Human reproduction comes at the expense of faster aging and a shorter life

(Apologies for the rambling comment, this is just a thought I’ve had and this link reminded me of it.)

One interesting way of thinking about the last few hundred years, specifically the growth of individualism, is that it’s a shift of focus from larger social organisms (the family, the village, the nation, etc.) to the individual person’s organism. Which is an obvious description of individualism, of course, but it has sorts of downwind effects that maybe aren’t as immediately apparent.

This occurred to me when I was reading about some life extension organizations trying to make individuals’ lives longer. It’s not about being remembered or honored by society, or about continuing a legacy via a family/business/institution/etc. but about extending your personal experience longer.

If we went back to a different civilization like the Romans, the dynamic was very different. There was much less focus on extending the individual life experience and more focus on being honorably remembered by Roman society. A desirable afterlife was one in which you were honored by society, not one in which your personal experience continued forever.

What is really interesting though is how these two dynamics (individuals vs. groups) will play out in the future, evolutionarily. I can’t imagine that individualism’s limits are endless; at some point group dynamics would become more competitive, I think. And yet at the same time a lot of resources are going into the extension of individual lifespans.

To put this all another way: imagine two opposite societal structures. One is comprised of individuals that live extremely long, focus on their personal experience, and assume they will be largely forgotten after death - partially because of the unpredictability of the future. The other is comprised of people that live shorter lives, are focused more on the social group (and have more kids), and are remembered after their deaths for their contributions to that group. They buy in to this vision because the future is more predictable.

It seems like the last few hundred years in the West has been a shift from group 2 to group 1, but it remains to be seen if that will continue.

Having no children was also associated with reduced lifespan. That's the worst one of all. I'd rather die a bit younger but have offspring.

Bah. Middle-class and wealthy have fewer children than do the poor, and likewise shorterlifespans, in other news.

but what if I am not a Finnish twin woman?