11 February 2009

I'm pretty sick of the overly sensitive american health culture.
Sure, don't drink lots of soda, or get much of your calories
from simple sugar solutions.

But you're going to die. If you're lucky, it will be before your kids,
and not due to human violence. If you're lucky enough not to die of disease,
or childbirth, or famine,
historical favorites, you're living after the 20th century, and you
are going to die of plumbing failure or library failure. The former
is heart blockage, fibrillation, or stroke. The latter is cancer,
and if you're not at absolute zero (pretty boring) you will eventually
accumulate enough copying errors to fail that way. You can prove it.

Twain has a story about a 'one horse shay', maintained by a cheap
preacher, that falls apart in every
way on the same day, eventually. To me that seems optimal.

Rats never ever die of heart disease. They always die in 2-3 years.
Cancer, usually, but in nature, eaten or sick.

The fact is, there's a trade off between fertility / activity and
longetivity. (Eg, see caloric restriction studies)
And there's decreasing evolutionary pressure to
deter decay as you get older.

All things, ---from electronics to fruit flies--- follow a bathtub shaped
mortality curve. A lot die early on, then its flat, then mortality picks
up slowly at the far end.

You can be distressed about it or not. Your choice. Avoid pain and stay
busy to the end.

Entropy *will* win and at some point fighting it is desparate. You can
certainly play games with diet, behavior, etc, but being happy is
the most important thing. When it fails, keep means available to exit
cleanly. There is some dignity in persisting esp if you have the choice,
otherwise you are at the mercy of biology/nature/"god(tm)", which is often
cruel in unusual ways.

Heard on the radio today: "what a drag it is, getting old". But life is
much more exciting that the Stones describe, for now.

BTW, we don't buy fruit juice any more, just 0% milk. :-P
It balances the bacon.

PPS: I'm also sick of the 'follow the health news' culture, esp. since you
should never believe results until replicated a few times. Meanwhile,
I'm favoring the coffee / wine / olive oil etc is good for you studies
and discounting the rest.

PPPS: you know what killed Pierre Curie, who spent a lot of time in a
dank lab playing with radioactive chemicals? A horse drawn carriage.