Traveller and modern electronics

[warellis]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That require far more than just advanced medicine. It would require genetic alteration as well as extreme levels of trauma repair for average citizens let alone anyone even slightly adventurous.

From what I remmeber there is extensive genetic alteration in that setting. It has both animal uplifts and scientifically created variations of humanity able to live in environments different from Terran norm.

A: Tech Level 10-12.
The majority of worlds in Clement Sector are either TL10 or TL11. A few rare worlds are TL12. However, there are certain changes Clement Sector makes to the standard Traveller tech level list. The Clement Sector Core Setting Book covers this in more detail but, generally speaking, computers, computer interfaces, genetics and cloning have more in common with the standard Traveller TL13.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by warellis

In Traveller, well the Classic/Mongoose/GURPS Traveller eras during the Strephon-era of the 3I, does anyone know what the average lifespan of humans are during that era, barring the use of anagathics?

CT aging tables give a median lifespan based upon age alone of about 13 terms - age 76. That's the point where the expected stat loss exceeds the average attribute... 22.8 point loss, of 21 initial average...

but that's not entirely correct. it's the first order approximation.
Assuming totally random skill acquisition, most people (58% at age 18) have a 1/3 chance of rolling on the PDT, and a 1/3 chance of raising a physical stat. So 1/9 of terms you increase a physical, and over 13 terms... the expected is 1.444.. so the expected age needs to be shoved up a couple years... but term 14 is the end for Joe Average.

Note that the histories were built assuming modifiers to the aging saves for certain populations... ranging from +1 for Solomani to +5 for certain long-lived Vilani families.

Note that a +1 to the saves (like solomani or weak vilani ancestry) only adds a couple years, but pure vilani don't hit 7 per phyisical attribute until 51 terms... 222 years...

[SteveS]

Current understanding of telomeres and related factors suggest that the human record lifespan -- 122½ for Jeanne Calment -- is pretty much the limit set by human genetics. Of course, that's the Solomani limit; canon tells us that Vilani are often much longer-lived, presumably a result of 300000 years of evolutionary divergence. The Vilani contribution to Imperial human genetics may have increased the overall average.

The main thing that technology has done for lifespans has been to reduce untimely deaths from treatable disease, moderate trauma, preventable illnesses, etc. The single largest contribution is believed to be clean drinking water. We haven't done anything about the genetic limits, but reducing untimely deaths dramatically extends average lifespan, particularly when infant and child mortality is reduced. More people survive all the way to the genetic limit thanks to modern medicine.

Given the numbers we get from the tables, it seems that little improves between the present and anagathics, other than the introduction of Vilani genes.

[warellis]

Are the Vilani the longest lived of Humaniti's sub races?

[cptbutton]

Well, they died, they died, the poor all powerful starfarers. If you started caring for them, you had to make it a bond to a bloodline more than to a single person.

- Fire Time by Poul Anderson

An interstellar human civilization is in contact with race of low tech lion centaurs who routinely live to be 350. So one of them reflects that it was best to make friends with a family line rather than an individual.

[warellis]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

- Fire Time by Poul Anderson

An interstellar human civilization is in contact with race of low tech lion centaurs who routinely live to be 350. So one of them reflects that it was best to make friends with a family line rather than an individual.

How long did the humans generally live?

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by warellis

How long did the humans generally live?

I don't recall specifically, but I think it was the usual 60-80 range.

[warellis]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

I don't recall specifically, but I think it was the usual 60-80 range.

That's sort of disappointing. You'd think medicine or advanced tech would at least help increase their lifespan.

Reminds me of a Mongoose Babylon 5 sourcebook where I learned humans, despife living in an era over 250 years past the current year, still had lifespans of roughly 90 or so while aliens were living up to 300-400 years.

Never quite understood that.

[SteveS]

Originally Posted by warellis

Are the Vilani the longest lived of Humaniti's sub races?

As far as I can tell, yes, the Vilani are the longest lived humans.

The current understanding of aging is that it happens for a variety of reasons. One is that DNA has transcription errors with every cell division, and to smaller extent it suffers from damage in place. There are a lot of enzymes that try to correct transcription errors, but every enzyme has a metabolic cost, so organisms produce only enough of the error correction enzymes needed to keep the organism in good condition for a time period that produces the greatest number of survivors into the next generation.

When generating reproductive DNA, there are two protective mechanisms. One is the transcription error correction enzyme system. The other is the system of combining pairs of chromosomes from two separate individuals through sexual reproduction, which allows transcription errors to be overridden by the other parent's copy of a gene -- and for the occasional beneficial copy error to be preserved.

Telomeres are a genetic feature that limit the number of copies of a genome allowed. Their known beneficial effect is to cause cells that go badly wrong -- potential cancers -- to self-destruct. Their obvious adverse effect is that they limit an individual organism's lifespan. As long as the benefit of impeding cancers exceeds the harm of limiting lifespan, telomeres are an evolutionary benefit.

In human evolution, they're timed to allow a person to reproduce in young adulthood, raise the offspring to a degree of independence through older adulthood, and to be stores of group memory in old age. (The development of writing and subsequent memory storage technologies reduces the evolutionary value of old people as stores of memories.) Once an individual has been around long enough to reproduce, raise the offspring, and convey their memories to younger generations, further lifespan becomes an evolutionary disadvantage, because the individual continues to consume group resources without a balancing benefit to the genetic group.

So, what would make a human population evolutionarily benefit from great longevity? That is the Vilani puzzle.

- - - - -

Longevity trivia: I read that an actuary (or maybe a group of actuaries) did a statistical experiment. They removed all causes of death related to infectious diseases, old age, cancers, and trauma that is not promptly lethal. They found that if rapidly lethal trauma is the only common cause of death, the average human lifespan would be about 600 years.

Of course once people get to a point where trauma is their only real threat to their lives, their behavior might become more cautious, further extending lifespans.

The obvious risk in that event is that overpopulation would lead to conflict that would supply plenty of trauma. But a science fiction novel (or maybe a short story) I read long ago took that idea in the opposite direction. It imagined a cheap cure for aging and disease, with a short term population boom and resource conflict driven trauma, followed by a decline in the number of people willing to give up their potentially unlimited lifespan in a fight, leading to essentially universal agreement to population leveling laws. After a long era of stability, and greater and greater caution, even trauma became very rare -- to the point that even the low risks of complications of pregnancy as a cause of death led people to decline even their legally permitted reproduction. Thus population started to decline, and people started to worry about that.

It'sbeen so long that I don't recall what novel or story that may have been, or how the problems may have resolved. I know that The City and the Stars covered similar territory, but that's not the novel I'm thinking of. My best guess is that the one I'm thinking of was by Asimov, which doesn't exactly narrow the field much.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by SteveS

As
Of course once people get to a point where trauma is their only real threat to their lives, their behavior might become more cautious, further extending lifespans.

.

Or they might get bored and go downhill skiing...... at night..... on an untended slope........ in the Himalayas above 12,000 feet altitude...... with a rocket engine strapped to their backs..... well, you get the idea.

The number of humans who hate boredom more than they fear death is significant.