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The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

nytimes.com

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Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#31

Post by kristofferR »

p1esk wrote: post #8
baxtr wrote: post #7

I believe to know, what might make me live longer, my body often tells me: sleep more, eat less, avoid too much meat, fat and sugar, don’t drink etc. Many times, I catch myself thinking though: do I really wanna miss out on a great moment/feeling just to live a couple of years longer with a broken body and/or mind? I can enjoy now. Who knows if I can then.

The point of all those things you mentioned is not to live longer, but to feel better today. You might enjoy a sugar rush for 20 minutes, and then crash hard and feel tired and slightly depressed for 2 hours. Is it worth it?

That kind of reaction to sugar sounds more like a nocebo reaction because you're overly afraid of sugar than actual effects of the sugar.

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#32

Post by majewsky »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #14
Y7ZCQtNo39 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Males in the USA have an 81% chance of living to age 65 [1]. I think it makes sense to take care of yourself. Of course, allow yourself the occasional indulgence. Your habits of your 20s and 30s could significantly impact your 40s and 50s. Taking care of yourself means enjoying more great moments later on too. Also, taking care of yourself can be in itself enjoyable. Pick up a sport, or if you're not competitive, mak…

>Pick up a sport, or if you're not competitive, make going to the gym a social thing. Gross. Just run or, preferably, swim for 40 minutes to some hardcore music[0]. Let the endorphin high melt the pain and carry you through! >And eating healthy can certainly be tasty. It can be tasty when you consider fruit. When you consider everything else, it's misery. We evolved to crave sugar and fat. Gg But you have to deprecat…

> When you consider everything else, it's misery.

You're really missing out there. A friend of mine has given up meat for lent, and we're now trying a bunch of vegetarian recipes. It fits quite well because I've recently started looking into Indian cooking where you can do a lot without meat.

The only problem is that I absolutely despise all the stuff around cooking (searching for recipes, shopping for ingredients, doing the dishes, people that insist that cooking is super-easy and judge you for not doing it more often).

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#33

Post by majewsky »

danieltillett wrote: post #22
p1mrx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what would a society that optimizes for happiness actually do differently?

Kill all the unhappy people. Such an action would be be the most effective way of raising the average level of happiness. No society should ever optimise for a single simple factor.

That's Goodhart's law, by the way. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Because people game it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

There's a related memorable, though probably untrue, anecdote about a Soviet nail factory: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22375/did-a-sov...

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#34

Post by danieltillett »

stochastic_monk wrote: post #28
danieltillett wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course cancer can be cured. What I wish we did is spend more on preventing cnacer, but the regulatory system basically makes this impossible.

I don’t think so. Cancer is constantly being evolutionarily selected for. Eventually it finds a way to circumvent the cell’s regulatory system. In a way that you didn’t intend, you’re right it’s a problem with regulation. It seems to me to be a truism, much more akin to thermodynamics than typical biology.

Yes but we know from large long lived animals like elephants and bowhead whales that the cancer rate can be very significantly reduced. If we had the same anticancer systems as the bowhead whales basically no one would get cancer even if they lived for a 1000 years. This is what we need to be working on.

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#35

Post by kimikimi »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #14
Y7ZCQtNo39 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Males in the USA have an 81% chance of living to age 65 [1]. I think it makes sense to take care of yourself. Of course, allow yourself the occasional indulgence. Your habits of your 20s and 30s could significantly impact your 40s and 50s. Taking care of yourself means enjoying more great moments later on too. Also, taking care of yourself can be in itself enjoyable. Pick up a sport, or if you're not competitive, mak…

>Pick up a sport, or if you're not competitive, make going to the gym a social thing. Gross. Just run or, preferably, swim for 40 minutes to some hardcore music[0]. Let the endorphin high melt the pain and carry you through! >And eating healthy can certainly be tasty. It can be tasty when you consider fruit. When you consider everything else, it's misery. We evolved to crave sugar and fat. Gg But you have to deprecat…

Visit Japan sometime. The packaged food is good and not heavily weighted towards the "sugar-cream" U.S. norms. Salty and umami flavors are preferred instead and you can pick up a decent example of it from any konbini, everywhere you go.

As the article says about aging, it's a collective problem. We are systematically encouraging ourselves at a large scale to consume take-out pizza and Coke.

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#36

Post by danieltillett »

majewsky wrote: post #33
danieltillett wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kill all the unhappy people. Such an action would be be the most effective way of raising the average level of happiness. No society should ever optimise for a single simple factor.

That's Goodhart's law, by the way. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Because people game it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law There's a related memorable, though probably untrue, anecdote about a Soviet nail factory: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22375/did-a-sov...

It is not quite the same as Goodhart’s law as it is more a philosophical position in that even if it was not possible to game, we should never do it.

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#37

Post by rcxdude »

danieltillett wrote: post #22
p1mrx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what would a society that optimizes for happiness actually do differently?

Kill all the unhappy people. Such an action would be be the most effective way of raising the average level of happiness. No society should ever optimise for a single simple factor.

There's a difference between optimising for 'highest level of happiness per person' and optimising for most happiness in total. The second is probably closer to most utilitarian mindsets and may even lead to the moral action being having as many offspring as possible (the details then depend on how exactly you draw your utility function, and especially at what point it goes negative).

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#38

Post by seba_dos1 »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #14
Y7ZCQtNo39 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Males in the USA have an 81% chance of living to age 65 [1]. I think it makes sense to take care of yourself. Of course, allow yourself the occasional indulgence. Your habits of your 20s and 30s could significantly impact your 40s and 50s. Taking care of yourself means enjoying more great moments later on too. Also, taking care of yourself can be in itself enjoyable. Pick up a sport, or if you're not competitive, mak…

>Pick up a sport, or if you're not competitive, make going to the gym a social thing. Gross. Just run or, preferably, swim for 40 minutes to some hardcore music[0]. Let the endorphin high melt the pain and carry you through! >And eating healthy can certainly be tasty. It can be tasty when you consider fruit. When you consider everything else, it's misery. We evolved to crave sugar and fat. Gg But you have to deprecat…

> It can be tasty when you consider fruit. When you consider everything else, it's misery.

I used to think that, but now I'm living with a hard-vegetarian/soft-vegan and I've discovered that it's not exactly true, even though my tastes didn't really change and I still dislike most of the vegetables.

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#39

Post by agumonkey »

baxtr wrote: post #27
agumonkey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short term thinking is one way, rarely the best, at least if done regularly. You'd be dead long if nature didn't accumulate a set of non long term mechanisms and learning schemes.

I couldn’t agree more. Long term thinking is exactly what I do

Oh, I interpreted your comment half backward.

To add to the discussion, it takes time or innate brain sensitivity to actually seek regularity and long term process. It's so so so easy to use the brain area dealing with rapid satisfaction..

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#40

Post by baxtr »

agumonkey wrote: post #39
baxtr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn’t agree more. Long term thinking is exactly what I do

Oh, I interpreted your comment half backward. To add to the discussion, it takes time or innate brain sensitivity to actually seek regularity and long term process. It's so so so easy to use the brain area dealing with rapid satisfaction..

I do agree again. It’s easier and it compensates for other things, e.g. a stressful day at work. I do admit, though, that I am trying to restrain myself. Eg I don't buy any sweet, if you don’t have them at home you can’t be tempted. I am trying to do intermittent fasting from time to time. Alas, I’m not perfect and indulge more often than restrain.
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