Prolong and Unforeseen Considerations

SWM wrote:Actually, the text indicates that prolong postpones age-related disease until very late. Basically, you stay healthy until you are very old, then fail rapidly. The time that you would be incapacitated by old age is actually shorter than in our current society.

Well, I'll point out that they don't know. Nobody has reached that point in the massive uncontrolled experiment they are conducting.

cthia wrote:They just don't care about how I write, in a forum.
. . . Almost all the time I am in the forum I am, watching sports (tennis at the mo) compiling software and programming, talking on the phone, usually overseas, socializing, and courting.

So you really do know better than to use "whom" in the nominative, and the nonexistent word "alot", but just can't be bothered to take a moment to proofread before you hit the Submit button. Your time in composing a post is more important than our collective time in reading it.

Got it.

---
So you think that appearing young somehow empowers sexual predators. I don't know how a 15-year-old boy taking advantage of a 12-year-old girl is any better than a 23-year-old pretending to be a 15-year-old doing the same thing. Either she's competent to consent to sexual congress or she isn't. And if Prolong allows a 30- or 40-year-old to look as young as a 23-year-old today, I'm not sure that one of them pretending to be 15 is any worse than the 23-year-old doing it.

The only meaningful difference between the 15 year old boy and the 23-year-old is eight years of experience in manipulation tactics. If girls are taught to be on guard about such tactics only when used by boys who seem to be a lot older than they, they're being taught the wrong lessons. Prolong letting that "boy" continue to pass as 15 through his 30s just underscores how wrong it is.

There was a fantasy author I really liked named Dennis McKiernan who wrote a series of books that started as a tribute to Tolkien. He must have had a thing for the elves because he went really in-depth into the psychology of an immortal. A lot of what he came up with would apply to someone with prolong I would think.

First, death is a really bad thing. No matter how much time had passed previously they still died at what was basically the beginning of their life. It would be the equivalent of a 16 year old dying in a car wreck with their whole life in front of them, even if they were 250 years old.

Second, a very skewed sense of time. I forgot who mentioned it, but procrastination could become a way of life. Why do something now when you have decades to get around to it. RFC touched on it when Alison and Alfred decided to have Faith and James. They had always planned to have more children, but figured they had plenty of time to get around to it.

Third, careers. It's already been mentioned how in a military organization the rank structure would get skewed or else stagnation in the promotion process would occur. But who's to say someone would spend 250 years in the military? Eventually, you would think they'd get bored and move on to something different. There are a lot of other careers I think I would have liked to try, but won't have time in my lifetime to do. Imagine if I had 300 years to do try those...

Fourth, perfection. This isn't a good term, and it's actually tied to the career issue, but if you had 10 years to spend on a project or hobby, think how good you could become at it. Even if you had little or no talent you could become good just through dint of sheer persistence. Think of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day and his learning to play the piano.

And that doesn't go into social dynamics, wealth generation, or any other number of things that have already been brought up. The social upheavals of the introduction of prolong haven't even begun to surface I imagine.

cthia wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:
We're mostly talking about societies that have decent medical facilities. Do you really imagine that, after 2000 years, they wouldn't have solved most of the currently existing medical problems?

I could be wrong, but it was my understanding that prolong simply postpones age-related diseases. And since they are simply postponed implies that they still exist. No?

And since the treatment is administered at a certain time of development, the age-related diseases can still be acquired beforehand.

Two links to Weber's comments on prolong:
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/25/1
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/252/1

Prolong freezes someones body at a physical age this is done with "the cellular changes which accompany/cause the aging process are shut down for a couple of centuries. The factors within the genetic code which cause an organism's cells to "forget" how to reproduce themselves perfectly are neutralized, but all other physiological processes continue at their normal rates."

It doesn't postpone age related diseases but defers the cellular degradation of aging. Since someone is froze as they are at time it takes effect age wise they could presumably have an early onset age related disease when from before the prolong kicks in. However we are looking at medical science two millennia more advanced than ours, one that routinely cures what is incurable for us, one that can regenerate lost body parts for many, and one that has put a disorder as complicated as Autism into its rear view mirror.

People with prolong undoubtedly can have any early onset age related diseases if those haven’t been cured or ameliorated yet by the medical establishment. Some do still exist. In “Torch of Freedom” one of Governor Barregos’ people has a father who at a really early age, 90, had to go to a geriatric facility due to a vanishingly rare progressive neural disorder. Some age related diseases still exist but give how whenever a disorder like this one, that sounds a bit like Alzheimer’s or the one that seemed like Autism on Simoes’s daughter, appears it is often commented on how rare or how nearly every disorder like it has been cured. Thus it seems the incidence of these types of diseases so rare they are nearly to the point of curiosity than major medical issue.

Just my couple and possibly wrong thoughts on the matter; I am much better with ships or war tech in this universe than medical.

Wolf

kzt wrote:

SWM wrote:Actually, the text indicates that prolong postpones age-related disease until very late. Basically, you stay healthy until you are very old, then fail rapidly. The time that you would be incapacitated by old age is actually shorter than in our current society.

Well, I'll point out that they don't know. Nobody has reached that point in the massive uncontrolled experiment they are conducting.

Fleet Admiral Rajani was said to be one of the oldest human beings, being around 120-130 years old and one of the earliest recipients of prolong.

cthia wrote:

SWM wrote:Actually, the text indicates that prolong postpones age-related disease until very late. Basically, you stay healthy until you are very old, then fail rapidly. The time that you would be incapacitated by old age is actually shorter than in our current society.

But you might have a point regarding how long one might live with other forms of incapacitation, not related to aging.

Of course, you are aware that some age-related diseases also strike the fairly young.
Arthritis affects many pre-teens, and can, and do strike across the board.

Yes, I know this--my wife has had arthritis since she was seven or eight. That falls under the "unrelated to aging" class that I mentioned.

But of course!
Always!
For each of us.

In particular, for me; I freely confess it.
I arrange my posts for minimum posting time,
and then send them off.
Reading time is up to the readers.

As for you, Monster, speak for yourself.

Howard True Map-addict

TheMonster wrote:[snip - htm]
Your time in composing a post is more important
than our collective time in reading it.

Got it.
[snip - htm]

munroburton wrote:
Fleet Admiral Rajani was said to be one of the oldest human beings, being around 120-130 years old and one of the earliest recipients of prolong.

Different generation of prolong. Aspirin, morphine, fentynal, vioxx and oxycodone are all pain relievers that were widely used. They are not the same and one was found to have some rather nasty side effects years after it started being used.

There's also the consideration of human-treecat bonding that's been brought up on other threads. Third-generation prolong will, eventually, reverse the age difference problem and cause humans to outline the 'cats.

It's not something that will necessarily have to be dealt with right away but in another century or so it will rear its ugly head (unless someone starts working on treecat prolong )

TheMonster wrote:So you really do know better than to use "whom" in the nominative, and the nonexistent word "alot",

Nope. I will probably continue to struggle with whom. Sometimes its obvious to me. Others, no. I always rely on grammar checkers if I am writing for business.
Alot, I really do know better and in some posts I use the correct form. But, I like alot. I'll probably keep it. Habit.

TheMonster wrote:...but just can't be bothered to take a moment to proofread before you hit the Submit button. Your time in composing a post is more important than our collective time in reading it.

Got it.

I am fairly certain I am not going to submit my posts to a grammar checker.
And I make no assumptions on anybody's time.
I do make decisions on my own and if someone's thread are a waste of my time, I am a big enough boy that I can decide not to enter their threads.

You are free to make that same decision.
I promise not to cry. Honest.

Yet you come back, either because you are bored and like proofreading or because my threads are interesting, even with the typos, grammar errors, misspellings and the like.

I'll promise not to post my incorrect grammar to your threads.
Is that better?

TheMonster wrote:So you think that appearing young somehow empowers sexual predators. I don't know how a 15-year-old boy taking advantage of a 12-year-old girl is any better than a 23-year-old pretending to be a 15-year-old doing the same thing. Either she's competent to consent to sexual congress or she isn't. And if Prolong allows a 30- or 40-year-old to look as young as a 23-year-old today, I'm not sure that one of them pretending to be 15 is any worse than the 23-year-old doing it.

The only meaningful difference between the 15 year old boy and the 23-year-old is eight years of experience in manipulation tactics. If girls are taught to be on guard about such tactics only when used by boys who seem to be a lot older than they, they're being taught the wrong lessons. Prolong letting that "boy" continue to pass as 15 through his 30s just underscores how wrong it is.

Seriously.
WTF?!
Is the only school bus to turn down your street the English bus?
STAY AWAY FROM MY NIECE!

I have many foreign friends that I met at Uni.
They are also Honorverse fans and are hesitant to join the forum because of their English.

They read the forums because they know me, they like the Honorverse, and are trying to improve their English.

As soon as your thoughtful post went out I knew that the many emails I'd receive from it would be as expected. They were. You have probably cost this forum some very good members.

I told Andreaa, Cirstea, Natalija, Simone and others that the majority of the people in the forums are unlike you, and don't find it difficult to overlook the English of us mere mortals.

So you won't be visiting my threads again?
Perhaps one day someone will manufacture earplugs for the eyes.