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01-12-2023, 02:20 PM
I’m sure this has been discussed plenty on this forum but it seems obvious to me that aging demographics must play a role in the length of turnings.
Median aged American in 1970 was 28.1 years of age. In 2022 the median age was 38.8. Over TEN years older. Wouldn’t we expect the length of turnings to extend considerably in this regard? Perhaps the fourth turning started closer to 2020 with Covid19 than 2008’s financial crisis. Instead of each saeculum being 84 years perhaps it’s now closer to 94 years? The last fourth turning started around 1929 which added with 94 would put us at this year 2023. Far closer to covid19 than 2008.
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(01-12-2023, 02:20 PM)Snowflake1996 Wrote: I’m sure this has been discussed plenty on this forum but it seems obvious to me that aging demographics must play a role in the length of turnings.
Median aged American in 1970 was 28.1 years of age. In 2022 the median age was 38.8. Over TEN years older. Wouldn’t we expect the length of turnings to extend considerably in this regard? Perhaps the fourth turning started closer to 2020 with Covid19 than 2008’s financial crisis. Instead of each saeculum being 84 years perhaps it’s now closer to 94 years? The last fourth turning started around 1929 which added with 94 would put us at this year 2023. Far closer to covid19 than 2008.
The consensus has been, no! Turnings and generations are tied to coming-of-age, and that time has not advanced or declined much in a long time. Instead, the presence of four active and five living generations is a more likely situation, and that will have implications of its own. The absence of one dominant generation is one of the primary motivators for more dramatic turning changes. That may not be the case in the future. In fact, boredom may be in order, rather than chaos.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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What we have is more people retaining influence into elderhood. This might smooth the severity of the generational cycle that results from the absence, rarity, or weakness of one generational type. This Crisis Era may have some mitigation due to the presence of active (Adaptive/Artist) types who might otherwise be unable to alleviate the ferocity; the preceding Unraveling may have less torn at extant institutions because of active GI's who impressed us of a shared stake in those institutions.
Boomers will not be through when this Crisis ends. Nothing says that they aren't taking care of themselves.
Of course it is usually easier to reform or give new purpose to extant institutions than to start them anew from scratch... but here comes the weasel word "usually". Some institutions are so monstrous for corruption and perversion that they must die off. Howe and Strauss recognized that the elderly Compromise generation bungled the Civil War crisis with their muddling, calling for compromises no longer relevant.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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Think about this: the consensus within the medical community and among demographers is that the first person to reach 150 is alive today. That would be a span of roughly 8 generations. Can the cycle continue in that case?
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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Seven standard deviations is roughly one in 390 billion. I suspect that as the average age at death rises, the standard deviations of ages at death also shrink. Unless there is some means of slowing aging or allowing more divisions of cells in a lifetime (that seems to be the real cause of aging, with more cell divisions typically manifesting themselves as cancer), I would doubt that anyone now born will be around in the 2170's.
How long ago was 150 years? Charles Ives, Sergei Rachmaninov, and Sir Winston Churchill were born in 1874. Some of us can remember when Churchill was still alive, but that is stretching things.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(01-14-2023, 05:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Seven standard deviations is roughly one in 390 billion. I suspect that as the average age at death rises, the standard deviations of ages at death also shrink. Unless there is some means of slowing aging or allowing more divisions of cells in a lifetime (that seems to be the real cause of aging, with more cell divisions typically manifesting themselves as cancer), I would doubt that anyone now born will be around in the 2170's.
How long ago was 150 years? Charles Ives, Sergei Rachmaninov, and Sir Winston Churchill were born in 1874. Some of us can remember when Churchill was still alive, but that is stretching things.
We are learning how to fix errant DNA, and that will be the key. Believe me, I have no interest in being that old, or anything close to it. That may not be the case for a current 4-year old with enhanced DNA and great health when (s)he is 100.
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Persons now near 100 obviously cannot expect to live much past 125. About everything must go right. Example: Lisa Marie Presley just died at age 54, only seven years older than her father at death. Heart attack. Elvis had lots of bad habits, and I can't say anything about her.
Even without suspect genes, certain behaviors (incarceration, inactivity, obesity, smoking, alcoholism, using street drugs, low or limited [in content] formal education, STD's) seem to ensure avoiding an extreme lifespan. Poverty creates its own problems of depression and anxiety.
I'm 67 and I am already a dinosaur. No, not the cuddly purple one -- just someone unable to adapt to hyper-modernity unless it is easy or undeniably safer. I have yet to learn how to use the DVR function on cable TV. I go hiking and I work out, and I remain curious about science, history, politics, and travel. Mass culture? I haven't related to it since I was in my twenties. Marijuana? I didn't like it when I was in college, and I'm staying clear of it today. Newfangled technologies on cars? More and bigger repair bills. If I did travel it would be heavily for antiquarian purposes.
If I lived to 90 I would be a freak. If Trump-like figures are our political future, then I would be better off, if at all, facing it only after reincarnation (should there be such a thing) with better preparation, like being so addled on prolefeed that I would see nothing wrong with an Orwellian nightmare.
As it is I was born closer to the time of horses and buggies than to i-Junk.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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The longest documented/validated lifespan was that of one Jeanne Calment of France. 122 years, which, without some sort of breakthrough, is probably at the absolute limit for a human being. She was one in a billion.
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I have read a few gerontology books over the years. A general idea is that, conceivably, some sort of drug therapy might mitigate the damage caused by the aging process. Lifespan would be extended by prolonging the healthspan.
As I recall, one of those books mentioned that a tortoise can survive up to one-and-a-half centuries in a zoo, based on records of individual animals. I have to wonder if that is at least partly due to low metabolism, which seems torpid even compared to other reptiles.
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We now have a built-in limit to cell regrowth. The last one is effectively death for the relevant cells when regeneration is necessary. Death of a necessary organ such as the heart, lungs, liver, or kidney is effectively death for the person.
We must cheat that seemingly-rigid rule to achieve now-absurd lifespans. One cheat is highly unwelcome: it is cancer.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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Been looking at wikipedia articles.
It is thought that, at a minimum, a Greenland shark can reach an age of 250 years, possibly 4-5 centuries.
I don't know, as a cold blooded animal, in the Arctic Ocean I have to wonder if this fish has a very low metabolism.
It is thought that one mammal, the bowhead whale, can reach two centuries.
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(01-27-2023, 12:58 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Been looking at wikipedia articles.
It is thought that, at a minimum, a Greenland shark can reach an age of 250 years, possibly 4-5 centuries.
I don't know, as a cold blooded animal, in the Arctic Ocean I have to wonder if this fish has a very low metabolism.
It is thought that one mammal, the bowhead whale, can reach two centuries.
There has been postulated that every warm-blooded animal has roughly the same number of heartbeats over its lifespan. Small birds have short lives but very high heart rates. Dogs and cats are in the medium range in both heartrate and lifespan. We're in the same class with parrots: slow hearts and longish lives. I'm certain that this "rule" is imperfect, but it does provide some guidance.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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