endure it. Sometimes we just got lucky with good fishing or fertile farmland, but we were never in control. I'm not confident enough about the history of exercise to make an equivalent claim for that.

Yup, national height increasing rapidly after the advent of easy food is a clear indication humans have been malnourished for a long time

Not necessarily. There are health disadvantages that come from being taller, and also from having higher caloric intake. It could be that we’re adapted to less food, and when we have more we get both taller and less healthy on average.

Re: The Modern World Is Aging Your Brain

#58

Post by readthenotes1 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #54
shane_b wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the history of exercise is just living. not that long ago, just living required constant movement. in my own childhood i had to do a ton of labor that was just living, not a job.

> history of exercise is just living The Greeks and Romans intentionally exercised outside daily toils.

The rich slave owning Greeks and Romans while not marching to another battle? Do we know anything about the exercise habits of the poor (other than the dude in the bathtub) or the slaves?

Re: The Modern World Is Aging Your Brain

#59

Post by readthenotes1 »

akprasad wrote: post #29
ben_w wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't know anything about diet thousands of years ago beyond "this tastes nice" and "I'm hungry", we merely endured starvation, prions, and scurvy… or died because we couldn't endure it. Sometimes we just got lucky with good fishing or fertile farmland, but we were never in control. I'm not confident enough about the history of exercise to make an equivalent claim for that.

As an aside, ancient cultural knowledge for finding and preparing food is surprisingly sophisticated and non-obvious [1], even if it does not lend itself to an explicit rational model: > A reasonable person would have asked why everyone was wasting so much time preparing manioc. When told “Because that’s how we’ve always done it”, they would have been unsatisfied with that answer. They would have done some experiment…

That was an interesting read! Thanks!

Re: The Modern World Is Aging Your Brain

#60

Post by klyrs »

JohnFen wrote: post #30
hattmall wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, starving sounds awesome, hate that so many people will miss out on it.

Pre-agricultural peoples didn't generally do much starving, and it's not like people now don't starve.

Most of their babies died, too.
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