[FRIAM] The case for vegetarianism

Mon Jun 14 11:21:56 EDT 2021

Ah!  You young pups have this all wrong.  Who wants to live forever.  I just want to live one more day.  When that stops being true, I won't. 

N 

Nick Thompson
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2021 10:48 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The case for vegetarianism

We've been discussing things like free will, the extent to which cultural evolution swamps genetic evolution, and even economic mobility. In all those discussions, there's a motif that progress requires individuals to die. 

There's something similar to Roko's Basilisk, here. If climate change is as serious a threat as most of us seem to believe, and we tend to agree that rapid evolution facilitates the generation of novel solutions, then future generations might look back on the *longevity* of individuals as a hindrance to finding such solutions. Anyone who pursues longevity, at least for its own sake, should be retroactively punished for their irresponsibility, their obstructionism.

Now, I suppose one might make the argument that longevity is a means, not an end. So, for example, near the end of her life, my mom was a total drain on society. Her productivity was long gone and had been gone for quite some time. So, one might argue that those individuals who are *still productive* should live longer, whereas those like my mom, who are pure overhead, should be allowed to die ... maybe even encouraged to die.

But the obstruction doesn't come from pure overhead individuals. It comes from *still productive* individuals who provide too much cultural inertia, who gum up the gears, who decrease the rate of innovation. So, one might counter that it's those who *seem* productive, still, who the future generations should blame for the slow rate of innovation.

Of course, I can't help recall the contrast between diachronic and episodic personalities. Cultural evolution should be able to occur just fine with episodic individuals ... where we each change our minds frequently ... last week it was ironic trucker hats, this week it's 1970's gym shorts. So, the obstruction can be further isolated down to stubborn obstructionist narrativity, those absolutely convinced they're right about whatever they think/do. So, we might say, again with longevity as a means, not an end, if the longevity biohacking you're doing facilitates an episodic personality, rapid cultural evolution, then that's OK.

So, perhaps the policy should be that all such biohacking should be nootropic ... put a heavy dose of mescaline in the NMN pill and you win the argument. 8^D

On 6/13/21 6:33 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:
> Just so that you don't feel to bad about it, here's a skeptical 
> article about Sinclair: https://khn.org/news/a-fountain-of-youth-pill-sure-if-youre-a-mouse/ <https://khn.org/news/a-fountain-of-youth-pill-sure-if-youre-a-mouse/>.
> 
> On Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 1:09 AM Pieter Steenekamp <pieters at randcontrols.co.za <mailto:pieters at randcontrols.co.za>> wrote:
> 
>     Russ, I know I should really do that, but I have not yet started to take NMN and Resveratrol. NMN is not available in South Africa over the counter and maybe 2-3 years ago I asked my then GP for a prescription for NMN and she would not give it to me. I've since changed my GP and it is on my agenda to ask him about it soon.
> 
>     For now my wife and I are following David Sinclair's 5 living habits for longevity:
>     1 don't smoke,
>     2 don't eat too much and practice intermittend fasting,
>     3 do high intensity training,
>     4 eat mainly the right type of foods and
>     5 manage your stress and have enough sleep.
> 
>     Pieter
> 
>     On Sat, 12 Jun 2021 at 22:40, Russ Abbott <russ.abbott at gmail.com <mailto:russ.abbott at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>         Pieter,
> 
>         Thanks for the links. I hadn't been following David Sinclair. Sounds like interesting work. In one of the videos Sinclair says he is 50. he looks more like 30!
> 
>         Have you followed up and started to take NMN and Resveratrol? If so, which brands did you select and why?
>         _
>         _
>         __-- Russ Abbott                                      
>         Professor, Computer Science
>         California State University, Los Angeles
> 
> 
> 
>         On Sat, Jun 12, 2021 at 12:25 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote:
> 
>             "eat food, mostly plants, not too much" - Michael Pollan
> 
>                 
> https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-for-eating 
> <https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-for-eating>
> 
> 
>             On 6/12/21 7:40 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
>>             I don't know the members of Friam personally, but I get the impression it's not exactly a youth club and maybe some might be interested in living healthier longer? (Compared to most others in our culture). I've been following the longevity work of David Sinclair and just maybe one of you might find it interesting?. I quote: 
>>             "David A. Sinclair, Ph.D., A.O. is a Professor in the Department of Genetics and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School".
>>             https://sinclair.hms.harvard.edu/people/david-sinclair <https://sinclair.hms.harvard.edu/people/david-sinclair>
>>             If you navigate the site you'll find a list of his publications.
>>
>>             A short video clip from an interview with David where he 
>> discusses plant- vs meat-diets. His conclusion is that to live 
>> healthier longer (as opposed to merely living longer) one should 
>> (amongst many other things) not eat meat, especially not read meat. 
>> www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmRzeD4_41M 
>> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmRzeD4_41M>
>>
>>             Disclaimer: according to David, vegetarianism is not the most important factor in living healthier longer, it's probably relatively low on the list, so die-hard carnivores (like myself) can still eat moderate amounts of red meat and still live healthier longer.
>>
>>             To conclude, a short presentation by David about his work 
>> on longevity in general: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V-IaeVCHlw 
>> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V-IaeVCHlw>

--
☤>$ uǝlƃ

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