/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.14809404]

Why do humans live so long if our only purpose in life is to procreate and die? Humans can procreate as young as 13 yet we can live into our 90s

[Anonymous No.14809422]

Because we need to raise kids.
Meaning we need to live to live to at least 26 to ensure our kids can then survive and reproduce.
But living so little creates little leeway and the longer you live the more children you can have.
And if you live long enough you can even help your kids raise their kids further ensuring the spread of your genes.

[Anonymous No.14810036]

>>14809404
because we want to live.
Where's your non-troll question?

[Anonymous No.14810040]

Because ageing is meant to be the opposite of childhood. The simulation writers decided they want to really abuse the shit out of us until we are freed. So YOU GET TO AGE AND BECOME WRINKLY AND BRITTLE WOO

[Anonymous No.14810258]

>>14809404
long lifespans are a consequence of civilization, and are the exception, not the norm.
from what it seems, 30 is about the average age of humans prior to civilization. maybe 1 out of 100 got up to middle age, and perhaps 1 out of 10000 got to their 90's.

This is, perhaps, the biggest problem with modern civilizations: the focus on health and wellness towards the 60+ demographic. The aging population absorbs medical treatment, economic benefits, social welfare, etc. for decades when they can't produce babies and are retired from the workforce. Just a massive sink of resources that shoves higher burdens onto younger populations, oftentimes making reproduction too costly (medical help reserved for wealthy elders), or too time-consuming (needing to delay pregnancy to focus on caring for the elders yourself, or working so that someone else gets paid to do that).

[Anonymous No.14810347]

>>14809422
This, having grandma & grandpa back at the village, keeping an eye on the young children while mom went down to the river to fetch water while dad is out hunting, is an enormous help in keeping more of those children alive. Especially when grandma & grandpa can do useful tasks while watching the little ones like grandma weaving baskets while grandpa makes arrows for his son to use on the next hunt.

[Anonymous No.14810839]

>>14809422
>>14810347
That's not to say that nature selected from some mechanism to ensure you get older generations to help propagate the dna. It makes more sense to hook this up with >>14810258 and say that the civilization, which nature began selecting for because it increased reproduction odds, then fostered the longer lifespan.

You won't just "evolve" having older generations around even if there is a benefit. It makes more sense to posit cooperation becoming a benefit and older generations a consequence. That being said, it appears we're going in the opposite direction of cooperative tendencies. Civilization fostered such a high iq that it blew the doors off of its utility for natural selection. Someone with enough foresight to use contraception is by definition an anti-Darwinian development, ergo the ape dull enough to just fuck in every direction without care is going to inherit the earth.

The "civilizational benefit" was new, fragile, and as its turning out, short-lived. Intelligence has utility in evolution only to a point.

[Anonymous No.14810899]

>>14809404
Because humans need a lot of time to mature. For all intents and purposes we're born prematurely compared to other animals.
In more primitive times most humans probably didn't survive for long enough for the diseases of old age, or even cancers to play a big factor in their lives.

[Anonymous No.14810909]

>>14809404
ok, groomer

[Anonymous No.14810938]

>>14810909
>groomer
babby lern'd a new werd

[Anonymous No.14811133]

>>14810258
>long lifespans are a consequence of civilization, and are the exception, not the norm
This is erroneous and a failure to understand that "average life expectancy" is not "average life limit". Your average hunter-gatherer did not drop dead at age 30 because 30 was average life expectancy. That measure is highly skewed because a great number of babies or young children died early. But once someone from pre-civilization reached age 6 or so and passed that filter, they had a good chance to living into their 60s. In fact, they had a much healthier adult life than modern people because they had a clean world, got plenty of sunshine and exercise, and ate the type and amount of foods that humans evolved for, not shittons of processed garbage and sugar. You probably think they all had horrible teeth because no dentists back then, but tooth decay is entirely caused by modern civilization and it's soft, sugary foods and acidic drinks. Same with a lot of early killers like cancer, heart disease, lung disease, infectious diseases. There was no such thing as global pandemics before globalism. So even if a serious respiratory infection popped up, it would wipe one village and then stop spreading; your overall chance to die of one back then would therefore be very small.

Yes, without modern medicine some would die of accident or infection. But for the most part, they didn't do dumb shit like extreme sports and driving in cars, and had no guns or war, so the chance of serious accident was overall very low as well. And if someone broke a leg and couldn't take care of themselves for the rest of their life? No problem. People weren't required to "work" to be allowed to survive, like they are now.

[Anonymous No.14811228]

>>14809404
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menopause#Evolutionary_rationale

[Anonymous No.14811245]

>>14809404
It would be more suspicious if we immediately died after reproductive age.
Why would you expect blind evolutionary processes to consciously construct some sort of automatic kill switch vs. organisms simply accumulating defects over time until they eventually get cancer or their organs fail?
I don't understand your reasoning.

[Anonymous No.14812453]

>>14809422
this is a restatement of OP's question for there is a reason why humans need to live for more than to breed and die.
First, humans are weak creatures that can't survive in the wilderness. Our bodies cannot withstand the cold, the wetness, and the dirty surroundings teeming with bacteria and viruses. To compensate, our bodies presume a birth on an environment that entails other humans. Hence, it is possible to survive when someone takes care of us. Remember that we start from a single cell.
To adduce, there must be a knowledge base of our weakness and their remedies. Again, if you are born around others then you have access to information ensuring you can live sumptuously. Additionally, the more you live, the more you refine and aggrandize the knowledge base and therefore you increase the lastingness of your offspring.
Lastly, there is an unresolved point about self-reference whereby you are both the receiver and producer of the knowledge base. I have not thought about it enough yet though. thug out

[Anonymous No.14812459]

>>14809404
>our only purpose in life is to procreate and die
What makes you think that?

[Anonymous No.14812483]

>>14809404
A 90 year old is basically a walking corpse. Humans did not evolve to live to 90, we just did not evolve a kill switch either.

[Anonymous No.14812552]

>>14812453
>First, humans are weak creatures that can't survive in the wilderness.
>To compensate, our bodies presume a birth on an environment that entails other humans.
Blue wildebeests have calves that are able to walk within half an hour of being born and are able to outrun hyenas within a day of being born, and their average lifepsan is 20 while their reproductive age is 2. Since their offspring are extremely precocial and self-sufficient almost immediately after birth it's pretty clear having lots of time between reproduction and death isn't an adaptation with a purpose so much as a result of there being no mechanism that automatically makes you die sooner. It's not something with its own evolutionary reason beyond the reason of being stable enough in form to survive and reproduce tends to make you stable enough to live for some time after reproducing too. Evolutionary processes didn't select for a mechanism that notices when you've passed on your genes so it can kill you afterwards. You die when enough time has passed that accumulated defects prevent you from continuing to function.

[Anonymous No.14814060]

>>14810347
This post evoke a strange feeling inside me. It makes me feel like I'm missing something important in life.

[Anonymous No.14814069]

>>14814060
How's your family life? I have basically two people and everyone else close enough I hate or have disdain. Could be a grass is greener feeling.

[Anonymous No.14814372]

>>14809404
Old people help young people to survive until they reproduce.
This is not Rocket Science, Anon.

[Anonymous No.14814394]

>>14814060
The rustic life is a wholesome life.

[Anonymous No.14814399]

>>14814372
It pribably isn't that since animals that have independent up and running young hours after birth and who don't do much parenting at all still live long amounts of time after reproductive age.
It's likely more just an absence of a kill switch than it is a deliberate evolutionary mechanism. No reason for animals to instantly die as early as possible so they just gradually get more likely to acquire defects and disease until they die, a lot like how old flying video games or flip phone snake keep getting faster as you progress until inevitably you can't avoid fatal obstacles anymore.

[Anonymous No.14814430]

thinly veiled pedo thread

[Anonymous No.14814448]

>>14814430

[Anonymous No.14814481]

>>14814430
Bro...?

[Anonymous No.14814617]

>>14812453
>humans are weak creatures that can't survive in the wilderness
This is completely nonsense. Human beings are unbelievably tough compared to basically every other animal. Able to survive extremes of cold and especially heat that kill many other mammals, able to survive with large parts of the body completely destroyed (a four-legged animal with a missing leg starves to death or is picked off by a predator; a human missing an arm is barely affected), hyperproductive scar tissue that fixes even huge wounds, completely unlimited stamina, extreme omnivores, quick sleepers, and that's not even touching the advantages that intelligence and even primitive technology (pointy sticks, clothing, fire) grant.

Humans are fucking indestructible. They're superpredators. They can kill literally ANYTHING on the planet without much difficulty using the aforementioned pointy sticks, and it's very hard to kill them in turn.

As for the condition human are born in, that is completely due to a mismatch in cranial size compared to female pelvic size. Humans are born not yet completely developed, similar to marsupials.

[Anonymous No.14814769]

>>14814399
>It pribably isn't that
The word "probably" is one of those weasel-words used by people
who want to give their baseless opinions some vague credibility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word

[Anonymous No.14814795]

>>14809404
Because we invented all this medicine that lets us live longer.
If you're asking why people don't want to die I think you should just ask yourself that question and it will be a better answer than someone else can give you.

[Anonymous No.14814803]

>>14814795
>we invented all this medicine
What do you mean by "we", Peasant?

[Anonymous No.14814805]

>>14809404
Threads like this are exactly why sci is the dumbest board here

[Anonymous No.14814809]

>>14809404
because we can teach our children how to do things

[Anonymous No.14814868]

>>14811133
>You probably think they all had horrible teeth because no dentists back then, but tooth decay is entirely caused by modern civilization and it's soft, sugary foods and acidic drinks
Not quite true. Tooth decay was caused by neolithic civilization and its starchy foods. Modern civilization just made it worse.

[Anonymous No.14814950]

>>14809404
>if our only purpose in life is to procreate and die?
That is a very sad way to look at things.
Females need to live until 80, they are moms in their 20-ies, grandmas in their 40ies and 50ies. They should care for grand children, especially grand daughters, in their 70ies and 80ies.
Men build things and advance modern civilization. As males you can procreate and have children and grandchildren, and then either help advance the civilization or help your family with your work and your wisdom.

It is a shame that modern day families are destroyed for the benefit of a few shekel grabbers. Feminism that destroys families and cuts out generational connections is a cancer.

[Anonymous No.14814955]

>>14810258
>long lifespans are a consequence of civilization,

>drag queen story hour allowed
>"civilization"

[Anonymous No.14815046]

>>14811245
Most animals don't have much of a post-reproductive age, though. They keep popping till they drop.

[Anonymous No.14815048]

>>14814399
>still live long amounts of time after reproductive age.
No they don't

[Anonymous No.14815137]

>>14810347

Now Americans, specifically, but elsewhere in the world too, we cast our elders to the wild because they are no longer useful to the wheels of capitalism, so we put them in nursing homes and "memory care"

We destroyed so much to accomplish so little.

[Anonymous No.14815218]

>>14815048
They do in captivity. Which implies things like we live in a society.
>PRLSs (post-reproductive lifespans) are by no means restricted to humans and have been documented in mammals 9, 10 fish [11], birds 12, 13, and invertebrates [12]. For most of these species, PRLSs are short, are detectable in only a few individuals 10, 14, 15, and occur only in captivity 11, 12.

[Anonymous No.14815475]

>>14810839
Birthrate is so high because deathrate was high. Society in those countries didn't acclimatize quickly enough to sudden influx of modern medicine preventing deaths.

[Anonymous No.14816097]

>>14814950
It's not a sad way to look at things, it's the truth. We only exist to have sex and make babies. That's our only purpose in life.

[Anonymous No.14816164]

>>14814617
have you ever fought a dog bare-handed?
have you ever sought food in nature?
have you tried taking a sleep in middle of an african safari?

[Anonymous No.14816291]

>>14811133
>no guns or war, so the chance of serious accident was overall very low as well

[Anonymous No.14816296]

>>14811133
>>14816291
forgot pic related

[Anonymous No.14817153]

>>14809404
maximizing potential for suffering

[Anonymous No.14820104]

>>14809404
Humans live for the great purpose of serving God, do not listen to soientists.

[Anonymous No.14821446]

>>14809404
Humans are adapted to life in Africa where nature is full of parasites adapted to live on humans and many animals eat humans. In order to reach the age needed to be a good parent, the human body is rather "overengineered" and when we have access to modern medicine, or just live outside Africa without the parasite load, the life expectancy automatically rises dramatically.

[Anonymous No.14821475]

>>14815137
They did that to themselves, old cunts

[Anonymous No.14821485]

>>14810839
Smart people might have many children so there are many people to look after them in their old age. We could solve this problem with intelligence, just by doing something like tying pensions to the number of kids. It's not a dead end just the way we structured society, social Darwinian will likely kick in to solve this though it might be too late by then.