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Dog Aging Project

dogagingproject.org

61–70 of 133 posts

Re: Dog Aging Project

#61

Obviously most people disagree, but I don't think we should search for medical advances that make life significantly longer. We should search for ideas that make the finite life on this planet significantly better. A longer life is dangerous. If people could live 150 or 200 years that will make the problems on this planet much worse since the desire to accumulate wealth over that time would be insane.

Worse, that wealth accumulation will also lead to cultural stagnation: just like "science advances one funeral at a time", it's a harsh reality that culture also advances one funeral at a time.

Older generations try to take in new ideas - about homosexuality, racial equality, universal human rights, whatever else you can think of - and raise their children with those ideas in place too. And most often, those children find out later that the older generation didn't really believe in what they were saying, at least not to the extent of being able to overcome their own childhood programming. But because this new generation was raised with these new ideas, they're actually able to internalize them and progress society further.

Having older people with stagnant ideas and larger and larger accumulated wealth and power, would be a disastrous headwind against social progress.

Re: Dog Aging Project

#62

Urgh some ungodly JavaScript is hijacking the scrolling, I wish the site wasn't so ineptly written.

I think it's actually worse that this site breaks inertial scrolling only half the time instead of all the time. At least be consistent!

Re: Dog Aging Project

#63
post #11

Animal domestication is really wild. So we first select for neoteny (playfulness, dependency on caregiver, physical features people like) basically prolonging the juvenile state. Then we put them in controlled environments of abundance, were all their needs are met. Which further diminishes need to reach adult state (with traits like aggressiveness to compete for resources). This abundance causes them to mature/breed…

Recently I had an interesting thought that basically people did almost the same to themselves spontaneously through culture. Which might influence various aspects of human behavior, like social interactions in general, cooperation and means of competition, mate selection. We might have genetic changes that are not maladaptive only in the culture that introduced them. As technology forces culture to evolve it might turn out that huge swaths of human species have their evolutionary fitness suddenly reduced.

Re: Dog Aging Project

#64
That AI dog image on the homepage is dreadful. Look at the inconsistency in the depth of field. And the inconsistency of the depth of the physical field the dog is sitting in, left vs right.

Re: Dog Aging Project

#65

Obviously most people disagree, but I don't think we should search for medical advances that make life significantly longer. We should search for ideas that make the finite life on this planet significantly better. A longer life is dangerous. If people could live 150 or 200 years that will make the problems on this planet much worse since the desire to accumulate wealth over that time would be insane.

If I consider the global society I will be living in, I would prefer to see what an extra 30-50 years of high cognitive function for the people most rewarded by our current system produces, rather than trying to define what a good finite life is from some authoritarian.

How about an extra 30-50 years under a highly cognitively functioning authoritarian?

Re: Dog Aging Project

#66
post #11

Animal domestication is really wild. So we first select for neoteny (playfulness, dependency on caregiver, physical features people like) basically prolonging the juvenile state. Then we put them in controlled environments of abundance, were all their needs are met. Which further diminishes need to reach adult state (with traits like aggressiveness to compete for resources). This abundance causes them to mature/breed…

Recently I had an interesting thought that basically people did almost the same to themselves spontaneously through culture. Which might influence various aspects of human behavior, like social interactions in general, cooperation and means of competition, mate selection. We might have genetic changes that are not maladaptive only in the culture that introduced them. As technology forces culture to evolve it might tu…

Visually humans have neotenistic characteristics compared to other primates, so this is quite plausible.

Re: Dog Aging Project

#67
post #11

Animal domestication is really wild. So we first select for neoteny (playfulness, dependency on caregiver, physical features people like) basically prolonging the juvenile state. Then we put them in controlled environments of abundance, were all their needs are met. Which further diminishes need to reach adult state (with traits like aggressiveness to compete for resources). This abundance causes them to mature/breed…

"Animal domestication is really wild"

Re: Dog Aging Project

#68

That AI dog image on the homepage is dreadful. Look at the inconsistency in the depth of field. And the inconsistency of the depth of the physical field the dog is sitting in, left vs right.

I feel a good startup would be collecting old photos, vetted as pre 2010, and storing them for use by people.

Re: Dog Aging Project

#69
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I had an interesting thought that basically people did almost the same to themselves spontaneously through culture. Which might influence various aspects of human behavior, like social interactions in general, cooperation and means of competition, mate selection. We might have genetic changes that are not maladaptive only in the culture that introduced them. As technology forces culture to evolve it might tu…

Visually humans have neotenistic characteristics compared to other primates, so this is quite plausible.

And mentally. We never stop playing.

Note the popularity of memes about "adulting".

Re: Dog Aging Project

#70

Obviously most people disagree, but I don't think we should search for medical advances that make life significantly longer. We should search for ideas that make the finite life on this planet significantly better. A longer life is dangerous. If people could live 150 or 200 years that will make the problems on this planet much worse since the desire to accumulate wealth over that time would be insane.

Worse, that wealth accumulation will also lead to cultural stagnation: just like "science advances one funeral at a time", it's a harsh reality that culture also advances one funeral at a time. Older generations try to take in new ideas - about homosexuality, racial equality, universal human rights, whatever else you can think of - and raise their children with those ideas in place too. And most often, those children…

Like elves in _Shadowrun_.
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