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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   2235 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 11, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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If some race of people lived for 200 years, would their civilization progress faster or slower relative to the control civilization? Assume no cross-contamination of ideas and comparable periods of youth and senescence (no struldbrugs)

On one hand, their rulers would grow increasingly conservative with age, projecting their influence far into the future. Imagine the Founding Fathers sticking around for the civil war and WWI, explaining what exactly their intent was when they wrote this or that amendment.

On the other hand, imagine one of the brilliant scientists that had an outsized impact on the world. Borlaug, Pasteur, von Neuman, etc. Now give them 120 more years to live. This won't just quadruple their output: now they can collaborate with a much larger cohort of scientists. Building dream teams like the Manhattan project will be much easier.

On the gripping hand, all these long-lived people are going to have sex, validating the worst predictions Malthus had regarding carrying capacity. Who has time for science, unless it's the science of waging war against your neighbors before they do the same to you? Would a civilization like this hit a worse local optimum and be passed by the shorter-lived one, stuck with the sharpest and deadliest stone or copper tools in existence?

On the other gripping hand, elephants and parrots haven't outbred all other birds and mammals. Perhaps the longer-lived people would have evolved into extreme K-strategists even before their discovery of fire or tools?

I believe it's been shown before that scientists, artists etcetera reach peak productivity in their 'prime', which is to say 25-40 years old, and if they continue to be productive beyond that are generally less innovative or groundbreaking. One thing I noted during Oppenheimer was how young the Alamos set was. Is this a matter of age, or is it a matter of most people only really being able to generate one or two great ideas?

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