Originally Posted by tonywalt We do not fall apart because of age. We fall apart within it—and because we cannot step outside of it, the distinction, while intellectually satisfying, offers only limited comfort. I find your analogy with rust causing a bridge to collapse, but you mistook my point. When the rust replaces the steel, the bridge becomse too weak to stand, but the rust is nor caused by time. The rust is a chemical reaction that inserts oxygen into the structure os the steel. Similarly, in humans death is not caused by time; it is caused by something damaging the body such that it can't live. While some problems appear in people who are older, it is not the age that causes those problems. Even the deterioration of telomers is not caused by time, but it is a result of repeated cell replication, and it can be prevented or reversed. But probability suggests that even if all physical maladies are overcome, people will die from muder or accident. That is matter of probability not of time or age; although probabilitied become more probable over time. I believe that practical time travel will be available soon, so wil will be able to get outside of time. You should read my novels: Harry's Time Tours and Paradoxes and Contradictions.
There is something at once admirable and faintly defiant in this insistence that age itself is not the culprit—that somewhere, behind every failing organ and faltering limb, there lurks a specific assailant that might, in principle, be named, confronted, and perhaps even defeated. It has the tone of a man unwilling to grant time the dignity of being an executioner, preferring instead to imagine it as merely the stage upon which lesser villains—cancer, mutation, mischance—strut and do their damage. And yet, one is tempted to say: this is both correct and not quite true enough. Of course it is right, in the most material and scientific sense, that nothing “just happens.” There is no mystical force called “aging” that reaches into the body like a Dickensian reaper and loosens the bolts. Every tumor has a cellular lineage, every aneurysm a history written in pressure and tissue fatigue, every failure a chain of causes stretching back through chemistry, behavior, and blind molecular error. To say that someone “died of old age” is, in strict terms, a kind of intellectual laziness—an evasion of the actual mechanism. But—and here is where the argument begins to strain under its own optimism—time is not merely a passive container in which these insults occur. It is their great accomplice. To live longer is not simply to give more opportunities for discrete, unrelated things to go wrong. It is to exist within a system that accumulates imperfection. The body is not a machine that can be indefinitely maintained by replacing faulty parts with the calm assurance of a mechanic. It is a dynamic, self-repairing organism whose very processes of repair degrade over time. DNA is copied, but not perfectly; proteins fold, but not always correctly; immune systems surveil, but with diminishing vigilance. One does not need to invoke anything mystical to say that aging has a causal role—only to recognize that the probability of error compounds, and that the systems designed to correct those errors themselves erode. In that sense, to say “aging does not cause disease” is a bit like saying that rust does not cause the bridge to collapse—only the failure of particular bolts and joints. True enough, but it misses the cumulative condition that makes those failures not only possible, but increasingly likely. There is also, if one may say so, a slightly heroic—and very human—desire in the argument to keep the universe negotiable. If every ailment has a specific cause, then perhaps every ailment has a specific remedy. If deterioration is not inherent but contingent, then perhaps it can be indefinitely postponed, managed, outwitted. The idea that telomeres might be stabilized, that random mutation might be tamed, that we might one day die only of accident or violence—this is not merely a scientific hypothesis; it is a quiet rebellion against the ancient verdict that life is a losing game played on a fixed clock. But here one must be careful not to smuggle in hope as if it were evidence. Even if one could eliminate certain categories of disease, others would emerge. The very complexity of the organism ensures that failure modes are not finite. Extend life long enough and you do not approach a serene plateau of stability—you approach new frontiers of fragility. The insurance companies, one suspects, would find their problems not eliminated but merely transformed. And yet—and this is where the piece has its real strength—the refusal to surrender to vague notions of “wearing out” has moral and practical force. It is, in its way, an argument for vigilance. If what afflicts us is not an abstract destiny but a series of identifiable processes, then there is sense in confronting them early, aggressively, rationally. To treat symptoms as inevitable is to concede too much. To investigate causes is, at the very least, to keep the conversation open between ourselves and the indifferent machinery of nature. Still, one cannot quite escape the final irony. The very act of living long enough to identify, monitor, and attempt to correct these “random problems” is itself what makes their accumulation unavoidable. We become, in effect, curators of our own gradual undoing—patching, adjusting, surveilling—aware that the system we are preserving is not designed for permanence. So yes, your friend did not die of “age” in any mystical sense. He died of cancer, which had its own causes, its own timeline, its own missed opportunities for intervention. But it is also true that he lived long enough for those causes to take hold, long enough for the silent processes to mature into something fatal. And that, perhaps, is the more sobering formulation: We do not fall apart because of age. We fall apart within it—and because we cannot step outside of it, the distinction, while intellectually satisfying, offers only limited comfort. In the end, the determination to push back—to monitor, to treat, to delay—is not foolish. It is, in fact, the only rational posture available. But it should be accompanied by a certain clarity: we are not negotiating with a series of isolated enemies, but with a system whose very persistence guarantees eventual failure. The remarkable thing is not that we deteriorate. It is how long we manage not to.
I recently wrote a story about my demise. It is scheduled for October 12, 3808, and the cause of death will be heart failure while I will be on the table for repair of a heart valve. I 3ill publish the story somewhere. The one person who read it said that it was good and comforting.
Here's a reference re: Radium as a cure from the past that I recalled from the count-down game: https://cppdigitallibrary.org/exhibi...cine/item/6771
Hoping your prognosis is bright. At FHE last night I confided to a few 'sisters' that I know my demise will be from a physical fall as I'm prone to do on occasion. Perhaps I truly do not know, so it was kind of silly to say, but I suffer from neuropathy, have bad ankles, and am a bit large and on the tall side so falls seem to take forever and, well, F=MA. I've lost loved ones to cancer and my daughter's mother-in-law (m-i-l) is in stage-4 even now. To add insult to injury m-i-l last week was throwing her purse into her car when her arm broke from the action revealing that her cancer had further metastasized to her bones and weakened them. I've often pondered the random events from stray celestial particles which are always passing through us, remnants from dying stars perhaps, dinging an atomic particle within our bodies' DNA here and there. I think of sunbathing as the worst folly (with a similar bane on tanning booths). There's radioactive stuff all around us too on the terrestrial scale - argon, for example, can build up beneath buildings including homes. Who knows what stray radium/uranium/etc. we get exposed to. Radium cures were even touted in the not too distant past. Then war, mayhem, accidents, illnesses, etc... So, it's best just to live our lives the best we can and accept and deal with the consequences of our follies and general randomness that is life. I choose an eternal perspective for it suits my sensibilities best. Be well. Ta ! (short for tarradiddle), tailor
cellulose
Just wanted to point out some weak points in the above argument. Have a great day 1. Misreading the Declaration and the Constitution The Declaration of Independence is not a governing document; it’s a statement of grievances and principles. It explains why the colonies broke with Britain. It does not grant a perpetual mandate to “overthrow the government” whenever citizens are unhappy. The U.S. Constitution replaced that revolutionary moment with a durable framework for change: elections, courts, and amendments. To conflate Jefferson’s rhetoric about the “tree of liberty” with binding civic duty is to mistake political poetry for constitutional law. 2. The Second Amendment is not unlimited The claim that the Second Amendment covers “any and all weapons” up to and including nuclear missiles is untenable. Even the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), which strongly affirmed individual gun rights, noted that those rights are not unlimited. Dangerous and unusual weapons can be restricted. No serious legal scholar believes private citizens have a constitutional right to nuclear weapons. The founders wrote about “arms” in the context of militias and muskets, not weapons of mass destruction. 3. Civil disobedience ≠ violent overthrow Civil disobedience, as championed by Thoreau, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr., is nonviolent refusal to comply with unjust laws. It draws moral force from peaceful resistance, not from insurrection. Equating civil disobedience with an armed uprising misrepresents the entire tradition. In fact, violent rebellion undermines the very moral authority that makes civil disobedience powerful. 4. Tyranny is not whatever you dislike Calling federal departments like Education “tyranny” is more rhetoric than reality. The Constitution gives Congress broad powers to legislate for the general welfare. Courts exist to decide if those powers are exceeded. Labeling every program one dislikes as “overreach” and invoking the right of revolution is not a sustainable political philosophy. It’s just frustration turned into absolutism. 5. A republic is designed for protest and correction without bloodshed The founders deliberately designed checks and balances to prevent tyranny: elections, impeachment, judicial review, state and federal divisions of power. These mechanisms have handled enormous disputes — civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate — without overthrowing the system. To say the only real safeguard is insurrection ignores 230+ years of constitutional resilience.
The piece you’ve written tries to connect far too many unrelated issues — mental hospitals, Trump/Obama, global wars, Occam’s Razor, and even steam cars — and in doing so, it actually undermines itself. A few specific problems: Mental hospitals & politics – To suggest that “closing the mental hospitals was a mistake” because Trump made reckless comments conflates two entirely different issues. The deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients in the U.S. was a long, complex process tied to civil rights, funding failures, and the growth of community-based care. Linking that to one politician’s irrational statement doesn’t follow logically. Treason accusations – You rightly say that Trump accusing Obama of treason is absurd. But then you undercut yourself by saying “it would be easy to show that Trump has committed treason.” Treason has a very specific legal meaning in the U.S. Constitution, and neither claim holds water. Overusing the word dilutes the seriousness of the charge. Presidential responsibility – You claim “the responsibility of the president is to carry out the acts of Congress.” That’s only partly true. The president is head of the executive branch, commander-in-chief, and has independent constitutional powers (veto, foreign policy leadership, executive orders). Reducing the role to “carry out Congress’s will” misstates the balance of power. Rational countries never go to war – History shows this is wishful thinking. States act out of interests, not pure rationality, and “rational” actors often go to war when they think the costs are worth it. World War II, for example, wasn’t a breakdown of rationality — it was the result of calculated aggression. Occam’s Razor misapplied – Occam’s Razor says “don’t multiply entities beyond necessity.” It doesn’t mean “the simplest technology is always best.” Technology adoption depends on economics, infrastructure, and consumer preference, not just moving parts. Steam vs. electric/internal combustion – Steam cars failed not only because of “greedy manufacturers” but because they were slow to start, had safety risks, and couldn’t scale easily. Internal combustion won out because it offered a better overall package (speed, range, fueling convenience). Electric cars today are succeeding not because they’re “complicated” but because battery and charging technology are finally catching up. Suggesting propane-powered steam cars as the clean alternative ignores efficiency losses and carbon emissions from propane production.
Thanks for the laugh, but at least you read it. If all goes well, the people will rise en mass and proclaim me Emperor.
One cannot help but admire, in the abstract, the author’s enthusiasm for constitutional fidelity—though I suspect that what we are reading is not so much an exegesis on executive power as it is a cri de coeur from someone whose civics education was shaped more by headlines than Hamilton. The writer, in what must be an act of heroic misapprehension, lurches from Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus to an imagined Trumpian reign of military tribunals—complete with executions, no less!—with the narrative breathlessness of a man who, having watched a History Channel special on the Civil War, immediately began scribbling notes for the second coming of Macbeth. One marvels at the elasticity of the imagination required to connect Elon Musk to Milligan v. United States in a single paragraph. But let us, charitably, descend from the realm of hallucination and visit that quaint document the writer references with such reverence: the Constitution. Indeed, Article II is clear—achingly clear—and if the modern presidency has at times strayed into realms of administrative overreach, the culprit is not merely the incumbent, but the inertia and cowardice of a Congress that prefers indignation to legislation. That the executive occasionally presumes upon this vacuum is not tyranny; it is physics. The suggestion that Mr. Trump (or, presumably, any president) could unilaterally "appoint Elon Musk to close down departments and agencies" betrays a misunderstanding not only of the separation of powers, but of basic syntax. Presidents propose; Congress disposes. It is a system, not a fiefdom. And while Mr. Trump may at times have spoken as though he were issuing edicts from the throne of Xerxes, one is reminded that petulance is not policy, and tweets do not repeal statutes. As for the claim that “office is a high crime,” I must pause. Is the author here issuing a metaphysical indictment of the very concept of executive authority? Or merely having a typographical seizure? Either way, the feverish conflation of vacuous sloganry with constitutional analysis places the essay in that special category of rhetoric one finds on badly photocopied leaflets left on windshields at the mall. And then there is that hoary aphorism—“No one has ever won a trade war.” That may or may not be true, but it’s less a principle than a fortune cookie. One might as well say “no one has ever won a metaphor,” and yet the writer continues to try. In sum, the essay’s tone is one of moral alarm disguised as legal precision, but it reveals little beyond the author’s distaste for Mr. Trump and his fondness for historic parallels, however tortured. One might suggest that before issuing further rebukes, he read both the Constitution and a reputable biography of Calvin Coolidge—preferably in that order. Respectfully and with trepidation,
Permit me, if you will, a momentary indulgence to reply to the concatenation of speculative miasma masquerading as geopolitical insight—a diagnosis of the republic's ailments so extravagantly muddled that even the most lenient analyst might consider it a triumph of associative fantasy over disciplined reasoning. To begin, the notion that Mr. Trump—a man who, for all his defects, remains visibly and operatively American—is orchestrating the demise of the U.S. economy under secret instructions from President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, is not merely risible, it is calumnious in that peculiarly lazy, postmodern fashion that finds conspiracy more comforting than complexity. One is reminded of the ancient habit of blaming poor harvests on witches. We have simply updated the broomstick for the bear. Trump had debt. Who among us—corporate or corporeal—has not sinned in the ledger? But to argue that his supposed plan is to induce nationwide economic collapse in order to mitigate his personal balance sheet requires a spectacular disregard for cause, effect, and the sheer mechanics of monetary policy. Were that even feasible, I daresay Mr. Trump would already have positioned himself as Chairman of the Federal Reserve and Secretary of the Treasury, with Mr. Mnuchin serving drinks on the veranda. As for inflation’s purported boon to debtors—this much is true, but trite. It is as if the author has discovered that water is wet and wishes to be applauded for the revelation. The idea that this macroeconomic phenomenon is being stage-managed by a former reality television host to accommodate a portfolio of vaguely Russian promissory notes is not merely unconvincing, it is, in its own small way, an act of literary vandalism. Further still, the specter of a 20% unemployment rate, a collapsed financial sector, Tesla’s figurative entrails strewn across the National Mall, and the United States reduced to a Hooverian sandbox—this is the kind of overcooked Cassandranism that, in another era, would have found its natural home in a mimeographed pamphlet distributed outside bus terminals by a man in a sandwich board. The invocation of Warren Buffett—ah, dear Warren, the Delphic Nebraskan—is apt, but not in the way the author intends. Mr. Buffett’s investment choices are not prophecies; they are hedges. And hedges, as even the most junior analyst at Bridgewater Associates knows, are not indictments of civilization but simple expressions of prudence. And finally, we are offered a vision of redemption in the form of a libertarian or Whig—yes, a Whig! One suspects the author, in a moment of nostalgic fervor, consulted the political almanac of 1836. If the solution to our economic malaise lies in the resurrection of Millard Fillmore’s ghost, I confess myself unpersuaded. Let us have no more of this fever dream. If one wishes to critique Trump, or tariffs, or Tesla, by all means let them do so. But let them first equip themselves with arguments that do not rely on telepathy with Kremlin apparatchiks, or the invocation of Hooverian heroics as economic panacea. I remain, as ever, Yours in dismay and disbelief,
Hmmm... bias seems ineviable Another study... • https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/IQ/1950-2050/ The Flynn Factor... • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect Ta ! (short for tarradiddle), tailor
That might make sense, but the bell curves are based around 100. Which is the defined average. If the raw scores were also available, then your suggestion would work, but the raw scores are not available, and the results are renormed regullarly. But there are other results from various countries, and those are interesting: https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/a...-iq-by-country I don't know enough about how the scoring and norming is done in other countries to determine exactly what that means, and it looke like there is cultural discrimination.
Devolution of humans? To whom?
I envision a bell curve of intellect that would bear out your assumption... too much lead? and the pursuit of mediocrity. Ta ! (short for tarradiddle), tailor
I am really happy about things. Maybe that's just my nature.
^ I do not understand why "d.u.e. pro.c.e.s.s." comes out as ������ ��������������
It is clearly evident from his actions that tRump has no regard for the rule of law or for the Constitution. He has contempt for the concept of constitutionally guaranteed ������ �������������� (Fifth & Fourteenth Amendments) and ignores court mandates. He has largely targeted Latinos allegedly for "gang activity" and other crimes even though the vast majority of the people he has arrested and deported have no criminal record. Despite his claims about targeting criminals, he has failed to arrest and deport members of the Mafia. This undoubtedly due to his known record of association with underworld figures: Trump and Mafia https://www.bing.com/search?q=Trump+...ANAB01&PC=U531 There's a certain irony in that a convicted criminal like tRump claims to be acting in the interest of the law while showing such contempt for it.
I can't see the the similarity between G III and President Trump... President Trump is a force of nature hitherto unknown to politics. His two terms of office remind me of the BBC shows "Hello Minister" which was followed by "Hello Prime Minister" I used to watch on PBS on the telly back in the day of local content. Politics just isn't my thing... I'm an altruist in the political center. Both parties here in the Untied States are bonkers with no end to the insanity, by both parties, in sight... sells lots of commercials and keeps the oligarchy, of both sides, on their toes and busy... and boy howdy how our politicians have enriched themselves and their families and friends through their "service". The IRS and many other agencies, the courts, etc. have become weaponized agents used against our people... all gamed. The IRS, IMHO, should be abolished... it's a travesty that only benefits the rich believe it or not. The courts are rigged... and the news media and Hollywood, and until recently the tech industry are/were in the left's pockets, all weaponized against the right. My state of California is a socialist state that benefits the rich and special interest groups... especially special interest groups in the pockets of politicians and friends and families and their cronies that benefit from "studies" for the homeless, property rights, illegal immigrant rights, high speed rail, etc.... if it wasn't so blatant it would be a comedy, hence tragic. I watch a balance of news: Fox, Al Jazeera, and local NBC news and read many news feeds including Drudge... each having enough spin on them that the earth will most likely leave the orbit of the sun and become a rogue planet - ultimately leaving this arm of the Milky Way galaxy... a pox on the universe. Happy Easter ! if you're so inclined, otherwise have a chill day Ta ! (short for tarradiddle), tailor
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